<
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/08/my-distaste-for-your-solution-does-not-mean-disregard-for-the-problem/>
"This keeps coming up in different contexts, so I thought I might write a short
(ha, as if I can write short things!) blog post that I can point to on various
occasions. I spend a lot of time here on
Techdirt highlighting why your
favorite solution to (
waves hands) some big societal problem won’t work, and
will probably make things worse.
We can go down the list. Getting rid of anonymity to fix social media. Creating
a new “fairness doctrine” for cable news or social media. Age verification for
social media. Removing Section 230 to stop bullies. Creating a “duty of care”
for social media companies. Requiring social media companies to get a special
license from a Digital Platform Commission. Creating laws for blocking entire
websites because of some copyright infringement.
And on and on and on.
In some debates I’ve had over the past few weeks, whenever I highlight the
problems of various proposed solutions, rather than responding to them, I’m
told that my statement shows I “don’t care” about the underlying problem
(though usually in angrier language about how I want people to die, don’t care
about the children who are dying, don’t care about starving artists, don’t care
about the end of democracy, etc.).
That’s wrong.
I do care about all of those things. That’s why I think it’s important to point
out why your preferred (or proposed) solution doesn’t help and will often make
the problem significantly worse.
Too often, these comments from supporters of these solutions are really a form
of “we must do something, this is something, we will do this.”
I understand that there are real (and justified) concerns about the problems
you’re trying to address. But it does no one any good to put in place solutions
that don’t actually solve the problems. In fact, it can do significant harm on
multiple levels."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
