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The case against social media is stronger than you think

arachnemag.substack.com

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Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#71

Post by makeitdouble »

hbarka wrote: post #66

Full anonymity in social media should not be allowed. It becomes a cover for bad actors (propagandists, agents, disinformation, bots, age-inappropriate, etc.) It doesn’t have to be a full identity, but knowing your user metadata is open during interactions can instill a sense of responsibility and consequence of social action. As in real life.

Real life needs full anonymity too. Not everywhere, but it's critical to have some.

For instance a political vote needs to be anonymous. Access to public space typically is (you're not required to identify to walk the street) even if that anonymity can be lifted etc.

Real life is complex, and for good reasons, if we want to take it as a model we should integrate it's full complexity as well.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#72

Post by solid_fuel »

Lerc wrote: post #57
solid_fuel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it follows that something making money must do so by being harmful. My point isn't that it's automatically harmful, simply that there is a very strong incentive to protect the revenue. That makes it daunting to study these harms. > On the other hand The WSJ, Guardian, and other media outlets have published incorrect information on the same events. The primary method that people had to discover that th…

> My point isn't that it's automatically harmful, simply that there is a very strong incentive to protect the revenue. That makes it daunting to study these harms. The problem is that having an incentive to hide harms is being used as evidence for the harm, whether it exists or not. Surely the same argument could be applied that companies would be incentivised to make a product that was non-harmful over one that was…

> The problem is that having an incentive to hide harms is being used as evidence for the harm, whether it exists or not.

No, the incentive to hide harm is being given as a reason that studies into harm would be suppressed, not as evidence of harm in and of itself. This is a direct response to your original remark that "Part of me thinks that if the case against social media was stronger, it would not be being litigated on substack."

Potential mechanisms and dynamics that cause harm are in the rest of my comment.

> Harming your users seems counterproductive at least to some extent.

Short term gains always take precedence. Cigarette companies knew about the harm of cigarettes and hid it for literally decades. [0] Fossil fuel companies have known about the danger of climate change for 100 years and hid it. [1]

If you dig through history there are hundreds of examples of companies knowingly harming their users, and continuing to do so until they were forced to stop or went out of business. Look at the Sacklers and the opioid epidemic [2], hell, look at Radithor. [3] It is profitable to harm your users, as long as you get their money before they die.

[0] https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article-abstract/14/1/79/104820... [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/09/oil-companies... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sackler_family [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#73

Post by krapp »

hbarka wrote: post #66

Full anonymity in social media should not be allowed. It becomes a cover for bad actors (propagandists, agents, disinformation, bots, age-inappropriate, etc.) It doesn’t have to be a full identity, but knowing your user metadata is open during interactions can instill a sense of responsibility and consequence of social action. As in real life.

Kiwifarms is an obvious object lesson in why anonymity online is necessary, and hardly the only one.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#74

Post by idle_zealot »

hbarka wrote: post #66

Full anonymity in social media should not be allowed. It becomes a cover for bad actors (propagandists, agents, disinformation, bots, age-inappropriate, etc.) It doesn’t have to be a full identity, but knowing your user metadata is open during interactions can instill a sense of responsibility and consequence of social action. As in real life.

Looking at any random fullrealname Facebook account will disabuse you of this notion. People will tie vile shit to their identities without a second thought.

Rather than sacrifice the cover that anonymity grants vulnerable people, journalists, and activists, I think we should come at this issue by placing restrictions on how social media platforms direct people to information. The impulse to restrict and censor individuals rather than restrict powerful organizations profiting from algorithmic promotion of the content you deem harmful is deeply troubling.

The first step here is simple: identify social media platforms over some size threshold, and require that any content promotion or algorithmic feed mechanism they use is dead-simple to understand and doesn't target individuals. That avoids the radicalization rabbithole problem. Make the system trivial and auditable. If they fail the audit then they're not allowed to have any recommendation system for a year. Just follows and a linear feed (sorting and filtering are allowed so long as they're exposed to the user).

To reiterate: none of this applies if you're below some user cutoff.

Q: Will this kill innovation in social media? A: What fucking innovation?

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#75

Post by n1b0m »

cramsession wrote: post #59

Without social media, we'd be left with mainstream media, which is a very narrow set of channels that those in power can control. Despite rampant censorship on social media, it's still the best way to circumvent propaganda and give people a voice.

Its still propaganda just from Russian and Chinese bots.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#77

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

cramsession wrote: post #59

Without social media, we'd be left with mainstream media, which is a very narrow set of channels that those in power can control. Despite rampant censorship on social media, it's still the best way to circumvent propaganda and give people a voice.

The idea of social media reducing net propaganda is a wild take.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#78

Post by phendrenad2 »

jacobedawson wrote: post #36
blitz_skull wrote: post #24

The last week has taken me from “I believe in the freedom of online anonymity” to “Online anonymity possess a weight that a moral, civil society cannot bear.” I do not believe humans are capable of responsibly wielding the power to anonymously connect with millions of people without the real weight of social consequence.

The strongest counterpoint to that is the intense chilling effect that zero anonymity would have on political dissent and discourse that doesn't match the status quo or party line. I feel that would be much more dangerous for our society than occasionally suffering the consequence of some radicalized edge cases.

Well, perhaps people should think twice before stirring the pot. Maybe the incentive to get your 20 seconds of fame by making some snappy comment on a public figure's post is part of what's driving incivility online.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#79

Post by ants_everywhere »

xnx wrote: post #17

Social media would be entirely different if there were no monetization on political content. There's a whole lot of ragebaiting/engagement-farming for views. I don't know how to filter for political content, but it's worth a shot. People are free to say whatever they want, but they don't need to get paid for it.

they get paid in political power that's why it's so ragebait driven

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#80

Post by nicce »

cramsession wrote: post #59

Without social media, we'd be left with mainstream media, which is a very narrow set of channels that those in power can control. Despite rampant censorship on social media, it's still the best way to circumvent propaganda and give people a voice.

Without social media, people would go out and talk face-to-face or even arrange meetings, like before social media.
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