Social media are turbocharging the export of America’s political culture • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by anticodon » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 10:50 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #167

i5heu wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

„Don’t complain about hard to change tires! Build your own car!!!“ Do you even know what it means to run a social platform? Germany has had multiple social Platforms before Facebook. StudiVZ Kwick And even local ones like “Team Ulm” They are all dead. Because social platforms live from scale.

> Do you even know what it means to run a social platform? Hacker news has added no features for like 10 years and has two moderators. TWO. Hacker news doesn’t do “growth.” It doesn’t send re-engagement emails. It doesn’t have an official app. It doesn’t run TV ads. Yet it’s one of the most visited sites on the web. Any below-average software engineer could build and deploy a clone within a single day. How is there n…

In Russia we do have a social network for nerds that is quite popular (habr.com). It's not like Hacker News though.

We also have several other social networks, e.g. vk.com, which started as an exact clone of the first Facebook version (even layout and colors were the same). They're quite popular in Russia and former USSR republics.

Although all platforms with user articles and user comments are somewhat poisoned by the US propaganda from US troll factories. I've already posted some comments on HN about this.

E.g. if there's a single article about some Russian invention/Russian car/Russian plane/Russian website/Russian whatever on Facebook, YouTube, vk.com, habr.com, any other social network, there would be hundreds, even thousands, comments with uniform reponses like:

- "It's garbage compared to the superior Western technology!"

- "It would be 100x cheaper to build this in the West because of the lack of corruption!"

- "It was stolen from the superior Western engineers and scientists. Wake up, sheeple: we, Russians, are not able to do anything, but to eat shitty soup with wooden spoon"

This is highly annoying, but it's easy for US to fund such factories, given that US can print astronomical amount of money without providing any backing material/industry output, and there're millions of people in the former USSR republics with excellent knowledge of Russian and no job, willing to work for measly $100-200 per month.

BTW, I'm also subscribed to some other countries social media (some SEA countries, India), and I guess US troll factories do their work there as well. Although it doesn't feel as targeted and intense as rusophobic propaganda that filled all the internet.

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

#182

Post by pram » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 10:56 AM UTC

anticodon wrote: post #177

odiroot wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For some of us from excolonies, this is starting to feel like neocolonialism. Then imagine how it feels for people in countries that were never a western colony -- quite the opposite, under Russia's shoe. It's like, if some aliens from another descended upon us and forced their morals.

Unlike Western colonialism, Russia/USSR developed the new territories. Look at Central Asia, for example. There were no cities, almost no population, no houses for the most part (other than some primitive clay huts), no education, no medical care, sometimes not even written language. Definitely no any kind of industry. USSR invested billions to build infrastructure, schools, factories, power plants, hospitals, irriga…

This is a nonsensical comparison. Those were constituent republics in a federal system. The US built infrastructure in its “new territories” too. It’s practically unremarkable.

A better comparison would be how the USSR handled its foreign occupations. Like Afghanistan for example, where they managed to kill 10% of the population to prop up a fraternal socialist government.

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

#183

Post by anticodon » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 11:03 AM UTC

pram wrote: post #182

anticodon wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Western colonialism, Russia/USSR developed the new territories. Look at Central Asia, for example. There were no cities, almost no population, no houses for the most part (other than some primitive clay huts), no education, no medical care, sometimes not even written language. Definitely no any kind of industry. USSR invested billions to build infrastructure, schools, factories, power plants, hospitals, irriga…

This is a nonsensical comparison. Those were constituent republics in a federal system. The US built infrastructure in its “new territories” too. It’s practically unremarkable. A better comparison would be how the USSR handled its foreign occupations. Like Afghanistan for example, where they managed to kill 10% of the population to prop up a fraternal socialist government.

How many civilians in Afghanistan and Vietnam were killed by US troops? About 10% of Vietnam population at the time, as far as I remember.

Also, USSR didn't try to occupy Afghanistan. It was a pointless war, but reasons for it are not as simple as "prop up a fraternal socialist government" and it wasn't fought to occupy Afghanistan.

Also, where the number "10% of the population" originate from? It definitely seems and exaggeration.

BTW, unlike US, USSR build roads, tunnels, power plants and hospitals in Afghanistan. Some of them are still used today.

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

#184

Post by toomanybeersies » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 11:05 AM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #28

buildingmateri wrote: post #13

Living in an expat destination country currently as an American, I regularly get crap from friends, Australian, British, South African, about the perceived madness of American political culture that's now popping up in their work lives and home countries. Slightly reminiscent of living abroad during Bush-Iraq years as an American where you become a target of blame.

Australians knew more about American politics day to day during Trumps presidency than we did our own politics. It was surreal.

As much as I support the recent discourse around Aboriginal deaths in custody, I found it disconcerting that it was triggered by American police killing an African American man.

The complete apathy we show towards domestic politics is shocking, the average Australian can probably name more American politicians than Australian. I have friends who actually complain that they're forced to vote, purely because they can't be bothered to vote. People (including members of the Victorian Liberals) are more concerned with conspiracy theories about Dan Andrews getting bashed than debates on policy.

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

#185

Post by ksec » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 11:07 AM UTC

ergocoder wrote: post #112

LAC-Tech wrote: post #54

It's not a recent phenomena - it's been happening since WWII. The weirdest part is - the stronger someone is influenced by American political culture, the more they'll tell you about how awful America is.

This is gonna sound strange. High self-criticism is what I admire about US. In my country, the check and balances and freedom of speech are not strong enough. People are somewhat reserve about criticizing their own countries. And you can pretty much guess what is happening...

>High self-criticism is what I admire about US.

May be its just me. Never really seen anything like that from Americans.

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

#186

Post by toomanybeersies » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 11:09 AM UTC

zpeti wrote: post #137

lainga wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Canada. The CBC was particularly egregious. The "World" section was just the "US Politics" section. I stopped reading; but, of course, like all Canadians, I have kept funding it.

Because trump sells views and ads on coverage worldwide. He was a goldmine for the media, and they made sure to make the most of it.

Now that Trump is no longer the US President, and is banned from social media, I've definitely noticed a significant decrease in US domestic politics in my world news (mostly BBC and Guardian)

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

#187

Post by toomanybeersies » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 11:20 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #167

i5heu wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

„Don’t complain about hard to change tires! Build your own car!!!“ Do you even know what it means to run a social platform? Germany has had multiple social Platforms before Facebook. StudiVZ Kwick And even local ones like “Team Ulm” They are all dead. Because social platforms live from scale.

> Do you even know what it means to run a social platform? Hacker news has added no features for like 10 years and has two moderators. TWO. Hacker news doesn’t do “growth.” It doesn’t send re-engagement emails. It doesn’t have an official app. It doesn’t run TV ads. Yet it’s one of the most visited sites on the web. Any below-average software engineer could build and deploy a clone within a single day. How is there n…

I don't want an Australian Hacker News. I want a global Hacker News, with submissions covering politics, technology, business, and history from all over the world.

That being said, I'm not really complaining, and I feel that HN has a better global distribution than most forums. If I want more international submissions and discussions, I should start posting them myself, and stop interacting with posts I don't want to see.

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

#188

Post by esyir » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 11:25 AM UTC

nickelpro wrote: post #169

systemvoltage wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think this is a matter of liking someone. Replace political views with religion and we provide protections against discrimination of someone based on their religion. Let me spell out the problem more clearly, it’s not as simple as your boss not liking you. 1) Coworker gets to find out someone doesn’t share their political beliefs. 2) They try to get moral superiority over the person … because disagreeing with…

I don't see how what your upset about is new or connected to social networks. McCarthyism existed two decades before the first networked computers and was the exact same thing as what you're describing. I agree, people are shitty, but trying to legally limit the speech of people you don't like is exactly opposite the values of free ideas that we usually try to support. Or at least the ones that I support.

Yeah, I agree. Let's rescind all protected classes ASAP.

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

#189

Post by toomanybeersies » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 11:41 AM UTC

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?

Just brainstorming here:

What if social media algorithms were biased heavily towards local content?

I don't subscribe to any channels at all on YouTube, and yet when I watch a video the sidebar recommendations are often filled with only marginally related videos on US politics and other specially American content.

On Facebook, I don't follow any American news outlets, and again, my newsfeed gets a disproportionate amount of US news stories.

Despite not actively attempting to consume Americentric content (but not actively avoiding it), it's pushed in my face.

After the US election, my newsfeed was flooded with posts about it. Meanwhile, I saw practically zero posts about the election in Myanmar and subsequent events. I haven't seen anything at all about the election in Peru.

Arguably US politics has more of an effect on me than Peruvian politics. But so much of the "news" was inane tabloid stories covering events like Rudy Giuliani's hair dye running.

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

#190

Post by toomanybeersies » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:07 PM UTC

nickelpro wrote: post #173

oarsinsync wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who engage with social media do so freely. If the content wasn't what they wanted or sought out, it wouldn't be popular and successful. My local tennis club only publishes to Twitter. They do not operate a mailing list anymore. I want to play tennis, be notified of same day court cancellations, be notified when new classes are available to book. I don’t want to use social media. What do I do? Give up tennis?…

If they only published the information via newsletter you'd need to subscribe to that. If they only advertised via newspaper spots you'd need to subscribe to the paper. These are natural social pressures that you're succumbing to and that's fine, that's how society works. None of us is an island. In any case, you're not being forced to engage with Twitter's algorithm _beyond_ what you've bought into via your engageme…

> you're not being forced to engage with Twitter's algorithm

Maybe not forced, but strongly encouraged. On mobile, a quarter of my screen is taken up with prompts for me to join Twitter.

Before it was made illegal in the USA and the UK in the 1930s, nobody "forced" children to work, they chose to (with the alternative of starvation). Regardless of their right to choose, child labour was seen as a harmful practice and subsequently outlawed.

That being said, I'm not equating Twitter to child labour. My point is that the fact we are not "forced" to do something doesn't mean it's right, or should be allowed.