Thread by @PaulHRosenberg

Whatever you think of #harpersletter & #CancelCulture debates, they're about communicative *CONTENT*. But much that ails us comes from *CONTEXT*, which behavioral science can help improve, @philipplenz6 explains, discussing new paper at @Salon: 1/10
salon.com/2020/07/18/rem…

The paper, "How behavioural sciences can promote truth, autonomy and democratic discourse online" is by @philipplenz6, @STworg, @CassSunstein & Ralph Hertwig. As the abstract explains the problem: 2/10
nature.com/articles/s4156…

As @philipplenz6 told me, "We need to be careful we don't get into a whack-a-mole game," but instead try "to find solutions that come from the bottom up, to think about how to change the system itself." Key problems are asymmetry of knowledge & intransparency: 3/10

In response, the paper focuses on two types of strategies—nudges & boosts—to meet challenges identified in 3 online contexts—online articles, algorithmic curation & social media—summed up in this table: 3/10

Nudges & boosts "both interact with the decision process." Nudges emphasize parts of the choice architecture "to steer behavior or influence behavior" while boosting builds user's capacities: 4/10

As a sub-category, boosts include using forms of self-nudging, like setting an alarm-clock: 5/10

The paper sets aside endogeneous, content-based cues, in favor of exogenous, context-based ones, to avoid censorship disputes & focus on empowering users, as @philipplenz6 explains: 6/10

With online articles, the challenge is the over-abundance of them, and the difficulty of judging their trustworthiness. @philipplenz6 describes a number of potential external cues could be made available: 7/10

Then @philipplenz6 describes how nudges could be used to improve transparency: 8/10

And @philipplenz6 describes how boosts could be used as well: 9/10

.@philipplenz6 then does the same for algorithmic curation & social media. These tools need to be tested. Some could be gamed, so must be viewed as provisional solutions—as with fighting an evolving infectious disease. Read the whole interview here: 10/10
salon.com/2020/07/18/rem…