Charlie Warzel, the Atlantic:

Even in a decade marred by online grifters, shameless politicians, and an alternative right-wing-media complex pushing anti-science fringe theories, the events of the past few weeks stand out for their depravity and nihilism. As two catastrophic storms upended American cities, a patchwork network of influencers and fake-news peddlers have done their best to sow distrust, stoke resentment, and interfere with relief efforts. But this is more than just a misinformation crisis. To watch as real information is overwhelmed by crank theories and public servants battle death threats is to confront two alarming facts: first, that a durable ecosystem exists to ensconce citizens in an alternate reality, and second, that the people consuming and amplifying those lies are not helpless dupes but willing participants.

On one of the bonus episodes of “If Books Could Kill”, the hosts discuss Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit” which, after they re-read it, disappointed them. They thought the idea was interesting but were frustrated by the lack of examples and, in trying to find examples of their own, found it difficult to find those which were only bullshit and not lies.

I feel as though they missed the most obvious family of examples: all conspiracy theories necessarily become bullshit, if they did not already begin that way. Consider how the theories cited by Warzel begin with a nugget of truth, from which a theory is extrapolated to serve a narrative role — against (typically) Democratic Party politicians, against Jewish people, against scientific understanding, in favour of a grand unifying order that purportedly explains everything. The absence of evidence for a conspiracy theory is, itself, evidence to believers. All of this is steeped in bullshit. Believers in these things do not care to find understanding in known facts; rather, they perceive the world through this lens and bullshit until it all fits.

This story by Warzel documents that trajectory with perfect pitch. It is now politically incorrect in many circles to have beliefs that align with those of experts in their fields. Regardless of what is being discussed, the only safe speech is aggrieved bullshit. In a disaster, however, such speech can be dangerous if people believe it.

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Tweets like this seem on point…

… but I’ve started to wonder if we’re missing something in the course of expressing opinions about what we thought climate deniers would say and what they’re actually saying. That is, we expected to be right about what we thought they’d say but we’ve found ourselves wrong. Should we lampoon ourselves as well? Or, to reword the cartoon:

How we imagined we could react when ‘what we imagined deniers would say when the climate catastrophes came’ came true: “I was so right! And now everyone must pay for their greed and lies! May god have mercy on their soul!”

Followed by:

How we expect we’ll react when we find out ‘what they actually are saying’: “I was so wrong! And now everyone must pay for my myopia and echo chambers! May god have mercy on my soul!”

And finally:

How we actually are reacting: “We’re just using these disasters as an excuse to talk about climate change! Like we did with COVID! And 9/11! And the real moon landings! Screw you and your federal rescue money! You need to take your electric vegan soy beans now!”

People (myself included) in general aren’t entirely effective at correcting others’ attitudes so it may not seem fair to say there’s a mistake in us not having anticipated how the deniers would react, that we erred by stopping short of understanding really why climate denialism exists and addressing its root cause. But surely the latter sounds reasonable in hindsight? ‘Us versus them’ narratives like the one in the cartoon describe apparent facts very well but they also reveal a tendency, either on the part of ‘us’ or of ‘them’ but often of both, to sustain this divide instead of narrowing it.

I’m not ignorant of the refusal of some people to change their mind under any circumstances. But even if we couldn’t have prevented their cynical attitudes on social issues — and consensus on climate change is one — maybe we can do better to anticipate them.

Mark Bergen and Dawn Chmielewski, reporting for Vox — or perhaps Recode — in June 2016:

The latest charge comes from SourceFed, a stray pop culture web and video site. It uploaded a short YouTube video on Thursday charging Google with deliberately altering search recommendations — through its function that automatically offers suggestions as a query is typed — to give positive treatment to Clinton.

Google vehemently denied the charges. “Google Autocomplete does not favor any candidate or cause,” a rep wrote. “Claims to the contrary simply misunderstand how Autocomplete works.”

A spokesperson for Google explained the search engine’s autocomplete feature will “not show a predicted query that is offensive or disparaging”, which is understandable. Eight years later, that appears to be how Google continues to work. A search for donald trump cr offers just one autocompleted suggestion: crypto. Another, for donald trump fe, presents no autocompletion suggestions even though he is a convicted felon. One can see why Google would choose to err on the safe side.

Mike Masnick, Techdirt, after a series of similar claims spread over the past few weeks:

The key point here is that some of this stuff just happens. It’s part of how algorithms work. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes you disagree with why they do things. And people need to stop overreacting to it all. Most of the examples discussed in this article were just normal things that happen all the time, but which got a ton of extra attention because everyone’s on edge and amped up.

That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be on the lookout for stuff, but don’t immediately jump to conclusions and assume malfeasance.

It is reasonable to want to hold technology companies to a high standard and expect them to be more competent, especially when it comes to election-related topics. In some cases, systems are being triggered as they should, but they are poorly explained to users by generic error messages. Others are just broken. None of this should be surprising in an era where even the largest platforms seem to be so fragile as to be held together by the software equivalent of thumbtacks and glue sticks.

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