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

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

#111

Post by intended »

Aurornis wrote: post #79
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.

> Social media and the world were better places before algorithmic feeds took over everything Some times I feel like I'm the only one who remembers how toxic places like Usenet, IRC, and internet forums were before Facebook. Either that, or people only remember the past of the internet through rose colored glasses. Complain about algorithmic feeds all you want, but internet toxicity was rampant long before modern soc…

Having moderated both PHP forums and SM sites, quantity is its own quality.

Not to mention we have adversaries to contend with now. I still remember seeing Palantir slides for sock puppet management tools way back in the day. That was the SOTA at one point. Today?

SM pushed connected humanity past a critical connected mass that Usenet and IRC never could.

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

#112

Post by energy123 »

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.

Your post needs to be absorbed and spread by everyone.

The public debate has given us a false choice between censorship and no censorship. It's the wrong dimension.

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

#113

Post by [deleted] »

ambicapter wrote: post #107
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.

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'…

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by intended »

terminalshort wrote: post #22
CodingJeebus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. One possible example is the emotion manipulation study Facebook did over a decade ago[0]. I don't know how you would perform an experiment like this on animals, but Facebook has demonstrated a desire to understand all the different ways its platform can be used to alter user behavior and…

Isn't this just what every media company has done since the beginning of time? You think the news companies don't select their stories based on the same concept? And I'm pretty sure you would get approval to do something similar to animals given that you can get approval to actually feed them drugs and see how that affects their behavior.

I can speak to the types of experiments done, and media companies never had the same degree of ability, data or talent.

Even something benign and commonplace like A/B testing, was not possible given a physical newspaper.

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

#115

Post by protocolture »

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.

Yeah its crazy it hasnt been around long yet I yearn for the old days of even 10 years ago when my feed was still mostly things my friends are doing.

The problem with social media is that it has gone off book.

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

#117

Post by intended »

fnoef wrote: post #5

Would it be appropriate to use :surprised_pikachu_face:? I meant, I no longer know who to trust. It feels like the only solution is to go live in a forest, and disconnect from everything.

There is a coalition for independent tech research that was formed, because researchers saw exactly this problem. https://independenttechresearch.org/about-us/

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

#118

Post by trinsic2 »

betty_staples wrote: post #109
dathinab wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I kind of wonder if it creates it rather than shows us a mirror.

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

#119

Post by energy123 »

protocolture wrote: post #115
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.

Yeah its crazy it hasnt been around long yet I yearn for the old days of even 10 years ago when my feed was still mostly things my friends are doing. The problem with social media is that it has gone off book.

I posit that the growing anti-immigration sentiment partly comes from informational borders being eliminated by social media.

People want some of that friction back but can't put their finger on where the unease is coming from.

I further posit that this partly explains why Trump's approval rating around immigration are very negative despite successfully stopping immigration, which was one of the issued he polled the best on. He took away immigration, but the unease and insecurity from having zero information borders remains. (Yes there are other factors too especially around ICE conduct).

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

#120

Post by fwipsy »

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.

How do you know the casuality isn't reversed? Maybe the social media prioritizing outrage became the biggest. Don't hate the player, change the game.
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