Nik Fuchs

From a business perspective, the question is less of whether they “ought to” than whether they “can afford not to”. As social media exists in a social and political context, if enough users call for such an action, and if governments put pressure on a company to do so, the company faces greater lost in not responding than they do by standing idle.

The article mentioned something crucial though: the anti-vaccine empire is much larger outside social media. Stamping out content on Social may not do much. While I do believe it can protect a lot of currently ambivalent people (on the matter of vaccine ) from getting lured by misinformation, I sometimes think that social media is a good tool to understand how these movement forms and develops, and it allows people to deconstruct bad arguments where they happen. With our lack of data, it is difficult to know which path to take.

Walter Hodge

Nik interesting post, I agree with Linh, for any profit driven organization whether the choice is made sincerely or through outside pressure they’re taking a stance on the subject in debate. I’m naïve enough to think that the three companies mentioned do their very best to minimize disinformation. Although I’m a proponent of vaccines, it’s not hard to imagine how some conspiracy theories are believed. The article on “8 Common Arguments Against Vaccines” https://medium.com/the-method/8-common-arguments-against-vaccines-5d45ad9c1e29 helps and provides some data on a few crucial concerns. However, I like to look at it from an anti-vaxxers perspective as well, big pharma, in addition to our medical system is out of control with cost rising compared to other countries. The more dependent we are on vaccines the easier it’ll be for them to increase cost and develop new variants. Basically, “treating diseases is far more profitable than curing them.”

I don’t think they have an ethical obligation to minimize the disinformation for users. I believe that it is a smart business decision though. At a low cast these platforms can spread a lot of information to their users. The articles they post and share is key because they want to make sure that every party, pro-vax and non-vax will not be offended and ultimately take users off their site. To do this they will need to review scholarly articles to ensure that they have enough data and evidence to back claims up.

Splendid article Nik, very interesting stuff. I’m pleased to see that you’ve changed your stance on the anti-vax movement after seeing the damage it has caused at Temple University. While I believe working to curb the spread of dangerous conspiracy theories is a good thing, I don’t believe companies have any ethical obligation to do so. At a certain point, personal responsibility needs to take over and people need to be able to think critically enough to understand what is and isn’t true. With that being said, I personally support tech companies for attempting to limit the spread of disinformation, because while many of these conspiracy theorists get their information from alternative sources, reducing the audience that is exposed to those theories can only be a good thing. As for the business side of things, I see it as a good move from a image standpoint. If I was running an online platform, I certainly wouldn’t want my platform to be known as the place for conspiracy theorists to go.

This is an interesting take on a dilemma that social platforms have to deal with. I think it’s not an easy decision as giant platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, etc. are intertwined deeply in our society and their userbase is the mainstream population so it will be damaging for their brands to receive the backlash from not removing anti-vaccine content. However, freedom of speech should be allowed. I think at the end of the day, these companies will do what’s best for their business and their brand.

Hello Nikolaus, great post. Really innovative stuff. Wow. Good stuff. Wow. Some of the things hospitals may need to consider is exactly how accurate the voice recognition software on these smart devices are. If a patient is suffering from a condition that would lower and/or alter their voice, the hospital would not want to tell them to go to Alexa for their needs, only to find that it’s not working. However, assuming they perform strong error checking, I believe it would be a fantastic investment for health care providers to make. Another technology certain hospitals may want to implement is the Oculus Rift, or other VR devices, as they have been shown to be beneficial for rehabilitative purposes. Wow.

I can see a lot of value with hospitals being able to implement Alexa. If Alexa can be implemented with more hospitals, I can imagine this saving a lot of time for nurses and doctors. My only concern would be that Alexa is constantly listening and collecting data. With technology constantly growing this can open Alexa with many vulnerabilities in the future. I can imagine hackers being able to grab voice audio of PHI data, which will be a big vulnerability.

This is a great application of voice-enabled technology! However, I also agree with Davis that hospital IT department has a lot to think about the cyber risks that this implementation poses: a lack of encryption, lacking evidence capture and forensic logging capabilities, etc. As the advent of smart devices in the medical field is inevitable, hospitals can strengthen their security by requiring authentication, strong encryption, etc.