Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry • Hacker News Board

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#101

Post by AniseAbyss » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 3:04 AM UTC

rapatel0 wrote: post #97

everdrive wrote: post #34

Social media itself is a grand experiment. What happens if you start connecting people from disparate communities, and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism? In years prior, you would be heavily shaped by the people you lived near. TV and internet broke this down somewhat, but social media really blew the doors off. Now it's the case that almost no one seems to be able to explain all the woes we're facing toda…

>and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism The concept is called "yellow journalism" and extends basically to the days of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Modern culture has poured gasoline on this but it's existed forever. I think the issue is that we have scaled groupthink--people now engage in circular conversations that reinforce nonsensical beliefs. Where as they might have historically encoun…

[dead]

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#102

Post by frogpelt » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 3:08 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #65

everdrive wrote: post #34

Social media itself is a grand experiment. What happens if you start connecting people from disparate communities, and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism? In years prior, you would be heavily shaped by the people you lived near. TV and internet broke this down somewhat, but social media really blew the doors off. Now it's the case that almost no one seems to be able to explain all the woes we're facing toda…

>and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism This isn’t inherent to social networks though. It is a choice by the biggest social media companies to make society worse in order to increase profits. Just give us a chronological feed of the people/topics we proactively choose to follow and much of this harm would go away. Social media and the world were better places before algorithmic feeds took over everything.

Before there was social media there was click bait headlines from supposedly reputable news agencies.

Social media gave people easy ways to engage and share. And it turns out what people engage with and share is click bait/rage bait.

So maybe not technically inherent but a natural consequence of creating networks for viral sharing of content.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#103

Post by noufalibrahim » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 3:10 AM UTC

Grimblewald wrote: post #7

From history we know that research left unchecked and unrestricted can start leading to some really dark and horrible things. Right now I think it's a problem that social media companies can do research without answering to the same regulatory bodies that regular academics / researchers would. For example, they don't have to answer to independant ethics committees / reviews. They're free to experiement as they like o…

Tangentially related. The idea that scientific research operates in a vacuum uninfluenced by real world considerations in its relentless search for truth is a notion that a lot of scientism advocates put out.

I've always found the idea laughable and this is a good example of that.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#104

Post by asdff » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 3:13 AM UTC

latency-guy2 wrote: post #89

asdff wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it on me to come up with a new model for healthcare? I can acknowledge shortcomings of the present system without having to come up with solutions for them.

> Pretty predictable what happens when you deny coverage for a treatment someone needs Other poster demonstrated that you have no idea what "need" is. So you also have no idea what a "shortcoming of the present system" is either, because how the hell would you even know?

People being denied treatment they need seems like a shortcoming of the present system.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#105

Post by asdff » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 3:14 AM UTC

quesera wrote: post #57

asdff wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter if it personally occurred to him or someone related to him? It happens to plenty of people. You can have empathy for people not bound by blood.

Of course you can. But where does it stop? There is a great deal of injustice in the world. Psychologically healthy adults have learned to add a reflection step between anger and action. By all evidence, Luigi is a smart guy. So one can only speculate on his psychological health, or whether he believed that there was an effective response to the problem which included murdering an abstract impersonal enemy. I'm stump…

He could die quietly making no impact on the issue. Or he could sacrifice the rest of his free life to put a spotlight on the issue. That is what he chose to do. Not an easy decision I'm sure.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#106

Post by Grimblewald » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 3:18 AM UTC

terminalshort wrote: post #11

Grimblewald wrote: post #7

From history we know that research left unchecked and unrestricted can start leading to some really dark and horrible things. Right now I think it's a problem that social media companies can do research without answering to the same regulatory bodies that regular academics / researchers would. For example, they don't have to answer to independant ethics committees / reviews. They're free to experiement as they like o…

What counts as research? If I make UI changes, I guess it's ok to roll it out to everyone, because that's not an experiment, but if I roll it out to 1%, then that's research? If I own two stores and decide to redecorate one and see if sales increase vs the other store, do I need government approval? Also I would like an example of something a social media company does that you wouldn't be able to get approval to do o…

Well, the definition is simply "the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions"

However, I'd like to narrow this to "The systematic investigation into, and manipulation of, a system in order to map variables that can be exploited for material gain"

The reason this is important is because it's important someone can tinker with their website and test out new aesthetics etc.

As for an example of something you'd be hard pressed to get approval for: Body Image & Social Defeat (The Instagram Study). This would be extremely unlikely to pass. Given the research goal would translate to "we wish to see 'how much bullying makes them stay in the cage longer'" then it would be rejected as gratuitous cruelty.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#107

Post by ambicapter » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 3:33 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #65

everdrive wrote: post #34

Social media itself is a grand experiment. What happens if you start connecting people from disparate communities, and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism? In years prior, you would be heavily shaped by the people you lived near. TV and internet broke this down somewhat, but social media really blew the doors off. Now it's the case that almost no one seems to be able to explain all the woes we're facing toda…

>and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism This isn’t inherent to social networks though. It is a choice by the biggest social media companies to make society worse in order to increase profits. Just give us a chronological feed of the people/topics we proactively choose to follow and much of this harm would go away. Social media and the world were better places before algorithmic feeds took over everything.

The existence of "yellow journalism" in the 19th century would disagree with that statement. That outrage and emotionalism trigger human's attention more so than other feelings is a biological fact that has been exploited for centuries and centuries. The same way gambling has been around for the entirety of recorded human history. It's a default behavior pattern installed in every humans, some can override, most don't.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#108

Post by bearseascape » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 4:19 AM UTC

terminalshort wrote: post #11

Grimblewald wrote: post #7

From history we know that research left unchecked and unrestricted can start leading to some really dark and horrible things. Right now I think it's a problem that social media companies can do research without answering to the same regulatory bodies that regular academics / researchers would. For example, they don't have to answer to independant ethics committees / reviews. They're free to experiement as they like o…

What counts as research? If I make UI changes, I guess it's ok to roll it out to everyone, because that's not an experiment, but if I roll it out to 1%, then that's research? If I own two stores and decide to redecorate one and see if sales increase vs the other store, do I need government approval? Also I would like an example of something a social media company does that you wouldn't be able to get approval to do o…

> What counts as research?

You might be aware of this, but most big tech companies (i.e. the ones with massive user counts) don't just let you roll out UI changes to everyone, because they know that this has a downstream impact on users. So they often A/B test those things, which is literally an experiment: you randomize who sees what, measure outcomes, and ship whatever wins. There are many data scientists employed in industry to set up and analyze experiments like this.

Also, it seems clear that this not harmless research. Everyone is aware of the effect social media has on our mental health (see the under-16 social media ban in Australia). Facebook definitely knows this, e.g. 2014 there was a big controversy over their News Feed “emotional contagion” study, where they altered what content people saw to measure changes in sentiment, without meaningful informed consent [1][2].

> Also I would like an example of something a social media company does that you wouldn't be able to get approval to do on animals. That claim sounds ridiculous.

This misses the main point: the issue is that for these experiments (and they are experiments) there is often no independent approval mechanism in the first place. Facebook, after receiving backlash, does have privacy/integrity/safety teams now which review these experiments, they are far from being independent third parties.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every...) [2] [https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/main-result-face...](https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/main-result-face...)

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#109

Post by betty_staples » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 4:21 AM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #67

slg wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism This isn’t inherent to social networks though. It is a choice by the biggest social media companies to make society worse in order to increase profits. Just give us a chronological feed of the people/topics we proactively choose to follow and much of this harm would go away. Social media and the world were better places before algorithmic feeds took over everything.

> This isn’t inherent to social networks though. It is a choice by the biggest social media companies and to make society worse in order to increase profits. going beyond social media it's IMHO the side effect of a initially innocent looking but dangerous and toxic monetization model which we find today not just in social media but even more so in news, apps and most digital markets

I will say I am strongly against what social media algorithms do.

But I am fascinated by the black mirror element. They said "hey algorithm what gets likes, what gets views - look into human nature and report back" - "human nature shows polarization does! emotional charged divisive content!" - that's just fascinating. Not learning, philosphophy, growth, education, health, no, the naughty stuff, the bad stuff. That's not to exonerate social media companies, no, such would be the same as exonerating big tobacco for what they do.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#110

Post by simplisticelk » Tue, Jan 20, 2026, 4:27 AM UTC

cheriot wrote: post #14

We need an update of Thank You for Smoking

You should give it a rewatch keeping in mind that it was financed by Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. The message of the film comes across a bit differently in that light; much more libertarian/anti-government. Enjoyable film nonetheless!