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Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

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Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I'm not censored on any platform. Then again I don't make violent threats, spread misinformation, use racist language, or harass people. I feel free to have these discussions, and I do all the time. What's the problem? You can communicate freely, but that doesn't mean there isn't consequences for things you speak and nobody has to host you while you're broadcasting it. I find this type of argument devolves int…

I find this type of argument devolves into "I want to be a crappy person and not be judged for it or face consequences" Whereas I find your counter-argument devolves into "Crappy people are those who disagree with my point of view and they should face consequences"... The truth is there are extremes on both sides; but the censorship seems to be overwhelmingly driven by one.

The whole "cancel culture" concept has literally be around for years, it was just marketed now and used for politics. Humans have been cancelling people and things for eternity. People with extreme views that did not align with the majority were always pushed away. This even happened in medicine and science.

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#32
> ...A few large companies, free to set their own rules, wield control over public and private communications.

This statement seems to have always been technically true. What does control mean?

> Conversation and correspondence, far from being treated as confidential, are rifled through by marketers to extract sensitive personal data.

It seems that the public doesn't really care about this.

> Propaganda, lies, and defamatory attacks get broadcast to the masses, often by sources that can’t be traced.

This statement also seems to have always been technically true.

> Rather than promoting an informed public, social media has promoted polarization, extremism, and, all too often, ignorance.

I guess the questions is whether Americans want the government to tell them what they can and can't read or look at. Should that right be taken away? Shouldn't informed adults be able to make their own choices about whether or not they want to spend time on their Twitter or Facebook feeds?

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#33

I don't want social media to censor me, people I want to communicate with or people I don't ever want to communicate with. I want tools that help me communicate with other people. Learn things, get exposed to new ideas. And we can't have that with a huge system designed to prevent people from saying the wrong things. Our ability to communicate and learn freely is dependent on the ability for people we disagree with t…

Funny, I'm not censored on any platform. Then again I don't make violent threats, spread misinformation, use racist language, or harass people. I feel free to have these discussions, and I do all the time. What's the problem? You can communicate freely, but that doesn't mean there isn't consequences for things you speak and nobody has to host you while you're broadcasting it. I find this type of argument devolves int…

You may not have raised any questions about Covid provenance, spoken about Hunter Biden's cavorting the efficacy of Covid treatments, etc.

I'm sure there are tons more actual legal things you cannot freely talk about on FB.

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#34

I've yet to see compelling evidence that social media itself is a problem in and of itself (outside of teens but IIRC FB/Insta disallow kids until 13 to use their service per TOS). I see a lot of stuff like, "Terrorists use the platform to organize and plan attacks!", which is true...but that seems like you should be solving that by solving the reasons people want to be terrorizing, not by attacking the mediums they…

>I've yet to see compelling evidence that social media itself is a problem in and of itself

You might be interested in this: https://www.wired.com/story/jargon-watch-rising-danger-stoch...

   stochastic terrorism: the use of mass media to incite attacks by random nut jobs—acts that are “statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.”

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#35
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this type of argument devolves into "I want to be a crappy person and not be judged for it or face consequences" Whereas I find your counter-argument devolves into "Crappy people are those who disagree with my point of view and they should face consequences"... The truth is there are extremes on both sides; but the censorship seems to be overwhelmingly driven by one.

The whole "cancel culture" concept has literally be around for years, it was just marketed now and used for politics. Humans have been cancelling people and things for eternity. People with extreme views that did not align with the majority were always pushed away. This even happened in medicine and science.

I think the problem is the "democratization" of cancelation. Someone says something mildly controversial (some talk radio host said something terse about a neighbor) and people start lodging complaints against the employer and the hosts advertisers.

It's idiotic.

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#36

I don't want social media to censor me, people I want to communicate with or people I don't ever want to communicate with. I want tools that help me communicate with other people. Learn things, get exposed to new ideas. And we can't have that with a huge system designed to prevent people from saying the wrong things. Our ability to communicate and learn freely is dependent on the ability for people we disagree with t…

Funny, I'm not censored on any platform. Then again I don't make violent threats, spread misinformation, use racist language, or harass people. I feel free to have these discussions, and I do all the time. What's the problem? You can communicate freely, but that doesn't mean there isn't consequences for things you speak and nobody has to host you while you're broadcasting it. I find this type of argument devolves int…

What do you call it when you make a post that you assume your friends can see and only some are presented your post?

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I'm not censored on any platform. Then again I don't make violent threats, spread misinformation, use racist language, or harass people. I feel free to have these discussions, and I do all the time. What's the problem? You can communicate freely, but that doesn't mean there isn't consequences for things you speak and nobody has to host you while you're broadcasting it. I find this type of argument devolves int…

I find this type of argument devolves into "I want to be a crappy person and not be judged for it or face consequences" Whereas I find your counter-argument devolves into "Crappy people are those who disagree with my point of view and they should face consequences"... The truth is there are extremes on both sides; but the censorship seems to be overwhelmingly driven by one.

So how does this work? Some one is crappy for thinking violence, racism, misinformation, and harassment should never be tolerated? What's extreme about that? Please do enlighten me...

There is nothing extreme about getting booted from facebook because one can't behave like a reasonable adult. As noted above if anyone did any of this in a setting like a restaurant they would be asked to leave, coupled with assistance from law enforcement and even possible arrest for trespassing and disturbing the peace.

So who's wrong here? The businesses that don't want to be subjected to certain types of speech from customers because it impacts their business or the people that feel they have the right to say whatever they want free from consequence? Why can a McDonald's ask a customer to leave their establishment because they used the N word in front of customers, but Facebook can't? And let's be clear, in both cases no censorship occured, there was just consequences after the fact. Looking forward to your reply.

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I'm not censored on any platform. Then again I don't make violent threats, spread misinformation, use racist language, or harass people. I feel free to have these discussions, and I do all the time. What's the problem? You can communicate freely, but that doesn't mean there isn't consequences for things you speak and nobody has to host you while you're broadcasting it. I find this type of argument devolves int…

>Funny, I'm not censored on any platform. Then again I don't... spread misinformation That's because you can't think outside the box. All the greatest iconoclastic truths in human history were labeled "dangerous misinformation" by the authorities.

LOL, okay... best you can do is personal attacks? When did Facebook and twitter become the authorities? This is a prime example of why we can't have nice things.

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I'm not censored on any platform. Then again I don't make violent threats, spread misinformation, use racist language, or harass people. I feel free to have these discussions, and I do all the time. What's the problem? You can communicate freely, but that doesn't mean there isn't consequences for things you speak and nobody has to host you while you're broadcasting it. I find this type of argument devolves int…

What do you call it when you make a post that you assume your friends can see and only some are presented your post?

What do you mean by presented? If I have a friend who has 4000 friends and I am their 4000th most important friend, I would sufficiently believe that a generic post of mine would not appear at the top of their feed and they might not see it.

I get the idea of not having all the "so and so friend liked so and so's post" which feel low quality in a feed, but part of a custom feed is prioritizing updates from people you actually want to see updates from

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#40
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this type of argument devolves into "I want to be a crappy person and not be judged for it or face consequences" Whereas I find your counter-argument devolves into "Crappy people are those who disagree with my point of view and they should face consequences"... The truth is there are extremes on both sides; but the censorship seems to be overwhelmingly driven by one.

The whole "cancel culture" concept has literally be around for years, it was just marketed now and used for politics. Humans have been cancelling people and things for eternity. People with extreme views that did not align with the majority were always pushed away. This even happened in medicine and science.

You are right, it's been around since we evolved into civilized human beings actually. We even have places where people are being "cancelled" out of society. We call it "prison".

The only new thing is that it's labelled "cancel culture" which makes it somehow "bad" for some people.

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