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The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

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Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#11

Post by GW150914 »

rqs wrote: post #9

> The problem is the business model based on the manipulation of individual behavior. I don't think this is the right target to blame. The much deeper reason is people ARE stupid, while think they are clever and correct. You, me, all the others included. And at the same time, the education once applied to us, failed. Simply put, it's not a technology problem, it's a sociology problem. Around the year 2002, when I was…

I connected quite a bit earlier, mostly Usenet and BBS’, and when EFnet came along a lot of that. People like to talk about Eternal September and other depredations of communities, but the truth is that while things functioned more smoothly earlier on, it was always a bunch of people and people more or less act like warring groups of primates. If someone had come back from the future and only told us about the extent of the internet in this time, I think that a lot of people could have extrapolates the shit-show of today from what we’d experienced back then.

The only semi-surprise was the move to mobile devices opening the internet up to people who are almost too stupid to live. Not just tribal, not just willing to fight for their version of reality, but dumb as rocks. There used to at least be a filter (which steadily widened) of needing to know how to use a computer and get online. That is just gone now, and we’re in the true agora.

It is not fun, and all of which is to say it is as you say, a sociology problem. BJT it exists in this form because of powerful and ubiquitous technology. It’s also true that the underlying sociological problem has been ruthlessly capitalized on by people who realized we warring primates could be readily exploited for attention and therefore, revenue. It was always going to be messy, but instead of people trying to fight against then current, some of the richest, most powerful and brightest people are actively trying to sweep people away for money.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#12

Post by rococode »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #7

" you know that you could leave at any time and you know that you will not." I have no problem. The press needs to take more responsibility for this as they are the primary enablers of Twitter. Tweets are presented all the time in articles as expression of legitimate opinion, and often used as the basis for some kind of rally bad straw-man argument the author wants to make. I think Twitter will wane but it won't go a…

I feel that many regular people have given up the notion of actively tweeting their own content. The friends I follow on Twitter don't tweet very often nowadays, and when they do it's often in response to a tweet made by an account with a large following. I mostly stay on Twitter to keep up to date with news from certain groups and organizations (for example, YC). To me, at least, it doesn't really feel like "Facebook with short posts only" anymore, but more "place where you can read and comment on casual thoughts and updates from your favorite celebs and companies".

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#13

Post by intended »

in the 90s, I read about how religious extremists in certain countries were targeting moderates. This seemed very odd at the time, because the moderate position just seemed the normal sensible person position.

Over time though, moderate preachers were singled out, and in some cases killed, because they didn’t take a stand. This created a chilling effect.

Coupled with incendiary and emotional images (“look at these pictures, look at what they’ve done to our children! You are either with us or with them.”), and no push back or ability to prevent such polarization, extremism grew stronger.

This is the gist of what I remember, it’s been years and many other crises since then.

However I am struck, as to how social media is creating those same dynamics - but now for everything from gender, race, religion, politics, nationality, to brand loyalty and maybe even gaming.

The best solution I saw for dealing with social media was dropping off it altogether.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#16

Post by kwyjibo1230 »

intended wrote: post #13

in the 90s, I read about how religious extremists in certain countries were targeting moderates. This seemed very odd at the time, because the moderate position just seemed the normal sensible person position. Over time though, moderate preachers were singled out, and in some cases killed, because they didn’t take a stand. This created a chilling effect. Coupled with incendiary and emotional images (“look at these pi…

Forcing you to "drop off" social media seems like the exact chilling effect you describe (assuming you are a moderate), rather than being a stance.

It's happening!

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#17

Post by doctorpangloss »

GW150914 wrote: post #11
rqs wrote: post #9

> The problem is the business model based on the manipulation of individual behavior. I don't think this is the right target to blame. The much deeper reason is people ARE stupid, while think they are clever and correct. You, me, all the others included. And at the same time, the education once applied to us, failed. Simply put, it's not a technology problem, it's a sociology problem. Around the year 2002, when I was…

I connected quite a bit earlier, mostly Usenet and BBS’, and when EFnet came along a lot of that. People like to talk about Eternal September and other depredations of communities, but the truth is that while things functioned more smoothly earlier on, it was always a bunch of people and people more or less act like warring groups of primates. If someone had come back from the future and only told us about the extent…

BBSes were never as great of an advertising buy as an image-adjacent to an Instagram pic.

Nobody looking at a BBS could anticipate why BBSes would eventually vanish, while Instagram is truly here to stay.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#18

Post by gmueckl »

kwyjibo1230 wrote: post #16
intended wrote: post #13

in the 90s, I read about how religious extremists in certain countries were targeting moderates. This seemed very odd at the time, because the moderate position just seemed the normal sensible person position. Over time though, moderate preachers were singled out, and in some cases killed, because they didn’t take a stand. This created a chilling effect. Coupled with incendiary and emotional images (“look at these pi…

Forcing you to "drop off" social media seems like the exact chilling effect you describe (assuming you are a moderate), rather than being a stance. It's happening!

How would you act instead? In the eyes of a someone with a sufficiently incompatible position you are a loonie who gets ignired after the dirst dissenting statement with a simple mouse click, never to be seen or heard from again on that platform. This is just so much easier than in the real world.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#19

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

kwyjibo1230 wrote: post #16
intended wrote: post #13

in the 90s, I read about how religious extremists in certain countries were targeting moderates. This seemed very odd at the time, because the moderate position just seemed the normal sensible person position. Over time though, moderate preachers were singled out, and in some cases killed, because they didn’t take a stand. This created a chilling effect. Coupled with incendiary and emotional images (“look at these pi…

Forcing you to "drop off" social media seems like the exact chilling effect you describe (assuming you are a moderate), rather than being a stance. It's happening!

Hang on, are you saying that people who drop off of / don't participate in social media aren't taking a stance? It certainly seems like one to me...

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#20

Post by fzeroracer »

intended wrote: post #13

in the 90s, I read about how religious extremists in certain countries were targeting moderates. This seemed very odd at the time, because the moderate position just seemed the normal sensible person position. Over time though, moderate preachers were singled out, and in some cases killed, because they didn’t take a stand. This created a chilling effect. Coupled with incendiary and emotional images (“look at these pi…

Those exact same dynamics have existed since humanity started forming groups and civilizations. Thaddeus Stevens was considered an extremist due to his views on slavery and many revolutions have been fought due to the gulf between two portions of society having grown too large to bridge.

Social media just makes those divides more readily apparent because people now have instant access to those they harshly disagree with. There's also a large amount of issues stemming from rational ignorance due to the sheer amount of data people are being bombarded with, and it's easy to often slip things past people's various filters depending on how you target them and their education levels.

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