Words Have Meaning, Or They Did Once

Michael Hedges November 17, 2016 - Follow on Twitter

Giants of the universe are pondering their fate. Threatened by deep pools of retching bile, they sense increasing danger. Less fleet than the effluence encroaching, they are mounting a defence. It will be expensive but money is no object when survival is at risk.

Social media messaging platform Twitter announced tools giving users “a more direct way” to root out trolls and their abusive posts, reported Reuters (November 15). Unannounced - citing privacy concerns - several Twitter accounts associated with US white nationalist and “alt-right” groups and individuals have been suspended, according to USA Today (November 16). A spokesperson later explained to Gizmodo (November 16) that “the Twitter rules prohibit violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct, and multiple account abuse, and we will take action on accounts violating those policies.” Notable “alt-right” figure Steve Bannon was chief executive of the Donald Trump presidential campaign and was one of the first executive appointments to the impending White House staff.

Hate speech is a plague upon social media. Its promise of a free exchange for “ideas” with user anonymity contains virulent mutations. It is also a news media favorite for breaking headlines.

Prosecutors in Munich, Germany opened an investigation earlier in November answering a lawsuit filed charging a failure to observe strict German laws on hate speech and naming Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and other executives. Other German lawmakers, while recognizing different legal obligations in the US, have edged toward further legal steps to force prompt action from social media portals. “The means available in criminal law are sufficient to address hate speech on the net,” said German Bar Association (DAV - Deutscher Anwaltverein) president Ulrich Schellenberg, quoted by news agency dpa (November 17). “Incitement and insults are also punishable.” German Justice Ministers are meeting this week in Berlin.

Facebook and Alphabet subsidiary Google are also wrestling with the weighty question of what is and is not news, at least headlines and links indexed for their users. Both have long exclaimed they are and always have been technology companies, portal providers, and not, nor will they ever be, news media. The ever onward rush of technology, not to forget their huge global reach, has blurred the distinction.

Recent events have illuminated the impact of fake or false news and hate speech on the web. They are in the same “basket of deplorables.” Facebook’s Mr. Zuckerberg stepped into the deep stuff by proclaiming “crazy” the idea of influence by algorithm. An ad-hoc group of Facebook engineers quietly, reported BuzzFeed (November 15), have been working on solutions to rid the the social media portal of “bullshit.” BuzzFeed referred to them as renegades.

Rather than get into the nitty-gritty of assigning editors to weed-out fake and false news items - Facebook tried that and right-wing trolls rose up howling at the thought of being cut off - the solution of choice is rather old fashioned: money. Both Facebook and Goggle are pulling fake news websites from their respective ad serving networks. Neither company are obliged by US law - so far - to index or publish anything.

“We will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose of the web property,” said a Google statement reported by the Financial Times (November 17). “We do not integrate or display ads in apps or sites containing content that is illegal, misleading or deceptive, which includes fake news,” said the Facebook statement. “We have updated the policy to explicitly clarify that this applies to fake news.” It is unclear whether or not these new policies will be extended to non-US Facebook and Google portals.

“From our perspective, there should just be no situation where fake news gets distributed,” said Google chief executive Sundar Pichai to the BBC (November 15). “I don’t think we should debate it as much as work hard to make sure we drive news to its more trusted sources, have more fact checking and make our algorithms work better.” He was in London touting a GB£1 billion investment that includes a great big new building and adding three thousand employes.

Google has gone a step further, announcing funding through its Digital News Initiative of GB£150,000 for three fact-checking projects, reported the Guardian (November 17). “There are a lot of initiatives we are undertaking so hopefully all of that will help us (promote trusted sources) even better,” said Mr. Pichai.

Entertaining nonsense about UFOs and sea monsters interspersed with funny animal stories have been stock-in-trade for tabloid newspapers for decades. Conspiracy theories came along later. Some people actually believed all that stuff. The blur between entertainment and news began. TV adopted the form, big ratings and money followed. Reality TV is more important than anything. Nobody should be surprised at all that and more became the digital dividend.

As it would happen, this week Oxford Dictionaries designated “post-truth” as 2016 word of the year, defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Usage of the term “has spiked… 2000% on 2015,” noted oxfordstudent.org (November 16). “Fueled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time,” said Oxford Dictionaries president Casper Grathwohl.

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