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The Social Dilemma

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Re: The Social Dilemma

#271

Post by blub »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #128
npunt wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dose makes the poison. Almost everything in life is about 'how much' not 'is or isn't'. The vectors we have to spread misinformation nowadays are far more powerful and readily available than ever before. What was once a (literal) walk from one village to the next is now an express line straight into the brains of thousands to millions. It's easier to destroy truth and reality than it ever has been.

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.

Your argument of "we've overcome similar things before" was dealt with in the documentary: this is always adapting to hook you in better, it benefits from massive social pressure and it's fueled by billions of $. So actually we've never overcome anything like this before and no one had such power before to spread misinformation.

One could argue that there's plenty of other reliable news sources, but for many reasons the trust in official news sources is collapsing. One reason is that social media has flooded the world with so much content that it's hard to figure out what's factual and what not.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#272

Post by maigret »

closeparen wrote: post #203
hervature wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, and where exactly is Whatsapp a vital life necessity in your world of messaging before calling? Those also aren't forms of meaningful social interaction. I assume you again use messaging and/or voice to set up the actual interactions such as Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and family get-togethers. I'm assuming you don't show up to those events and talk to your loved ones via Whatsapp. I don't have social m…

WhatsApp and its substitutes (iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Signal, SMS) are where plans for richer interactions get made. If you don’t have any of these in common with a prospective social group, someone has to be highly motivated to relay plans to your landline.

Signal/SMS is not the same beast as WhatsApp in terms of surveillance, nudging and all of those things falling into "forced addiction". When is the last time a SMS app wanted to give you recommendation or force you online?

Re: The Social Dilemma

#273

Post by maigret »

dominotw wrote: post #101
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t they just not use the thing? Usually this critique is applied to social media, which is not an essential human need. Ubiquitous and handy, yes. But not essential.

social contact is a need. I don't think i can actually survive without watsapp.

I moved most of my critical contacts to Signal. Not done yet though to be able to delete WhatsApp, but near there.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#274

Post by Kosirich »

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…

After reading your comment I immediately got reminded of : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XebyM7mU0A (Rick and Morty - Simple Rick Wafer Shattering the Grand Illusion)

Re: The Social Dilemma

#275

Post by nspattak »

crearo wrote: post #261
readicculus wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

Well, netflix's product is the content they serve and one logs on netflix to consume its content. FB or google are supposed to offer other "services" for "free" and end up abusing that in order to shove ads down your throat. Am I the only who sees a difference there ?

Re: The Social Dilemma

#276

Post by izacus »

hervature wrote: post #198
closeparen wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s no longer socially acceptable to make unprompted PSTN voice calls, unless you and the recipient are on very familiar terms. Even with my parents, we always arrange a time via messaging first.

Ok, and where exactly is Whatsapp a vital life necessity in your world of messaging before calling? Those also aren't forms of meaningful social interaction. I assume you again use messaging and/or voice to set up the actual interactions such as Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and family get-togethers. I'm assuming you don't show up to those events and talk to your loved ones via Whatsapp. I don't have social m…

> Ok, and where exactly is Whatsapp a vital life necessity in your world of messaging before calling? Those also aren't forms of meaningful social interaction.

These days, in many worlds countries, especially in Asia. In those places, WhatsApp is also a primary venue for business communication and vital human interaction like setting up job interviews, doctors' appointments and pretty much any other communication with other humans.

Sorry, but your point comes across as horribly oblivious - criticizing usage of WhatsApp is one thing, but acting like it hasn't become a critical part of society structure just shows a major failure of looking outside your bubble.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#277

Post by gherkinnn »

Aqua wrote: post #267
surround wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Either Apple, Microsoft, nor Amazon were mentioned. All of which collect data.

The difference being neither run a social network. Well, LinkedIn is one, I suppose.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#278

Post by izacus »

mitchdoogle wrote: post #190
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.

This kind of wording is conspiratorial mumbo jumbo. A social media's product is it's platform and software. Their revenue comes from advertising. No one ever told someone watching network TV in the 80s, "you are the product", because that would be ridiculous. It's no less ridiculous to do that with websites and phone apps. Why can't we just have a frank discussion about advertising and privacy without this kind of ma…

What was once "analyitcs" is now called "spying" on HN as well, which pretty much shows how much nuanced debate is now possible here - any kind of attempt at talking about certain products just brings out extremist rhetoric which kinda defeats constructivity on both sides.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#279

Post by mkbkn »

I just watched it this weekend. The idea most resonated to me was the comparison of FB feed with Wikipedia.

What if Wikipedia shows everyone a different page rather than the same? That's manipulation. And it's not good in that context.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#280

Post by shajznnckfke »

maigret wrote: post #269
shajznnckfke wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cur…

In a conversation, you subconsciously build a model of the mind of person you are talking to, and your words are tuned to fill the gap between what they know and are thinking and the ideas you are trying to express. If I think back through my life, the communication that has affected me most as been from humans in face-to-face conversations, not on websites. But I could be bad at objectively evaluating this.

I think for Facebook to be more effective than humans at influencing behavior, they have to implement theory of mind, which might require AGI.

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