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

That does make sense, and also fits with how private property can't entirely be viewed in isolation if it has negative externalities. I.e. You should be able to pollute the air immediately above your land as much as you want because that doesn't just stay on your land.

> I'd like if FB were at least as searchable to its users as to advertisers, for example; arguably FB knows more about many of its users than they know about themselves.

That might help in some small amount (and as long as people people actually reviewed info and requested removal, and that had to be honored, it would help), but I'm not sure the companies in question wouldn't just turn their neuroscience divisions to the task of making people want to allow the data for some reason.

To me this feels more like a drunk driving type situation, or age of consent, or ability to sign away your rights. We believe some things should be disallowed because the combined cost to society pf allowing it is much greater than the sum of the individual costs for disallowing it added up. But even if that can be sold as a good idea for this, I'm not sure what specific things we would do to block it that aren't nebulous and can be gamed. Maybe disallowing advertising, but that seems to be targeting one industry, and I suspect something else with a similar negative and the same incentives might take its place for this area.

People are leaving these algorithm ran places in droves especially now because they already believe that the government is working with these companies to track their movements and radical plans. They're already going to decentralized networks, and once that happens you will not be able to control the radicals just like you couldn't control the pirates after they switched to decentralized piracy networks. This isn't trying to stop someone downloading a couple Metallica songs. This is trying to stop the proliferation of fascist/totalitarian thought and foreign actors stoking it up. It's much more dire, and the world of John Perry Barlow is dead. Not to mention the last few right wing terrorist attacks weren't planned on Facebook or were they radicalized through there. Neither was QAnon. That all came from 4chan/8chan/etc. There are no algorithms there, no AI, and anyone could basically code something on that level of complexity in a day.

Information should not be free. It should have limits. Once such information threatens the proliferation of a free society and brings people back towards totalitarianism the slippery slope "first they take away the press and then we get Hitler" argument falls flat on it's face because large swaths of the population freely gravitating towards Hitler gets you the exact same effect, and not only that the nuance between society trying to regulate information for the general health of said society and a fascist dictator doing the same is completely different.

So, to answer that last rhetorical question with the way I'm intending "balance" to be used: I'm not at all opposed to regulations in food safety, wiring standards, water treatment, etc., that shift the balance of likely outcomes for me toward "alive and unharmed" and away from "stone dead." :)

Algorithms are powerful because they can cause tiny, incremental and often completely unnoticeable changes of opinions and perception. These changes adds up when they affect large enough populations. I agree that people who gather in groups and share information makes up the bulk of this equation – algorithms do not operate in a vacuum.

I do think that the negative effects caused by algorithms are largely unintended consequences. Profit is the motive, not malice.

> People are leaving these algorithm ran places in droves especially now because they already believe that the government is working with these companies to track their movements and radical plans.

A tiny fraction of the technically literate people escape the big platforms, the rest stays on even though they are somewhat conscious of the negative effects and ruthless business practices.

> That all came from 4chan/8chan/etc. There are no algorithms there, no AI, and anyone could basically code something on that level of complexity in a day.

Many people joining extreme communities have been nudged by algorithms, especially Youtube's. What happens from there is usually just plain old group think and tribalism, feeling the comfort of finding a community to belong to. The point is that those nudges from suggested videos gently pushes you down a rabbit hole you otherwise would not be exploring in such a rapid and captivating manner.

Like they say in the film; algorithms are not evil on their own, they just tend to enable and amplify some of the worst tendencies in people who know how to exploit this tool for their own gain, political or otherwise.

> Information should not be free. It should have limits.

I disagree. What I do think is that the many "information outlets" should be held responsible for their editorialization. Newspapers, TV and social media platforms do all editorialize, only social media has left this task to the algorithms – which is rather careless and naive. These companies have indeed moved fast and are now braking things.