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Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

economist.com

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Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#121

Post by slim »

nickelpro wrote: post #92

I don't understand HN's problem with this. It's a freemarket of ideas, no one is being forced to follow Americans on Twitter or subscribe to American content producers on Youtube. What even is the alternative being proposed here? Segmenting the internet so people from different countries _can't_ interact with one another? Is that preferable?

You sure it's a free market of ideas ? What do you make of intellectual property ? Content zoning ? Media consolidation ?

On social media : what do you make of algorithmically selected content ? Thought bubbles ?

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#122

Post by ahartmetz »

roenxi wrote: post #59
mc32 wrote: post #14

What's a bit ironic to me is that this extension of US cultural hegemony used to be derided as cultural imperialism back a few decades ago before other cultural exports became vogue (Anime, K-Pop, etc.) when it was the US vs everyone else. But now, many of the people who would have decried this kind of hegemonic influence delight in it. They delight in the fact we can establish norms for communication and discourse n…

It is a very interesting case of perspective. It probably needs a bit of a perspective shift for the typical Twitter political influence to realise that they are, in fact, foreign political interference. Not that there is anything wrong with American political thought being exported. Would that their methods of free political debate were a little bit more widespread. It is a pity that social media is such a biased sa…

> Not that there is anything wrong with American political thought being exported.

I strongly disagree. The vitriol, demonizations, oversimplifications, "every issue has exactly two sides - ours and theirs" limitations of the space of thought, virtue signaling, bullshit / distraction issues, puritanism, etc... There is much wrong with exporting these. These things are happening especially on social media.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#123

Post by [deleted] »

sergiomattei wrote: post #86
naruvimama wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some of us from excolonies, this is starting to feel like neocolonialism. We see our elected leaders bending the knee to the new east India company. It looks like we have been recolonised before we could decolonise.

For us, the still colonized, we're used to it.

[deleted]

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#125

Post by bob120393 »

giantandroids wrote: post #35

Had first hand experience of this. I maintain an opensource project which is popular on NPM. An issue was raised in our github about we should have a statement of support for BLM in our readme. I said no as politely and diplomatically as possible. I would rather the project remains non-political, they said that made me complicit. The thing is I am from Europe. I think BLM is a very worthy policial movement, as do I a…

>> I think BLM is a very worthy political movement

BLM is not what you think it is. Check out http://blmexposed.org

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#126

Post by stubish »

oefrha wrote: post #109
stubish wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsubstantiated claim, followed by a seemingly unrelated segue into US political commentary.

> Unsubstantiated claim YouTube among others censored so much content surrounding SARS-CoV-2 (rightly or wrongly, I’ll remain neutral here), Apple and Google’s app stores straight up rejected apps for unofficial COVID info, including quite absurd cases like xscreensaver being rejected for including 3D renderings of the virus, or maybe just the word covid.[1] You really didn’t pay much attention if you’re unaware of t…

Removal of SARS-CoV-2 content seemed at my end to be mainly driven by international calls to block disinformation [1], and certainly not driven by US corporate policy as claimed.

Censoring US content worldwide still seems unrelated to exporting America's political culture. Maybe you could make an argument that is hindering the export, or providing a biased view of the export.

[1] https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/counter...

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#127

Post by nverno »

wolverine876 wrote: post #67
dasb wrote: post #43

It's funny when radical progressivists in my country try to translate the "white male" cliché into our local context, because white (as in caucasian white) people are are less than 5% of our population.

It doesn't sound difficult to me. It has nothing to do with whiteness and maleness; it's about political power. If there is a group that is a dominant political power, it's the same thing. That's why issues of 'reverse racism' are a different problem: Discrimination is about power, not race. If American Buddhists are discriminatory against Baptists, it's obnoxious but not an issue of oppression or much threat to Bapt…

If it was just about political power it wouldn't make much sense given we've had a darker skinned person as president half this century (slight exaggeration), not to mention the current vice president, etc. etc.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#128

Post by zozbot234 »

ahartmetz wrote: post #122
roenxi wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a very interesting case of perspective. It probably needs a bit of a perspective shift for the typical Twitter political influence to realise that they are, in fact, foreign political interference. Not that there is anything wrong with American political thought being exported. Would that their methods of free political debate were a little bit more widespread. It is a pity that social media is such a biased sa…

> Not that there is anything wrong with American political thought being exported. I strongly disagree. The vitriol, demonizations, oversimplifications, "every issue has exactly two sides - ours and theirs" limitations of the space of thought, virtue signaling, bullshit / distraction issues, puritanism, etc... There is much wrong with exporting these. These things are happening especially on social media.

There's nothing specifically American about these. It's just the kind of political discourse that gets structurally amplified by social media sites that are clearly maximizing mass "engagement" with posted content.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#129

Post by freebuju »

As a non-American I can tell you how dead wrong this notion is. This might have been true in the mid-2000's when social media was still relatively new (and mostly Western). As it cascaded into other parts of the world, the novelty died off. In fact, to the contrary we are seeing more and more localization of content on social media and other digital platforms. A good example here is Tiktok in user generated content that has geographic & linguistic boundaries. Film, music & other sub-cultures have a much more powerful rubbing effect on pushing subtle American culture than SM.

Re: Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture

#130

Post by _Microft »

treeman79 wrote: post #29
dismayedbycorp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you imagine corporate policy of SF or Menlo Park sets what people in Mumbai or Seoul can discuss regarding SARS-Cov-2? You don't have to imagine of course, it already does. Also, last year someone mentioned here that joebiden.info (which AFAICT is just a website with a collection of inconvenient clips and reports on Biden, maybe misinterpreted to fit an agenda in some cases) was censored in Messenger, seemingly…

Was quite shocking the first time my message got blocked. I am part of autoimmune support groups where plaqunial is a normal treatment. Pre pandemic. Get constant warnings and fact checks about plaqunial. Friends regularly have their post “fact checked” of course always by liberal sources. Full blown 1984 / animal farm these days.

"Plaqunial"/"Plaquenil" seems to be a brand name of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). To some extend this makes it understandable why it is being censored at the moment because the unfounded claims going around that it would help against Covid-19.

This does not mean that it does not have its uses but only that there might be too many people spreading bad medical advice/misinformation at the moment. Combine that with social media' inability to scale content moderation and you end with a blanket ban of the term. This might have gone better for you and your group if these companies could only differentiate if someone is suggesting improper or valid use of HCQ.

So you might consider yourself a victim/collateral damage of an unfortunate coincidence of both Trump spreading misinformation on hydroxychloroquine in the first place and tech's inability to scale moderation and quality of it at the same rate as their growth.

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