- From: Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org>
- Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 18:03:07 -0500
- To: markchipman@gmail.com
- Cc: Credible Web CG <public-credibility@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <ea3beca6-582d-c4ae-874c-c67b99ba4fad@w3.org>
I agree chain of custody / provenance is a great tool. My sense is CAI
is approaching that well, although I haven't seen anything since their
presentation to us nearly a year ago (see Feb 26 meeting records). May
be worth (1) checking in on their status, and (2) seeing if there are
use case not addressed by their focus on images & video.
-- Sandro
On 1/23/21 5:24 PM, Mark Chipman wrote:
> Hello All:
>
> Interesting discussion. Lot's of good points made.
>
> After reflecting on an extraordinarily dishonest world in so many
> respects over this general topic, during the last several years, one
> of the top things that comes to mind in this subject is the old phrase
> "/truth is in the eyes of the beholder/".
>
> Technology probably will never resolve the primary problem that
> /biases will mostly trump facts/ for most people (pun wasn't intended
> there). Depending on one's own circles of influence (those where
> individuals own truths are going to be sought) is how information is
> going to be determined or deemed as "credible"; heavily drawn upon
> from one's own resources. Thus true or pure facts will vary from
> source to source and remain fluid based on situations, wealth, social
> environments, age, regional and national politics in play, religious
> views, one's own emotional state, etc.
>
> Might I make the suggestion that the focus of CredibleWeb not be
> establishing truthiness of sources by means of weeding out
> disinformation (besides, who decides this)... but rather to focus on
> information's /chain of custody/, where the primary focus is now on
> tracking sources... similar to a timeline, but not based solely on
> time, but rather on who establishes what will be considered factual
> and when each of this happens.
>
> This angle resides in the need to know where does information come
> from; to establish one's own levels of believability of inclusive
> facts whose relevance is based on who or what entities are involved
> along the way with the chain of custody of said information. I
> generally find myself believing some sources way more than others,
> within the global information cesspool, a place where someone's always
> going to take the opposite side of an issue.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -Mark Chipman
>
> On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 11:55 AM Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org
> <mailto:sandro@w3.org>> wrote:
>
> This topic is quite relevant and current for the SocialCG, as
> Sebastian said.
>
> I suggest people interested in cross-platform social media
> moderation attend their meeting tomorrow
> <https://www.w3.org/wiki/SocialCG#Next_meeting>. Members of
> CredWeb are welcome to attend, I'm told. It's using a platform
> called BBB which you may want to get familiar with before the meeting.
>
> Related, folks might want to check out eunomia
> <https://eunomia.social>, which includes modifying mastodon for
> better handling of misinformation. Sebastian and I were at a talk
> they gave a couple days ago.
>
> - Sandro
>
>
>
> On 1/22/21 12:54 PM, Christopher Guess wrote:
>> Hello everyone, it’s been awhile since I last commented on this
>> channel, but now that the tone is turning down a bit on the fact
>> checking side I wanted to say a few words and share a thought or
>> two in response to the ideas on this thread.
>>
>> First, around moderation: The first thing to remember, as we’ve
>> been reminded here, is that the W3C is a global organization, so
>> any talk of what is acceptable to moderate should be looked at in
>> a global context. This of course presents difficulties due to the
>> fact that morality and cultural standards vary wildly between
>> different countries, regions, and communities.
>>
>> It’s been mentioned that a user-based voting and self-regulation
>> protocol system could be a remedy here, but what’s being
>> proposed, to my ears, actually sounds exactly like the system
>> that Parler had implemented. In their system any flagged post
>> would have five random accounts assigned to vote on if it was
>> appropriate. This, as we’ve seen, did not work out in the long
>> run for them. It would instead lead to the most active users
>> (those most radical in my experience) being the lone voices of
>> “reason” in the forums. Even Reddit, which at least has a
>> somewhat heavier, but still distributed hand, eventually had to
>> step in and shut down the most vile subreddits due to the
>> moderators condoning the actions of the users.
>>
>> Second: When it comes to protocols over platforms, I have to ask,
>> if I was working at a social media organization: how does
>> adopting a protocol in any way limit my liability? Agreeing on
>> standards to share information does nothing to prevent someone in
>> a country where Section 230 doesn’t exist from suing me for
>> allowing the information on my system in the first place. Though
>> I am not a lawyer, I imagine saying, “Well, someone else said it
>> was ok,” is almost certainly not going to hold up in UK or German
>> court. Given a lack of liability shielding I can’t imagine any
>> for-profit (non-Fediverse) social network giving up their
>> information via a global protocol unless they get something out
>> of it.
>>
>> OK, so, what do we do about this? The honest answer from my
>> perspective is: I find more problems with a standards-based
>> approach than solutions. In the end we are at best preaching to
>> the choir, and at worst screaming into the void. Those people
>> that use platforms that would follow such standards are the least
>> likely to actually need the moderation in the first place. I
>> can’t imagine StormFront or the successor to Parler or Gab caring
>> even a little about a white paper and what Twitter does. If
>> anything, it gives them more followers. The real way forward, as
>> I see it, is beyond the scope of this chain, but involves
>> sociologists, economists and a severe change to 1st amendment
>> interpretation in the United States.
>>
>> Instead, because this group does care, perhaps we scope this down
>> and bit of a smaller piece of the pie? While the W3C scope is
>> global, perhaps this group can focus locally. Instead of claiming
>> to be a panacea for all moderation issues, focus on just getting
>> the Mastodon system on board. The system already shares data by
>> default, and gives the runners of each instance full moderation
>> control. Essentially, by putting in a sharable moderation system
>> we’re piggybacking on what has already been built and
>> standardizing that while expanding on it. It may not be the
>> perfect system, but it’s a starting point at least and 1.)
>> Already has buy-in by programmers and 2.) is something actively
>> in use at scale already and 3.) is open source, so the whole
>> process can happen in the open without the smoke and mirrors of
>> dealing with the large tech companies.
>>
>> We make it a point to not even mention we want to be an example
>> to the large social media orgs, or part of a wider solution, but
>> that instead, we’re partnering with groups that we share values
>> with to do just a bit of good in the world. If it works, perhaps
>> we can move forward from there, but even getting some solution
>> into the Mastodon protocol and standards written for that single
>> use case would be a huge leap forward.
>>
>> Thanks for reading, and I hope you all stay safe, sane, and have
>> a wonderful weekend.
>>
>> -Chris
>>
>> -Christopher Guess
>> cguess@gmail.com <mailto:cguess@gmail.com>
>> US/WhatsApp/Signal: +1 262.893.1037
>> PGP: AAE7 5171 0D81 B45B – https://keybase.io/cguess
>> On Jan 22, 2021, 10:51 AM -0500, Tom Jones
>> <thomasclinganjones@gmail.com>
>> <mailto:thomasclinganjones@gmail.com>, wrote:
>>> Question - I assumed that this group was responsible for CredMan
>>> - is that correct or does that live somewhere else?
>>>
>>> Be the change you want to see in the world ..tom
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 7:26 AM Dan Brickley <danbri@google.com
>>> <mailto:danbri@google.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 14:54, Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org
>>> <mailto:sandro@w3.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 1/21/21 8:53 PM, Bob Wyman wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I could go on at length, but first I'd like to ask if
>>>> you think that this kind of protocol-based solution, as
>>>> an alternative and complement to platform-based systems
>>>> or standards, is something that could or should be
>>>> explored in this group. Is this the right context in
>>>> which to explore and develop such protocol-based
>>>> approaches?
>>> I think that's more or less the group's mission.
>>>
>>> The problem is, we don't have people participating in
>>> the group who are building such systems. It's generally
>>> a mistake to try to create a standard without
>>> participation from people developing viable products
>>> which will use the standard. I've helped people make
>>> that mistake several times in the past and it's not
>>> good. It's somewhat related to the architecture
>>> astronaut problem.
>>> <https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architecture-astronauts-scare-you/>
>>>
>>> I am, myself, building such a system. Unfortunately, I
>>> don't currently know anyone else who is. I also don't
>>> know if it can become a viable product. Until there are
>>> several other people who are independently building this
>>> stuff, I don't see a way for standards-type work to proceed.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> That sounds about right.
>>>
>>> I still believe a big part of the difficulty here is also
>>> that online credibility is kind of an arms race, so those
>>> seeking to be recognized as credible will be paying close
>>> attention to any putative standard or protocol, which makes
>>> developing such things collaboratively in an open way
>>> problematic.
>>>
>>> The CG has at times been an interesting forum for
>>> discussion, though, and some good has come out of that.
>>> Maybe there's value to re-starting meetings like that.
>>>
>>>
>>> Even just as a meeting place for folks who want to find
>>> like-minded collaborators, a community group has value...
>>>
>>> All the best,
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> Most recently, I was imagining us having presentations
>>> by folks developing credibility products, and maybe
>>> coming up with a review process. In particular, I was
>>> thinking about how we could push every project on the
>>> "why should people trust you?" question. A proper
>>> architecture (like CAI) can answer this question in a
>>> way that closed apps can't. Crunchbase has 500+
>>> companies with the keyword "credibility", 9000+ with the
>>> keyword "trust", and 59 with the keyword
>>> "misinformation". [I haven't gone through the 59.
>>> Clearly some like snopes and blackbird are about
>>> combating misinfo; others, like Natalist, are just
>>> making reference to how there is misinformation in their
>>> target market.]
>>>
>>> Is there a story that would get, say, 20 of those 59 to
>>> be interested in interoperating? I've only talked to a
>>> few of them, and I wasn't able to think of a serious
>>> argument for how their business would benefit from going
>>> open-data. It might be worth trying some more.
>>>
>>>
>>> -- Sandro
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
> --
> - Mark
Received on Saturday, 23 January 2021 23:03:17 UTC