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Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

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Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#161

Post by a_tractor »

billfruit wrote: post #107
rossdavidh wrote: post #83

I am no great fan of Facebook, but the indignant accusations about them wanting to keep us glued to their screen seem mostly to come from people who were (and are) perfectly fine with television networks that did the same thing for decades. Even today, the typical citizen spends more time watching TV than on social media, I bet. I use Facebook once a week, and TV never, and I find that people are mostly not even will…

And not to mention Wikipedia, despite it not having any attention engineering, it is to go wandering in it for hours together and yet they don't get any bad press?

Do libraries get bad press? Are you serious?

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#163

Post by yakitori »

vinceguidry wrote: post #17

Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this. Does nobody remember the 80s? TV was turning people into fricken' zombies. People would sit on the boob tube for days at a time, stopping only to go to work to mindlessly knock out chores for a shift, the…

> Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this.

There is one thing about facebook and social media that is different. It allows people to interact in their own manner rather than being controlled by people with influence.

Before, you pretty much had to watch or accept what a handful of companies told you. It was a top down approach. Social media has flipped it upside down.

> C'mon. I guess bombastic apocalyptic bullshit will never go out of style.

It's a media propaganda campaign funded by some of the elites. We had apocalyptic scaremongering before. But this one is very different. Some of the media would talk about the "TV aka idiot box" for a day and move on. This facebook/social media propaganda campaign has been going on for years.

Everyday for the past few months, we had a story about facebook. Every single day. That isn't "news". That's propaganda.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#164

Post by aylmao »

InternetUser wrote: post #135
aylmao wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the alternative, TV as an homogenizing force that entertained and dumbed people down to what big-money publishers wanted them to believe a better alternative? I'm from a country where the TV and state are highly colluded and social media has come as a welcome alternative. Moreover, are these "polarization issues" the USA currently experiencing a product of social media, or its own cultural problems, surfaced by s…

Excellent, excellent points. What country are you from, if I may ask? Also, I'd rewrite your opening rhetorical question for clarity: Was TV, as a homogenizing force that entertained and dumbed people down to what big-money publishers wanted them to believe, a better alternative?

Oh yeah, that makes more sense!

I'm from Mexico. A good example to look at is Carmen Aristegui. She's an award winning journalist, most recently named one of the world's greatest leaders by Forbes, but she's been shunned from most traditional media outlets. After she reported on a corruption scandal involving the president she was fired from the broadcaster she worked for, and has since relied on web/social media to keep doing her job.

Meanwhile Televisa (biggest TV network in Mexico) reports memes [1], random crazy people [2], and is known to be very politically biased [3]. No award-winning journalists on TV.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl1XceNu-LE (this girl's XV birthday became a big meme in Mexico)

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObV9XDBLRUk

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Televisa#Criticisms_and_contro...

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#165

Post by CandidlyFake »

jordigh wrote: post #8

I'm rather bothered that I know nothing about Soros except a bunch of vague, negative feelings about him that have pop-culturally osmosed to me through constant usage of his name in 4channish/the_donaldish media. He's some kind of evil mastermind destroying civilisation with his vast wealth. I know this is almost certainly not true, but I'm so bothered that this is my immediate thought. I feel like the alt-right has…

You don't know soros but you think your mind has been hijacked by 4chan, the_donald, etc?

No offense, but you comment sounds like something a fan of soros would write.

Considering you mentioned the_donald, you're comment reeks of agenda.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#166

Post by grasshopperpurp »

rndmize wrote: post #160
quadrangle wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kochs are widely misunderstood. They are typically seen as effectively a free-money-pit for generic Republican views that promote Capitalist exploitation, laying waste to the environment, and destroying any real grassroots movement to bring democratic power to the people. From my understanding, the reality is more like: The Kochs are typical dogmatic Libertarians who aren't anti-environment but have this simplist…

Good intentions? Any time I read something like this: https://www.thenation.com/article/big-brothers-thought-contr... my doubts about them increase.

I think they're true believers, which does not justify the evil they do, but I expect they would view this as a situation where the ends justify the means - or a situation where they are educating the uneducated.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#167

Post by CandidlyFake »

vinceguidry wrote: post #17

Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this. Does nobody remember the 80s? TV was turning people into fricken' zombies. People would sit on the boob tube for days at a time, stopping only to go to work to mindlessly knock out chores for a shift, the…

Has nothing to do with monetizing or social ill. Otherwise, soda, food, gambling, movies, etc wouldn't be allowed to advertise. And we'd ban most newspapers and cable news for being toxic for the masses.

The war on social media is simply about who gets control over people's minds.

Social media sites like Reddit, Google and even HN gave in to the elite. Facebook is holding out.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#168

Post by CandidlyFake »

toastking wrote: post #12
jordigh wrote: post #8

I'm rather bothered that I know nothing about Soros except a bunch of vague, negative feelings about him that have pop-culturally osmosed to me through constant usage of his name in 4channish/the_donaldish media. He's some kind of evil mastermind destroying civilisation with his vast wealth. I know this is almost certainly not true, but I'm so bothered that this is my immediate thought. I feel like the alt-right has…

It's also been experimentally proven that people have issues discerning fake news online. Our news literacy is falling rapidly. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/23/503129818...

It's the only way the news industry stays in business. Not just in the US but around the world.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#169

Post by majormajor »

leggomylibro wrote: post #141
ryandrake wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are still talking about a website , right? A totally optional website, in a browser with a close button? This isn’t a chemical addiction or gambling.

Isn't it a chemical addiction? I mean, what does Heroin do to your brain? Releases a ton of extra dopamine and serotonin and crap, right? And what happens when you see that 14 people liked your post? Okay, so maybe Facebook doesn't change the way that your brain's receptors work with long-term use, but don't deny that people keep going back for that hit of inclusion.

What happens to someone's ability to function regularly if they're constantly going back for heroin hits? Compare that to what happens if you keep opening the Facebook app on your phone.

Effect size matters. A lot. I haven't seen any convincing arguments that Facebook is even as bad as the classic "couch potato" TV junkie scenario. It's impossible to prevent someone from making bad decisions, so the size of the downside risk has to be strongly considered before claiming a problem is worth heavy-handed fixes.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#170

Post by [deleted] »

vinceguidry wrote: post #17

Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this. Does nobody remember the 80s? TV was turning people into fricken' zombies. People would sit on the boob tube for days at a time, stopping only to go to work to mindlessly knock out chores for a shift, the…

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