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Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

theatlantic.com

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Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#31

Post by listless »

soupfordummies wrote: post #19
blakesterz wrote: post #4

Wow. As much as I do agree with this, this is some hyperbolic writing. I've read so many articles just like this one, they show up on HN quite often it seems, and I've never seen one that had what seemed like a realistic fix to the problem. I don't think there is a fix really. All social media platforms will be full of bots/fakes that exist to spread garbage. All social media platforms will be full of real people doi…

The fix is easy and it's simple -- stop using them! Normalize it. Encourage others to do the same. Make it "cool" to not be on them/"lame" to use them. I struggle to see how personal FB/IG/Twitter use is anything other than a net negative at this point. And it's gotten a lot more so over the last several years, IMO.

I’m 100% on board with this. It seems to me that the only way out is if we reject these things on a cultural level. Being on social media should be a disgrace.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#32

Post by busterarm »

blhack wrote: post #27

I must have really different experiences than all of these people that write these articles (it seems like there has been something like this, every week on HN, for the last 10 years) My facebook is mostly people showing pictures of stuff, sharing memes, some movie discussion groups, event planning groups. It seems like mostly just people using facebook as a proxy for real world interactions. Twitter on the other han…

You're in a socioeconomically-stratified filter bubble on facebook.

My facebook was sufficiently diverse and my feed was exactly like twitter, even though none of my friend group were twitter users. I closed all of my social accounts.

Doomsday machine is _exactly_ how I would describe all social media.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#33

Post by sudosysgen »

blhack wrote: post #27

I must have really different experiences than all of these people that write these articles (it seems like there has been something like this, every week on HN, for the last 10 years) My facebook is mostly people showing pictures of stuff, sharing memes, some movie discussion groups, event planning groups. It seems like mostly just people using facebook as a proxy for real world interactions. Twitter on the other han…

My mom doesn't use Twitter, and her Facebook feed gets much worse than Twitter, fast.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#34

Post by trident5000 »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #30

The Atlantic has always been a kind of tabloid for people who fancy themselves intellectuals, especially with its cover stories. After seeming like they were really on the brink for a few years there, not really knowing how to do digital, they turned it around - apparently by doubling down on this approach. High-minded clickbait for right-thinking elites, in other words. Have a look at their "most popular articles" b…

Wait what? You think The Atlantic leans right?

floren - got it, whoosh right over my head. Read that too fast.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#35

Post by earthboundkid »

ben_w wrote: post #28
earthboundkid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like all scifi, "Paperclip Maximizer" is just a fable about something that already happened but you put it in the future to make it seem more interesting. (E.g. robots are just slaves; space colonization is just regular colonization; Weyland-Yutani is just the East India Company; World War 3 is just WW2; etc.) Capitalism has always been the paperclip maximizer, for better or worse. Why did Europeans drag a bunch of A…

Slavery ended because human values made it end. A paperclip optimiser doesn’t have human values .

Slavery ended because human beings (the slaves) made it end. They revolted constantly, and the threat of revolt wasn't worth the money savings. No European wanted another Hati, so that was the beginning of the end. In the case of the US, after the Civil War had begun, slaves fled to the Union camps in large numbers, which forced the Union to emancipate and enlist them.

Anyway, capitalism doesn't have human values. Nor do nations. Human beings have human values, and we have to band together to impose those values on the various collectives that oppress us… but then because we've banded together, that band becomes the new form of oppression! So it goes.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#36

Post by eppp »

blhack wrote: post #27

I must have really different experiences than all of these people that write these articles (it seems like there has been something like this, every week on HN, for the last 10 years) My facebook is mostly people showing pictures of stuff, sharing memes, some movie discussion groups, event planning groups. It seems like mostly just people using facebook as a proxy for real world interactions. Twitter on the other han…

I live in a rural area and I don't actually know anyone that uses twitter except me.

My wife's facebook on the other hand is a dumpster fire. Religion, racism, politics all day long with various ads for crappy little boutique stores selling the same cheap clothes at a giant markup.

People post crap about religion and politics that they would never bring up in real life.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#37

Post by soupfordummies »

mfer wrote: post #3
runawaybottle wrote: post #2

I hate to be this dismissive, but I couldn’t find a single paragraph in that article that provided any kind of compelling analysis or insight into human behavior. I’m less concerned about misinformation propagating through a platform vs why misinformation even works on someone. I don’t care if the whole country of Russia sat there and told you lies with fake accounts 24/7, I want to know why you believed any of it. A…

Just knowing why people believe the things doesn't stop people from believing lies or the damage it can do to them and those around them.

Exactly. People know smoking is deadly but they still light up anyway.

You can know that there is a misinformation bubble and it still influence you.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#38

Post by Keeeeeeeks »

blhack wrote: post #27

I must have really different experiences than all of these people that write these articles (it seems like there has been something like this, every week on HN, for the last 10 years) My facebook is mostly people showing pictures of stuff, sharing memes, some movie discussion groups, event planning groups. It seems like mostly just people using facebook as a proxy for real world interactions. Twitter on the other han…

What do you think motivated them to be Twitter users instead of Facebook users?

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#39

Post by cobbzilla »

> No one, not even Mark Zuckerberg, can control the product he made.

Well, one can control oneself, that's about the best we can do. As others have mentioned, don't use it.

I tried that. After years of not using FB at all, I missed out on some important news that was only posted there.

I decided to get back on FB, on my own terms. I created Bubble [1] and now I can visit FB with most tracking disabled, no ads, I only see posts from my friends, and even then only posts that do not link to news websites or contain political keywords.

My signal/noise ratio is usually about 50%. I love my clean feed. Works on LinkedIn, Twitter, others.

But the root problem goes deeper -- clearly not everyone cares or has the motivation to filter their own social media feeds. Some people like reading echo-chamber/fake news posts, truth is far down on their list of priorities.

I don't know what the big-picture answer is.

[1] https://getbubblenow.com (currently in beta)

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#40

Post by floren »

trident5000 wrote: post #34
maybelsyrup wrote: post #30

The Atlantic has always been a kind of tabloid for people who fancy themselves intellectuals, especially with its cover stories. After seeming like they were really on the brink for a few years there, not really knowing how to do digital, they turned it around - apparently by doubling down on this approach. High-minded clickbait for right-thinking elites, in other words. Have a look at their "most popular articles" b…

Wait what? You think The Atlantic leans right? floren - got it, whoosh right over my head. Read that too fast.

"Right-thinking" means "agreeing with the Atlantic", not "politically conservative".
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