The type of people who understand and will use (collaboratively or otherwise) the tools available to proactively filter what information reaches them are going to generally fall into two categories:
people who are not particularly susceptible to misinformation
people already captured by misinformation (who will use such tools to help avoid cognitive dissonance, usually with block lists curated by their thought leaders)
I think the misinformation problem is, at it’s root, a shortage of trust in institutions (fueled partly by actual failures, but more by deliberate attacks). As such, there is no systemic solution that people who most need it won’t go to great lengths to circumvent. But combatting misinformation is a numbers game, and the largest number of vulnerable citizens are low-information voters who are not particularly radicalized but simply react to whatever reaches them with far too little skepticism.
For them, I think some simple, low level and easily circumvented internet filtering would do a world of good. Like just have our ISPs serve up DNS redirects to government-hosted pages proclaiming the site is blocked and detailing why, with links to things like private, non-partisan analysis as supporting evidence. Circumventing this is trivial, but the initial hurdle is good enough to redirect a sizeable amount of low-information, unmotivated users somewhere more productive or at least better moderated. It’s also weak enough to minimize the inevitable complaints about censorship.
I don’t like censorship myself, but I’m past believing we can maintain national security with none at all. People who are reasonably well-informed are finding their collective future just as threatened as the low-information voters inviting foreign influence through the back door.
For the Adblock users portion I’m merely saying if people didn’t want to see ads because it diminished their web browsing experience the user generated content could be handled the same.
Even going away from the misinformation discussion some people are just cunts and provide little value to begin with. So I’m happy to be done with them at least on the internet.
Like just have our ISPs serve up DNS redirects to government-hosted pages proclaiming the site is blocked and detailing why, with links to things like private, non-partisan analysis as supporting evidence.
and you will have created a new machine for the carnival barkers to point at and say “see how much they want to hide the truth from you!”
I dont have a solution, but fail to see how this may be one. censorship is almost always a tool that will eventually remove the hand of the wielder.
The point isn’t to win back the disingenuous nor the fools they’ve captured, but rather to head neutral people off at the high-traffic gateways to alt-right pipelines. The first thing cultists will try to do is isolate people from legitimate support systems, and in this case that means discrediting institutions by attributing malice to every action.
But they’re going to say something bad no matter what is or isn’t done, and aren’t bound by the truth anyway. So I say play the numbers game and focus on the undecided, not the cultists. We won’t know what impact it has until we try and then measure the results (like metrics on DNS lookups, from which we can probably estimate drops in Canadian traffic to those sites vs drops in Canadian traffic overall which would signify people switching to other DNS servers).
Censorship is a risky tool to be sure, but realistically the authoritarian risks are pretty far removed from Canada’s political center, and we already do it for various reasons that the general public widely accepts. As long as we’re staying within a good legal framework, to me it’s only a question of results and specifically the result of keeping fascist movements marginalized and its members surrounded by rational people who were given the benefit of forewarning.
well considered reply. thanks. I am currently trapped in the dystopian hell that is the USA, but I hope my canadian peeps find a way out of the trap that ensnared people here.
as a non-canadian (with family in canada) I can only offer my sincere best wishes and support as the current us administration continues its criminal belligerence towards you. whatever you choose, do it carefully with full knowledge that what your country looks like on the other side of the decision matters greatly to you and the world.
Likewise thanks. And you do raise a good point with this:
whatever you choose, do it carefully with full knowledge that what your country looks like on the other side of the decision matters greatly to you and the world.
I do think that’s something too few Canadians are considering. With all the patriotic rage brewing, there are a lot of calls for our various levels of leadership to lash out in any direction they can. People are getting mad at them for instead mostly sticking to a wiser path, focused on pressure rather than catharsis. You’ll see our politicians in public speeches constantly reiterating how Canada and the U.S. are and should still be friends working to mutual benefit. I don’t think anyone believes that, nor that we’d ever accept a return to status quo. That messaging is for the international community and American public, making clear that we are not the aggressors and will not rise to become such.
I see paths where the U.S. administration provokes an overreaction which weakens our footing on the high ground and creates a window for actions of a less purely economic nature. I’ve always expected the U.S. to eventually come after our resources wielding guns, not dollars, but this is way ahead of schedule even with the pressures of climate change. Dumpster is skipping long crucial steps propagandizing away the friendship to manufacture consent for war. That isn’t going to work, but our actions here and now could jump-start that process of branding us hostiles.
As it stands, the trade war is a blessing for Canada’s long-term outlook. It is validating the painful pace at which we’ve been recently growing our population, steeling our resolve to weather more pain for a nationally shared goal, and giving us the unity needed to dodge our own rightward descent, decouple from the U.S., diversify supply lines for critical assets (especially of military tech), and ultimately demonstrate that we are not a soft target even for the U.S. I only hope he stays the course and we hold our red lines. No deal is the best deal anyway.
And - assuming the CIA is really gutted and not being converted into a shadow organization - I like Canada’s odds. At some point you might start thinking of your family in Canada as your in with a nation that still has a bright long-term economic outlook. 😉
The type of people who understand and will use (collaboratively or otherwise) the tools available to proactively filter what information reaches them are going to generally fall into two categories:
I think the misinformation problem is, at it’s root, a shortage of trust in institutions (fueled partly by actual failures, but more by deliberate attacks). As such, there is no systemic solution that people who most need it won’t go to great lengths to circumvent. But combatting misinformation is a numbers game, and the largest number of vulnerable citizens are low-information voters who are not particularly radicalized but simply react to whatever reaches them with far too little skepticism.
For them, I think some simple, low level and easily circumvented internet filtering would do a world of good. Like just have our ISPs serve up DNS redirects to government-hosted pages proclaiming the site is blocked and detailing why, with links to things like private, non-partisan analysis as supporting evidence. Circumventing this is trivial, but the initial hurdle is good enough to redirect a sizeable amount of low-information, unmotivated users somewhere more productive or at least better moderated. It’s also weak enough to minimize the inevitable complaints about censorship.
I don’t like censorship myself, but I’m past believing we can maintain national security with none at all. People who are reasonably well-informed are finding their collective future just as threatened as the low-information voters inviting foreign influence through the back door.
For the Adblock users portion I’m merely saying if people didn’t want to see ads because it diminished their web browsing experience the user generated content could be handled the same.
Even going away from the misinformation discussion some people are just cunts and provide little value to begin with. So I’m happy to be done with them at least on the internet.
and you will have created a new machine for the carnival barkers to point at and say “see how much they want to hide the truth from you!”
I dont have a solution, but fail to see how this may be one. censorship is almost always a tool that will eventually remove the hand of the wielder.
The point isn’t to win back the disingenuous nor the fools they’ve captured, but rather to head neutral people off at the high-traffic gateways to alt-right pipelines. The first thing cultists will try to do is isolate people from legitimate support systems, and in this case that means discrediting institutions by attributing malice to every action.
But they’re going to say something bad no matter what is or isn’t done, and aren’t bound by the truth anyway. So I say play the numbers game and focus on the undecided, not the cultists. We won’t know what impact it has until we try and then measure the results (like metrics on DNS lookups, from which we can probably estimate drops in Canadian traffic to those sites vs drops in Canadian traffic overall which would signify people switching to other DNS servers).
Censorship is a risky tool to be sure, but realistically the authoritarian risks are pretty far removed from Canada’s political center, and we already do it for various reasons that the general public widely accepts. As long as we’re staying within a good legal framework, to me it’s only a question of results and specifically the result of keeping fascist movements marginalized and its members surrounded by rational people who were given the benefit of forewarning.
well considered reply. thanks. I am currently trapped in the dystopian hell that is the USA, but I hope my canadian peeps find a way out of the trap that ensnared people here.
as a non-canadian (with family in canada) I can only offer my sincere best wishes and support as the current us administration continues its criminal belligerence towards you. whatever you choose, do it carefully with full knowledge that what your country looks like on the other side of the decision matters greatly to you and the world.
Likewise thanks. And you do raise a good point with this:
I do think that’s something too few Canadians are considering. With all the patriotic rage brewing, there are a lot of calls for our various levels of leadership to lash out in any direction they can. People are getting mad at them for instead mostly sticking to a wiser path, focused on pressure rather than catharsis. You’ll see our politicians in public speeches constantly reiterating how Canada and the U.S. are and should still be friends working to mutual benefit. I don’t think anyone believes that, nor that we’d ever accept a return to status quo. That messaging is for the international community and American public, making clear that we are not the aggressors and will not rise to become such.
I see paths where the U.S. administration provokes an overreaction which weakens our footing on the high ground and creates a window for actions of a less purely economic nature. I’ve always expected the U.S. to eventually come after our resources wielding guns, not dollars, but this is way ahead of schedule even with the pressures of climate change. Dumpster is skipping long crucial steps propagandizing away the friendship to manufacture consent for war. That isn’t going to work, but our actions here and now could jump-start that process of branding us hostiles.
As it stands, the trade war is a blessing for Canada’s long-term outlook. It is validating the painful pace at which we’ve been recently growing our population, steeling our resolve to weather more pain for a nationally shared goal, and giving us the unity needed to dodge our own rightward descent, decouple from the U.S., diversify supply lines for critical assets (especially of military tech), and ultimately demonstrate that we are not a soft target even for the U.S. I only hope he stays the course and we hold our red lines. No deal is the best deal anyway.
And - assuming the CIA is really gutted and not being converted into a shadow organization - I like Canada’s odds. At some point you might start thinking of your family in Canada as your in with a nation that still has a bright long-term economic outlook. 😉