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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

#261

Post by tzs »

pessimizer wrote: post #248
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's also important to note that one party wants to drill while also greatly increasing development of renewables so we can reduce the need for future drilling, increase regulatory limits on emissions over time, provide incentives to adopt more energy efficient appliances, and recognizes that the world needs to reach net zero sometime in the next few decades and is trying to reach that gradually.

The other party wants to drill while doing everything it can to discourage renewables, is eliminating as many limits on emissions as it can and stopping enforcement of those it cannot yet eliminate, and their views on addressing global warming are a superposition of {it is a hoax by the Chinese to harm the US, it may be happening but humans have no way to influence it, it is good, even if global warming is as bad as predicted and we get a few degrees rise it is no problem because we can increase fossil fuels enough to make cheap air conditioning available so we can get by fine just like Dubai gets by fine with an average temperature of 35F higher than that [1]}. They also want to eliminate funding for satellites that monitor the climate and eliminate emissions reporting requirements for the industries that do most of the emitting.

[1] https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/how-fossil-f...

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

#262

Post by delis-thumbs-7e »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #134
homeonthemtn wrote: post #67

Social media is a cancer on our society. It is both the asbestos and cigarettes of our generation.

You're on social media right now. Probably you could better qualify what it is you think is a problem.

Are we? In a sense yes that the content is usee-generated and stranger are discussing the content, but is any newsfeed with a comment-section or a hobbyist forum social media? Can I monetise my contributions here, advertise products, sell my karma-points or create networks of like-minded individuals here? Is there any point for me to try to turn my personality into a brand or try to ragebait you to interact with me by saying that your aunt Mary likes Duran Duran, or that your goldfish looks silly, in order to trick the algorithm to show more of my content? Can I channel people from here to a website showing lewd pictures of my parrot in order to get them pay me?

If all social media was like HN, I think we would be fine y’know.

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

#263

Post by vinceguidry »

The profit motive is largely what drives these problems.

My big dream is a social media platform for humans. Self-hostable Zoom / Discord alternative that just works. AGPL-licensed and eventually turned over to the GNU project for long-term maintenance once it's feature-complete. Mastadon is nice and all, but micro-blogging isn't really for ordinary humans.

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

#264

Post by sedawkgrep »

krapp wrote: post #226
sedawkgrep wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I appreciate the idea that moving without factual data is often detrimental (which is what I believe you're implying here), I don't share the opinion that SM deserves any benefit of the doubt. I'm old enough to have lived as an adult pre-SM, and from my perspective the overwhelming impact of social media has been more inflammatory, degrading, divisive, etc., etc., etc., than whatever positives you think you're…

That's just your perspective, based on the fact that controversy makes headlines and normality doesn't. One might conclude based on headlines and populist political rhetoric that the US is a crime-filled hellhole, awash in gang violence and illegal aliens swarming over the border raping and pillaging and burning entire cities to the ground, whereas in reality crime is lower than it has been for years. Perceptions cre…

Your first paragraph is just as applicable to social media as it is to traditional media...possibly moreso. So claiming that the media lies or deceives and shouldn't be believed does not lend credence to anything you're saying. When you say "media-driven narrative", where do you think that's coming from? I probably see 10x social media to traditional media and it's all over the place. So it's not the old guard barking at the new.

The reality is social media today lacks most of the rigor and accuracy that traditional media needed to be trustworthy. There's virtually no vested interest in anyone on social media being honest and forthright about anything.

Your second paragraph is simply your perspective (and full of broad statements), and like you say, your opinion on that matter doesn't mean any more to me than apparently mine to you.

Yet here we are, with more depression, anxiety, and civil unrest nationally than we've had since probably Vietnam. At least all that unrest is what I see predominantly on SM.

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

#265

Post by beowulfey »

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…

There are a lot biochemical hypotheses for why social media is unhealthy that I personally buy into.

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

#266

Post by daveguy »

CM30 wrote: post #254
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.

Hmm, I'm not sure the former holds true anymore. We're seeing societies getting far more polarised with some extreme rhetoric and and proposals coming from political parties, especially in places like the US and Western Europe. Kinda makes me wonder if politicians and political parties are fishing for engagement and focusing on the most extreme parts of their supporter base too.

> Kinda makes me wonder if politicians and political parties are fishing for engagement and focusing on the most extreme parts of their supporter base too.

They definitely are. The goal for Trump this election was clearly to stoke the base with inflammatory rhetoric bolstered by influencers spouting that same rhetoric.

"They're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the pets."

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

#267

Post by johnecheck »

zyxzevn wrote: post #257

The problem with social media (and all media) is opinion-based censorship, causing group-think. And the chaos of replies that are uncategorized. Different opinions do matter. But due to the algorithms, the most emotional responses are promoted. There is no way to promote facts or what people think are facts. So most discussion will be extremely emotional and not based on facts and their value. This is even true in sc…

> There is no way to promote facts or what people think are facts.

There is no way with existing platforms and algorithms. We need systems that actually promote the truth. Imagine if claims (posts) you see come with a score* that correlates with whether the claim is true or false. Such a platform could help the world, assuming the scores are good.

How to calculate these scores is naturally the crux of the problem. There's infinite ways to do it; I call these algorithms truth heuristics. These heuristics would consider various inputs like user-created scores and credentials to give you a better estimate of truth than going with your gut.

Users clearly need algorithmic selection and personalized scores. A one-size-fits-all solution sounds like a Ministry of Truth to me.

* I suggest ℝ on [-1,1].

-1 : Certainly false

-0.5 : Probably false

0 : Uncertain

0.5 : Probably true

1 : Certainly true

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

#268

Post by PantaloonFlames »

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.

This is an interesting distillation of the article; focusing on _how to use_ social media depending on who you are, but dismissing or de-emphasizing the main point of the piece, which is, what is social media doing to our social discourse?

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

#269

Post by integralid »

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.

I'm not sure I agree. Leading political parties are certainly fishing moderates, but for smaller parties it often makes more sense to cater to extreme views - both because people who care strongly about it will vote for you, and because it gives you more visibility.

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

#270

Post by zyxzevn »

btreecat wrote: post #258
zyxzevn wrote: post #257

The problem with social media (and all media) is opinion-based censorship, causing group-think. And the chaos of replies that are uncategorized. Different opinions do matter. But due to the algorithms, the most emotional responses are promoted. There is no way to promote facts or what people think are facts. So most discussion will be extremely emotional and not based on facts and their value. This is even true in sc…

> The problem with social media (and all media) is opinion-based censorship, causing group-think. And the chaos of replies that are uncategorized. All people are biased. It's impossible to also avoid bias needed to filter out the firehose of data. What your describing is often a form of moderation. > Different opinions do matter. But due to the algorithms, the most emotional responses are promoted. There is no way to…

I am thinking of some moderation systems that focuses on categorization instead of censorship.

There will be a bias in moderation, but that will have less of an effect when there is no deletion. If possible, the user could choose their preferred style (or bias) of moderation. If you want full freedom, you can let users select "super-users" to moderate/categorize for them.

Emotional responses and troll jokes could be a separate categories as long they do not call for violence and or break other laws.

Consensus is still group-think. I think it is destructive without any clear view where it stands within other options or other ideas. Like: "why exactly is earth not the center". A lot of consensus is also artificial due to biased reporting, biased censorship and biased sponsorship. During discussions, people within a consensus tend to use logical fallacies. Like portraying the opposition as idiots, or avoiding any valid points that the opposition bring into the discussion.

I think that people have becomes less intelligent due to one-sided reporting of information. With extra information, people will become smarter and more understanding of how other (smart) people think.

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