[lulmerchant]

>How trivial would it be to make sure this leader in the article who 'never met a Muslim', was forced to scroll through a feed with positive messages about Muslims and religious tolerance?

So when the users don't conform to the world view of the platform operators, the answer is platform sponsored propaganda? That is incredibly dystopian.

[dragonwriter]

> So when the users don't conform to the world view of the platform operators, the answer is platform sponsored propaganda? That is incredibly dystopian.

Advertising is propaganda dedicated to getting you to conform the advertiser's preferences, and it's already targeted however the advertiser prefers, which could be by lack of conformance to those preferences.

You are basically suggesting that the platform operator doing themselves what they already build their business around allowing anyone with a checkbook to do is dystopian.

I would suggest it is no more dystopian than the status quo.

[jnbiche]

> So when the users don't conform to the world view of the platform operators, the answer is platform sponsored propaganda?

Facebook sponsors propaganda all the time. Its algorithms favor certain posts and messages over others, based on a long list of attributes, including ad dollars. But apparently that's OK, while suggest that Facebook display some positive third-party post about Muslims in Myanmar - while a genocide is underway - is suddenly "platform-sponsored propaganda"?

[lulmerchant]

I don't support any of the propaganda that Facebook pushes. This also doesn't have anything to do with ads. The issues is that when these mega-platforms decide that they are going to promote one side of a political issue, and suppress another (as they have been doing more and more), this comes at the cost of freedom of expression, and all you're left with is corporate approved discourse.

Of course this is much easier to rationalize in this situation. However that's how you end up giving away liberty. You give it up in little pieces in response to extreme situations, then when you go back about your life you don't get it back.

The real issue here is that this gets the whole problem backwards. We shouldn't be looking at a state-sponsored genocide and then claiming that "if only Facebook had more control over public discourse then we'd be able to solve this problem". The "problem" in that statement can be anything from this genocide taking place, to your preferred candidate losing an election. "We need more propaganda" isn't going to solve any of that, and in reality it's just a veiled power grab by companies that wish to control public discourse more effectively.