The Chivalric Ideal: Social Media Companies as Jousters or Is It Jesters?
April 12, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
As a dinobaby, my grade school education included some biased, incorrect, yet colorful information about the chivalric idea. The basic idea was that knights were governed by the chivalric social codes. And what are these, pray tell, squire? As I recall Miss Soapes, my seventh grade teacher, the guts included honor, honesty, valor, and loyalty. Scraping away the glittering generalities from the disease-riddled, classist, and violent Middle Ages – the knights followed the precepts of the much-beloved Church, opened doors for ladies, and embodied the characters of Sir Gawain, Lancelot, King Arthur, and a heaping dose of Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great (who by the way figured out pretty quickly that what is today Afghanistan would be tough to conquer), and baloney gathered by Ramon Llull were the way to succeed.
Flash forward to 2023, and it appears that the chivalric ideals are back in vogue. “Google, Meta, Other Social Media Platforms Propose Alliance to Combat Misinformation” explains that social media companies have written a five page “proposal.” The recipient is the Indian Ministry of Electronics and IT. (India is a juicy market for social media outfits not owned by Chinese interests… in theory.)
The article explains that a proposed alliance of outfits like Meta and Google:
will act as a “certification body” that will verify who a “trusted” fact-checker is.
Obviously these social media companies will embrace the chivalric ideals to slay the evils of weaponized, inaccurate, false, and impure information. These companies mount their bejeweled hobby horses and gallop across the digital landscape. The actions evidence honor, loyalty, justice, generosity, prowess, and good manners. Thrilling. Cinematic in scope.
The article says:
Social media platforms already rely on a number of fact checkers. For instance, Meta works with fact-checkers certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), which was established in 2015 at the US-based Poynter Institute. Members of IFCN review and rate the accuracy of stories through original reporting, which may include interviewing primary sources, consulting public data and conducting analyses of media, including photos and video. Even though a number of Indian outlets are part of the IFCN network, the government, it is learnt, does not want a network based elsewhere in the world to act on content emanating in the country. It instead wants to build a homegrown network of fact-checkers.
Will these white knights defeat the blackguards who would distort information? But what if the companies slaying the inaccurate factoids are implementing a hidden agenda? What if the companies are themselves manipulating information to gain an unfair advantage over any entity not part of the alliance?
Impossible. These are outfits which uphold the chivalric ideals. Truth, honor, etc., etc.
The historical reality is that chivalry was cooked up by nervous “rulers” in order to control the knights. Remember the phrase “knight errant”?
My hunch is that the alliance may manifest some of the less desirable characteristics of the knights of old; namely, weapons, big horses, and a desire to do what was necessary to win.
Knights, mount your steeds. To battle in a far off land redolent with exotic spices and revenue opportunities. Toot toot.
Stephen E Arnold, April 2023
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