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PAGE 4A
BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 2021
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher ~
Time to end the perverse incentives
of the online information economy
After the Oklahoma City bombing, the
death threats came by phone to Kenneth
Zeran. He had done nothing to deserve
hostility, but an online troll posted terrible,
pro-bombing messages on AOL with Zer-
an’s name and phone number.
He never knew who targeted him, but he
knew AOL shouldn’t be allowed to traffic
such malicious fakery in his name. So he
sued the company.
Of course, any newspaper would
be held legally responsible for
publishing such hateful trash and
victimizing an innocent person.
And if our newspaper did that, we
absolutely should be punished se
verely. But Zeran lost; AOL won.
The courts ruled that the inter
net was different and that AOL
couldn’t be held liable. That court
precedent was accompanied by
the passage of Section 230 in the
Telecommunications Act in 1996,
which exempted internet plat
forms from all liability for content
on their services.
Maybe you see that court case and Sec
tion 230 as victories for free speech in the
online era. But I see it quite differently.
It was the establishment of a perverse in
centive structure to the online information
economy. And this unhealthy incentive
structure has had a profoundly negative ef
fect on American culture over the past quar
ter of a century.
Here’s the thing: When Congress and the
courts decided that the internet would be
different and that internet platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube wouldn’t be
treated as publishers, they determined that
the 21st century online economy wouldn’t
be about quality. No, it would simply be
about growth.
Think about it. If you don’t have to worry
about being sued over content, then what’s
to stop you from pursuing growth at all
costs? And wow, the big tech platforms
have sure succeeded in expanding, right?
Their profits dwarf the GDP of many coun
tries. Growth is money. And how do you
grow online without worry over quality?
Well, first, you can certainly keep expenses
down, because there’s no need to establish
your own news services, right? If quality
was important to the big tech platforms,
then they would invest heavily in their own
news sources to ensure they trafficked reli
able information, but that’s just an unneces
sary expense when you are free from liabil
ity. If anything goes, why invest in quality?
People talk about the demise of print and
of many traditional media organizations as
if this is rooted in a failure on their parts
without really contemplating the bigger
economic picture. Old-form media, which
is generally geography-based, is tied to
the pursuit of quality information about
its coverage area, while platform-based
news sharing doesn’t care about whether
the news is real or fake, and typically has
very little to do with your local communi
ty. It just wants you clicking. That’s why
it’s all free. Facebook doesn’t have to pay
anything to produce it, so it can give it all
away in exchange for data collection on
you, which is sold to advertisers and others.
The “free" aspect simply means that you’re
the product. It just needs attention and time
from you, which people gladly give. This
relationship between people and platforms
is simply a volume economy. The more pre
cise their data on you, the more they can
fetch in dollars. But geography-based jour
nalism must pay someone to go out into a
community and report on what’s happening.
It’s labor-intensive. It’s about building trust
in a community and boosting subscriptions.
This takes time, effort and money. This old-
form journalistic model is behind the eight
ball next to volume-based platforms that
don’t need any of that investment and who
leach off the content of actual news produc
ers.
This volume-based incentive structure
hurts consumers, too. I think of a newspa
per like a locally produced meal. You sit
and learn about your community for a little
bit, then you’re done. You’ve had a prepared
meal. Consuming news on your phone is
like going into the pantry while hungry and
just eating whatever catches your eye. Little
of it is locally generated, and the activity
holds addictive properties that aren’t neces
sarily healthy. This means people feel like
they’re getting full on news, but they’re not
really reading much journalism about their
own communities. And their local connec
tions are often replaced with online connec
tions that are more ideological than com
munity-based.
Sadly, in an information economy pure
ly rooted in volume, fake is often better
than real. For instance, if I go to a local
meeting and cover it, there’s no way I can
write a fake report about it. Other people
were there. It’s tied to a specific place with
real people. I’d be called out real quick if I
said a commissioner punched another one
when nothing of the sort happened. But if
I posted such fakery, it would certainly get
more clicks than a report on T-SPLOST,
wouldn’t it? I won’t do that, because I’m
held accountable locally. But so
much of the volume-driven media
has no such accountability — be
cause it’s not geography based
— and many outlets are incentiv-
ized to post or broadcast whatev
er is most emotionally powerful,
no matter its veracity, because it
drives up engagement. This en
gagement-driven (not subscrip
tion-based) media economy is re
liant on emotion, not reason. And
rage is easy to generate through
commentary, which is far cheaper
than reporting. Some rage-driven
news outlets these days claim to be enter
tainment, not news, even though they pose
as news agencies to the public.
All of this is so freaking maddening to
me as a journalist and a citizen. The vol
ume economy, the click culture, the rage
fests — I don’t see these as related to the
difficult discipline of journalism, which
pursues who, what, when, where, why and
how without fear or favor. That form of re
porting continues in many struggling news
rooms, but it is devalued against the more
profitable economic model that debases us
all.
I think it’s very important to consid
er that “free” news comes with real costs
for society. It’s typically trying to lure you
into that addictive relationship, where you
browse and stay tied to the platform while
it collects your data. That’s the economic
relationship. Meanwhile, geography-based
journalism is dwindling away in countless
communities. This is bad for towns, coun
ties and the overall culture. When our sense
of a geographic connection is diminished,
we tend to gravitate toward something else.
I think the rise in rabid partisanship is fu
eled by the loss of community connection.
So partisanship becomes the new, emotion
al connection, our only shared community
space, which also tears us totally apart. I
remember how partisanship seemed like a
minor part of our identities. We often didn’t
know the politics of others, and it was rude
to ask. Now, it seems like one of the first
things we try to figure out — are they with
“us” or “them?” It’s so tiresome. But local
connections help cut through all that, right?
We need local connections and shared local
goals. I think that’s a real key in Madison
County and other communities, too. Parti
sanship should have no place in such mat
ters. We can make our communities better
together, both red and blue.
I don’t think there’s an easy way out of
this national information dystopia, but we
do need legislative action. Of course, Face-
book and the other platforms have grown
to such scale that there’s no way they can
manage their systems with any real civ
ic mindedness. They’re just too big. But I
don’t feel their massive scale is an excuse
for their continued exemption from ac
countability. In fact, I think that’s precisely
why they need to be held accountable. Their
growth is born of a perversion that has hurt
our world. Section 230 must be abolished.
No more exemptions to accountability! The
Fairness Doctrine, which required televi
sion and radio broadcasters to present con
trasting viewpoints on controversial issues
of public importance, needs to be reestab
lished.
And this nation must do something to en
sure that geography-based journalism has a
way to live, not starve. That’s not for the
sake of the organizations themselves. That’s
a civic necessity. Community journalism is
good for communities.
I wish more people understood that the
late ‘90s decision to create a class of un
touchable online companies set the frame
work for the 21st century online economy
and the cultural information breakdown
we’re living through.
This has to change. And if these plat
forms go out of business, then so be it. New
and better ones would then have space to
emerge.
I’m tired of living in a world where Ken
neth Zeran, and anyone in his shoes, is the
loser, not the winner. What kind of world is
that? We can do better. We must.
Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madi
son County Journal. He can be reached at
zach @ mainstreetnews. com.
Letters to the Editor
Bring back the teachers
of yesteryear
Dear Editor:
If you’re as old as I am — and
I’m 83 — you remember learning
in elementary and high school
that America is an exceptionally
great nation and that our great
ness is rooted in the principles
underlying our Constitution.
But under the influence of the
progressives who have come
to dominate our education sys
tems and most TV stations and
daily newspapers, our youth are
being indoctrinated against be
ing a proud American due to the
teacher unions emphasizing that
America had slavery. They do not
mention that America is the only
country who ever fought a war to
abolish it. They spend more time
talking about slavery than teach
ing how brave Americans saved
Europe from Nazism.
As a result, new polling data
found that only 36% of young
people, aged 18 to 24, said they
were proud to be an American
and 56% of this same age group
favored a “mostly socialism”
economic model for the United
States.
But as Winston Churchill said,
“Socialism is the philosophy of
failure, the creed of ignorance
and the gospel of envy.”
Today you never see an Amer
ican flag in the pickup truck of
a progressive-minded Democrat,
but instead hear sarcastic remarks
on television about people who
proudly display it.
It’s time to teach our children
ourselves of how lucky they are to
be Americans and place our youth
in private schools, preferably
those church-sponsored, because
the most powerful public teacher
unions in the United States have
declared publicly that they will
continue to teach critical race the
ory no matter what parents, who
are against it, say or try to stop it.
The far left, by their actions,
continue to undermine our repub
lic. They are not even supporting
the Cuban people who are now
rioting against communism and
socialism as they parade in the
streets carrying our American
flag.
The Cubans are experiencing
the warnings of Winston Chur
chill and so should our citizenry.
Charles C. Winfrey III
Winder
Confronting the stereotype
surrounding people
who are overweight
Dear Editor:
Having had this conversation
with friends and family recently,
it occurred to me that this is a top
ic that hits home for many people
and therefore needs to be open for
conversation, publicly.
It seems that all overweight
people are categorized under the
same stereotype. We teach kids
from a young age that to “be fat”
means to be unhealthy, lazy, dis
gusting and so on.
I’m here to blow that stigma out
of the water.
All fat people do not fit com
fortably into the same category,
(pun fully intended).
Believe it or not, what you see
on TV isn’t always real to life. It’s
for ratings. It’s to carry on that
stereotype because, well, sadly,
that’s what people want to be
lieve, so that’s what keeps them
coming back for more.
When in reality (real-life real
ity), the truth is, you can eat all
the right foods, not struggle with
greasy fast foods and sodas at
all, and still get fat! Shocking, I
know! Right?
While diet is 70% of the battle
when it comes to weight loss and
maintenance, if you do not con
trol portions and you do not in
clude that other 30% (exercise),
you can and most likely will,
gain weight even if you’re eating
“healthy” foods.
For example; did you know that
there are vegetables and fruits,
that if eaten out of proper portion
or at the wrong time of day, can
still make you gain weight? (ie.
carrots, lima beans, peas, apples,
bananas, peaches, etc...) The nat
ural sugars still turn to carbs and,
for a lot of people, carbs are very
dangerous and detrimental to
weight loss.
The world tries to portray us as
constantly stuffing our faces with
fatty, greasy fast and fried foods,
but that’s not always the case.
For example, my own person
al struggle has been with proper
portion sizes (you’d be shocked at
Write a Letter to the Editor:
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the Editor” in the subject line. Please
include the city of the writer.
what a REAL portion size is com
pared to what most Americans are
used to), and exercise.
Another struggle is my depres
sion and often that manifests as
laziness, when really there is this
heaviness that makes it difficult
to move.
Having four kids that each have
their own medical issues, I pretty
much stay stressed out on the dai
ly. Not always being able to help
them only adds to the depression.
Doing it all alone (because my
husband has to work to support
us) makes it that much more dif
ficult.
So yeah, this fat chick doesn’t
move how she should and she
doesn’t always eat how she should
(because eating right is a science,
seriously). But for the most part,
my diet is healthy.
So the “fat stereotype” doesn’t
fit everyone, though many still
believe it does. We all struggle
with different things and every
thing affects people on different
levels.
I say all of that, to say this...
in reality, fat people struggle with
different things, and not all of us
are sitting on the couch stuffing
our faces with fast food and copi
ous amounts of soda. Some of us
are overeating veggies and fruits
and just not really getting much
exercise. And that’s the reality
that no one is willing to talk about
because it doesn’t fit the mold.
Tina Arnold
Winder
The Barrow News-Journal
Winder. Barrow County. Ga.
www.BarrowJournal.com
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Thompson Editor
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