The Atlantic Urges Humankind to Fix the Social Web (theatlantic.com) 121
Heading into the new year, the Atlantic's executive editor penned a scathing warning that vast social networks like Facebook "can harm society just by existing..."
Even as Facebook has insisted that it is a value-neutral vessel for the material its users choose to publish, moderation is a lever the company has tried to pull again and again. But there aren't enough moderators speaking enough languages, working enough hours, to stop the biblical flood of shit that Facebook unleashes on the world, because 10 times out of 10, the algorithm is faster and more powerful than a person. At megascale, this algorithmically warped personalized informational environment is extraordinarily difficult to moderate in a meaningful way, and extraordinarily dangerous as a result...
We're still in the infancy of this century's triple digital revolution of the internet, smartphones, and the social web, and we find ourselves in a dangerous and unstable informational environment, powerless to resist forces of manipulation and exploitation that we know are exerted on us but remain mostly invisible. The Doomsday Machine offers a lesson: We should not accept this current arrangement. No single machine should be able to control so many people...
Anyone who is serious about mitigating the damage done to humankind by the social web should, of course, consider quitting Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and any other algorithmically distorted informational environments that manipulate people. But we need to adopt a broader view of what it will take to fix the brokenness of the social web. That will require challenging the logic of today's platforms — and first and foremost challenging the very concept of megascale as a way that humans gather. If megascale is what gives Facebook its power, and what makes it dangerous, collective action against the web as it is today is necessary for change. The web's existing logic tells us that social platforms are free in exchange for a feast of user data; that major networks are necessarily global and centralized; that moderators make the rules. None of that need be the case. We need people who dismantle these notions by building alternatives. And we need enough people to care about these other alternatives to break the spell of venture capital and mass attention that fuels megascale and creates fatalism about the web as it is now.
I still believe the internet is good for humanity, but that's despite the social web, not because of it. We must also find ways to repair the aspects of our society and culture that the social web has badly damaged. This will require intellectual independence, respectful debate, and the same rebellious streak that helped establish Enlightenment values centuries ago.
We may not be able to predict the future, but we do know how it is made: through flashes of rare and genuine invention, sustained by people's time and attention. Right now, too many people are allowing algorithms and tech giants to manipulate them, and reality is slipping from our grasp as a result. This century's Doomsday Machine is here, and humming along.
It does not have to be this way.
We're still in the infancy of this century's triple digital revolution of the internet, smartphones, and the social web, and we find ourselves in a dangerous and unstable informational environment, powerless to resist forces of manipulation and exploitation that we know are exerted on us but remain mostly invisible. The Doomsday Machine offers a lesson: We should not accept this current arrangement. No single machine should be able to control so many people...
Anyone who is serious about mitigating the damage done to humankind by the social web should, of course, consider quitting Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and any other algorithmically distorted informational environments that manipulate people. But we need to adopt a broader view of what it will take to fix the brokenness of the social web. That will require challenging the logic of today's platforms — and first and foremost challenging the very concept of megascale as a way that humans gather. If megascale is what gives Facebook its power, and what makes it dangerous, collective action against the web as it is today is necessary for change. The web's existing logic tells us that social platforms are free in exchange for a feast of user data; that major networks are necessarily global and centralized; that moderators make the rules. None of that need be the case. We need people who dismantle these notions by building alternatives. And we need enough people to care about these other alternatives to break the spell of venture capital and mass attention that fuels megascale and creates fatalism about the web as it is now.
I still believe the internet is good for humanity, but that's despite the social web, not because of it. We must also find ways to repair the aspects of our society and culture that the social web has badly damaged. This will require intellectual independence, respectful debate, and the same rebellious streak that helped establish Enlightenment values centuries ago.
We may not be able to predict the future, but we do know how it is made: through flashes of rare and genuine invention, sustained by people's time and attention. Right now, too many people are allowing algorithms and tech giants to manipulate them, and reality is slipping from our grasp as a result. This century's Doomsday Machine is here, and humming along.
It does not have to be this way.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Damage already done (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently lost my FB acct to the facebook (possibly over a meme mocking a particular right wing commentator for insisting that "leftists hate firemen", which is gibberish. I dont actually know, they never tell you the reason for a permaban) and honestly after an afternoon of feeling pissed off snd shooting lightning bolts out my brain, I later realised what a fuckiing relief it was to be rid of that stupid website. Less doomscrolling, less raging arguments with demented far right relatives, less "Oh look these dickheads refuse to wear mask and are now encouraging vaccine refusal" and generally less despair at the world.
Kill the crackpipe, deletee facebook.
Videodrome and meth (Score:2)
Imagine there was a technology or substance that was instantly addictive on first exposure. That would be bad right? It would not be like saying well people are adults and we should not protect them from themselves.
Is Facebook that? Well not quite but you can be sure they are AB testing yo be more addictive everyday. Right now they definitely are more addictive than nicotine. As they turn oculus into a brain implant Soon it will reach hypnotoad proportions and well all be in the videodrome.
Re:Videodrome and meth (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not Facebook that is the problem per se. It is YOUR IDENTITY, whom ever you are. With real name social media, you are putting your identity on line, your real identity, which you then must protect, defend, promote, gain greater identity by (do you get the hook yet). The danger you are not putting it out to one person but every person connected and whose attention, all those nasty individuals fishing for victims, they have you identity, they know you, they can more effectively target and manipulate you and the identity fight goes on until you realise what a bad and dangerous idea it is and kill the account and go back to avatar based social media. A pretend identity, you have fun with, share ideas with other pretend identities, not that some get carried away with those pretend identities, real drama queens but most simply delete, create a new one and move on, everything is a storm in a tea cup, meh.
Make no mistake real identity social media is very dangerous and they should crack down on it by making those who host liable for the content, either a really, really, clean and well behaved real identity social media (the social media site legally liable for all content) or avatar based wild west social media (it worked well for decades, occasionality a tiny kerfuffle but not much at all really) but not wild wast real identity social media (which is a chaotic mess each and every single day).
Doesn't restrain Trump (Score:2)
Donald trump doesn't hide his identity but he propagates a toxic stew. same with OANN, newsmax and FOx. they identify themselves but are harmful
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We are at a point where social media moderators (and their algorithmic sidekicks) are approaching at least doing a half-assed job of deleting outright hate posts on their services, but doing anything about the flood of outright bullshit in the discussion space short of actual hate is bailing out the Titanic with a teaspoon.
As an example, just look at any discussion of the new Covid-19 vaccines.
Re: (Score:2)
Less doomscrolling, less raging arguments with demented far right relatives, less "Oh look these dickheads refuse to wear mask and are now encouraging vaccine refusal" and generally less despair at the world.
Shortly after the recent election I decided to cut Facebook and Twitter out of my life and what you just described sums up what I have come to realize.
The problem with social media is NOT echo chambers, misinformation and radicalization.
It's the News Feed.
Don't get me wrong, I definitely think that everyone would be better served if they try to expose themselves to ideas they disagree with from time to time in order to gain better understanding. The problem is that you need to do that in a rational state o
Re: (Score:2)
When everyone is subjected to everything 24/7, without the ability to filter categories of content that they're not in the mood for, you have a recipe for emotional exhaustion which can only lead to anger, hate and division.
The secret is a short Friends list and the determination to scroll past the obvious clickbait and conspiracy nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
When everyone is subjected to everything 24/7, without the ability to filter categories of content that they're not in the mood for, you have a recipe for emotional exhaustion which can only lead to anger, hate and division.
The secret is a short Friends list and the determination to scroll past the obvious clickbait and conspiracy nonsense.
I eventually unfollowed most of the people I had on my friends list, and that included most of my relatives.
The secret is to just uninstall the app and never log into the web site.
Re:Damage already done [so fix it again] (Score:2)
Rather thoughtful comment and I like your focus (and wish I had a mod point to give you), but how would you propose to fix the problem?
I have two solution approaches to suggest. The first is more related to the comment from the guy [sg_oneill] who did something that got his Facebook identity nuked. I'm really curious what he did, but I think it is possible to solve one's personal addiction short of that. I actually think I am more easily addicted than average, but I have learned to select addictions for lim
Re: (Score:2)
The frusturating thing for me is I think I'm one of those people that bangs on about politics when half my freinds just want the cat memes. And like , cool, somewhere to vent, but sometimes it keeps me up at night thinking that maybe its *me* whos the crazy political hack, and not just my lunatic QAnon spouting cousin of mine who thinks tom hanks is a hologram.
I mean fuck, I was always lots of fun at parties. Where did this angry despair come from?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know, I use Facebook as a phone book and maybe contact a friend I haven't seen in a while every so often, I don't read the news feed, I don't need to know about the cute animal picture, what someone had for breakfast, or some random ad (I am not 100% sure if that's what is there since I don't read it). And I wouldn't check it more than once a month.
I just think people are using Facebook in the wrong way, why blame the hammer if you choose to hit yourself on the head with it. The internet has always
Re: (Score:2)
Vaccine refusal?
Before the election: Trump is pushing unsafe unproven vaccines too fast! Do not trust the vaccines!
After: Same thing, but swap Trump for New World Order.
It just depends which side wants to turn the idea to its advantage, and when. The goal is power.
This accurately sums up the past 4 years. See also whether the election was hacked, with side swapping inflection points of 2016 election day and 2020 election day.
Re:Damage already done (Score:4, Funny)
...the scarier part is the re-wiring of human being's brains, daily, social and fidgety gotta-be-entertained-every-1-second social habits...
tl;dr
Re: (Score:2)
It wasn't a particularly easy comment to read, but if you truly think it was TL;DR, then perhaps you should consider an adult literacy course to help you learn to read better.
Or perhaps having nothing to say, you could just say nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
*whoosh*
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, as a joke it did go over my head. It hadn't been modded Funny when I saw it so I couldn't RTFM for insight.
Still not funny except for extremely bitter flavors of funny. And I tend to regard myself as rather inclined to cynicism, too.
Re:Damage already done [so let's fix it] (Score:2)
Unusually good FP and unusually good story. I try to catch The Atlantic stories but hadn't yet seen that one. However...
The book Zucked by Roger McNamee said a lot of the same things a couple of years ago.
And solutions are not mentioned here or in The Atlantic piece. It's still a good piece but I'd like to see solution approaches. At least as thought experiments that could be starting points. So here's mine: Mostly old ideas, but recently modified by McNamee's book (and others have certainly affected it ov
Public masturbation of 1673220 (Score:2)
Z^-1
Re: (Score:2)
I think there are a huge number of people who already rarely use social media. I'd say maybe 5% of the Facebook "friends" I have actually seem to use Facebook for anything, and even then, it's almost exclusively for posting pictures of their children. I myself log in maybe once a month (to see pictures of relatives' children) and then log back out again.
Warning, or alarm? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I don't drive (Score:2)
Taking the bus , like not facebooking, gives you more time to develop your brain. I'm practicing Dieuretics. Let's get sushi and not pay.
Re:This is why I don't drive (Score:5, Funny)
Diuretics - wasn't that the cult bestseller by L. Ron Bidet?
Re: (Score:2)
Diuretics - wasn't that the cult bestseller by L. Ron Bidet?
Get your copy today.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Taking the bus , like not facebooking, gives you more time to develop your brain. I'm practicing Dieuretics. Let's get sushi and not pay.
The science of matter over mind.
Did you do a lot of acid back in the hippie days?
The Atlantic (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to say that upping the noise is an unadorned good, but having more voices around to call bullshit on self-important elitists is not an unadorned evil either.
I guess the responsibility for critical thinking in evaluating published information devolves back to the citizen, he? Whoodathunkit?
Re:The Atlantic (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the mass media has never wanted critical thinking. They have loved and promoted the idea that people should blindly believe everything they read. What they don't like, is that now people are more likely to read information that big media does not control.
The years of teaching people not to engage in critical thinking has also left people totally unprepared, and made them extremely susceptible to suggestion.
The media loves having a herd of gullible sheep, but hates the idea of another wolf coming and stealing their sheep.
Re: (Score:3)
The media loves having a herd of gullible sheep, but hates the idea of another wolf coming and stealing their sheep.
Pure applesauce.
The media consists of companies. Companies want money. So, the media wants people to consume, so the media makes money. That's it.
Some media companies value accurate information and in-depth analysis, but since that costs more and gets less eyeballs, those companies are being selected against.
The problem is not the media companies. The problem is us. We read an in-depth analysis of the election once, when we have time and inclination on a slow Sunday afternoon. But we click on click-ba
Re: The Atlantic (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure what your point is here, is The Atlantic wrong somehow? And when did they have more power over the public conversation, in November 1857? Or the lost decade 2000-2009 which predated most social media and they couldn't turn a profit?
And this certainly isn't about "having more voices around to call bullshit on self-important elitists" when the various platforms let you choose what news you read. Calling bullshit isn't effective when you're preaching to a self-selected audience that already agre
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you think any of that is worse than the yellow journalism era?
Re: (Score:2)
The Atlantic is also routinely wildly irresponsible. That they are correct in this instance doesn't change that, and it doesn't mean that this article isn't published purely out of their own narrow self-interest.
Re: (Score:2)
I often think it boils down to harm reduction. The perfect ideal -- an elite, gatekeeping media which filters out bunk conspiracy theories, deliberate manipulation, and delivers a comprehensive and balanced reporting doesn't exist. The social media version offering variety, competing views and reporting on topics polite journalists ignore doesn't exist either, it's full of low-effort charlatans, outright lies, conspiracy theories and echo-chamber creation.
IMHO, the harm reduction part seems less disruptiv
Re: (Score:2)
Nice strawman.
The Atlantic is not complaining about Tim Pool, Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, Cenk Uyghur or AOC.
It is complaining about QAnon and other out of control conspiracy theories with no locus.
If quality standards of talk radio was bad, this is times 100.
I am with The Atlantic on this.
Re: The Atlantic (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. Who had even heard of Q prior to it being called out as something supported by every Republican, instead of the miniscule fringe group that they were. And, in doing so, these idiots caused them to grow.
Re: (Score:2)
This is exactly what I came here to say. You said it, now I don't have to.
In the words of deep throat (Score:4, Insightful)
Or to paraphrase another source: "he who pays for a thing, controls a thing:". As long as advertisers are paying for Facebook to operate, they are in control of how Facebook operates. And they don't have humanity's best interests in mind. It's as simple as that.
Facebook literally CANNOT be fixed while it's money comes from advertisers. If only we had some model for society to pony up a small amount of money to create a high-quality, fact-driven, unbiased, thoughtful news source with an official, explicit mandate to provide reliable information to the population. Nah no way anything like that *could *cough *cough NPR *cough *cough exist.
Re: (Score:2)
A centralised system will always be biased.
What's needed is a totally decentralised system, like the web was always designed to be.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm extremely leery about centralization myself, but it's time to admit that the WWW isn't perfect at everything. A policy of "anyone can write anything they want and call it news" simply hands contro
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook literally CANNOT be fixed while it's money comes from advertisers.
Close but no cigar.
The social web can't be fixed if people can profit from it, period. Because the driving focus will always be maximizing that profit, and nothing else.
You can start with all the good intentions in the world, with the most altruistic goals, but over time you either keep making changes to squeeze every drop of milk out of that cash cow or you wither and die.
So the pressure isn't to serve the end user, it's to keep them clicking, keep their eyeballs on the pages, keep them generating content.
Re: (Score:2)
Like China has?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
OK I stopped using twitter and it is still there. I stopped using Facebook and it is still there.
I could sign up for TikTok and Parler and stop using them, if you think it might help. I didn't realize I was responsible for all of this, to be honest, sorry everyone.
Waaaait a second, maybe that's not actually the solution.
Re: (Score:2)
there is no easy fix for the social web (Score:2)
It's a collective problem. You deciding not to use it won't solve the problem. Unless each person who quite can get ten other people to quit with them.
Wrong tree (Score:5, Insightful)
The doomsday machine isn't Facebook (yet) because people (still) have a choice not to engage.
The doomsday machine is Google, because people can't live without the internet anymore, and anything you do on the internet is tied to Google one way or another. Ergo, Google is unavoidable. Even if you want nothing to do with Google, you can't escape it.
Google is the real threat. Close seonds on the list include Akamai, CloudFlare, Amazon and Microsoft, for the same reason. FB, being entirely optional, is way down.
Re: (Score:1)
Very funny, but I got news for ya. Google is not the internet. Your service provider is. Google is only one channel, and you have to tune in. They cannot interfere with the other channels.
Re: (Score:2)
You really believe that? I want some of what you're smoking.
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, of course I do. Maybe you need what I'm smoking. Google has nothing that wasn't given to them, and can be just as easily taken away.
Re: (Score:2)
If google stopped working tomorrow, sites using google to host ajax and whatnot would stop working, but they would be quickly replaced. The people who build these sites would know at a minimum that other search engines exist and they can get a "how to fix wordpress" result in no time. And that isn't even the topic here, it's "No single machine should be able to control so many people." Not "If you turn off one company things break briefly".
Facebook is the doomsday machine *because* you have a choice to e
Re: (Score:3)
If Google disappeared tomorrow, three quarters of the websites you bookmarked would stop working instantly.
That's what's dangerous with Google: the visible part (search, map, doc...) are easy to avoid. The invisible part (all the underlying services all websites rely upon) is not. Very, very few websites implement and host all the functionalities they provide in-house.
Re: (Score:3)
My bank's website links to ajax.google.com. Explain to me how I can do online banking if I block that without redirecting the traffic to a local web server that serves it without hitting Google's server?
What about all the sites that won't let you in without completing a fucking captcha?
You *think* you dropped all traffic to Google. You most certainly didn't. Or you have a very limited set of sites you visit, and/or you spent an inordinate amount of time setting things up locally and writing GM scripts.
Re: (Score:2)
I use Noscript which is even less extreme than that, and it breaks more and more sites each year. It starts to look like you're only able to access a subset of the internet.
YouTube - assuming you know how to pick the right channels and not random bullshit - has become an invaluable resource for educational materials, documentaries, international news, and of course entertainment. It enriches my life infinitely more than Facebook, which I've done fine without for 10 years.
Sure, I could find some of that cont
Unfixable. By definition. (Score:3, Insightful)
Humans cannot build empathy for large masses of random people only known as names and pictures. They don't feel like real people, and Dunbar's number meakes them not emotionally distinguishable anyway.
This why state can leaders treat their citizens that way, why CEO do it to employees, and why everyone will always be an asshole on the Internet.
If you want to change that, you have to literally change the human neural setup, ... or completely change the way the Internet works, so that one cannot communicate with more than 100-150 people in the span of e.g. a decade, all communication happens in 3D VR with audio, video, touch and smell, ... and one definitely can, online, punch somebody (from those 150) in his face or stare him down on the street.
E.g. Twitter could, and I am completely serious but knowingly way out there, only allow 140 friends/followers, and the inability to remove a friend before a grace time proportional to the friendship time that has passed.
And require people to wear shock VR glasses and shock VR gloves/socks at all times, that not only enable the VR experience described, bur that people you are friends with (and only them) can use. (So if they use yours, they know you will likely use theirs. And yes, they can use it during the grace time, as can you.) (Of course as secure and private as Signal, with class 3 card reader equivalent hardware security, and not bullshit like a hackable BT stack.)
Not very realistic, even assuming no possibility of abuse, you say?
Well, then keep your online assholes, or do like I do, and stop using (anti-)social media. Go outside some more. Meet real people. Also limited in number, like above. Also able to punch your face. Also able to feel empathy and treat you right, or give you a hug, a meal, a story, and a fuck, ... and proper friendship.
Another Come Lately (Score:4, Funny)
"This ain't no foolin' around"
-Socrates
aww (Score:1)
First Step: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Gotta fix the universe
Re: (Score:2)
Typical clickbait headline, expecting 'humankind' to fix things.
Which other species were they figuring? Dolphins?
Re: (Score:2)
You're not wrong.
There are some loons in my area who do drive-by littering of the Epoch Times in our driveways occasionally. The time, energy, and money that goes into making a crackpot tabloid show up in my driveway in a plastic bag is just crazy. It's a whole printing and distribution network of crazy, and the end result is I curse their mom and toss it directly in the recycle bin.
We've got that level of crazy dysfunction in the real world, despite the time, money, and effort it takes to propagate it. The
Physician, Heal thy self (Score:3, Informative)
The Atlantic is every bit the same politically, and in its biased actions, with a similar echo chamber effect. The Atlantic is admittedly not "social media" so its influence is not at hyper velocity, but that does not mean i9t's not involved in all the same bad side effects. So, I say to the editors of the Atlantic: Stop all the bad actions YOU undertake; they're every bit as bad even if they spread more slowly and a shorter distance.
The core problem here is NOT the size of Facebook (though size is a problem), not the interactivity (though this too has an effect) - it's the partisan echo chamber where people of like minds go to only hear opinions of people of like minds, written and edited/moderated/curated by people of like minds who explain to each other that anybody of a different mindset is WRONG and EVIL and MUST BE STOPPED/JAILED/REEDUCATED etc. The inter4net makes this all faster and more efficient than ever before, but the effect is not just among Twitter and Facebook; it's every internet entity which purports to be news and opinion but is actually only another partisan outlet pushing a particular partisan perspective. It mattes little that Facebook's content moderators lack ANY members representing the views of half the population - the Atlantic likely has no writers/editors from that same half of the population. When writers/editors/moderators are all in a bubble of groupthink, they'll obviously act to enforce the groupthink - it's natural and not a conspiracy: we each think we're "right" or we would obviously change our beliefs (which is why any such group MUST include contrary thinkers). The incessant partisan drive to push away and/or silence alternate opinions is toxic and dangerous to a free republic.
Re: Physician, Heal thy self (Score:4, Interesting)
I've read The Atlantic. The articles are well researched and have editorial oversight. The writers come up with some interesting angles. It's well worth your time.
Every periodical has its biases. Use critical thinking to separate the excellent insights from the dross.
Read a variety of smart publication from both the left and the right, and you'll be better for it.
What's the danger? (Score:2)
I get the moderation-difficulty, but the emphasized part escapes me. Why is such exposure dangerous at all, and especially — "extraordinarily" dangerous?
Why was it Ok for our ancestors to be exposed to lies — Ok to the point, we have Freedom of Speech (including, of course, untruthful speech) explicitly codified in the Constitu
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that big media controlled what people heard for many years, and fostered a culture of blindly accepting what you read. Now that big media no longer controls the narrative, many people are no longer capable of critical thinking and filtering out the noise. They still blindly believe whatever they read.
Re: (Score:2)
... that same media are struggling to regain the control. Fixed that for you.
Seems rather paternalistic. While the present company are all, of course, perfectly capable to discern the truth, it is those poor anonymous and numerous "many people", about whom we are concerned.
How are they all going to survive without the benevolent and omniscient government officials telling them
Re: (Score:2)
Why?
Re: (Score:3)
You do not see alternative ideas. Based on the content you are exposed to by algorithms you may incorrectly conclude that most people have similar opinions to yours. And that these opinions are likely the right ones. But you may be a very small minority.
That is not too bad. What is really bad is that the algorithms will prefer to expose you to the content which is most likely to be followed. This is typically the content which is controversial or polarizing or outright ridiculous. The reason why it is so is
Re: (Score:2)
People believing things based on unsubstantiated claims by others have a problem, yes. And even if the "biased algorithms" are responsible for causing — or, at least, exacerbating — this problem at all (a big stipulation), any efforts to fight them are/will be a "cure", that's more dangerous than the disease.
Notably, this observation [wikipedia.org] was made (by a rather infamous guy, strange you'd cite him favorably), when "computer" was st
Re: (Score:2)
I did not intend to cite him favourably. The word truth should have been in quotation marks.
And you are right the core problem is in the readers. But it is hard to discard all unsubstantiated claims because one does not have time to verify everything himself and when he tries to verify only with internet search then again he will be getting biased results. Proper verification takes effort and proper queries and many people will not be willing or able to provide it. Instead they will believe the seemingly pr
Re: (Score:2)
It is much easier to do it now, than it was, when the Bill of Rights was written... Though Google manipulates your results [wsj.com], it is still possible — indeed, easy — to research a topic within minutes, which would've taken days (at best) in 18th century. And yet, the founding fathers explicitly protected all speech — including biased and untruthful — because they believed in the citizenry's abilities to judge the information by themselv
Re: (Score:2)
You seem like quite a freedom fighter with all the citations and references to "big lie" and Jefferson and Pictet, .... Quite some knowledge there. But to me it feels like an appeal to emotions or authority. I prefer just statements what is right and why.
I do not advocate censorship. That would be bad since sometimes the minor opinions are right and there must be a way for them to grow major. I just answered your question what is wrong in the current situation. Since you asked and seemed like it is perfectl
Re: (Score:2)
Wait a minute, this was your reference!
Thank you, appreciate the compliment.
"Feels"... You're alluding to the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy [yourlogicalfallacyis.com], which has this text in its description:
Re: (Score:2)
Wait a minute, this was your reference!
Thank you for crediting me so much. I did not even know there is a wiki article about "big lie" nor who it is connected to. It is used as a proverb over here.
Anyway, I think we can agree with each other with the exception that I would not have any qualms limiting private companies with laws which prohibit them to profile customers and to censor. I do not think censorship by companies is any better than by a government. It is the same shit to me. Nor I think that companies or politicians or influencers shoul
Re: (Score:2)
That's kind of why we have always had wars.
So is this hierarchically manipulated groupthink particularly bad now because... it's on the internet?
We know what to do - educate ! (Score:2)
Do you remember 20 years back when porn was becoming easily available on the internet? Panic! Think about the children!
Somehow we got thru that. I can't remember the last outrage. It turns out that healthy children who live in a healthy environment don't really care much about porn.
It's likely that healthy, educated people will adapt to the remaining trash on the social sites. As they lose interest, the flamebait will subside. No further problem. Still, it would be nice if more parents, teachers and media w
Re: (Score:2)
Do you remember 20 years back when porn was becoming easily available on the internet? Panic!..Somehow we got thru that.
Nice analogy.
I can't remember the last outrage.
Violent video games was a scare topic for a while.
And we need enough people to care (Score:2)
There is the problem. People don't and they are unlikely to until the damage becomes far more personally visible. This drives a small minority to disconnect but has little to no effect on the overwhelming majority. And so the social media platforms walk this knife edge. If they lose people from the platform then they adjust and pull back on some of what's more obviously wrong, but they never truly reinvent themselves. The whole reason they are so powerful and ubiquitous is because they tap into these broken
Change is hard. I have faith. (Score:2)
No one alive has ever seen anything like this!
As Bon Iver would say, "I think I've seen this film before."
Every new generation defines what is about to happen in the future. Do I think Facebook is good? Hell no. Can our children figure out how to continue to make progress with what seems like total chaos? I have some faith.
At least in the last 100 years, every older generation has spoken about how the future generations are going to bring us to our knees. While this won't be great for everyone, and
The press is begging for its power back (Score:1)
Like turning the clock back is an option.
Stop blaming the algorithms and blame the people (Score:3)
Facebook's moderation system is not the cause of this problem. It's easy to blame Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg or an algorithm, but the issue is people. Social networks suck because the people on them suck. PizzaGate wasn't created by a Facebook algorithm. Nor were calls for Rohingya genocide. This is what people post, click on, and follow. People choose to amplify this.
This is not new. Sensationalism has always outsold serious journalism by an order of magnitude. This is not a technology problem. This is a people problem. Go walk to a busy street corner and look around. Ask passersby by serious questions and ask them about the latest celebrity gossip -- which are you going to find more interest in?
Lots of us thought the internet was gonna be great because every person big and small would have a voice, when in reality, the internet sucks because every person big and small has a voice. There's no controls any longer. So now we uncomfortably recognize that the number of people who bought "Weekly World News" because they really believed in Batboy and Bigfoot is a lot larger than we thought. Most of us just didn't see it.
This is why we need not fear The Borg. Most of them would just be arguing about which Borg is hotter, and the 1 Borg working on more efficient hyperspace travel would be drowned out.
Re: Stop blaming the algorithms and blame the peop (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why is there such a big difference between, say, LinkedIn and Facebook?
I suspect that it's because LinkedIn's primary purpose is to generate professional contacts. Nobody is going to hire a kook ranting garbage. In Facebook, in spite of it's best efforts, it is too easy to create pseudonymous accounts. Also, the kooks using their real names on FB are probably unemployable. So they rant away, not caring what happens to their reputation. Most sane people will write them off, but they can attract a following of like-minded crackpots. So it's all upside for them.
Social web? (Score:2)
In the 1930's, broadcast radio was the "social web". Everyone listened, and talked about it. See where that got us!
The social web is toxic to humanity and FaceBook, Twitter and ALL the "algorithm-curated" (i.e., non-moderated wastelands that are today's "social web") need to be expunged, purged, outlawed before they destroy what's left of civilized society.
I tried to include a quote "I couldn't have done it without radio" from a certain Teutionic propaganda minister but it was declined. By an algorithm.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Social web? (Score:1)
The Atlantic... (Score:2)
As in all mass media is interested only in their own narrative. Everything else must be cancelled.
Facebook has only recently realised that it wanted to have a narrative and to push it just as hard as the rest of the post-journalism media.
A few points (Score:3)
From someone who has researched the Social Web for over 10 years.
Firstly, Facebook is not the Social Web. It is an antisocial webSITE. A web is a linkage of many sites. None of the other names along with Facebook link with any of the others, including the ones gobbled up by larger companies.
Second, even "Social Apps" or "Social websites", when talking about the major centralized platforms, aren't what they claim to be in that regard either. Because their reason for existing isn't to help people connect socially (in general), their reason for existing is to connect people to BRANDS socially. They are advertising companies. The product they make are advertising products. The Social Website portion of it, is merely a honeypot. Cud for the chattle to chew while their data is harvested.
Now that we got that out of the way. The are alternatives. None of them are funded really.
And we need enough people to care about these other alternatives to break the spell of venture capital and mass attention that fuels megascale and creates fatalism about the web as it is now.
I'm not sure entirely what this means, but when they say "break the spell", it seems they mean get developers to stop building companies in a way that would be attractive to venture capitalists. Again, they are already doing this. The problem being, there are 3 ways to fund your company: 1) Banks, 2) Venture capitalist, and 3) The founder's own personal savings. The banks and venture capitalists all want one type of company, and non-evil ain't it. So all of the alternatives are using option 3. Most of the developers are impoverished, so that means $0. You want change? Fund the alternatives.
Finally I'd like to make one point about algorithmic feeds. There is absolutely nothing wrong with algorithmic feeds. When that algorithm is singular for all feeds, and that algorithm is to sell ads and "incite interactions", those things are problems. In fact, the simplest solution to the problems experienced from these evil machinations, is for everyone to be able to choose and customize their own algorithm. The solution IS NOT human moderators all around, though there is a place for that too (Web of Trust). Everyone should have the ability to say "I want more of this and less of that" to the computer, as well as overlay "I trust so-and-so to moderate posts about such-and-such topic". Each person should be able to digitize and encode their pre-existing real-world preferences in this manner. The tech has existed in academia for over 20 years. No, Google, Facebook, et al will never implement it. They are not tech companies. They are ad companies. Get that through your head. FUND THE ALTERNATIVES.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
From someone who has researched the Social Web for over 10 years.
This makes you some kind of expert? Many of us have been around the web since its inception.
Firstly, Facebook is not the Social Web. It is an antisocial webSITE.
Your opinion doesn't make it factual. FB is THE social web platform. You can't name another site, or even the summation of all other social sites that comes close.
Because their reason for existing isn't to help people connect socially (in general), their reason for existing is to connect people to BRANDS socially. They are advertising companies. The product they make are advertising products. The Social Website portion of it, is merely a honeypot. Cud for the chattle to chew while their data is harvested.
Sure, that's how they make their money. I've been on FB since my daughter was a teen (~15 years ago), and I wanted to keep up with what she was doing online. I've never clicked on an ad, and would be hard pressed to tell you what advertisers had even s
Re: (Score:2)
This makes you some kind of expert?
Yes. I've been given the title "invited expert" when participating in international standards committees, conferences, think tanks, and political inquiries. I am also hired as an expert consultant by businesses. So I guess *that* kind of expert. Specifically, my expertise is in Semantic Social Web, which is a much more involved concept. Kind of like math vs calculus I guess.
Your opinion doesn't make it factual. FB is THE social web platform.
This is funny because I wasn't stating an opinion. You quoted where I stressed the SITE suffix. A website is not a web. A web is made o
Occums razor (Score:1)
Pot Kettle (Score:2)
As if The Atlantic hasn't done enough of it's own damage. Yes, we should address it, but not because The Atlantic wants less competition.
The Atlantic is part of the problem (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? His supporters don't care; they have shown that he can shit on religion, morality, the constitution, the USA, the troops, the law, family values, and much more and they'll still support him.
The rest of us care, but this is one more attempt to hijack our democracy in a long, long line.
Fortunately Trump is a drooling idiot, but at some point conservatives will elect a smart guy with Trump's ethics, and that's when we'll really be in trouble. Because conservatives have shown that they will cheerfully de
Re: (Score:3)
I've heard people worry about "What if they run a slightly smarter Trump next time?" You don't realize they've been pushing slightly smarter Trumps, slightly milder Alex Joneses, for decades? That's what primed people to fawn over him in the first place. He said all the bullshit the predecessors could only hint at, and reaped the credit for "speaking his mind." Make no mistake, the Trumpists heard each and every authoritarian hard-right dog whistle that came before him. They slobbered for years at the thoug