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Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#51

Post by castle-bravo »

__s wrote: post #26
oDot wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop using Facebook

Okay, did that, next?

So begins the slow descent into Luddism.

Seriously now: I think there needs to be a grassroots push for a vety selective approach to technology adoption as described by Kevin Kelly in his book What Technology Wants. If people generally treated new apps and devices with a skeptical 'what does this do for me?' attitude, there might be more herd immunity against abuses of power by large tech firms (Google's stealing location data from users, Intel's engineering backdoors into their products, and Facebook's cynical propaganda profiteering) and resulting social disruption. In Canada, engineers in training are asked to swear an oath that they will serve the public good and only work for honest enterprises. I think that if those values were more widely taught and accepted, toleration of abuses within large tech companies would evaporate. It's a cultural change that needs to happen, and the way to effect cultural change is to practice what you believe, "be the change" as Ghandi said, and to share your ideas with others in your workplace and community.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#52

Post by bshimmin »

knolan wrote: post #3
olivermarks wrote: post #2

'In Myanmar today, Facebook is the internet' That can't be good...

This is also true for a lot of older people new to the internet. My mother doesn’t understand that her laptop can do more than browse Facebook and buy things on Amazon. Her bookmarks are the random pages of her friends. Her primary source of news is fast becoming whatever click bait she sees there. I tell her not to trust Facebook, I explain how she is their product and they exploit her but she doesn’t listen.

I can see a few problems with this. The concept of "you are their product" is not an easy one to understand if people don't have any relevant background or experience in thinking critically about the problem. It requires thinking through several non-obvious layers: for example, it's easy for people to get stuck at "yes, I don't pay for Facebook, that's why it has advertising" without making the leap to "most businesses cannot just support themselves on advertising, they actually sell something to you too - so how does Facebook do it? By making their advertising more effective. How do they make their advertising more effective? By building up a detailed profile of everything about you without your knowledge or consent"... and even then people will get stuck at why their knowing so much about you is bad.

Secondly, exploitation sounds very scary and bad, but it makes people think of slaves and working in coal pits and blood diamonds, not looking at pictures of babies from the comfort of their sofa.

Do I have a solution? No, of course not. Many people just don't want to hear it, they want to carry on blithely communicating with their friends in real-time for free and looking at pictures of babies.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#53

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

b0rsuk wrote: post #21
richardknop wrote: post #12

Facebook has to be broken down to pieces. I think it has reached a state where it cannot be allowed to continue as a single company being able to observe/monitor public and private communication / social interaction of so many people and not being regulated and controlled by the government.

I'm afraid it won't work well without extra regulation laws. Even if Facebook is broken, it has shown the way. Before, it was MySpace (although it was never so popular). If someone breaks FB, the strongest competitor living in its shadow will step up. I think it is the nature of certain services to centralize. Search engines, social networks. Unless someone forces them to inter-operate, it's winner takes all.

> Unless someone forces them to inter-operate, it's winner takes all.

So you mandate inter-operation at the same time you break up the biggest, just like we've done with every other natural monopoly.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#54

Post by dredmorbius »

FreakyT wrote: post #27
john2x wrote: post #7

My idea for a quick fix is to remove likes/dislikes/emoji reactions. If people can't see how others feel about a post/article in an instant, they might have to read and decide for themselves how to feel.

Upvotes on HN/Reddit do essentially the same thing. I don't have the user statistics, but I'd imagine the typical HN reader only reads a sampling of the top-voted comments, which essentially allows them "to see how others feel about a post/article in an instant." If you want an example of the opposite approach, you can always look at 2009-era YouTube, when all comments shown were in a strict "newest" order. If you re…

Reputation and kill switches. Ultimately: editorial voice.

If I've got tools to block sources of clickbait, and those feed into reputation systems, that's a start. On Google's properties, I can block G+ posters, but I cannot block a YouTube channel. Not even if I'm logged in -- that channel will still show up in searches and recommendations. I'm actually better of not logging in so that recommendations are keyed far more to current search and view history, and there is no long lag of "you watched this once three years ago so we'll cram it down your throat".

For Web, I've taken to fairly ruthlessly blocking clickbait domains at the firewall. They pretty much completely disappear.

(And, if I've got second thoughts or want to poke through: archive or simplified-view sites will generally show me the content. And it's almost never worth looking at.)

I'm not saying that my individual tools will scale out, but if they're tied in to larger systems, and feed back to what's promoted, there's the possiblity of this.

Ultimately, though, massive media channels have to take an active voice in what they do or don't permit, most especially where there are real and serious harms possible. That's the editorial voice option. It's not a popular opinion on much of the Web, and it's not one I would have advocated even just a few years ago, but I'm coming to feel it's increasingly proving necessary, and that the historical record, over the past 500 years of mass communications, starting with the printing press, bears this out repeatedly.

Free speech is not a responsiblity-free zone.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#55

Post by ethbro »

ThomPete wrote: post #50

I am still unconvinced Facebook played any role in the outcome of the 2016 election. It played a role in the the form of the discussion but the actual outcome it didn't. Most people vote based on some very personal and everyday issues. Things they experience in their lives not discussions on facebook no matter how many times they like it.

> Most people vote based on some very personal and everyday issues. Things they experience in their lives not discussions on facebook [...]

I'd say exactly the opposite. The politically empassioned folks I meet lately (on both sides) are always quicker to talk about a meme than a concrete issue.

E.g. Koch brothers, Shariah Law

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#56

Post by jorvi »

FreakyT wrote: post #27
john2x wrote: post #7

My idea for a quick fix is to remove likes/dislikes/emoji reactions. If people can't see how others feel about a post/article in an instant, they might have to read and decide for themselves how to feel.

Upvotes on HN/Reddit do essentially the same thing. I don't have the user statistics, but I'd imagine the typical HN reader only reads a sampling of the top-voted comments, which essentially allows them "to see how others feel about a post/article in an instant." If you want an example of the opposite approach, you can always look at 2009-era YouTube, when all comments shown were in a strict "newest" order. If you re…

What I've noticed a lot on sites like HN and Reddit is that there's always heavy 'tilting'. If any comment ever drops below +1 (or below that of a different viewpoint, so +10 vs +1), people just blindly start ramming the downvote button without any thought, as if they aren't capable of analyzing the comment on its own merit because 'the crowd' has already decided for them and they take the path of least resistance in terms of mental effort. This is also why 'brigading' is so tremendously effective, you only have to tilt the balance a little bit and the crowd will take care of the rest.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#57

Post by 0xfeba »

knolan wrote: post #3
olivermarks wrote: post #2

'In Myanmar today, Facebook is the internet' That can't be good...

This is also true for a lot of older people new to the internet. My mother doesn’t understand that her laptop can do more than browse Facebook and buy things on Amazon. Her bookmarks are the random pages of her friends. Her primary source of news is fast becoming whatever click bait she sees there. I tell her not to trust Facebook, I explain how she is their product and they exploit her but she doesn’t listen.

That's true. It's like AOL all over again.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#58

Post by felipeko »

deletefb wrote: post #31
felipeko wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why do you think that. The biggest problem of big companies is when they hurt consumers with predatory practices. With Facebook I fail to see how that's the case. Everybody is perfectly capable of not being hurt by their own accord by just no using it. If the problem is how it influences politics and government, I think that's even a point against letting the government mess with it, as it is a pow…

Yeah, why don’t opioid addicts just stop? And why don’t fat people just lose weight and eat healthy? And why don’t poor people just stop being poor? Clearly every issue in society is a result of a lack of personal responsibility.

I'm all for people helping, looking for help or education.

I'm against someone deciding that I cannot do something because it can be bad for me.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#59

Post by mtgx »

FreakyT wrote: post #27
john2x wrote: post #7

My idea for a quick fix is to remove likes/dislikes/emoji reactions. If people can't see how others feel about a post/article in an instant, they might have to read and decide for themselves how to feel.

Upvotes on HN/Reddit do essentially the same thing. I don't have the user statistics, but I'd imagine the typical HN reader only reads a sampling of the top-voted comments, which essentially allows them "to see how others feel about a post/article in an instant." If you want an example of the opposite approach, you can always look at 2009-era YouTube, when all comments shown were in a strict "newest" order. If you re…

> but I'd imagine the typical HN reader only reads a sampling of the top-voted comments

That, and it doesn't help that on threads with hundreds of comments, most of them are hidden away.

Re: Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created

#60

Post by ehnto »

osrec wrote: post #13

Facebook itself seems to be quite comfortable with the world it has created; a place where every vulnerable (and even perhaps, not so vulnerable) mind can be influenced by information regardless of factual accuracy!

Only directly if you are on Facebook.

I can't really tell if any particular influence floats from FB to me through my friends, most of my friends don't use FB either or their not really the type to care about things Facebook tends to influence.

If you're not one for consumerism in the first place, it's not hard to fight away advertising influence, and if you're not that active politically (although you should be!) then again, FB can't really influence you that much. You could argue that what FB doesn't show you is also a form of influence, but if you weren't on FB at all then that argument wouldn't hold.

I guess the world it's created definitely has affected me though. If it could be argued that political leaders are elected based on influence fostered on social media, I can't avoid being affected by that.

Social conversation is how you spread influence, and that's not really a bad thing in itself. What's clearly not great about Facebook however, is how you can pay for that same influence to be injected into normal social conversation.

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