Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Education”
Of the impact of fake news
Fake news is to thought what fog is to sight: you get lost and you crash.
Article published on the site “Rude Baguette” at the beginning of January:
The spread of false information (especially on the Internet) has become one of the major issues for contemporary politics and economics. Beyond the decline of trust in political institutions and personalities (contributing to the rise of populism), these fake news have an impact on world economy. A recent study estimates their direct cost at $78 billion. Adding indirect cost, the bill rises to $100 billion.
Of self-hosting
To safeguard your privacy, you must avoid using third-party services. One solution is self-hosting. But self-hosting can’t work on a large scale.
Of course, it works for a tiny fraction of users, for the elite. For those who understand the issues, have the technical skills and the time to do the job.
There are technical considerations: in order to self-host well, in addition to the installation and maintenance of a server (which some solutions try to simplify), it is necessary to ensure the service continuity, i.e. the continuity of connectivity and power supply. It is also necessary to ensure the recovery of service in case of disaster, i.e. to set up a rigorous continuous replication policy, or at least a periodic backup. And then, because any service is prone to various attacks, it is necessary to carry out a 24/7 monitoring in order to detect intrusions and data theft as early as possible.
Of censorship by distraction
In dictatorships, they say “shut up”. In democracies, they say “whatever”. It is a famous joke, to which the digital context gives a whole new perspective.
Information has no effect if there is no attention in front of it. When information is scarce and attention is abundant, it is easier to control the dissemination of information. When, instead, the information is overabundant, trying to delete it attracts attention. It is therefore far more effective to make “noise” in order to distract attention from embarrassing information.
Of information viruses
As long as anyone can write anything, there are obviously a lot of overflows. We often talk about “fake news” and “hate speech”. While these phenomena are not new, the Internet has brought a new dimension to them: a much broader scope, and an illusion of anonymity that disinhibits speech.
In response, the public authorities generally prefer the legislative response: prohibit certain statements, punish the guilty parties. This type of response poses two democratic problems: