I don’t know what happens to academics, but the minute they are put in a room with people who work at tech companies, they are all of a sudden experts in content moderation (while most have never spoken to a content moderator).

Academics will also bend over backwards to make criticism that is completely warranted and correct, but then undercut it by saying, “but if you made this minor tweak to your product, I think that would be helpful.”

Usually this is followed up by an academic oped that makes the case that these companies are *trying* to make their products better, but xyz obstacles make it difficult. It’s a parroting exercise, where the academic has some privileged point of view/ access that most others don’t

The converse of watching tech company reps try to marshall academic work to justify their product changes is also cringe.

For example, making Jan 6th into a debate about polarization is a red herring. The companies want to set the debate and not address the harms caused.

But this is why we need independent research that seeks out novel methods for addressing the whole-of-society problem caused by technology giants who allow misinformation to reach millions. Researchers need to approach the information crisis as a problem that will not be solved.

What I mean is that technology is a process, not a product. Facebook will come and go and so will Google and Twitter.

Researchers have to see the horizon and then anticipate (as @alondra teaches) what comes next. History is the guide, social science our compass.

The field of Critical Internet Studies needs more librarians and social scientists to research the civil rights implications of digital information management, provenance tracking, and figure out how to make communication infrastructure that supports the public interest.

But the kicker is where we are headed, if academics don’t do this.

Throughout the 1980s-now, big business argued that govt must operate like a business and model their regulations on the needs of businesses. Otherwise, the people will suffer.

Well, we suffered enough.

Now, we are headed into a situation where some are starting to argue that govt would do well to learn from tech companies and adopt their practices, or else gov will always be behind... and the people will suffer.

I assure you, we have suffered enough.