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Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#111

Post by messo »

peteyPete wrote: post #102

I don't know what the cultural impact of this documentary will be since most won't care to change their behavior one bit. People are building walls around their echo chambers and are protective of it. I was well aware of most of this and had been complaining lately about how I don't see there being a good ending in sight considering how much growth there seems to be in the extreme right and extreme left. I've been fi…

Do you think watching The Social Dilemma with family or friends could help spark a conversation about how they are being manipulated by "Big Tech"? I plan on doing this with someone who has been greatly affected by the algorithms, and although I do not expect an immediate change, I do expect it to spark some new thoughts and questions.

Another comment here mentioned this site as a good starting point for taking tangible action against being influenced by algorithms: https://www.humanetech.com/take-control

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#112

Post by rapnie »

soylentcola wrote: post #93
vorpalhex wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the fediverse, you're more likely be able to say "Hey Lisa, why did you ban me?" than you can get into contact with the Youtube/Facebook/etc forces that be. That may or may not be better because your admin may respond "Well because I think you're a jerk and disagree with your political views" but at least you can migrate to a new instance still instead of just being banned for all eternity.

I guess the questions this raises next for me are: Would this scale if a given instance somehow gained the level of adoption people seem to value in a Twitter or a Facebook? It seems to me that the major draw and reason people stay on those services is the fact that they can communicate with essentially everyone in one place. Also, to follow the first question, given that a major (if not the only) draw for most users…

Good points. First of all, it doesn't matter which instance you're on. You can still follow your friends, influencers, etc. on other instances.. unless your instance has the other instance in its blocklist (e.g. if it doesn't adhere to moderation rules that apply on your instance).

Natural re-centralization is an issue, with mastodon.technology and mastodon.social being by far the largest instances. This could devolve to a situation like you have with email / Gmail.

Another challenge is that Mastodon as early adopter of ActivityPub has made a number of required implementation choices to fill in the blanks of the spec. They support a bunch of custom properties in the message format, plus they use the Mastodon client API instead of ActivityPub client-to-server. Their dominance wrt running Mastodon instances means they have a big say in how Fediverse evolves.

Luckily the project team is open-minded, and mostly on the same page to others wrt fediverse innovation.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#113

Post by nyxtom »

Social media is this generation's smoking issue. One of the predictions made in this movie was that humanity will not be able to survive if we continue to be blinded by our own willful ignorance due to these addicting sources.

I think they hit the nail on the head that ultimately the goals of the platforms are at odds with your own intrinsic goals and the goals at large for society. Something is going to have to change eventually.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#115

Post by wetmore »

motohagiography wrote: post #53
newscracker wrote: post #8

Though there was hardly anything that I didn't already know , I liked the movie very much for its presentation that drove the point well to people who may not have understood how these platforms work, the privacy implications and the dangers therein. I've already recommended this movie to some more people. As for the cultural impact of the movie, I don't think it's going to be much. Cambridge Analytica had so much ne…

While many of us (technologists) were unsurprised, is there any reaction from friends and relatives who say, "wait, you knew about this and you didn't say anything?" This doc is way less dramatic, but when the Snowden leaks happened I responded to people with, "what parts of this could I have told you about that you would have believed if you hadn't seen it in the news?" Reality is, most people are more afraid of bei…

> While many of us (technologists) were unsurprised, is there any reaction from friends and relatives who say, "wait, you knew about this and you didn't say anything?"

This was basically the reaction my girlfriend had after watching it.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#116

Post by lefrenchy »

hef19898 wrote: post #86

The funny thing is, i always wondered how it would have been to live in the 30s. Mass media, populist movements and all of that. I kind of get it now. Social Media is the new mass media And as the last time something similar happened, smart populists used it to their advantage, industry supplied the tools and we all know how it happened. Not saying we are heading the same way just yet, but the possibility exists. One…

I’ve often thought about this too, I think the printing press is a similar time to examine as well [1]. I do think the internet provides an entirely new scale, the dissemination is global and instantaneous, and that makes the previous problems that much more explosive and harder to contain.

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/before-...

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#117

Post by Nasrudith »

smeeth wrote: post #76
blueterminal wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some basic rules and regulations would be great :) Any specific ones? I personally can't think of any at all that would work.

Some (including myself) would argue that a repeal of section 230 would go a long way towards solving some of these issues. A large part of the problem is that social media companies algorithmically serve content to serve their purposes, but are not liable for the consequences of algorithmically served content. To me, using an algorithm to select what content to show a user is exactly the same thing newspapers do: edi…

Those people who say that about section 230 are better known as either dishonest or complete fucking morons.

The entire mutually exclusive division between platform and publisher is a zombie propaganda lie that won't stay dead.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#118

Post by Nasrudith »

rapnie wrote: post #63
blueterminal wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you propose to solve this problem besides teaching others to take personal responsibility?

Stop people from laying out the traps, and saying it is not really fine. Guess that means regulation and enforcement thereof. Things go both ways, of course. There is a certain level of personal responsibility to teach and take into account.

How about stop the hysterical hyperbole of calling speech traps instead?

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#119

Post by intended »

rapnie wrote: post #35
newscracker wrote: post #8

Though there was hardly anything that I didn't already know , I liked the movie very much for its presentation that drove the point well to people who may not have understood how these platforms work, the privacy implications and the dangers therein. I've already recommended this movie to some more people. As for the cultural impact of the movie, I don't think it's going to be much. Cambridge Analytica had so much ne…

> Don't tell me that Mastodon and Mastodon clones can be replacements for Twitter, Facebook, Facebook groups, Facebook events, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. Of course not. Because Mastodon is a federated microblogging service. As that it is a good alternative for Twitter. My Mastodon client has a better UX than twitter, no algorithmic feed, no ads, no trackers, no distracting recommendations, and - importantly -…

Unless you are building from ground up rules against types of mental virii, you are simply building a new circulatory/ neuronal system, without planning an antibody/immunity system.

Reddit USED to be relatively federated - dont like the subreddit mods and behavior, make your own sub, release hundreds of posts announcing it to users, and then users chose which sub they preferred.

Automod came along and white lists/black lists of words killed that system whole.

Now people send laborious messages on reddit to let people know of which new, new subversive subreddit has opened up. With all the credibility of a guy selling illicit goods on a street corner.

Not sure how you can prevent botting, and thence white lists/black lists of words.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#120

Post by messo »

koolhead17 wrote: post #114

Why was Netflix not there? How are they different from other addictive platforms?

Netflix is also guilty of using algorithms to recommend content, but to be fair, they do not gather nearly as much data on your behavior and life in general as i.e. Google and Facebook/Insta/WhatsApp. They also have different incentives as all of their users are actually paying for their product, and are not shown ads to the same extent (only product placements in movies as far as I know).
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