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Manufactured consensus on x.com

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Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#111

Post by lynndotpy »

kridsdale3 wrote: post #61
jampa wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Reddit for 12 years. After the API fiasco, the quality dropped a lot. Most popular subreddits are now astroturfed, where every week there is a crusade against something (First it was for banning Twitter, now it is against banning AI Art). Even in regular posts, Reddit has been a hive mind lately. If you scroll through the comments, most of them will have the same opinion over and over, with comments t…

I've been there for 17 (!) years, and I could have written pretty much the same message as you since around 2012. Dennis Kucinich was a huge campaign! But I agree, since the API thing, it has sucked HARD.

I agree, the API change was the last nail in the coffin, honestly. Reddit was always bad for several reasons, but it always had some availability of smart people that placed it alongside StackExchange and Hacker News. But 2022 and 2023 really saw a mass exodus of expertise from Reddit (and Twitter, etc.)

Lots of smart people left to Mastodons, at least.

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#112

Post by jsbg »

arrowsmith wrote: post #11

Not to defend Musk but it's not like "X" was a bastion of neutrality and even-handedness before he took over (the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story being one prominent example.) Nor are the platforms Musk doesn't own yet. Does the author of this piece take a principled stand against censorship and bias? Or is he just upset that the censorship and bias isn't going in his preferred direction?

> Does the author of this piece take a principled stand against censorship and bias? Or is he just upset that the censorship and bias isn't going in his preferred direction?

Right. Did everyone forget about the twitter files already?

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#113

Post by torlok »

Why does this article talk about generic "influential people" influencing "the algorithm"? Didn't Musk force Twitter engineers on a Sunday night to artificially boost him after he got less views than the president? What's the evidence that this is some kind of a general issue, and not just the owner being petty.

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#114

Post by derektank »

janalsncm wrote: post #37
aeturnum wrote: post #19

> Social proof used to reflect crowd wisdom. Now it reflects algorithmic endorsement — triggered not by consensus, but by proximity to influence. A single interaction can distort scale, making selected content appear widely supported. I think this is barking up the right tree with the wrong lesson - these things are the same. Elon Musk, for worse mostly, is a social influencer. You can tell because a lot of people fo…

Jake Paul is a social influencer. His posts show up from organic engagement. Elon Musk owns the platform. He directly dictates how it works. He ordered engineers to boost his posts by a factor of 1000. https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/14/23600358/elon-musk-tweets... Whether some people like EM’s posts is beside the point. It’s manufactured.

Elon Musk had 85 million followers in 2022[1] before he acquired Twitter. He obviously has some organic engagement / grassroots appeal, separate from whatever benefits he derives from owning the platform.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/money/Elon-Musk

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#115

Post by _Algernon_ »

Philpax wrote: post #70
fouc wrote: post #5

Reading that I couldn't help but think there's parallels to HN. At least HN tries to be transparent about "the algorithm", and it's essentially a dumb algorithm compared to what X/FB/etc use.

Is it that transparent? I did not know about the vast majority of the items on this list until I encountered it: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented

Certainly more transparent than some black box machine learning monstrosity.

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#118

Post by the_optimist »

seadan83 wrote: post #66
ethagknight wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufactured consensus is literally the name of the game for the big news networks. News is/was paid vast sums by the government to tell a certain story. That is Manufactured Consensus. Some countries do a better job making the news seem like a separate arm from the government. The entire point is to direct the populace. That is not the core focus of X, even though it is entirely susceptible to it, and will be encoun…

Outside of PBS, do you have evidence for this claim: "News is/was paid vast sums by the government to tell a certain story"? > Alternative views definitely have reach. Yes, but are we in a 1984 situation where that reach is managed behind the scenes. Reach, but perhaps not too much reach. With respect to the chart, how do we know that Twitter users are not largely partitioned? How representative is the fact you saw s…

Reddit mgmt itself has significant concerns, according to anonymous sources. You heard it here first.

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#119

Post by Joking_Phantom »

Every social media platform is manipulated by it's owners and elites. There's no way to get around it, not when your KPIs are user engagement and advertising dollars.

Twitter has become a particularly nasty version of it. In the before times, Google, Twitter, Reddit, etc. usually spent their efforts trying to manipulate things in a mostly benign way.

If you like free markets, then you must be opposed to Twitter. This is a market controlled by a few. Competition is rigorously hunted down. Lies and fake social proof packaged into "free speech." Only the chosen ones are allowed audience.

This is the opposite of capitalism. This is the worst of cronyism.

Force switching all accounts to unfollow Democracts and follow Republicans and Elon, signal boosting right wing conspiracy theorists, blocking or suspending left or liberal accounts, it's just naked power centralization all the way down...

Re: Manufactured consensus on x.com

#120

Post by zoogeny »

razster wrote: post #84
zoogeny wrote: post #36

It is a bit chilling because of the compound interest that this kind of policy incentivizes. Once you have a handful of powerful X accounts, you have the ability to generate more. So not only can you work to silence others, you can work to increase your capacity to silence others by promoting like-minded allies. We are at the early stages of this, so we are watching the capture of influence. There is some discussion…

That dynamic of influence compounding certainly echoes the historical patterns we’ve seen with capital—those who have it can shape systems to acquire more. But it’s worth remembering that this only holds power if we choose to participate. Personally, I’ve stepped away from anything associated with X.com or Elon Musk. I deleted my accounts, disconnected from the ecosystem entirely—and life is better for it. No doomscr…

I think we should be careful of too much cynicism (although too little is bad as well). There is the old Aesop tale of the fox and the grapes. Being unable to reach the grapes the fox sulks away saying "they were probably sour".

There is a lot to gain for the powerful if they can convince those that they wish to hold that power over that the "grapes are sour", so to speak. That leaves less people fighting for the few grapes available, as we stretch this analogy to its breaking point.

No man is an island, and all that. If the holders of influence decide to start a war, you are in it if you like it or not.

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