Technology

I think you're making a lot of assumptions here, many of which I have contentions with.

we had very little moderation in the early days of the internet and social media

It differed from site to site, but in my experience of the Internet in the '90s and '00s, a lot of forums were heavily moderated, and even Facebook was kept pretty clean when I got on it in ~2006/2007.

and yet people didn’t believe the nonsense they saw online,

I fully dispute this. People have always believed hearsay. They're just exposed to more of it through the web instead of it coming verbally from your family, friends, and coworkers.

unlike nowadays were even official news platforms have reported on outright bullshit being made up on social media.

1. We live in a world of 24-hour news cycles and sensationalization, which has escalated over the past few decades. This often encourages ratings over quality.

2. Mainstream media has always had problems with fact-check. I'm not trying to attack the news media or anything, I think most reporters do their best and strive to be factual, but they sometimes make mistakes. I can't remember the name of it, but I there's some sort of phenomenon where if you watch a news broadcast, and they talk about a subject you have expertise in, you're likely to find inaccuracies in it, and be more skeptical of the rest of the broadcast.

To me the problem is the godamn algorithm that pushes people into bubbles that reinforce their correct or incorrect views

Polarization is not limited to social media. The news media has become more and more tribal over time. Company that sell products and services have been more likely to present a political world-view.

Overall, I think you're ignoring a lot of other things that have changed over the years. It's not like the only thing that has changed in the world is the algorithmic feed. We are perpetually online now and that's where most people get their news, so it's only natural that would also be their source of disinformation. I think algorithmic feeds that push people into their bubbles is a response to this polarization, not the source of it.

Algorithms can be useful - and at a certain scale they’re necessary. Just look at Lemmy - even as small as it is there’s already some utility in algorithms like “Active”, “Hot” and “Scaled”, and as the number of communities and instances grows they’ll be even more useful. The trouble starts when there are perverse incentives to drive users toward one type of content or another, which I think is one of the fediverse’s key strengths.

Nah. It is just people, including me, don't wanna to think too much about the information when it is present to us. Most like to read just the headline and make a conclusion. It is the laziness in thinking and emotional reaction that makes this whole situation worse.

Algorithm (recomendation engines) is just a catalyst.

How would you identify the kinds of algorithms that should be banned, as opposed to all the other kinds of algorithms? I have a feeling that would be tricky.

Those mega corporations have intentionally misused the term “algorithm” which implies an unbiased method of ranking or sorting. What they are actually using is more like a human curated list of items to promote that supports their self serving goals.

It would be really nice if at the very least we could get some insight into how algorithms are tuned. It seems obvious that Facebook and X want users to get pissed off. It does not seem ethical at all and should at the very least be examined

Non-consensual user-modeling systems should be heavily regulated.

I participated in a discussion similar to this recently here on the German-language community: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/28281369/15510510

Topics that were raised there by various people, some by me (read the full discussion if you can read German):

• an "algorithm" is really just a way of manipulating data, it's meaningless to say you are banning "algorithms" because all software is based on "algorithms", even reverse-chronological sorting of things you're subscribed to is an algorithm
• algorithms are mainly intended to keep people on the platform for as long as possible (but I raised the issue that I actually found old web forums more engaging than today's Facebook)
• how do you define "an algorithm" legally? I suggested a definition based on transparency and objectivity, others raised the issue that this would mean that misinformation could be easily manipulated to be shown at the top, and that if you require "transparency", the platforms will just disclose how their algorithms work instead of abolishing them

One important aspect that nobody raised in that discussion is that moderation is different from censorship.

The real question is how do you ban algorithms without banning editorial discretion of the press?