What is the Fairness Doctrine?
Promoting Lawmakers to take a huge step to stop fake news by reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, a federal regulation that prevailed for most of the 20th century.
The Fairness Doctrine arose from a unique democratic crisis: the sudden appearance of mass media in the form of radio. The framers of the Constitution simply never envisioned that a free press would someday include a technology that could reach an audience of millions instantly.
Such concerns led Congress to pass a series of measures that culminated in the Fairness Doctrine of 1949, which called for fact-based programming that took on controversial topics and afforded “reasonable opportunity for opposing viewpoints.” The basic idea was pretty intuitive: the public airwaves should be used to serve the public good.
Opponents immediately painted the Fairness Doctrine as an assault on the First Amendment for allowing the government to exert editorial control. In practice, the Doctrine never required that programs be ideologically balanced, or offer equal time for opposing views. It simply forbid stations from airing a single perspective exclusively. Whether the subject was a national policy debate or a local referendum question, broadcasters had a duty to present viewpoints with which their listeners disagreed. This is why, over the years, groups as diverse as the ACLU and the National Rifle Association endorsed the Fairness Doctrine.
To put this in modern terms, it sought to ensure that TV and radio stations didn’t become for-profit echo chambers.
When the Fairness Doctrine was repealed, under Ronald Reagan, the result was the meteoric rise of highly partisan radio shows (most of them conservative) along with Fox News.
But the Fairness Doctrine was never partisan. It sought to punish any and all broadcasters who spewed partisan propaganda.
Reinstating some form of the Fairness Doctrine today would create a media environment where broadcasters — of any ideological bent — are punished for spreading disinformation and baseless conspiracy theories.
This goal feels more urgent today than ever before in our national history, given the raft of politicians and pundits who have sought to malign our free press, and to diminish its worth as a pillar of democracy.
What is a dark pattern?
A dark pattern is a user interface carefully crafted to trick users into doing things they might not otherwise do, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills. Normally when you think of “bad design,” you think of the creator as being sloppy or lazy — but without ill intent. Dark patterns, on the other hand, are not mistakes. They’re carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind.
The thing about dark patterns is that you design them from the exact same rulebooks that we use to enhance usability.
Nielsen’s 10 heuristics, probably one of the most well-known set of usability guidelines, date back to the early 1990s. If we take three of them and invert them, we can describe Apple’s UI strategy in the above example.
Visibility of system status. Instead of showing key status information, hide it. Do this with unclear labels, obtuse navigation, and untimely messages.
Match between system and real world. Instead of “speaking the user’s language,” the system should use “weasel wording” so that it appears to say one thing while it really says another.
User control and freedom. Take advantage of your users’ natural capacity to make mistakes to have them accidentally complete actions that are beneficial to your objective.
We want to work with developers to ban Dark Patterns in software development. How you may ask?
Trick questions
Marketing emails use this tactic all the time. You’ve probably seen this before. After you register to access something on the web, you’re asked if you want to be placed on a mailing list. This particular approach is fairly standard but isn’t hugely effective because users have to take an explicit action to opt in. Chances are they’ll be in a hurry and a proportion of users won’t even notice this text. Some websites use mandatory radio buttons with neither option (yes or no) preselected. This way the user can’t get on to the next page without making an explicit choice. This in itself is still above-board. But if we think back to our anti-usability principles, we can see how not calling attention to this choice can be used to trick us into choosing something we don’t actually want.
For instance, post-office.co.uk is designed to not draw any attention to the option, hoping that that you opt in by mistake. Here, a tick means no. It’s kind of clever because culturally, a tick is an affirmative action.
And they’ll definitely get opt-ins from those people who don’t pause to read this stuff. On the one hand this works — they will boost the mailing list opt-in rate — but a certain number of people will realize that the website is pulling a trick and they will swear angrily under their breaths. It’s probably not going to make them drop out just yet, but it is going to tarnish the brand’s reputation, at least a little bit.
Reform Copyright Law?
The Maker Party wants to make a few small changes to U.S. copyright law that could go a long way towards fixing these problems.
First, Congress could remove the threat of statutory damages for people who believe, and have reasonable grounds for believing, that their use of copyrighted works is legal. This would allow artists and journalists who rely on fair use, and digital entrepreneurs who take care not to encourage infringement by their users, to create and do business while keeping their risk manageable.
Second, Congress could require that copyright holders who bring lawsuits must present evidence of harm whenever possible. In most cases, subpoenas and other “discovery” tools of modern litigation give copyright holders the ability to gather evidence of their actual harm. In the rare cases where it’s actually very difficult or impossible to prove harm, the courts could waive this requirement.
Third, Congress could reduce the maximum and minimum amounts for statutory damages in cases that involve personal, noncommercial uses of copyrighted works. A lower limit for damages in these cases could deter infringement while removing the profit motive for abusive copyright trolling.
Finally, Congress can also amend the Copyright Act to add some guidelines for judges and juries in awarding statutory damages. These guidelines would reduce uncertainty and keep penalties more predictable. For example, Israel’s copyright act tells judges to look at the duration of the infringement, the severity of the infringement, the actual harm, and the infringer’s good faith, among other factors.
The internet’s potential for innovation and collaboration is exceptional. But restrictive copyright laws can undermine these traits. By educating and inspiring more people to take action together, we can make a real difference.
How do you get involved? Learn how to organize and run you own Maker Party event here: https://learning.mozilla.org/events/
Looking for an event or want to register your own: