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The Social Dilemma

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Re: The Social Dilemma

#261

Post by crearo »

readicculus wrote: post #252
surround wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the film is funded and owned by Netflix itself.

yea but the difference is you pay for a netflix subscription. Their main purpose is to keep you paying for a subscription, social media's purpose is to keep you engaged so they can advertise to you.

Yes, but: - They're trying to do the same thing by keeping you engaged by shoving up as much content as they can to you, by making recommender systems that "know you". - They polarize you in just the same way as advertisements do. Once I started watching documentaries on meat, that's all I was suggested further. The only thing I'd say is Netflix's content is regulated and less opinionated, whereas YouTube is a free market and every opinion has its own library of rabbit holes to dig into.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#262

Post by unityByFreedom »

crearo wrote: post #258

What really resonated with me is one of the speakers talking about taxing companies on collecting users' data. They first establish that the sole driving factor for these companies is making more money than the previous quarter. Now, if companies had to pay financially for all the data they store, they wouldn't have as strong an incentive to collect every possible data point that they can.

That would destroy net neutrality. No thanks.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#263

Post by maigret »

amurthy1 wrote: post #157
soneca wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the extra step of social media is that they are not satisfied by changing your behavior from not buying a product to buying a product. They also change your behavior in somewhat indirect ways with the goal that you continue to engage with their platform more and more and be subject to more advertising on the future. So they make you more fanatic or more extremist or more polarized, because it will lead you…

> They also change your behavior in somewhat indirect ways with the goal that you continue to engage with their platform more and more How is this different than any other kind of media like TV, magazines, newspapers, etc.? All of them are trying to make their product engaging so that you consume more of their media and more of their ads. Just because those services also charge a subscription fee, doesn't change the…

TV, magazines have to choose _one_ editorial line at a given time. Social media can present everyone their own bubble, and so it has bad side effects. When you have a forum, everyone is presented the same content. For example, this results in administrators being aware of bad content most of the time (at least in the few forums I follow). Everyone on HN see the same ranking. Social media and recommendation engines though, will send you into your own rabbit hole of a handful of interests. I advise you to view the documentary, this will answer your question best.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#264

Post by unityByFreedom »

jwilber wrote: post #158

I really like this documentary/film, but if I’m being honest, it does leave a taste of typical SV virtue signaling in my mouth. The website explicitly states that their site allows cookies "set through our site by our advertising partners and may be used to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant ads on other sites." Since visiting I received two ads for “Moment” in instagram, and one for Asana on You…

I agree. These guys want to sell you another technical solution. When Netflix finds one they like they will let you know.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#265

Post by unityByFreedom »

intended wrote: post #152
vasilipupkin wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the evidence for this hypothesis that it’s easier than ever before ? Communists, Nazis had absolutely no trouble destroying truth. History is full of this.

There are studies showing how conspiracy theories travel vs scientific information - what would count as evidence?

I think the poster above is suggesting that whatever conditions led to worldwide tensions (and world war) may be resurfacing now. Not that these tensions always existed to this degree. Just that they have before, and are again now.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#267

Post by Aqua »

surround wrote: post #212
jwilber wrote: post #158

I really like this documentary/film, but if I’m being honest, it does leave a taste of typical SV virtue signaling in my mouth. The website explicitly states that their site allows cookies "set through our site by our advertising partners and may be used to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant ads on other sites." Since visiting I received two ads for “Moment” in instagram, and one for Asana on You…

Not to mention the film is funded and owned by Netflix itself.

I was actually baffled by this move. Is Netflix going to war with FB and Google? I mean, Netflix itself collects a tonne of data... The film called out FB, Google and Twitter numerous times while Netflix was conveniently missed.

Not saying I'd expect them to damage their own brand, but it's still very, very close to shooting yourself in your own foot.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#268

Post by unishark »

mavsman wrote: post #186
codysc wrote: post #3

I just watched this last night. A lot of the content will already be well known to the HN audience. There was one big light-bulb moment for me. One of the speakers was clarifying the "If you're not paying then you are the product" idea. He refined it to, (rough quote), "Changes to your behavior and actions are the product" That distinction made the insidiousness much more clear than the former statement.

It never occurred to me until now that Hacker News is free and this statement could be applied here as well, though I'm not exactly sure in what way.

Unless they're just losing money on it.

An apartment building I once lived in had free candy in the lobby sometimes. I rather doubt it was driven by any measurable profits for them by doing it.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#269

Post by maigret »

shajznnckfke wrote: post #235
adamsea wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would reduce it all to atoms.

I’m just trying to take the ideas in this thread seriously. If we are going to argue that it’s bad to try to influence people’s behavior, we ought to think through what that means when applied to entities other than Facebook. That will help us figure out if we really mean what we are saying. Is it an actual value we hold, or only a rhetorical point when we are taking about a few tech companies?

No it is fine sending a comment expressing opinion. There are so many qualitatives differences:

- This is human to human communication, not an optimised algorithm.

- People here are not sending you 10 comments and looking at the one which you engaged the most time, because they don't have the metrics. Social media knows how many seconds you looked at a post and classify it with AI, they can make a profile of your current sentiment.

- The poster probably didn't analyse your whole past discussion history with algorithms before answering in a way that would be best calibrated for your way of thinking.

Interactions, discussions between people, even conflictual (not violent), are fine. Communication is fine. Mass communication is mostly fine (traditional advertising, broadcast...). What's not fine is manipulating people by mass-communicating while adjusting the message given metadata that those people are not even aware about.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#270

Post by bickeringyokel »

shajznnckfke wrote: post #235
adamsea wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would reduce it all to atoms.

I’m just trying to take the ideas in this thread seriously. If we are going to argue that it’s bad to try to influence people’s behavior, we ought to think through what that means when applied to entities other than Facebook. That will help us figure out if we really mean what we are saying. Is it an actual value we hold, or only a rhetorical point when we are taking about a few tech companies?

A single person generally has orders of magnitude less power to influence than the the biggest companies in the world. That's surely not a fair comparison.
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