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Feb 13, 2021Liked by John Ganz

I'm even not sure why he thinks that post-nationalization, these places would magically turn into fora where rational discourse (however he understands what that is) reigned.

Honestly it's a bit absurd that someone could look at a mob and look at the result of voting systems and equivocate about which of these is the more democratic/representative of 'the people'. That's one of those takes that makes you question their judgment about literally everything...

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Feb 13, 2021Liked by John Ganz

Riley's argument is just a mess: a critique of liberals for not being liberal because that is "what one hears" in their (entirely reasonable) concern about unchecked propaganda.

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One argument being made about social media in regards to public discourse that I find compelling is Robert H. Frank's in the Times. Instead of focusing on state-imposed moderation or regulation of speech on social media platforms, we should compelled them to shift their business model away from the targeted ad-based approach to something more akin to the subscription-based models of most other major media players. This would break down the algorithm driven and addiction based socially corrosive collective decisions users make about what to post/share, and instead bring them together in something closer to rational debate. At the same time, it would take us beyond the surveillance capitalism at the heart of these businesses that Shoshana Zuboff and others have written about.

Robert H. Frank's piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/business/social-media-facebook-regulation.html

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