Re: <nettime> Cold War Tactics To Battle Fake News

[Martin Donner <mail@martindonner.com>]

@ 3.

I’d argue that education ≠ education. It might depend strongly on the kind of education and the question which attitudes it tries to transport and which intentions it fosters. One should not forget that the field of education underwent a big transformation as well highlighting instrumental knowledge appropriation over reflection and so on. That might play a role. The leaders of the Nazis were often also educated very well which didn’t  prevent what happened. Especially pure instrumental knowledge/education –> Adorno/Horkheimer's dialectics of enlightenment.

But I agree however that education respectively trying to alter mindsets isn’t enough and technological logics have to change too. The problem I often have with technological solutions is on the one hand well expressed in the solutionism debate. On the other hand those technological solutions often do not seem to foster so much a sense for an alternative understanding of community but an individualistic standpoint in a manner like ›everybody for oneself‹ in the first place and only in the second step the established ›social atoms‹ can then join and build a community. This seems to be the model behind many technological approaches (also blockchain and stuff like that). And I’m not sure if this captures what an alternative approach to community is or could/should be. In other words: technological approaches mostly remain within the same epistemic frame like what they try to tackle. And I’m not sure if this works and could lead to a better sense of community.

It´s tricky…

> Am 11.02.2022 um 10:02 schrieb carlo von lynX <lynX@time.to.get.psyced.org>:
> 
>    TL;DR
>    1. Sweden returns to cold war tactics to battle fake news;
>    2. Habermas himself is afraid social media may break democracy;
>    3. Education is not the answer.
> 
> 
> 1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/06/sweden-returns-to-cold-war-tactics-to-battle-fake-news
> 
>    A top official from Sweden’s new “psychological defence” agency said the country had decided to bring back the cold war-era government body amid fears over Russian aggression against Ukraine. […]
>    “Authoritarian states have for years been trying to influence elections. The difference today is that through social media you have better opportunities to influence people. That’s why we need to have the capacity to monitor for an interference in our democracy.”
>    The mission of the Swedish psychological defence agency, which has around 45 staff and is expected to grow, is to “safeguard our open and democratic society, the free formation of opinion, and Sweden’s freedom and independence.” […]
> 
> Will a control room monitoring approach be able to achieve a lot?
> What can they do? Anonymously cruise the Facebooks and Telegram
> channels? Watch helplessly how transactions happen on the darknet?
> It's like riots and looting going on for years now, and all they
> do is put on a black hoodie and walk along, counting the number
> of shops affected?
> 
> "Open and democratic society" sounds a lot like Popper and Habermas.
> 
> 
> 2. https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783748912187-470/ueberlegungen-und-hypothesen-zu-einem-erneuten-strukturwandel-der-politischen-oeffentlichkeit?page=1
> 
> Recently Habermas himself, aged 92, contributed a statement on
> the state of democracy in the age of social media as a closing
> remark in the Leviathan book series. Unfortunately his original
> words are all behind paywalls, so all we can see are others
> talking about it:
> 
> https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/juergen-habermas-strukturwandel-der-oeffentlichkeit-in-der-2-0-version-a-2e683f52-3ccd-4985-a750-5e1a1823ad08
> 
>    »Ein demokratisches System nimmt im Ganzen Schaden, wenn die Infrastruktur der Öffentlichkeit die Aufmerksamkeit der Bürger nicht mehr auf die relevanten und entscheidungsbedürftigen Themen lenken und die Ausbildung konkurrierender öffentlicher und das heißt: qualitativ gefilterter Meinungen nicht mehr gewährleisten kann.«
> 
> A clear word of warning that the lack of qualitative filtering
> in social media can damage a democratic system. I will not dare
> to provide an accurate translation here.
> 
> 
> 3. Education is not the answer.
> 
> The Spiegel author goes on to theorise an old popular Internet
> meme whereby dealing with the Internet could improve if people
> receive better education and learn how to distinguish good and
> fake information. I observe how the people on the cutting edge
> of disinformation are extremily well educated, competent enough
> to think they can work their way through scientific papers and
> such, and yet end up with all kinds of wrong conclusions and
> see no contradiction in digging through all this complexity to
> ultimately sum it up into a simplifying conspiracy world view.
> This meme is over ten years old and I think it is crap:
> 
> Education is NOT the solution when humans are systematically
> provided with factoids that seem to confirm their prejudices,
> and ultimately they care more about being *right* rather than
> finding out truths, facts, science.
> 
> Sometimes Internet activists remind me a bit of the Catholic
> church. Nothing may come to harm the institution, so we try
> to find recipes that sound like a solution when they actually
> do not achieve anything. Do not feed the troll! Federation
> is the answer! Blockchain is the answer! Education is the
> answer. First XML was the answer, then JSON.
> 
> Just don't do any real change to our beloved playground.
> 
> 
> # Thanks to you-know-who-you-are for pointing me to these articles.
> 
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Martin Donner
www.martindonner.com

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70190 Stuttgart
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