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Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#351
post #98

The problem really is platforms that give people content to please them. An algorithm selects content that you are likely to agree with or that you have shown previous interest. This only causes people to get reinforced in their beliefs and this leads to polarization. For example, when I browse videos on Youtube I will only get democratic content (even though I am from Poland). Seems as soon as you click on couple en…

Same goes for non-political content. I often have to log out of youtube to find something new and interesting (even though I have hundreds of subscriptions).

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#352
post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If FB wanted to "let discourse happen naturally" and not be paternalistic, they wouldn't use an opaque, non-chronological algorithm to control who gets to see what in such a way that primarily benefits FB's bottom line. What is this alternative you speak of?

Optimizing for engagement does not favor any particular viewpoint. The authors of this article are incensed that Facebook doesn't engage in more viewpoint-based adjustment of the conversation. Favoring or disfavoring a post based on the viewpoint it expresses is very different from optimizing an algorithm to give a user more of what he wants, whatever that is.

That's a misunderstanding of the problem.

Optimizing for engagement tends to favour extreme, simplistic, and highly emotional viewpoints. In other words, it caters to human nature. This tendency is harmful to rational discourse, regardless of whether or not you happen to agree with any given viewpoint.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#353

You know what the internet needs? User agents. We've got this idea stuck in our heads that only the website itself is allowed to curate content. Only Facebook gets to decide which Facebook posts to show us. What if, instead, you had a personal AI that read every Facebook post and then decided what to show you. Trained on your own preferences, under your control, with whatever settings you like. Instead of being tuned…

ActivityPub and other federated networks are the answer. They do exactly that: if you aren't satisfied with the rules on existing servers, you host your own. The network itself is wide open, and its control is distributed across many server admins. The way the content is presented is of course completely up to the software the user is running. Having no financial incentive to make UX a dumpster fire visible from space also helps a lot.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always have to think about that one when I had just been spending 20 minutes trying to formulate an elaborate response to someone's comment, just to proceed to sigh and close the thing without posting it. Probably most of the time it was for the better too.

I'm self culling a lot more too. I'd argue those unposted drafts are still valuable, if only to help oneself flesh out ideas.

I completely agree. Often I don't proceed because the point I wanted to make is just not properly defendable at that point. But the ideas written down in the process don't disappear and at the same time I got a better appreciation of the other side's point of view. I'd rather hold on to those ideas and evolve them further than to get too attached and be forced into a situation where I eventually defend my opinions because I moved myself into a position where I feel like this is a deep personal belief rather than a well defined objective-ish argument I tried to make.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#355

Mirror: http://archive.md/YQeJY

Updated: https://archive.md/FyTDB

Wow, Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS server sets up a man-in-the-middle (broken cert gives it away) and serves a 403 Forbidden page when clicking on this link. Verified that 8.8.8.8 works fine.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I also think there’s an art to deescalation and discussing ideas or persuading someone you disagree with to see an alternative view This doesn't really work with core views like politics. Some of the most polarizing topics are not because the opposite side can't see your view, it's because you fundamentally disagree on priorities. Examples: Anti-abortion people aren't going to be persuaded by yet another view on wom…

Studies on persuading people out of prejudice do exist (see e.g. https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~broockma/kalla_broockman_reduc... ). The problem is that the approaches are not as emotionally satisfying as just affirming your moral superiority and calling people bigots, so not many people do it (though some do, search for "deep canvasing"). Abortion is tricky because once you recognize the life of the embryo as a value…

I think abortion is a lot easier when you frame the argument around suffering.

I think part of the problem with abortion is the left argues that "it is not a life" which is generally a weak argument. It's better to accept/concede that you are ending life, but doing so without suffering before there's a neural net that can recognize anything - I think that's the important bit (and why third trimester abortions are banned anyway).

The push back then tends to be that life itself is sacred and can never be ended (suffering is not relevant), but this is generally not truly believed by the people making the argument so it's easy to point out their contradictory support for the death penalty. They then usually say there's a difference between innocent life and people who've committed crimes at which point you're back to negotiating conditions and suffering seems like a pretty good condition to use.

[Edit] It's also a messier issue because I think a component of the debate is shaming women for sex. That they should be forced to have their baby as some sort of penance for having sex. Obviously this is largely unsaid in favor of more palatable arguments, but if it's the true driver then it's hard to even start because you're not addressing the true motivation (which may not even be fully realized by the person arguing).

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#357
Related, earlier this week on the New Books Network

Cailin O’Connor, "The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread" (Yale UP, 2018)

(New Books in Journalism) Duration: 40:00

Published: Wed, 20 May 2020 08:00:00 -0000

Media: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/LIT1956686397.mp3 (audio)

Podcast: https://www.podcastrepublic.net/podcast/425693571

Why should we care about having true beliefs? And why do demonstrably false beliefs persist and spread despite bad, even fatal, consequences for the people who hold them?

Author page: http://cailinoconnor.com/the-misinformation-age/

Editor's book site: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300234015/misinformation...

Worldcat: https://www.worldcat.org/title/misinformation-age-how-false-...

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#358

I really didn't realize until perhaps the last 2 years that Facebook fundamentally tapped some hidden human need/instinct to argue with people who they believe are incorrect. Specifically, and more importantly, combined with the human inability to actively decide to not pay attention when things are inconsequential or not yet worth arguing about. Sometimes, just shutting up about an issue and not discussing it is the…

They tapped into that human behaviour 'as somehow as' hn doesn't have an orangered envelope when somebody replies to your messages. It's by design and not by coincidence.

There are plenty of vaccines for this, but not in the sense that you can apply it to people by force, like you can apply a vaccine to babies. Meditation, yoga, religions, sports - there are many ways to calm the mind.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I also think there’s an art to deescalation and discussing ideas or persuading someone you disagree with to see an alternative view This doesn't really work with core views like politics. Some of the most polarizing topics are not because the opposite side can't see your view, it's because you fundamentally disagree on priorities. Examples: Anti-abortion people aren't going to be persuaded by yet another view on wom…

Well, your reply is being 'deescalated' via downvotes. That shows how open people are to thoughts that defy their values and/or world model.

It’s being downvoted because it’s an example of exactly the behaviour it’s purportedly opposing.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#360
post #313

You know what the internet needs? User agents. We've got this idea stuck in our heads that only the website itself is allowed to curate content. Only Facebook gets to decide which Facebook posts to show us. What if, instead, you had a personal AI that read every Facebook post and then decided what to show you. Trained on your own preferences, under your control, with whatever settings you like. Instead of being tuned…

What you’re referring to is splitting the presentation from the content. The server (eg Facebook) provides you with the content, and your computer/software displays it to your liking (ie without ads and spam and algorithmically recommended crap). There’s a lot of history around that split, and the motivation for HTML/CSS was about separating presentation from the content in many ways. For another example, once upon a…

RSS is yet another example of separating content from presentation.
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