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Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

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Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#291

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Breaking any type of addiction is hard. For some people it requires intentional and deliberate help from others.

Social media is a habit more than an addiction. It's easy to stop if you engage in other social activities. The trouble for many people who grew up online is that they don't have much experience doing that.

Facebook is intentionally designed to be as addictive as possible. It's not "a habit more than an addiction", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They can, at any moment, de-rank rage-bait, but they don't. That clearly signals "make rage-bait for our platform and we'll pay you." They don't because they don't select for it. They disporotionally push engagement but as far as I know don't have some indians or AI working tirelessly analysing countless videos to categorise them and rank them according to how ragebaity or controversial they are. Those things just r…

I find it hard to believe that Facebook's feed is "dumb" and only promotes what's engaging the most users. They serve you content that they think you will find engaging, and there has to be some automatic categorization as a result. And regardless, even if they don't select for rage-bait, they still refuse to take action against accounts that repeatedly post it, making your interjection largely pointless.

It's not dumb and promotes what's engaging for users individually algoritmically without categorising. That's the not dumb part about it.

>They serve you content that they think you will find engaging, and there has to be some automatic categorization as a result.

And this can be completely smart or dumb depending on how you look at it. From my perspective it's a smart algorithm still. If you like or comment on far right or far left ragebait or just ragebait in general then it can serve you ouput from accounts who attract engagement from others who also engage witht hat video. Aka similarly minded people get similarly minded content semi organically as a result of optimising for engagement.

It can do so without genuenly knowing that the video is of category xyz and promoting that specific category but automatically it detects that people who engage with video y are also more likely to engage with video z. The ideological and engagement type bubbles create themselves as a result.

>even if they don't select for rage-bait, they still refuse to take action against accounts that repeatedly post it, making your interjection largely pointless.

The definition of ragebait is vague. Your supressing ragebait is another person's ragebait or supressing of desimination of societal issues. It can be a video of violent crime or of political corruption. Of war or religious extremism. It can be sharing statistics, supporting misogynistic or xyzfobic talkingpoints or exposing them, etc

In a society facing economic decline, corruption or cultural upheaval or what have you you will be stepping on toes whichever way you go. I'd say it's better to either outright ban this kind of social media which will be deeply unpopular or to focus wholely on tackling the divisive issues that lead people to be attracted to some of the dominant topics.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of course publish it. Logically we might expect Meta to get into selling narcotics next. "It is not Meta's role to police drug use"

The constitution guarantees free speech, but not free drug use (though maybe it should). So I don't see any contradiction here. Meta has every right to police speech as it is a private company, but it has no obligation to do so.

I don't think the issue here is whether FaceBook is acting illegally, but whether it is acting responsibly, or just enshittifying society for it's own benefit.

Note incidentally that "free speech" doesn't mean you can say what you like. Yes, you can go out in public and swear and engage in hate speech - all legal - but for example you can't incite others to commit crimes, cross over into disorderly conduct, shout "fire" in a theater, etc.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#294

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> appear to be profiting from is "an invitation-only programme that lets you earn money from the performance of your eligible public reels, photos, stories and text posts." The difference between “We ask white nationalists to join our invite only pay-for-views program” and “we commission white nationalists to make content” kinda seems like splitting hairs.

No, it's "We invite popular content creators without regard to their political views."

The fact that antisocial (e.g. white nationalist) content creators are the most “popular” (e.g. drive the most engagement) is not immaterial to this topic.

It’s a very flimsy defense. “It’s not my fault that the cartels pay the most for heavy weaponry.”

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#296
post #69

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But regulated media is also a shit show!

Like what?

Take a juicy corruption story to the media and watch them refuse to engage. All of them.

There are things they are allowed to talk about, and things they are not.

It’s been refined over many decades to maintain public ignorance

That Epstein or Enron type scandal you see in the media is tip of iceberg of what is not published.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#297

I think this is a bit misleading. It sounds to me like the creators are creating and uploading the content, and then that is getting monetised on the platform? The title makes it sound like meta is commissioning the content? I don't think that is the case here? Or is it? Directly commissioning someone to create it is pretty wild.

“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”

“I didn’t directly tell them to make white nationalist content, I just paid them for being an engaging content creator.”

Hope that we get to a point as a society that we acknowledge that companies can and should be held liable for inevitable second-order effects of the decisions they make and strategies they adopt.

It certainly applies to personal liability, e.g. manslaughter.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#298
post #92

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The egregious part is the amplification part. Profit derives from that. Transmission and protection are neutral and they are necessary for all information especially if there is a history of freedom of expression; though of course some governments and others like regulating permissible expression.

Transmission and protection are not neutral. They're a choice. Facebook has freedom of association and is allowed not to host content they believe harmful. Something they already do extensively. [1] [1] https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/

They are a choice, yes, the same way anything is. They are neutral choices in the same way roads and other infrastructure "permitting" criminals to use them are. The fact that Meta does not choose to be neutral in all such cases is not an argument against that.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#299
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The egregious part is the amplification part. Profit derives from that. Transmission and protection are neutral and they are necessary for all information especially if there is a history of freedom of expression; though of course some governments and others like regulating permissible expression.

Yes, but that is perfectly ok because we live in a society with not only freedom of speech but also freedom of the press, so it necessarily follows that it is ok to distribute speech that you don't like to a willing audience and also to profit from it. If that isn't ok, then neither is HN or the New York Times.

"Legal" and "perfectly okay" (aka socially acceptable or virtuous in some other way) are different things. If HN started paying people to post socially divisive content that wouldn't be okay at all (though it would almost certainly be legal).

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#300
post #205

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I remember going to Las Vegas once after I turned 21, realizing that it totally wasn’t my thing, and especially being scared by the expressions on the zombie seniors sitting in front of the slot machines shoveling quarters in. I see that basically every day now with people watching TikTok or Instagram while walking, on the bus, or even driving, barely able to tear their attention away. It’s like a casino except that…

> especially being scared by the expressions on the zombie seniors sitting in front of the slot machines shoveling quarters in. It's not just seniors. I used to date a woman who worked as a cocktail waitress on the floor of a major casino on the strip. She referred to the people at the slots as "trained monkeys".

Definitely not just seniors but I saw a bus full of them unload and it was like watching a switch flip off as everyone stopped socializing and focused on the machines. So eerie.
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