Doesn't "controlling for bots" mean something like eliminating 90% of the tweets they were studying? :0
This sounds like a lot of work, but I'll wait for Part 2 to see what's involved. And unfortunately opinion plays a big part in setting it up. I can see a lot of situations ending up in court.
The MIT folks took a different approach. After identifying the bot accounts, they checked how often they pushed true v. false statements. It turned out that the bots were just as likely to push either, that it was humans that made the lies much more pervasive by having a much greater chance to share the lies instead of the truth.
I linked the Science article by the authors of the study. It provides a good bit of detail while still being pretty accessible.
And yes, the whole thing would be designed to be handled via the courts by design.
Sounds like a great idea.....problem as I see it is enforcement First Congressional apporval and then an agency to focus on the exploitation And you know as soon as there is talk about such a bill the trolls will go back under their rocks and hide the money they receive There will be all kinds of manipulative maneuvers to prevent finding the funding resource source
I love the idea, it makes sense, however if one is taxed, who & what will determine the tax is applicable? Whom determines its lies that are being sold & profited from?
What teeth would be in place to ensure adherence?
Is it consumers who would be the ones to bring attention to someone profiting off lies?
Going to listen again as I may have missed some having had a disruption during first go around.
I called it a “tax” figuratively. It’s a tax only in the sense that it hits grifters only.
But yea, generally, the info is in this article, but the details will be in tomorrow’s.
Essentially, we do the thing that Texas did to allow anyone to try and sue someone trying to perform/have an abortion, i.e., we allow anyone to sue someone for monetizing deception.
The key here is precisely that we’re not suing them for lying. We’re suing them essentially for operating as an expert and monetizing based on claims that don’t meet expert standards. It’s about how they arrived at the claims: did they actually use the scientific method? Are/have they submitting/submitted their claims to peer review? are they misrepresenting existing evidence/consensus, etc. This way, the government isn’t put in a place to litigate “truth” but rather process.
And if you bring a suit and win, you get part of the disgorgement of their revenue (in my framework, 20%) with the rest going to fund actual science/education/etc.
I've read this a few times now and I really really want to like this solution (I've wholeheartedly agreed with many of your other suggested ideas), but even as a scientist I see major problems with the concept of excluding commercialization if the scientific method/expert standards aren’t applied. Feels more like gatekeeping than a free market. Maybe tort (harm) plus monetization, but I can see the claims of elitism a mile away. For the most part, people are free to spend their money in ways that they like…
That's great feedback and that's a fair thing to consider for sure.
Do you think you can give me an example of something you think is currently commercialized that might be unfairly gatekept by the Grifter Tax?
Because if you look at Part II, it explicitly provides for good-faith defenses, including disclosure. For example:
You're free to sell supplements if as part of your pitch you disclose all the ways in which the scientific consensus may have disproven your claims (if you believe the scientific consensus is wrong), or if you just don't make any claims that have already been disproven by scientific consensus to begin with, or if you don't make any claims that those supplements do a thing which nobody has actually demonstrated that to be the case.
The point of the Grifter Tax is to punish the behavior where individuals seek to make money by willfully misinforming their mark either by misconstruing known facts, omitting known facts, or claiming that their "facts" were arrived at scientifically.
I agree that a free market is important. But a free market is only valuable if people are confident that they will **actually** get what they're paying for. A con man selling "miracle" cures to someone desperate isn't a free market at all, it's just a grift. And as a society, we will be better for if we guarantee a negative expected value from such activities.
Lukium this is so clear and simple to understand. Thank you! I absolutely know that lies spread faster and are more lucrative than truth but what we can possibly do about it has escaped me. Where we find ourselves on every front of this insanity is driven by nothing more than greed and the LOVE of money which seems to be humanities Achilles heel. A Grifters Tax would be wise and wonderful. But how would we implement such a thing? I’m looking forward to your next article. I’m grateful for your mind and your writing friend. Your ability to cut through the haze of confusion and simply apply common sense to it all and explain it in ways and words that can easily be understood is what I can only call a blessing. It is refreshing, relieving and hope centered. Again, thank you.
Spot on Brilliant and so clean. Can this be scaled at the State level (assuming ongoing federal dysfunction)? State AGs can develop the enforcement mechanics and then amplify to like minded states for regional enforcement? Or is the infosphere too ubiquitous for that to be effective?
I see no reason why something like this couldn’t be implemented at the state level. In fact, if anything, there’s already a good bit of legal infrastructure at the state level given that they generally already handle much of corporate law.
Doesn't "controlling for bots" mean something like eliminating 90% of the tweets they were studying? :0
This sounds like a lot of work, but I'll wait for Part 2 to see what's involved. And unfortunately opinion plays a big part in setting it up. I can see a lot of situations ending up in court.
The MIT folks took a different approach. After identifying the bot accounts, they checked how often they pushed true v. false statements. It turned out that the bots were just as likely to push either, that it was humans that made the lies much more pervasive by having a much greater chance to share the lies instead of the truth.
I linked the Science article by the authors of the study. It provides a good bit of detail while still being pretty accessible.
And yes, the whole thing would be designed to be handled via the courts by design.
Oh wow, humans are worse than bots. Figures, doesn't it? :(
Sounds like a great idea.....problem as I see it is enforcement First Congressional apporval and then an agency to focus on the exploitation And you know as soon as there is talk about such a bill the trolls will go back under their rocks and hide the money they receive There will be all kinds of manipulative maneuvers to prevent finding the funding resource source
I love the idea, it makes sense, however if one is taxed, who & what will determine the tax is applicable? Whom determines its lies that are being sold & profited from?
What teeth would be in place to ensure adherence?
Is it consumers who would be the ones to bring attention to someone profiting off lies?
Going to listen again as I may have missed some having had a disruption during first go around.
I called it a “tax” figuratively. It’s a tax only in the sense that it hits grifters only.
But yea, generally, the info is in this article, but the details will be in tomorrow’s.
Essentially, we do the thing that Texas did to allow anyone to try and sue someone trying to perform/have an abortion, i.e., we allow anyone to sue someone for monetizing deception.
The key here is precisely that we’re not suing them for lying. We’re suing them essentially for operating as an expert and monetizing based on claims that don’t meet expert standards. It’s about how they arrived at the claims: did they actually use the scientific method? Are/have they submitting/submitted their claims to peer review? are they misrepresenting existing evidence/consensus, etc. This way, the government isn’t put in a place to litigate “truth” but rather process.
And if you bring a suit and win, you get part of the disgorgement of their revenue (in my framework, 20%) with the rest going to fund actual science/education/etc.
I've read this a few times now and I really really want to like this solution (I've wholeheartedly agreed with many of your other suggested ideas), but even as a scientist I see major problems with the concept of excluding commercialization if the scientific method/expert standards aren’t applied. Feels more like gatekeeping than a free market. Maybe tort (harm) plus monetization, but I can see the claims of elitism a mile away. For the most part, people are free to spend their money in ways that they like…
That's great feedback and that's a fair thing to consider for sure.
Do you think you can give me an example of something you think is currently commercialized that might be unfairly gatekept by the Grifter Tax?
Because if you look at Part II, it explicitly provides for good-faith defenses, including disclosure. For example:
You're free to sell supplements if as part of your pitch you disclose all the ways in which the scientific consensus may have disproven your claims (if you believe the scientific consensus is wrong), or if you just don't make any claims that have already been disproven by scientific consensus to begin with, or if you don't make any claims that those supplements do a thing which nobody has actually demonstrated that to be the case.
The point of the Grifter Tax is to punish the behavior where individuals seek to make money by willfully misinforming their mark either by misconstruing known facts, omitting known facts, or claiming that their "facts" were arrived at scientifically.
I agree that a free market is important. But a free market is only valuable if people are confident that they will **actually** get what they're paying for. A con man selling "miracle" cures to someone desperate isn't a free market at all, it's just a grift. And as a society, we will be better for if we guarantee a negative expected value from such activities.
Lukium this is so clear and simple to understand. Thank you! I absolutely know that lies spread faster and are more lucrative than truth but what we can possibly do about it has escaped me. Where we find ourselves on every front of this insanity is driven by nothing more than greed and the LOVE of money which seems to be humanities Achilles heel. A Grifters Tax would be wise and wonderful. But how would we implement such a thing? I’m looking forward to your next article. I’m grateful for your mind and your writing friend. Your ability to cut through the haze of confusion and simply apply common sense to it all and explain it in ways and words that can easily be understood is what I can only call a blessing. It is refreshing, relieving and hope centered. Again, thank you.
Spot on Brilliant and so clean. Can this be scaled at the State level (assuming ongoing federal dysfunction)? State AGs can develop the enforcement mechanics and then amplify to like minded states for regional enforcement? Or is the infosphere too ubiquitous for that to be effective?
I see no reason why something like this couldn’t be implemented at the state level. In fact, if anything, there’s already a good bit of legal infrastructure at the state level given that they generally already handle much of corporate law.