My Point of View by Ebenezer Howe III

 

Oh, some time back, I think it was shortly prior to the 2018 general election, there were some congressional hearings on social media propagating “fake news,” whatever the heck that is.

Some of my personal beliefs and bias needed for reading this column: First, all software is bad the day it is written, just waiting proper data to show it’s deficiencies. (Don’t ever believe “brake — fix” in software warranty; it is actually already broken and maybe we will patch it when the problem is reported.) Second, “fake news” to me is not lies, but what is not reported or only partially reported. An example are the news stories about Trump not attending the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day celebration. He could not due to the weather; he did as soon as the weather cleared. Many news stories did not mention the weather and those that did were not until late into the articles. Only a very few said anything about the weather within the first two paragraphs and many never re-reported that he went after the weather cleared. “Fake news” is definitely in the eyes of the beholder!

Back to social media and the hearings. Some folks feel that government needs to regulate social media, while I don’t! The hearings mostly covered concerns over security, bias, data and market power.

I cannot comment on Twitter since I have never used it. Based on the screenshots of Twitter posts that are in some online news stories, it looks like something the world would have been much better off without, and some people refer to Twitter as the sewer of social media.

On security, people who use social media programs do so for free. Nothing of value is free. Folks must realize that what they do with these programs is what is of value and that information is used for the efficient delivery of sold ads. Poor usage habits or inappropriate usage can lead to embarrassing and/or harmful situations. Some local schools try to teach best practices for social media and stress caution, caution and caution. Abstinence might be another one to try.

On market power, Google does perform better for me than Internet Explorer at no additional cost. Did it cross my mind that there was something in it for Google? Yes, a little, but what the heck. Google probably knows more about me than I know about me. Do they sell my information? Most likely — maybe not my personal information, but I don’t think they have much of that. I am already in the phone book and plat book and they are not exceptionally secret. I believe market power will be governed through performance.

On bias and data, both deal with “fake news.” Does Google control what results you get from a search? Yep, same as any other search engine. Rush Limbaugh alerted his audience to a search program that uses different algorithms and claims not to save tracks. For a test, search, “nationalism definition” in Google and then DuckDuckGo. Google finds the liberal progressive interpretation and DuckDuckGo the dictionary definition, they are different. Each social media program will set its own ideas on bias and rules on data. User choice will eventually win out here.

Self-regulation by the companies has taken some of the energy out of the push for government regulation. These social media products are software. Remember MNLARS? That failure was headed up with our government in charge. It would be a disaster for social media with government regulation running the show. There was big talk of antitrust regulation also. How in the world can something free be subject to antitrust when antitrust is almost equivalent to price fixing?

If the current players do not fix their problems, the cash will stop flowing, and new players will rise up with solutions.

Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University, said it best in his column headline of Nov. 28, 2017: “Government regulation of social media would be a cure far worse than the disease.”

Alden resident Ebenezer Howe is chairman of the Freeborn County Republican Party. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the local party members.