[Themaintainers] Interpreting Social Media Networks as Gas Networks

[Varun Adibhatla (ARGO)]

Hello kindred Maintainers,

I stumbled upon this piece of reporting about Facebook's trials and
tribulations
<https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/11/1020600/facebook-responsible-ai-misinformation/>
in using AI to moderate content on their platform and found
myself reframing the narrative around maintaining leaks in a gas utility
network, something I've been involved in for a couple of years as part of
my day job. Thought I'd share this thought experiment.
----
As some of you have known, over the past few years, I've encountered an
interesting and troubling posture amongst operators of physical asset
networks (gas, roads etc)

“What we don’t know, will not hurt us” are the words I heard from a senior
operations manager at one of the country's largest gas utilities and it
bothered me. Though not widespread, I find this logic at the core of large
institutions avoiding routine maintenance of their assets.
"Wilful blindness" causes these institutions to adopt defensive measures
against liability concerns rather than confront the issue of looking for
distress and fixing issues.

*So what does this mean for social media networks?*
I stumbled upon this comment by former Google AI ethics researcher
<https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1370084044038414350?s=20> Timnit
Gebru that describes the same mechanisms of Wilful Blindness at play within
Youtube management.
*"A colleague was told by an executive that it's better not to look rather
than fix issues on youtube because you might be legally required to fix
issues if you find them"*

This made me make a conceptual leap and compare Social Media networks to
Gas Utilities.

Inflammatory content on social media, when viewed through the lens of a gas
utility is well, inflammable! Gas that leaks risks blowing up property and
people the same way inflammatory content that spreads risks blowing up
property and people. (Rohingya massacre, Capitol Riots etc.)

It's a cheeky analogy but useful in revealing approaches to moderate
noxious content on networked social media. The current narrative is mired
in free speech and bias and I find a non-anthropocentric perspective
(inflammatory content as gas) allows me to systematize the problem to a
some extent. I tread cautiously here as I am well aware of the pitfalls in
"systematizing" problems in human systems.

There's an important difference between Networked Social Media and
Networked Gas.
A leaky Gas Network affects the profit margin (lost gas) whereas
A leaky social media network (reminder: A leak = spread of inflammatory
content) is great for business!
This was validated in the MIT reporting and a useful inversion.

Networks that "leak" ought to imply poorer service. The current design of
social media networks violates this basic principle. So can we envision a
social media network where leaks lead to poorer service? Here's an idea:

Consider me or someone in my immediate network choosing to engage with
inflammatory content. THAT's a LEAK! and I should get poorer quality
service for it. What does poorer quality service mean though? I think it
should be an engineered delay on the feed. The "feeds" of people who share
inflammatory content ought to be penalized so that they experienced a
poorer service.

Wait there's more! While Gas Utilities are heavily regulated entities
required to perform frequent leak surveys, a good chunk of Gas Network
Maintenance is actually done by the public and involves reporting leaks to
the utility. I wrote about this some time ago, some cool History here
<https://urbint.com/blog/smells-and-the-city-the-past-present-and-future-of-gas-utility-emergency-response>

So there is an element of participatory design here where networks of
people are incentivized to report leaks in their network in order to get a
good quality service.

I believe it was Stewart Brand who said that "Information wants to be
Free".

Yes, but Engagement based on Viral and Inflammatory Content on Networked
Social media is a Highly Refined Product similar to pipelines of Flammable
Gas/Jet fuel that's not only heavily regulated by the government, they are
moderated by the public at large.

Love to know if there is any similar thinking out there.

Further reading on how Wilful Blindness affects maintenance
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KIwcUftbbPFosuCImIgTo9Vi7efjHqwrzLPI-d32NlA/edit#heading=h.83egf4se7n4b>
-- 
Thank You,
Varun Adibhatla
ARGO
347-815-3383
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