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De-escalating social media conflict

nickpunt.com

221–230 of 350 posts

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#221

I've always had a policy of promptly admitting when I'm wrong. It worked great, when I worked at a Japanese company. The Japanese respected it. The Americans, on the other hand, looked at it as a sign of weakness, and tended to "go for the jugular" (Carpe Jugulum) . I think that explains why so many folks "double down," when asked to correct statements. Also, lawyers. A standard piece of advice at American accident s…

Very good observation. The significance of an apology is entirely dependent on the cultural context. The fallout from BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill comes to mind. British executives failed to provide the gushing (but meaningless) apology the Americans expected until it was too late, and they were skewered in the American press for it. And that particular example concerns two closely related cultures. The results are…

BP did a lot more to admit culpability than Exxon did with the Valdeez. BP was penalised more than Exxon because of this.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#222
post #208
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No well known advertiser wants their brand associated with something unpopular or toxic. That's pre-historic thinking. No reasonable long-term user of Social Media would think that a Frozen ad showing next to some BLM/white supremacist content means that Disney endorses violence/racism. It just means that you've liked Frozen (or similar things) before. The dinosaurs will die out. They'll be replaced by social-media…

>BLM/white supremacist content means that Disney endorses violence/racism Are you trolling with this comparison? In a thread about de-escalation it seems a bit unwise to casually tie BLM to violence and suggest that it's somehow comparable to white supremacist extremism. I get that you were trying to choose one example from each 'end' of the political spectrum, but I think this particular choice was badly misconceive…

No. First, it’s not a comparison, just 2 examples. Second, I’m pretty sure that many on the opposing end of political spectrum (compared to you) might find it offensive in the other direction. But yea I did expect it to be badly received here on HN.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#223

It's an interesting suggestion which certainly makes a good point, however it's wrong in its main assumption - that people have a more or less rational discussion on social media and are looking to find out the truth rather than publicly re-translate and re-confirm beliefs which are frequently based on emotions and negative life experience. I'm afraid social media and their AI-powered "optimization for engagement" ha…

Agreed, we sometimes play the truth seeking game, but on social media the game is much more often the tribal team virtue signalling game

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's anyone out there who wants to earn money from advertising there are two words you need to be aware of: "BRAND SAFETY" No well known advertiser wants their brand associated with something unpopular or toxic. This is why YouTube is demonetising any video that mentions Covid-19. YouTube themselves technically probably don't care, but brand safety conscious advertisers certainly do, and so YouTube must too. Th…

> fascists on both the far-left While I appreciate your comment otherwise, fascism is universally agreed to be a far-right ideology and claiming otherwise at this point in history can't really be taken as anything but inflammatory, which isn't what belongs here in an otherwise insightful comment.

There is not universal agreement that the earth is round.

But a better word choice by op might have been extreme authoritarians, but a sub-optimal word choice hardly makes a comment intentionally inflammatory.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalists aren't the elite. They're the PR people working for the elite.

Using elite as a term of derision is rather silly anyway. Who else would you want running the country than the most skilled and accomplished?

People who have my interests in mind.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#226
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not especially. It is a corporation that is very protective of its privacy and secrets. I tend not to name it, even though it's fairly easy to figure out. I don't want to cause them any stress or harm. Even though I wish things had gone somewhat differently, I retain the greatest respect for the corporation, and its employees and officers.

Ricoh?

No. Feel free to check out my SO Story: https://stackoverflow.com/cv/chrismarshall

I don’t mention them by name, so my comments don’t show up on their radar screen.

I don’t think I ever say anything that would be an issue, but I don’t want to be in the position of having to explain myself. They protect their brand ferociously.

Once you see who, you will understand.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true at some point in the future, but I believe we're quite far away from it. Most users on the internet are not savvy at all, and I don't see that changing. I had expected the younger generations to be "digital natives", but they're not. They know their apps and services, but it's not a generalized understanding to how things work or what's common. Imho the fact that adblocker-usage isn't approaching 100…

This is so weird to me. When I saw an ad for Toyota whilst watching Unsolved Mysteries in the nineties, I didn't think for a second that Toyota thought aliens were real or whatever. There has always been a complete disconnect between ads and content for me. In fact only recently has that shifted with e.g. podcasts and YouTube channels having sponsors that are explicitly worked into the content and are topical because…

Maybe it's that TV itself is mostly bland and ad friendly, non-controversial for that very reason. Content that is obviously for entertainment purposes is cool to put ads on. TV had few channels and programs that weren't for the general population, so you wouldn't have The KKK Weekly or Cool Communism that advertisers would have to avoid.

That's different on YouTube, where the content is much more heterogeneous, where you have super-optimized, ad-friendly influencers with millions of subs who take great care not to offend (and are therefore great to throw ads at) next to fringe political ideas and people with mental health issues presenting their world view.

I believe funding is often considered as an endorsement, and ads are the primary source of funding for most media companies. Similarly, you'll often see disclaimers on Twitter "retweet != endorsement" because people tend to understand it as such.

I believe that the bigger deal is subconscious association. I have no idea whether it's true, but putting McDonald's ads next to a documentary on factory farming seems unwise.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#228
post #222
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>BLM/white supremacist content means that Disney endorses violence/racism Are you trolling with this comparison? In a thread about de-escalation it seems a bit unwise to casually tie BLM to violence and suggest that it's somehow comparable to white supremacist extremism. I get that you were trying to choose one example from each 'end' of the political spectrum, but I think this particular choice was badly misconceive…

No. First, it’s not a comparison, just 2 examples. Second, I’m pretty sure that many on the opposing end of political spectrum (compared to you) might find it offensive in the other direction. But yea I did expect it to be badly received here on HN.

I think that white supremacists are off the end of the political spectrum, and that we shouldn't worry too much about what offends them. But the issue isn't just the comparison, it's the suggestion that BLM is inherently a violent movement (so that endorsing BLM would equate to endorsing violence). BLM is a broad movement. It's not only people on the left - and certainly not only people on the far left - who support it.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens in capitalism, and it happens in socialism, because it happens everywhere. It is like saying "entropy increases in capitalism"; technically true, but misleading. Things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law happen regardless of political regime or economical system. In different situations they take different forms: in capitalism, companies try to maximize (short-term) (perceived) shareholder…

>The world has many problems, but lack of military dictatorships controlled by a communist party is not one of them. // There's N.Korea, but that's not controlled by a communist party. It's notionally controlled by people who call themselves Communist, but they don't appear to do anything ideologically communist. World politics isn't my strong point, where did you have in mind? I note that your structure was "in capi…

Capitalism's a loaded word. Most people who would call themselves pro-free market aren't in favour of rent-seeking monopolies, just like how most people who would call themselves socialists aren't in favour of putting dissidents in gulags.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#230

Forgiveness. Rather than encourage better behaviours of those targeted by the mob, it would be better to encourage better behaviours of the mob itself. Forgiveness is absent in every social media or comment section and yet it's one of the crucial ways we get along with people. Having others visibly but perhaps silently forgive another would allow social proof that its okay to forgive this perceived offender. Forgiven…

Agree. Forgiveness is great. It's where I started, which led to me questioning why I do it even. And the conclusion I came to was that the anger I felt was... useless, ineffectual and thus a total, unadulterated and complete waste of my time and energy.

And so forgiveness led me to acceptance.

Accepting all the things has made me very, very content. And occasionally even happy. Because who cares man. Frivolity aside, if I did care I feel I should DO something. Not complain or write angry diatribes or even forgive, but to physically do something to change the status quo. Whether that moves the needle on chosen issue or not.

If I'm not willing to DO something about the thing I take issue with, I have no call to say anything about it either. Which brings this full circle back to... acceptance.

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