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Myths about Social Media

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Re: Myths about Social Media

#151

Post by HWR_14 »

wobblybubble wrote: post #124
HWR_14 wrote: post #23

This is to Danish parliament. I wonder if the research he is quoting applies to (a) a larger country (b) with a heterogeneous population that (c) communicates primarily in English (where most misinformation seems to be aimed). Since he didn't link to the studies, it's hard to know. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that these studies really exist. But I certainly think those three factors may be important in his re…

> This is to Danish parliament. I wonder if the research he is quoting applies to (a) a larger country (b) with a heterogeneous population that (c) communicates primarily in English (where most misinformation seems to be aimed). Are you talking about India?

I was thinking primarily about the US with questions about the UK as well. However, I think India is a reasonable country to also consider. Doesn't India also have the unique challenge of many groups who speak their own non-English non-Hindi language serving as misinformation subculture?

Re: Myths about Social Media

#152

Post by user-the-name »

xigoi wrote: post #129
user-the-name wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get to embrace bigotry and hatred, and then turn around and complain when you get kicked out. If the conservative subreddits could have managed to behave themselves like rational and good people, they would not be getting kicked out.

Were they more bigoted and hateful than, let's say, r/FemaleDatingStrategy, r/BlackPeopleTwitter or r/FragileWhiteRedditor?

Yes.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#153

Post by fortuna86 »

bluedays wrote: post #108
user-the-name wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get to embrace bigotry and hatred, and then turn around and complain when you get kicked out. If the conservative subreddits could have managed to behave themselves like rational and good people, they would not be getting kicked out.

Is it not bigoted and hateful to say that someone should die because they didn’t get the vaccine? Asking as a liberal

It is, but it's also a false equivalency to say that kind of language has reached the mainstream of the American left.

Whereas the mainstream of the American right saw Trumpism (anti-democracy, anti-immigrant, etc.) wholly adopted.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#154

Post by dredmorbius »

I've got severe problems with this posting on multiple levels.

First, the Twitter thread is, as Twitter threads are, entirely insufficient to express nuance or comprehensiveness. The linked slide deck (in Danish) is similarly quite short on details. Its references are also largely unsatisfactory.

The whole presentation reads as if it's by someone who derived their conclusions, then plotted their research. Phrasing and framing ignores obvious evidence of real-world problems. If Petersen were a doctor, he'd be the type to whom a patient clearly suffering, or dying from, some unknown malady might present, to which Petersen would run a standard battery of tests, all inconclusive, and declare: "There's nothing wrong with you, all the lab results are negative."

If there are real-world problems --- disinformation dominatiting truth, spreading and persisting far more readily, political and genocidal disruptions occurring around the world, mental health epidemics coinciding with the adoption of social media amongst populations, and similar such issues --- then at best we can show that the specific research was either focused on the wrong elements, or performed inadequately.

The fact that changes in media profoundly change societies is well established, and dates back within historical records to the emergence of writing and mathematics. It all but certainly extends to narrative and language as well. Printing, literacy, mass-media, advertising-funded serials, telegraph and telephone, radio, mass recorded media, television, cable distribution, Internet, and mobile algorithmic social media have all left their imprints, quite often in war and genocide.

See Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy and Elizabeth Eisenstein The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, for an overview of that thesis.

How, and why, Petersern comes to his conclusions concerns me greatly.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#155

Post by dredmorbius »

pcmoney wrote: post #66
matchagaucho wrote: post #59

The "echo chambers are a myth" statement seems a bit disingenuous to me, and misses the increased algorithmic exposure to hate in social feeds that we otherwise would not see offline.

A lot of research has been done on this. For most people their IRL social circle is a much smaller and stronger bubble than what their online presence is exposed to. Even a classic “echo chamber” online is likely to expose most people to greater diversity of thought than their offline life does. For more reading on this I suggest “Breaking the Social Media Prism” Also note: research shows anon accounts tend to result…

IRL social circles are also, for the most part, geographically constrained to those one meets in everyday life. Possibly geographically distributed for professionals amongst co-workers or contacts within ones career track.

Online echo chambers, for better or worse, collect those of a similar interest and/or ideology from around the world. As with, say, Hacker News.

That may be benign, or it may not be. The inspiration and action are what matter. But the end result is that groups that would have no capacity to form and organise through physical contact, and which would be only very weakly integrated through print or broadcast medium, can emerge online. Again, that might be a positive or a negative development.

But what it isn't is either equivalent to IRL associations or a continuation of previous patterns of organisation.

And to that extent, Petersen's claims are grossly disingenuous.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#156

Post by wobblybubble »

pixl97 wrote: post #150
wobblybubble wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the intuition of random commenters is worth close to nothing.

The reproducibility issue show that your average not peer reviewed paper, is also worth close to nothing.

My intuition tells me that that is an overstatement.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#157

Post by NylaTheWolf »

user-the-name wrote: post #127
frogpelt wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your answer reveals a lot. Perhaps the reason you think that is because of the previously discussed biases that have became normal. I’ll give two examples: 1. The Black Lives Matter movement. Riots and cities being burned because of a few cases of police brutality were covered in a very sympathetic rather than objective way. In one case the words “mostly peaceful protest” was used to describe one where several things…

You are making some extreme misrepresentations in this comment, like "People are having surgeries and hormone treatments with seemingly no other alternatives ever being explored." This is very, very, very far from what reality is. This is what you have been told by people pushing far-right ideology. It is not reality.

I know I could simply upvote this but I'm replying to this anyway to say that you're 100% right here. hoo boy that comment got to me and I'm honestly upset that it didn't get downvoted.
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