Philosophical Musings on the Underbelly of Information Age
Abstract
There is an underbelly of the Age of Information. Its opportunities and promises have been diverted to dubious ends, manipulating the users of information technologies for economic rewards and political power. Drawing and extrapolating on previous and current research, we pose different ways to characterize the Age of Information as the Age of Plato's Cave-Dwellers (inspired by Plato and Aristotle), the Age of Distraction (inspired by Heidegger), the Age of Disinformation (inspired by the manipulation of internet content to provoke information-disinformation wars), the Age of Surveillance Capitalism (inspired by information technology companies' use of software and apps to manipulate consumer behavior), and the Age of Inflamed Grievances (inspired by the use of internet sites and apps to solidify and inflame partisan political grievances so as to maintain, gain or manipulate political power). The last two pose the greatest dangers to the destruction of democracies, countries and the planet.
Downloads
References
Aristotle. (2020). Rhetoric (W. R. Roberts, Trans.). digireads.com.
Benkler, Y., Faris, R., Roberts, H. (2018). Network propaganda: manipulation, disinformation, and radicalization in American politics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Bosker, B. (2017). What Will Break People's Addictions to Their Phones? The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-binge-breaker/501122/. (Retrieved November 13, 2020)
Bump, P. (2020). The stunning extent to which Trumpism is centered among Fox News-watching Republicans. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/19/stunning-extent-which-trumpism-is-centered-among-fox-news-watching-republicans/. (Retrieved November 13, 2020)
Capurro, Rafael. (2020). Pseudangelia — Pseudangelos: On False Messages and Messengers in Ancient Greece. Informatio, 25(1):106-131. DOI: 10.35643/Info.25.1.5. https://informatio.fic.edu.uy/index.php/informatio/article/view/246/249. (Retrieved November 14, 2020)
Chittister, J. (2020). Land of the free, home of the self-centered. National Catholic Reporter Online. https://www.ncronline.org/news/coronavirus/where-i-stand/land-free-home-self-centered. (Retrieved November 14, 2020)
Collins, B. (2017). Trump fans, foiled by google translate, believe 'covfefe' was a secret arabic message. The Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-fans-foiled-by-google-translate-believe-covfefe-was-a-secret-arabic-message. (Retrieved August 26, 2020)
Facebook offers a distorted view of American news. (2020). The Economist. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/09/10/facebook-offers-a-distorted-view-of-american-news?utm_campaign=the-economist-today. (Retrieved September 14, 2020)
Fisher, M., Taub, A. (2019). How YouTube radicalized Brazil. New York Times. (Retrieved August 29, 2019) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-brazil.html.
Froehlich, T. J. (2017). A not-so-brief account of current information ethics: the ethics of ignorance, missing information, misinformation, disinformation and other forms of deception or incompetence. BiD: textos universitaris de biblioteconomia i documentació, 39. http://bid.ub.edu/en/39/froehlich.htm doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1344/BiD2017.39.8 . (Retrieved March 4, 2019)
Froehlich, T. J. (2019). The role of pseudo-cognitive authorities and self-deception in the dissemination of fake news. Open Information Science, 3(1):115–136. https://doi.org/10.1515/opis-2019-0009 .
Froehlich, T. J. (2020). Ten lessons for the age of disinformation. In: K. Dalkir and R. Katz (Eds). Navigating Fake News, Alternative Facts and Misinformation in a Post-Truth World. IGI Global (pp. 36-88). https://www.igi-global.com/gateway/chapter/full-text-pdf/249503.
Froehlich, T. J. (in press). A disinformation-misinformation ecology: The case of Trump. In: Fake News Is Bad News - Hoaxes, Half-truths and the Nature of Today's Journalism. IntechOpen.
Gardner, K. (2018). Social media: Where voices of hate find a place to preach. The Center for Public Integrity. https://publicintegrity.org/politics/social-media-where-voices-of-hate-find-a-place-to-preach/. (Retrieved September 03, 2020)
Gramlich, J. (2020). 5 facts about Fox News. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/08/five-facts-about-fox-news/. (Retrieved August 25, 2020)
Grothaus, M. (2018). QAnon's "codes" are probably just random typing, says researcher. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90219187/qanons-codes-are-probably-just-random-typing-says-researcher . (Retrieved August 27, 2020)
Harvey, J. (2020, September 10). Lou Dobbs claims Trump 'had a great day.' critics say he's 'delusional.' Huffpost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lou-dobbs-trump-great-day_n_5f59a1cac5b62874bc182e18. (Retrieved September 12, 2020)
Healy, J., & Baker, M. (2020). In Oregon, a year of political tumult extends to devastating wildfires. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/us/fires-oregon-antifa-rumors.html. (Retrieved September 15, 2020)
Heidegger, M. (2010). Being and Time (Stambaugh, J., Trans.). State University of New York Press. (Original work published: 1927).
Ingraham, C. (2019, April 29). Why conservatives might be more likely to fall for fake news. The Washington Post. Retrieved October 26, 2019, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/07/why-conservatives-might-be-more-likely-to-fall-for-fake-news/
Kierkegaard, S. (2013). The Sickness Unto Death (W. Lowrie, Trans). Wiseblood Books. (Original work published: 1849).
King James Bible. (2017). King James Bible Online. https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/.
LeTourneau, N. (2020, April 29). The Misinformation Being Used to Pressure Us Into Re-Opening the Economy. Washington Monthly. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/04/29/the-misinformation-being-used-to-pressure-us-into-re-opening-the-economy/. (Retrieved November 22, 2020)
Malik, N. (2020, November 11). Not every Trump voter is racist or misled. There's a rational Trump voter too. The Correspondent. https://thecorrespondent.com/790/not-every-trump-voter-is-racist-or-misled-theres-a-rational-trump-voter-too/47019208940-41e70894. (Retrieved November 11, 2020)
Mooney, C. (2011). The science of why we don't believe science. Mother Jones. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/denial-science-chris-mooney/?fbclid=IwAR0joSt0kxWLUlWut1AMYwn0xT3d_wEp9l79mhVySrs26pi3WvtbW3pyptk. (Retrieved August 22, 2020)
Monroe, J. (2020). What to Learn from 'The Social Dilemma'. Newport Academy. https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/empowering-teens/social-dilemma/. (Retrieved November 13, 2020)
Nichols, T. M. (2017). The death of expertise: The campaign against established knowledge and why it matters. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Orlowski, J. (2020). The Social Dilemma. Drama, Documentary. Exposure Labs.
Plato. (2008). Collected works of Plato (B. Jowett, Trans.). Charleston, SC: BiblioBazaar.
Plato. (1987). Gorgias (D. Zeyl, Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.
Qiu, L. (2020, November 19). How Sidney Powell inaccurately cited Venezuela's elections as evidence of U.S. fraud. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/technology/sidney-powell-venezuela.html. (Retrieved November 22, 2020)
Reich, R. (2019, November 03). Facebook and Twitter spread Trump's lies – they must be broken up. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/02/facebook-twitter-donald-trump-lies. (Retrieved September 02, 2020)
Rieh, S. Y. (2010). Credibility and cognitive authority of information. In: Bates M. & Maack M. N. (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 3rd Ed. (pp. 1337–1344), New York: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC. http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/106416. (Retrieved August 18, 2017)
Robb, A. (2020, July 20). Anatomy of a fake news scandal. RollingStone. https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/anatomy-of-a-fake-news-scandal-125877/. (Retrieved September 15, 2020)
Smith, T. (2019). Foxocracy: Inside the Network’s Playbook of Tribal Warfare. New York, NY: Diversion Books.
Stanley-Becker, I. (2020, August 02). How the Trump campaign came to court QAnon, the online conspiracy movement identified by the FBI as a violent threat. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-trump-campaign-came-to-court-qanon-the-online-conspiracy-movement-identified-by-the-fbi-as-a-violent-threat/2020/08/01/dd0ea9b4-d1d4-11ea-9038-af089b63ac21_story.html. (Retrieved August 22, 2020)
Stelter, B. (2020). Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and The Dangerous Distortion of Truth. Atria Books.
Sullivan, K. (2019, May 13). The Fox "News" lie: Fox's "news" side pushed misinformation every day for four months straight. Media Matters for America. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-lie. (Retrieved August 26, 2020)
Tufekci, Z. (2018, March 10). YouTube, the great radicalizer. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-radical.html. (Retrieved August 29, 2019)
Vosoughi, S., Roy, D. & Aral, S. (2018, March 9). The spread of true and false news online. Science. 359(6380):1146-1151.
Wemple, E. (2019, April 11). Yes, Fox News matters. A lot. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/11/yes-fox-news-matters-lot/?noredirect&utm_term=.8ad57d66b52f. (Retrieved April 14, 2019)
Wijnberg, R. (2020, April 16). How the truth became whatever makes you click. The Correspondent. https://thecorrespondent.com/410/how-the-truth-became-whatever-makes-you-click/9567807150-326405ae. (Retrieved August 29, 2020)
Wikipedia. (2020). Antifa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States). (Retrieved November 11, 2020)
Wilson, P. (1983). Second-hand Knowledge: an Inquiry into Cognitive Authority. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Wolf, Z. (2020, October 09). A GOP senator has gone public against democracy. CNN Politics. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/09/politics/what-matters-october-8/index.html. (Retrieved November 15, 2020)
Wong, J. C. (2020, August 11). Revealed: QAnon Facebook groups are growing at a rapid pace around the world. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/11/qanon-facebook-groups-growing-conspiracy-theory. (Retrieved September 11, 2020)
Zuboff, S. (2020). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. New York: PublicAffairs.
Copyright (c) 2021 Thomas J. Froehlich
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
.png)
