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Negativity drives online news consumption

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141–150 of 375 posts

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#141
post #138

Just as I have been saying, we need an alternative to the capitalist profit-driven media organizations. Outrage drives “engagement”, for both social networks and for publishers. All of the profit-driven outleys are subject to market pressures. Even NYTimes which won more Pulitzer prizes than anyone admits to A/B testing headlines for clickbait. Let alone FOX News or YouTubers with “X does Y, immediately regregts it”…

There is a lot of negativity on your site.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#143
post #138

Just as I have been saying, we need an alternative to the capitalist profit-driven media organizations. Outrage drives “engagement”, for both social networks and for publishers. All of the profit-driven outleys are subject to market pressures. Even NYTimes which won more Pulitzer prizes than anyone admits to A/B testing headlines for clickbait. Let alone FOX News or YouTubers with “X does Y, immediately regregts it”…

There is a lot of negativity on your site.

[deleted]

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the news is inherently skewed towards negativity then maybe it's not as valuable as we assume it is. This isn't an argument against the free press or anything. As bad as bias and fearmongering in news is, adding government oversight would make it way worse. It's just a thought experiment. To elaborate, if news is inherently skewed towards negativity (and I'm just taking that at face value), then maybe it shouldn't…

> If the news is inherently skewed towards negativity then maybe it's not as valuable as we assume it is. I suspect discussing knowledge of the news is some kind of social signaling.

I will admit that while reading the news I have on occasion consciously committed certain details about recent events to memory knowing I had an upcoming social gathering specifically for this purpose.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#145
post #138

Just as I have been saying, we need an alternative to the capitalist profit-driven media organizations. Outrage drives “engagement”, for both social networks and for publishers. All of the profit-driven outleys are subject to market pressures. Even NYTimes which won more Pulitzer prizes than anyone admits to A/B testing headlines for clickbait. Let alone FOX News or YouTubers with “X does Y, immediately regregts it”…

There is a lot of negativity on your site.

Can you give some examples? Elaborate?

It highlights what’s wrong with the for-profit news industry.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#146

Former newspaper city editor here. With few exceptions, positive stories -- although readers clamored for them in surveys -- never drove newsrack sales the way negative stories did. That's why we had a whole section for feel-good features but they didn't usually get prime front-page real estate. In the age of infinite content, headlines have become a sort of drama arms race. But the basic dynamic of what works and wh…

If the news is inherently skewed towards negativity then maybe it's not as valuable as we assume it is. This isn't an argument against the free press or anything. As bad as bias and fearmongering in news is, adding government oversight would make it way worse. It's just a thought experiment. To elaborate, if news is inherently skewed towards negativity (and I'm just taking that at face value), then maybe it shouldn't…

Its valuable to us because of how our brains work. Learning a piece of info that is bad actually adjust our internal networks more effectively than learning what is good.

It works for ML too. If Tesla had a set of training data that was inversed, ie the vast majority of cars were involved in a crash, it would have a fully working level 5 autonomous autopilot 2 years ago.

Its much more efficient to have the knowledge of statistically improbable but bad actions to avoid, rather to have a set of good actions where you don't know where the boundaries are.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#147
Negativity (anger, fear, anxiety, etc...) has a way of getting you to cling onto it in an incredibly insidious way. It's hard because usually you don't notice it until you've already started spreading it to others.

Let that shit go immediately, once you become aware. And if at all possible, spend time working to develop mindfulness (a meditation/introspection practice is very helpful).

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it, news serves three purposes: --- 1. To let you know about local or world events that could affect you and those close to you. 2. To let you know about world events that affect others far away, in order to judge the effectiveness of political decisions and the necessity of future political decisions. 3. As a form of entertainment derived from the ongoing story of world history (or celebrity gossip, or…

> perhaps government-funded I suggest the opposite. I'd like a proof that there is no government involvement. Believe it or not, I think the closest to this is ideal is 4chan /pol/. It's not backed by any major corporation (unlike HN which is backed by Y Combinator), it's not partly owned by Tencent/China (unlike Reddit), and so on. There's no algorithm, there's no karma, there's no blue badge, it barely scrapes by u…

I don't see how an unmoderated, anarchic space like 4chan is close to what I described; the entire point of what I had in mind is a very specific kind of moderation: stories are only published if (a) they're reasonably likely to materially affect some significant portion of readers sometime in the next 6 months, and (b) there's something they can do about it or in response to it.

For example, if the readership of this news service was entirely US-based, then it would only publish a single article on the Ukraine war---when it started---and then might only ever mention it again if it has a direct practical effect on US residents, like travel restrictions.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#149
I went for a jog at my condo's gym the other day and the news was on. During my 30m session I learned about 3 violent crimes around the city. 2 car collisions. And a bunch of political turmoil etc.

I thought to myself: Why do I need to know person-x was one in 3 million to get killed? Why is this compelling? Is there a risk to me?

Was such an overtly negative feeling to watch that. Turned it off half way through the run.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> perhaps government-funded I suggest the opposite. I'd like a proof that there is no government involvement. Believe it or not, I think the closest to this is ideal is 4chan /pol/. It's not backed by any major corporation (unlike HN which is backed by Y Combinator), it's not partly owned by Tencent/China (unlike Reddit), and so on. There's no algorithm, there's no karma, there's no blue badge, it barely scrapes by u…

I don't see how an unmoderated, anarchic space like 4chan is close to what I described; the entire point of what I had in mind is a very specific kind of moderation: stories are only published if (a) they're reasonably likely to materially affect some significant portion of readers sometime in the next 6 months, and (b) there's something they can do about it or in response to it. For example, if the readership of thi…

> (a) they're reasonably likely to materially affect some significant portion of readers sometime in the next 6 months, and (b) there's something they can do about it or in response to it.

That's the entire point. Who are you to decide that? How can you quantify 'likelyhood to be materially affected'? How can you empirically determine if 'someone can do something about X'?

Your opinion is worth the same as the next guy's. Anarchy and no moderation whatsoever, in this context, is always better no matter how you try to rationalize it. The only problem is that it makes is harder to tell the signal from the noise (noise being fake stuff, tangential topics, hearsay, bullshit, etc.). But the opposite is much much worse.

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