Sunday, February 25, 2018

The "influencing the elections" madness

So the Russians have influenced the US elections... Really?

The Russians operate one or more "alternative news" operations. But so do American groups. And it is not punishable as the US has freedom of press. So instead an obscure law forbidding foreigners to influence the elections was unearthed. Of course such a law is plainly ridiculous in the internet era. What about all those newspapers and bloggers who wrote what a horrible person Trump is? Shouldn't they be persecuted too? And all those non-Americans who posted something on Facebook - or just "liked" some post regarding Trump or Clinton?

Of course there is a fake news problem. See for example this issue about how a fake claim that one of the spokesmen of the children of the Florida high school were there was a shooting was an actor. But the main problem was that Youtube promoted it so much. But the problem here is not the fake news. It is that Youtube promotes is so much. As long as Youtube - and other social media - promote anything that catches eyeballs it will stay attractive for people to provide fake news.

In the meantime Western politicians have used the fake news issue to open the attack on the freedom of media. But actually it isn't about fake news. They recognize that themselves when they accuse the Russian campaign as polarizing the US. As anyone who follows censorship issues in dictatorships knows this is one the favorite arguments of dictators too for censorship. We may be losing our freedoms.

No comments: