In an interview with ProPublica, released on Sunday, President Joe Biden touched upon the technological advancements and their pivotal role in shaping societal discourse and information sharing. While discussing Elon Musk’s influence over X and its policies, President Biden seemed to delve into concerns about “misinformation” and its prevalence on online platforms.
When asked by John Harwood about Elon Musk’s impact on X and its potential contribution to misinformation, President Biden responded by exploring the notion of technological evolution and what he sees as its consequences on society.
He said, “Yeah, it does. Look, one of the things that I said to you when I thought I wasn’t going to run, I was going to write a book about the changes taking place. And most of this directed over the years were these fundamental changes in society by changing technology, Gutenberg, printing and the printing press changed the way Europeans could talk to one another, all the way to today.”
Biden’s mention of the Gutenberg printing press highlights its revolutionary impact on communication among Europeans. Drawing parallels between the advent of the printing press and the current digital age, the President seemed to imply that just as the printing press had long-lasting effects on communication and information dissemination, the internet and online platforms have a similar transformative effect on contemporary society.
While the President (this time at least) stopped short of explicitly calling for censorship, his comments could be interpreted as subtly highlighting concerns around the unregulated nature of online information, potentially opening a gateway to discussions on tighter control and regulation of internet content.
President Biden continued, “Where do people get their news? They go on the internet, they go online and you have no notion whether it’s true or not.”
I agree that the Internet is a mess of misinformation that looks daunting, but isn’t it a little disingenuous to say this like it’s just the internet’s problem? People can write whatever they want in print media and on TV too. I wish we had an educated populace that could self-police, but we don’t. We need the FCC to be able to apply fairness doctrine (or something) to get bad actors out of news media. I know we can do this because when I search for things online, I regularly see content that is removed by DMCA. Clearly we have the power to police the internet, it’s only because there’s a vested money interest that we aren’t doing something similar with news.
There’s too much information for self-policing these days. There should be an expectation that information coming from mainstream news organizations is truthful and factual.
Thanks, I think this is what I wanted to say. Obviously there’s no way to police the whole internet, and I would not want to see it changed to make that a possibility. Individual freedom also shouldn’t extend to large media companies.
That doesn’t really make any sense, DMCA is a process between the content host and the rights holder, the government isn’t really involved. I doubt the feds could even police the clear net, and question why anyone thinks that would be a good idea.
Applying the fairness doctorine to mainstream news would make them more conservative, yes even Fox. Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to you.
The DMCA is being used as example of how quick content can be taken down. All you need to do is make the content provider liable for any damages caused by that content and it’ll disappear with a quickness.
Fox is a weird exception since they are not classified as news, but “entertainment”. It gives them a little more freedom to spew bullshit. However, when that bullshit does cause real financial damage to a company, they will get sued. Getting people wound up and pissed off isn’t really a crime, but they have absolutely pushed those boundaries. They hide behind “opinions” and double-speak in attempt to protect themselves from libel.
Actual outlets that are classified as news can be sanctioned by the FCC if they are caught deliberately distorting a factual news report. Unfortunately, it is all to common to quickly rattle off a news event and then pivot directly to an opinion bit. Even local news stations do that to a degree, but generally stay a little further from controversy.
With all of that said, most news sources (or faux news sources) have gone to extremes to chase ratings.
In my opinion, a fairness doctrine would make news more dry and boring, not more conservative. (Well it would be more conservative in the literal sense of the word.) I would watch a hell of a lot more news on TV if the reporters actually reported things without opinions. News is supposed to put me to sleep, not make me want to dust off my pitchfork.
DMCA takedowns are fast because they are automated systems and there is profit notive for the rights here to do so.
From my understanding most news stations have certain hosts that are “entertainment”, although I’m not sure who that would be anymore.
That’s because your thinking of what you want out the fairness doctorine, not what was already the reality of how it was implemented. There was no 6 hour block of neutral, by the book news, it was instead 3 different hyper-partisans each getting a few hours to spew bullshit.
When you look at studies about news coverage, certain topics skew heavily right, but absolute majority of news coverage skews left. Even Fox’s daytime news skews left a few percent. That’s where the notion that it would be forced to move right. I would love boring news, but then no one would watch it.