101–110 of 304 posts
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No doubt the specific algorithms used by social media companies are bad. But what is "non-algorithmic" curation? Chronological order: promotes spam, which will be mostly paid actors. Manual curation by "high-quality, trusted" curators: who are they, and how will they find content? Curation by friends and locals: this is probably an improvement over what we have now, but it's still dominated by friends and locals who…
> Chronological order: promotes spam, which will be mostly paid actors. If users chose who to follow this is hardly a problem. Also classical forums dealt with spam just fine.
Err... well, no, it was always a big problem, still is, and is made even more so by the technology of our day.
Social media is a cancer on our society. It is both the asbestos and cigarettes of our generation.
1. Ban in most places except very specific ones. E.g., "would you like to sit in the social media use section today?"
2. Make it extremely expensive to access and use. This would likely do wonders to cut down on use, just as it did for cigarettes.
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.
Chilling the discourse would be a feature, not a bug. In fact what discourse in most places these days needs is a reduction in temperature.
This kind of defence of anonymity is grounded in the anthropologically questionable assumption that when you are anonymous you are "who you really are" and when you face consequences for what you say you don't. But the reality is, we're socialized beings and anonymity tends to turn people into mini-sociopaths. I have many times, in particular when I was younger said things online behind anonymity that were stupid, incorrect, more callous, more immoral than I would have ever face-to-face.
And that's not because that's what I really believed in any meaningful sense, it's because you often destroy any natural inhibition to behave like a well-adjusted human through anonymity and a screen. In fact even just the screen is enough when you look at what people post with their name attached, only to be fired the next day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the factors that led to the Rwandan genocide was the broadcast of the RLTM radio station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide#Radio_station... The radio didn't create the divide, and it wasn't the sole factor in the genocide, but it engrained in the population a sense of urgency in eliminating the Tutsi, along with a stream of what was mostly fake news to show that the other side is already commiting…
And there wasn’t a history of genocide of other before then? Hitler in Germany and the mass murder in Tulsa in 1921 didn’t need social media. History has shown people don’t need a reason to hate and commit violence against others.
Propaganda and ideology were a major part of the Nazi rise to power.
Marx, Engels, and Mussolini were all in the newspaper business. Jean-Paul Marat's newspaper was very influential in promoting the French reign of terror, including some claiming he's directly responsible for the September Massacres. Nationwide propaganda were major priorities day one to Lenin and after him in Soviet Russia.
Similarly with the Cambodian genocide, Great Leap Forward, Holodomor, etc.
Propaganda even played a big role in Julias Caesar's campaign against the Gauls some 2 millenia before social media.
Part of me thinks that if the case against social media was stronger, it would not be being litigated on substack. A lot of things suck right now. Social media definitely give us the ability to see that. Using your personal ideology to link correlations is not the same thing as finding causation. There will be undoubtedly be some damaging aspects of social media, simply because it is large and complex. It would be hi…
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.
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.
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.