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Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

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Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#31

Post by vkou »

creato wrote: post #7

I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. The problem is not some content moderation policy, the problem is that social media has changed social conversations from small local interactions into monstrous virtual fight clubs between millions of people simultaneously, and where the most extreme opinions are rewarded with the most attention. Boring level headed opinions used to at least have a chanc…

> Boring level headed opinions used to at least have a chance of rising above the noise.

... Because they were heavily promoted by the people who owned the media platforms. It wasn't because of any of their particular virtues.

Consider your bias when making this claim. What makes an opinion boring and level-headed? That it is squarely in the middle of the Overton window? Who sets the Overton window, in the pre-social-network world where the overwhelming majority of media is state/corporate-sponsored?

It's not some natural evolutionary process that caused boring, level-headed opinions to rise to the top. It was self-serving opinions rising to the top, that, because of their ubiquity, are believed to be boring and level-headed.

When viewed from a different cultural lens, many of those boring and level-headed opinions appear completely batshit insane. For example, the current American model for healthcare seems, for the most part (Everyone has a few minor tweaks they want to make - but setting that aside), boring and level-headed and reasonable to ~half the country. To the rest of the world, it appears completely insane, and anyone proposing switching to it would be a complete lunatic. In the US, however, the converse holds - switching away from it is considered by many to be absolutely crazy.

Which of those opinions is the reasonable, level-headed one? It depends on your current social setting, not on the virtues or drawbacks of the expressed idea.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#32

Post by montagg »

Nextgrid wrote: post #18
creato wrote: post #7

I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. The problem is not some content moderation policy, the problem is that social media has changed social conversations from small local interactions into monstrous virtual fight clubs between millions of people simultaneously, and where the most extreme opinions are rewarded with the most attention. Boring level headed opinions used to at least have a chanc…

The other problem is that the business model of social media is based on generating "engagement" at all costs, so the platforms are built to encourage outrage as it generates lots of engagement, among other addictive behaviors (the infinite "algorithmic" feed for example). Social media was supposed to be a tool that serves people but its current business model encourages it to work against people. There were plenty o…

They certainly fostered toxic behavior. The social interactions we see on social media—even in HN from time to time—are familiar to anyone who frequented forums in the past. The ad-supported business model industrialized it, though.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#33

Post by 1234letshaveatw »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #20

I think the idea is we need diversity in online social media. I'd like to see human editors come back. Here's how Benjamin Franklin dealt with his social media platform: "In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully excluded all libelling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers pleaded, as they generally…

As long as the editors are "our guys" and not any of "their guys"

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#34

Post by untog »

andreilys wrote: post #27
SaltyLemonZest wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, Eisenstat's concern here is that Facebook isn't exercising enough editorial control over the content it allows. She argues that Facebook ought to remove content which upsets its employees, its advertisers, or the civil rights community.

The world is a big place, if you take any piece of content it’s bound to offend someone. Should we ban content that promotes the Big Bang theory because it’s offensive to creationists?

Does the Big Bang Theory encourage violence against creationists?

I don’t ask that question seriously, just to point out that generalising things isn’t always useful. For example, “hate speech” is a defined term and the Big Bang theory ain’t it.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#35

Post by paulgb »

planb wrote: post #15
creato wrote: post #7

I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. The problem is not some content moderation policy, the problem is that social media has changed social conversations from small local interactions into monstrous virtual fight clubs between millions of people simultaneously, and where the most extreme opinions are rewarded with the most attention. Boring level headed opinions used to at least have a chanc…

This is so right. But are you aware of any ideas what to do about this? It seems like everyone has just accepted that‘s the way it is now.

Unfortunately this doesn't work unless a massive group of people does it, but: stop sharing things that make you angry. They make you angry so that you share them.

So much toxicity is rooted in exploiting this dynamic.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#36

Post by Lammy »

lowdose wrote: post #11

Does WeChat cause the same problems in China as Facebook & Twitter in the west?

Maintaining societal cohesion is the justification for a great many of PRC's actions (I would say 'evils', but that's my judgement), including the Great Firewall, extermination of Uyghurs, etc. It is fundamentally a waste of time to compare that society to America's melting pot on the level we're discussing.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#37

Post by heylook »

koheripbal wrote: post #17
creato wrote: post #7

I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. The problem is not some content moderation policy, the problem is that social media has changed social conversations from small local interactions into monstrous virtual fight clubs between millions of people simultaneously, and where the most extreme opinions are rewarded with the most attention. Boring level headed opinions used to at least have a chanc…

It's more than just the toxicity of the conversations. These vapid online brawls have engaged millions more people to vote who never would have voted in the past. Hence, introducing an easily swayed group of uneducated voters into the pool, and debasing politics to their level. If democracy represents the intelligence of the average voter, then engaging literally tens of millions of uneducated/emotional/immature peop…

> These vapid online brawls have engaged millions more people to vote who never would have voted in the past.

Voter turnout in presidential elections is the same as it has been for 50 years at least. Voter turnout in the most recent midterm spiked a crazy amount, but I'm not willing to credit social media so much as a natural reaction to the extremism of the current administration. Which sources are you using that I missed?

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#38

Post by r3trohack3r »

wildmusings wrote: post #26
koheripbal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than just the toxicity of the conversations. These vapid online brawls have engaged millions more people to vote who never would have voted in the past. Hence, introducing an easily swayed group of uneducated voters into the pool, and debasing politics to their level. If democracy represents the intelligence of the average voter, then engaging literally tens of millions of uneducated/emotional/immature peop…

This is nothing new in kind. The founders were fearful of mass democracy too and sought to avoid creating one. For better or for worse, they failed.

Reference?

I don't see us as having created a representative democracy to protect democracy from the masses. I like to think we are a representative democracy because the masses are supposed to have better things to do than keep the lights of government on.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#40

Post by dvt »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #20

I think the idea is we need diversity in online social media. I'd like to see human editors come back. Here's how Benjamin Franklin dealt with his social media platform: "In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully excluded all libelling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers pleaded, as they generally…

> I think the idea is we need diversity in online social media. I'd like to see human editors come back.

People have tried. Either highly-moderated networks or "middle of the line" media. Other than a few exceptions (Real Clear Politics comes to mind), they've all failed. It's unfortunately clear that people don't want this.

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