Cliff was the fringe nut who had all these ridiculous conspiracy theories. Everyone else in the bar knew he was full of shit and harmless so were amused by it. With everyone spouting views it was fun to have a wacky one thrown into the mix.
Plus, his conspiracy theories were so absurd no one in their right mind could take him seriously.
But today there are 70,000,000 Cliff Clavins and it’s no longer funny; it’s horrifying. How can there be that many misinformed, gullible people in the United States? A current documentary on NETFLIX helps explain why.
It’s called THE SOCIAL DILEMMA and it’s both riveting and chilling.
The crux is that social media is insidiously gathering enormous amounts of information about you and your behavior and subtly manipulating you for the purpose of profit and persuasion. Every time you log on to Facebook it charts your activity — what photos you look at and for how long, what you like and don’t like, what groups you’re in, what you share, what you post, etc. And based on that you’re fed more material their complex algorithms think you want to see. The first goal is retention — how can they better keep you logged on? But the second is to persuade you — either what to buy, or what to believe.
So if you’re Cliff Clavin and you like conspiracy posts, you’re gong to be fed more. When you type something into a search engine, not everybody receives the same results in the same order. For example, you might type in Climate Change. Depending on your known beliefs the first things that might come up pertain to controlling it, or if you’re Cliffy, that it’s a hoax. Now that’s disturbing.
Social media globally is undermining democracies. They’re the most vulnerable because they depend on citizen’s choice.
The experts who spoke on this documentary were all current or former high echelon tech folks. They looked straight out of SILICON VALLEY. All super-intelligent, super-articulate, some weirder than others. In crunching numbers they determined that misinformation travels six times faster than facts. Cliff Clavin reaches more people than Frasier Crane, and what kind of fucked up world is that?
What’s so maddening is that the internet is also a miracle and a God send. Imagine getting through this pandemic if you didn’t have a way to still connect with your friends, and family. If you couldn’t work from home. If you were not privy to facts (should you be smart enough to choose reality). I’m sitting at my computer banging out this rant in Los Angeles and you might be reading it in Rangoon. Or listening to my podcast in Bhutan. I’m awed by the app that lets me turn a flashlight on.
But with all great innovations comes a dark side. When Facebook created “Likes” the goal was just to add more positives in our life. They had no idea young people would be basing their entire self worth on them, and that a lack of sufficient “Likes” was viewed as a crushing rejection. When Russia interfered with our election in 2016, they didn’t hack into Facebook, they just used the tools that were available to them for nefarious purposes.
I always love when people say big business should not be regulated. Let them police themself. They’ll be reputable, they’ll play fair. Uh huh. Tell that to Erin Brockovich. Or Wells Fargo customers. THIS is the result. Today big business is cheerfully willing to sacrifice the country and the well-being of the planet for short-term profits.
So who should watch over the content you’re provided? Mark Zuckerberg? Really? Or perhaps a bipartisan government committee that’s only looking out for the public’s interest, not the shareholders…or the president? We’re talking about protecting our children who are as addicted to social media as Richard Pryor was to crack. Look how well THAT turned out. We’re talking about preserving our democracy. We’re talking about restoring facts and truth and reality to a lost confused delusional society. We’re hoping to find Cliff Clavin once again a lovable nut and not a fucking asshole who’s a cancer and a threat to everything we believe in. And the time to start is now… while we still can.
from By Ken Levine
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