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The case against social media is stronger than you think

arachnemag.substack.com

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Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#241

Post by mid-kid »

raziel2p wrote: post #224
mid-kid wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, yes, but at least it's not filter bubbling everyone.

there may not be an algorithm at work here as there is on Instagram or TikTok, but there's still a bubble - the name, design and discourse of HN itself works as a filter.

What you're describing is an echo chamber, when people willingly share only things that they know resonate with the group.

While still somewhat detrimental, it's at least a visible problem - everyone is aware of it because everyone sees the same thing.

With filter bubbles, you create personalized echo chambers, that nobody is aware of unless they're in there.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#242

Post by dcow »

pembrook wrote: post #232
throw4847285 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument contains the fallacy fallacy, a logical fallacy in which one wrongly cites an informal fallacy in order to discredit a valid argument. The actions of several democratic governments is evidence that there is enough popular support for these actions to argue for a broader trend. And before you try for a gotcha, I am well aware that a democratic government can enact regulations without a direct vote provin…

Huh? Claiming something is true because a government supports it, is quite possibly the most cut-and-dry definition of an appeal to authority I've ever seen.

Governments aren’t banning or restricting it because “god said it was bad”. Nor is the GGGP arguing that we should take it seriously because governments do so. Those would be specific appeals to authority. The GGGP argument uses examples of cases where social media has been taken seriously enough to result in government regulation to directly rebut the GGGGP’s claim that social media is only being discussed on substack and not more broadly.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#243

Post by eastbound »

narag wrote: post #237

If you're a politician, you need people to vote for you. "Your" people will. Try not to alienate too much others so you can fish moderates and get to 50%. If you're an "influencer" you need engagement. You can live off a 10% easily. And you need retention. So keep the message heated.

We’ve succeeded to make people vote for the fight against global warming, which clearly says people have to reduce their lifestyle, so I think there can be enough audience to make this topic the platform of one party.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#244

Post by MangoToupe »

eastbound wrote: post #243
narag wrote: post #237

If you're a politician, you need people to vote for you. "Your" people will. Try not to alienate too much others so you can fish moderates and get to 50%. If you're an "influencer" you need engagement. You can live off a 10% easily. And you need retention. So keep the message heated.

We’ve succeeded to make people vote for the fight against global warming, which clearly says people have to reduce their lifestyle, so I think there can be enough audience to make this topic the platform of one party.

Have we? I don't recall that option ever being on the ballot in the US.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#245

Post by BobbyTables2 »

MangoToupe wrote: post #244
eastbound wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve succeeded to make people vote for the fight against global warming, which clearly says people have to reduce their lifestyle, so I think there can be enough audience to make this topic the platform of one party.

Have we? I don't recall that option ever being on the ballot in the US.

Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!”

Inefficient regulation also incentivizes car companies to make larger less efficient vehicles because they can’t make the smaller ones efficient enough. And the public has no problem buying enormous vehicles… (Doesn’t everyone need an off road extended cab 4x4 truck for commuting to the office?)

Frankly, I do feel there is a segment that seems to over focus on conservation to the point of impracticality.

However, the “single use” consumption has got to end. I don’t even see the debate here. Plastic lids, styrofoam containers, gotta go. Maybe not outright ban, but the culture has to change. Ordered a pastry in a bakery — clerk put it into a large styrofoam container, inch thick stack of napkins, plastic grocery bag, plastic fork/knife.

Unfortunately I was eating it there… All that waste for one pastry baked there?

On the other hand, I wonder if Amazon is the devil we assume. If I drive my car around town to get a few items, maybe it’s more fuel efficient to just have them delivered with others’ ?

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#246

Post by azinman2 »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #245
MangoToupe wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we? I don't recall that option ever being on the ballot in the US.

Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!” Inefficient regulation also incentivizes car companies to make larger less efficient vehicles because they can’t make the smaller ones efficient enough. And the public has no problem buying enormous vehicles… (Doesn’t everyone need an off road extended cab 4x4 truck for commuting to the office?) Frankl…

> Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!”

The idiotic lie here is that the US doesn’t really have the right refinement plants to handle US based oil, so they have to swap oil with other countries who do. Building out new refinement plants isn’t easy or quick, yet would be necessary to actually reduce oil imports and become self sufficient.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#247

Post by scarface_74 »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #186
scarface_74 wrote: post #7

I really hate the narrative that social media has increased polarization knowing that my still living parents grew up in the Jim Crow south where they were literally separated from society because of the color of their skin. The country has always been hostile to “other”. People just have a larger platform to get their message out.

Race relations were better in the 2000-2010 period, according to Gallup data: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1687/race-relations.aspx Easy to cherry-pick stuff. You can cherry-pick Jim Crow south; I can cherry-pick Chicago in the 90s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDmAI67nBGU I think we have to get past black-and-white thinking and see it as a matter of degree. With 340 million people in the USA, realistically, at le…

You call 60 years of racial segregation that affected an entire race of people in several states “cherry picking”?

It’s a huge difference between “a few people being racist” and laws enforcing segregation and laws against interracial marriage.

The racists have always been in power. You can look at the justice system, the disparity between sentencing for the same crimes across races etc.

The Supreme Court said you can’t use race as a basis for college admissions. But you can use it as a basis for arresting someone.

Fox News is the most popular news network and isn’t part of social media.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#248

Post by pessimizer »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #245
MangoToupe wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we? I don't recall that option ever being on the ballot in the US.

Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!” Inefficient regulation also incentivizes car companies to make larger less efficient vehicles because they can’t make the smaller ones efficient enough. And the public has no problem buying enormous vehicles… (Doesn’t everyone need an off road extended cab 4x4 truck for commuting to the office?) Frankl…

> Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!”

It's important to note that the other party's response to that was "Who says we don't want to drill!?" followed by a disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (or "America" I think we're supposed to say now.)

It's never on the ballot unless it truly does not matter to anyone with any power.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#249

Post by rkomorn »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #229
rkomorn wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of this is driven by the user's behavior, not just advertising, though. "The algorithm" is going to give you more of what you engage with, and when it comes to sponsored content, it's going to give you the sponsored content you're most likely to engage with too. I'd argue that, while advertising has probably increased the number of people posting stuff online explicitly designed to try and generate revenue for…

Reddit and 4chan both get their money from advertisers though, so they have an incentive to try to boost engagement above whatever level might be natural for their userbase. Social interaction is integrated with our brain chemistry at a very fundamental level. It's a situation we've been adapting to for a million years. We have evolved systems for telling us when its time to disengage, and anybody who gets their reve…

But neither Reddit nor 4chan really have the feed optimization that you'd find on Meta properties, YouTube, or TikTok.

I'm certainly not going to disagree with the notion that ad-based revenue adds a negative tilt to all this, but I think any platforms that tries to give users what they want will end up in a similar place regardless of the revenue model.

The "best" compromise is to give people what they ask for (eg: you manually select interests and nothing suggests you other content), but to me, that's only the same system on a slower path: better but still broken.

But anyway, I think we broadly are in agreement.

Re: The case against social media is stronger than you think

#250

Post by kmacdough »

Lerc wrote: post #11

Part of me thinks that if the case against social media was stronger, it would not be being litigated on substack. A lot of things suck right now. Social media definitely give us the ability to see that. Using your personal ideology to link correlations is not the same thing as finding causation. There will be undoubtedly be some damaging aspects of social media, simply because it is large and complex. It would be hi…

I'm with you on the skepticism, but I also think the underlying point is worth acknowledging:

Social media represents a step change in how we consume news about current events. No longer are there central sources relied on by huge swaths of the population. Institutions which could be held accountable as a whole and stood to lose from poor reporting. Previous behemoths like NYT, WaPo, Bloomberg are now comparatively niche and fighting for attention. This feels so obvious it's not necessary to litigate, but if someone has statistics to the contrary, I'll be happy to look deeper and re-evaluate.

I agree, one should not immediately succumb to fear of the new. At the same time, science is slow by design. It takes years to construct, execute and report on proper controlled studies. Decades to iterate and solidify a holistic analysis. In the mean time, it seems naive to run forward headlong, assuming the safest outcome. We'll have raised a generation or two before we can possibly reach analytical confidence. Serious irreparable damage could be done far before we have a chance to prove it.

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