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DL 205

Truth Decay

Published: 2019-07-13 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to issue 205. Truth decay.

Hi all, my name is Ian O'Byrne and welcome to Digitally Literate. In this newsletter I distill the news of the week in technology into an easy-to-read resource. Thank you for reading.

This week I worked on the following:

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

An interview with Dina Srinivasan on The Majority Report about the business end of ad sales online, and how this ultimately invades your privacy.

The lack of privacy that we are subject to is a bigger issue as it undercuts other services you may want in the future.

Srinivasan's analysis connects advertising business models to privacy erosion in ways casual users rarely see. The ad tech ecosystem—demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms, data management platforms, real-time bidding—operates invisibly, extracting and trading behavioral data at scales that make individual consent meaningless. Her point about undercutting future services matters: once surveillance infrastructure exists for advertising, it becomes available for other purposes—insurance pricing, employment screening, political targeting. The business model that feels like "free services" actually extracts value that compounds over time, creating permanent profiles that follow you across contexts you never anticipated.

📚 Read

Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr joined Kara Swisher for an episode of Recode Decode with Kara Swisher.

The interview is a wide-ranging discussion that focuses on the potential for technology to disrupt democratic processes and systems.

What struck me the most about this interview is tech ignoring/refusing responsibility for their role in global events.

Cadwalladr's Cambridge Analytica reporting established the template for understanding tech's democratic damage: data harvested without meaningful consent, weaponized for political manipulation, with platforms claiming neutrality while profiting from the engagement conflict generates. The "refusing responsibility" pattern she identifies is systematic: platforms frame themselves as conduits rather than publishers, as infrastructure rather than actors, as neutral tools used by bad actors rather than systems designed to amplify extreme content. This framing serves business interests—responsibility brings regulation—while enabling continued harm. Cadwalladr's persistence in naming what platforms won't admit makes her essential.

The White House held a social media summit this week to potentially discuss censorship by technology companies in digital, social spaces.

As noted by NPR, in May, Facebook banned several high-profile social media personalities who they say violated their policies against hate speech that engages in violence, including right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones; extremists Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer and Joseph Watson; and white supremacist Paul Nehlen.

It is important to note that not all of the people that have been banned were invited to the summit. Ultimately, this appears to be an attempt by the White House to embolden and empower many far-right conspiracy theorists that spread hoaxes and fringe views online.

The summit's framing as "censorship discussion" obscures its actual function: legitimizing conspiracy theorists by giving them White House platform. The distinction between "banned for hate speech" and "censored for conservative views" matters enormously—platforms removed accounts for specific policy violations, not political orientation. Conflating the two serves those who want to spread hate without consequence. The event demonstrates how "free speech" rhetoric can be weaponized: claiming victim status for those facing accountability, while actually seeking government intervention to force platforms to host content they've decided violates their terms.

In a new report, the RAND Corporation surveyed the developing landscape of media literacy education. Through interviews with a dozen media literacy experts and a review of studies on educational interventions, researchers examined how media literacy is defined, what instructional resources are available, and how effective media literacy education is in guarding against the spread of misinformation.

They found that though experts say media literacy is urgently important, there isn't one universal skill set for the discipline—making it difficult to evaluate and compare educational programs.

The report is the latest installment in the RAND Corporation's study of what they call "truth decay," or the blurring of the lines between opinion and objective fact. It is important for individuals not admit that this is a very complex problem…and not just about fact checking.

RAND's "truth decay" framing captures something broader than misinformation: the erosion of shared epistemological foundation for democratic discourse. When citizens can't agree on what counts as evidence, what sources are credible, or how to distinguish fact from opinion, productive debate becomes impossible. The media literacy field's lack of standardization reflects genuine complexity—information evaluation requires different skills in different contexts—but also creates accountability gaps. Without agreed-upon competencies, programs can claim effectiveness without demonstrating it. The report's implicit message: media literacy is necessary but not sufficient, and we don't yet know how to teach it reliably.

You may have heard of Mastodon. Sadly I'm talking about the open-source decentralized social network, and not the awesome heavy metal band from Atlanta, Georgia.

Mastodon picked up interest as an alternative to Twitter as it is decentralized as opposed to how Twitter is centralized. This means that you can create your own instance of Mastodon for you and your group to discuss, chat, and share.

Gab—which has been tied to the suspect responsible for the Pittsburgh synagogue terror attack that killed 11 worshippers—announced on July 4 that it had switched its backend to run on Mastodon's software, instantly making it the largest Mastodon user.

Because Gab is simply implementing Mastodon's open-source code, there's no functional way for Mastodon to shut down Gab.

Gab's Mastodon migration reveals the double-edge of decentralization. Federated networks promise escape from platform corporate control—no single entity decides what speech is allowed. But that same architecture means no single entity can remove harmful communities. Mastodon instances can defederate from Gab (refuse to connect), but Gab continues existing, now with larger user base than any other instance. The Pittsburgh synagogue connection isn't incidental: Gab became haven for violent antisemitism that mainstream platforms removed. Open-source tools built for liberation get used by those whose "freedom" means organizing violence. There's no easy resolution—the same principles that enable resistance to corporate censorship enable Nazi organizing.

School by day, assembly line by night.

A harrowing account of how teachers in South Carolina try to make ends meet…all to remain in the classrooms and educate our children.

The image of teachers working factory night shifts to afford teaching is devastating commentary on how society values education. These aren't teachers seeking luxury—they're trying to remain in classrooms they love while meeting basic needs. South Carolina's teacher pay ranks among nation's lowest, but the problem extends beyond one state. When educated professionals require second jobs to survive, the profession becomes unsustainable: talented people choose other careers, experienced teachers leave, and students lose continuity. The story forces uncomfortable questions: if we say education matters, why don't we pay educators accordingly? The assembly line juxtaposition makes the contradiction visceral.

🔨 Do

While I was at the SCCITL Conference, I was looking for new things that really wowed me. I spent most of my time in sessions that focused on augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) opportunities.

One of the things that interested me was the Wonderscope AR app for iOS devices.

I'm not as interested in mixed reality for consumption. I'm interested in how we can use these texts and tools for teaching, and construction/sharing.

Wonderscope represents AR storytelling designed for children—characters appear in your physical space, responding to voice and movement. The consumption vs. construction distinction matters for educational technology: tools that let students create AR experiences teach different skills than tools that let them consume pre-made content. Passive consumption reproduces traditional media dynamics; construction enables expression, design thinking, and technical literacy. The question for educators: how do we move students from AR consumers to AR creators, and what learning happens in that transition?

🤔 Consider

"Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor. One must exercise proper deliberation, plan carefully before making a move, and be alert in guarding against relapse following a renaissance." — Horace

Horace's wisdom on preventing decay connects to this issue's themes. Truth decay requires active resistance—media literacy education, responsible journalism, platform accountability. The Gab migration shows how quickly progress can reverse. Teacher pay erosion demonstrates decades of neglect. Vigilance against relapse demands ongoing effort, not one-time fixes.

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