Comment by ehnto
6 years ago
I'm not saying there aren't consequences to the freedom, and the effects of social media make me wish we could ban entire publications at will, but it's the wrong direction to be thinking.
I must admit, the ability to sway stock prices is pretty far from what I worry about when I think of bad ethics in press, but it does happen to be the kind of thing that would make licensing prone to corruption. The money influencing that kind of corruption would be right at the door of the licensing body, just waiting for the first person to crack the door open.
For me this particular story was notable because it was the first time I had (barely) enough expertise to realise that story is really implausible and enough interest to follow it up.
It's not that rogue journalist influencing stock market is bad, it's bad, but that's not the point. What really bothers me is that that there are no mechanisms on media company level to punish or at least disincentivize faulty reporting.
We encounter misinformation on a daily basis, but can't do anything about it. We can't even notice it, unless topic in question happens to fall in our area of expertise.
I agree, it's going to be tough problem to navigate. I can't even come up with a vague ideological solution for it, let alone a good mechanism that is fair and robust against corruption. It's like being stuck inbetween one ideal and another. Freedom of information vs stopping the bad being caused by misinformation.
My optimistic side would hope that putting education in schools about misinformation and how to critically think about and analyze journalism could at least help the issue.