Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 210 posts

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#91

Post by nradov »

lemming wrote: post #87
nradov wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. The vast majority of my Facebook friends post at least some original content.

Fortunately we don't have to rely on your anecdata, people actually study this stuff: https://news.gallup.com/poll/467792/social-media-users-incli... U.S. adults commonly engage with popular social media platforms but are more inclined to browse content on those websites and apps than to post their own content to them. The vast majority of those who say they use these platforms have accounts with them, but less than…

That's junk science and doesn't refute the specific point I made. Facebook users are far more likely to post original content than X users. It might just be some blurry backlit vacation photos but it is original content.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#92

Post by mediumsmart »

Social media is a few people selling the data of many people looking at content made by some people selling something.

There is also research and promotion of values going on and the thing as a whole is entertaining and can be rigged or filtered on various levels by all participants.

It’s kind of social. The general point system of karma or followers applies and people can have a career and feeling of accomplishment to look back on when they retire. The cosmic rule of anything. too much, no good applies.

It’s not really broken but this is the age of idiots and monsters, so all bets are off.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#93

Post by smackeyacky »

nradov wrote: post #91
lemming wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately we don't have to rely on your anecdata, people actually study this stuff: https://news.gallup.com/poll/467792/social-media-users-incli... U.S. adults commonly engage with popular social media platforms but are more inclined to browse content on those websites and apps than to post their own content to them. The vast majority of those who say they use these platforms have accounts with them, but less than…

That's junk science and doesn't refute the specific point I made. Facebook users are far more likely to post original content than X users. It might just be some blurry backlit vacation photos but it is original content.

They post but it doesn’t get read, all their friends feeds are just swamped with crap like theirs is.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#94

Post by mindwok »

thrown-0825 wrote: post #89
mindwok wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true as individuals, but importantly as a society we have far more agency than sometimes it feels like when you watch us all acting out our own individual self-destruction. Banning CFCs, making seatbelts a legal requirement, making drink driving illegal, gun control (in countries outside the USA), regulations on school canteens. These are all examples of coordination where we've solved problems further upstre…

If you don’t think societies can be greedy, self serving, and short sighted I don’t know what to say. We have raped this planet into a coma and our children will have to scrape together whatever remains when we are done.

I didn't mean to imply that, they definitely can be those things and far worse. But there are many examples of societal coordination that achieve the exact opposite of that (Scandinavian countries are of course the canonical example).

Things can change.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#95

Post by taeric »

This seems somewhat disproven by the existence of places like this? Strict moderation really does work wonders to prevent some of the worst behaviors.

Not that you won't have problems, even here, from time to time. But it is hard to argue that things aren't kept much more civil than in other spots?

And, in general, avoiding direct capital incentives to drive any questionable behavior seems a pretty safe route?

I would think this would be a lot like public parks and such. Disallow some commercial behaviors and actually enforce rules, and you can keep some pretty nice places?

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#96

Post by owisd »

AuthAuth wrote: post #73
delichon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whitelisting solves the problem for me. I curate every tweet I see with a browser extension. Strangers can't kick down the door. I only see content from my direct follows. It dramatically reduces the stress. Maybe a little like horse blinkers.

How do you find new things to follow? If everyone did this it would be extremely rare to encounter new content.

We'd just go back to human curation, you'd whitelist a few curators you liked, people wanting to promote their content would email a link to a curator, if they thought their audience would like it they'd share it, you'd see it via your whitelist and if you liked the look of it you'd whitelist them.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#97

Post by magzter »

taeric wrote: post #95

This seems somewhat disproven by the existence of places like this? Strict moderation really does work wonders to prevent some of the worst behaviors. Not that you won't have problems, even here, from time to time. But it is hard to argue that things aren't kept much more civil than in other spots? And, in general, avoiding direct capital incentives to drive any questionable behavior seems a pretty safe route? I woul…

I generally agree that strict moderation is the key but there's obviously a certain threshold of users and activity that is hit where this becomes unfeasible - ycombinator user activity is next to nothing compared to sites like Facebook/twitter/reddit. Even on Reddit, you see smaller subreddits able to achieve this.

But just like a public park, if 2 million people rock up it's going to be next to impossible to police effectively.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#98

Post by immibis »

Scrounger wrote: post #79
PaulHoule wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I really enjoy Mastodon and Bluesky but I am very deliberate at avoiding negative people, I do not follow and often mute or block “diss abled” people who complain about everything or people who think I make their life awful because I am cisgender or who post 10 articles an hour about political outrage. The discover page on Bluesky is algorithmic and respects the “less like this” button and last time I look…

> Bluesky FWIW, I've been consistently posting quality stuff on Bluesky for the last year, and despite having a few hundred followers, I get ZERO engagement. People in the Bluesky subreddit tell me it's not a "post and ghost" platform in that you have to constantly interact with people if you want to earn engagement, but that's too time consuming. In other words, the discovery algorithm(s) on BlueSky sucks.

It's just Twitter 2. It's the same as Twitter, made by the same people who made Twitter, doing the same thing as Twitter in the same way as Twitter, with the same culture as Twitter, plus a fig leaf to decentralisation.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#100

Post by incompatible »

unsignedint wrote: post #59

Social media as a vessel for diverse discussion is a tall order. It’s too public, too tied to context, and ultimately a no-win game. No matter how carefully you present yourself, you’ll end up being the “bad guy” to someone. The moment a discussion touches even lightly on controversy, healthy dialogue becomes nearly impossible. Think of it this way: you’re hosting a party, and an uninvited stranger kicks the door ope…

"Diverse discussion" is just something I don't want. Of course I've made up my mind about all kinds of things and I don't really need to see opposing points of view as though they are novel thoughts that I've never considered before. Sure, tell me again why your religion or your conspiracy theory proves that the scientific consensus is a hoax. Maybe you'll convince me this time?

I don't mind Mastodon, but I'm pretty selective in who I follow, and diversity of opinions isn't one of my criteria.

Post reply on HN