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The Social Dilemma

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Re: The Social Dilemma

#321

Post by Aachen »

ricardo81 wrote: post #295

Nothing new in it for the HN crowd I suppose. For me, privacy is the core issue, though "free" is part of the problem. A social network charging a dollar a year wouldn't be great for investors but would essentially pay for itself. (As a Brit, I'd be more inclined to pay that dollar than the BBC license fee at ~170x the expense for all the "soft power" it has.). With the monetary dial removed, filter bubbles are still…

I'm really not interested in constantly being recommended opposite viewpoints to mine. I'd constantly be getting climate denial content.

Most conspiracy theories I never look into, but the 5G one made me wonder how stupid can you be. So when they thought they had enough evidence to convince a judge and sued the Dutch government, I opened the evidence they supplied and read through it.

I've spent hours and hours trying to figure it out but there just isn't logic to it. It's all misreadings, misinterpretations, misconceptions, etc. Their references were false as well (saying the WHO claimed X in a paper from year Y, complete with a link that leads to a blog post about it but doesn't link the source, and the WHO site has no publications on that topic in the given year; turns out they had a paper about that topic one year later but it doesn't support the claim at all).

Yesterday I was looking something climate related up and came across a Belgian site, seemed like a newspaper, that denies the whole thing. Confused, I opened it and read a bit to make sure they were really calling it a hoax and I hadn't misunderstood. Yep, they did. They pointed to 500 scientists from around the world who signed something saying we should be less political about it and base it more on science, and then that science should include the uncertainties in their reports because all the climate models are super uncertain, and that it turns out the heating is going much less fast than previously claimed. I mean, all proper papers disclose uncertainties. And yes, we should be more science based and get the fuck on with decarbonizing. Then as for it not being so bad (it not going as fast), it's going super fast, I don't know where they got this.

No, I'm really not interested in this kinda garbage. For me the Youtube recommendations are straightforward: I click a video about maps, next I get more geographic analysis videos recommended to me. I'd rather not that someone feels obliged to make it insert opposite content (what's opposite to maps, flat earther stuff? Or just unscientific blabbering when what I'm mainly watching is objective/sciency stuff?).

Or do we want to only insert opposite viewpoints to those who believe in conspiracy theories? Who decides what's real and what's not? Why have the conspiracy theory content on the site at all if we know it's false? Can we not find the root of the problem: the people who make these videos, where do they get their info and misconceptions from?

Re: The Social Dilemma

#322

Post by 1propionyl »

cmehdy wrote: post #199
mitchdoogle wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of wording is conspiratorial mumbo jumbo. A social media's product is it's platform and software. Their revenue comes from advertising. No one ever told someone watching network TV in the 80s, "you are the product", because that would be ridiculous. It's no less ridiculous to do that with websites and phone apps. Why can't we just have a frank discussion about advertising and privacy without this kind of ma…

Nielsen ratings[0] have been a thing since the 1930s, so in a way people's attention has indeed been commoditized for a while now - only with an increasing granularity that has now reached some of an individual's metrics (and we're continuing to go along that path with smart devices and addition of sensors). I'm not sure why saying to people that their attention and subsequent changes in behaviours were the fundament…

Two key differences:

1. Nielsen boxes were and are opt-in.

2. You were and are compensated for keeping one.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#323

Post by rauhl »

ASlave2Gravity wrote: post #303
moksly wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work as en external examiner for various CS students, and in my country they do a couple of internships at real companies as part of their degree. At some point around five years ago, or perhaps a little before that, there started being psychology students on some of the courses. A trend that has since grown quite a bit, especially if you happen upon a group project involving mobile gaming. It’s something I would h…

Blimey, that's super interesting. The ad model needs to die IMHO. We need regulation from a super-national level if you ask me. Bitcoin should pay the way for a paid-for internet. Anything to get ads off the web.

Ads are definitely a large part of the problem, but they are not the only problem. Ads are what turn us from customers into cattle, yes, but I think that online services could be almost as bad if we paid for them. Indeed, micropayments might actually result in many of the same issues as ads do: in a world with micropayments for each page load, publishers would still want to increase engagement, because that would directly increase their bottom line.

What we need is precisely the thing so many of us do not want: we need subscriptions. Subscriptions provide a buffer. They give a publisher room to breathe: he can predict what his next month will look like; he can model what his next year will look like; and he can allocate his resources appropriately. The problem is that subscriptions are high-friction, and cannot compete with ad-driven ‘free’ content and services.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#324

Post by ricardo81 »

Aachen wrote: post #321
ricardo81 wrote: post #295

Nothing new in it for the HN crowd I suppose. For me, privacy is the core issue, though "free" is part of the problem. A social network charging a dollar a year wouldn't be great for investors but would essentially pay for itself. (As a Brit, I'd be more inclined to pay that dollar than the BBC license fee at ~170x the expense for all the "soft power" it has.). With the monetary dial removed, filter bubbles are still…

I'm really not interested in constantly being recommended opposite viewpoints to mine. I'd constantly be getting climate denial content. Most conspiracy theories I never look into, but the 5G one made me wonder how stupid can you be. So when they thought they had enough evidence to convince a judge and sued the Dutch government, I opened the evidence they supplied and read through it. I've spent hours and hours tryin…

I wouldn't take 'opposite' too literally in the black and white sense, I mean providing means of a counterweight or 'something in the other direction(s)' of where the algo is leading you to. Especially so for recommendations. Try private mode on Youtube and see if it's easy to reconstruct your recommendations. I remember the basic 'seeds' of mine, but not how it ended up.

I just think if content is factionalised there should be a means to de-factionalise it.

I'm sure with these engines the scoring is multi-dimensional anyways so the concept of opposite is a bit more fuzzy than "recommend the opposite of stuff I search for and interact with"

Re: The Social Dilemma

#325

Post by messo »

disown wrote: post #41

I wonder who is behind the "social dilemma" propaganda/advertising campaign. "Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24468533

I started that tread because I was genuinely interested in peoples opinions on the film, especially the ones connected to that industry. Looking back at the answers I got, there was remarkably few comments from the latter.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#326

Post by dalbasal »

There is a major point of difference, between online media monopolies and the old railroad, infrastructure and commodity monopolies of old is "What happens if they dissolve."

If Toyota fell off the edge of the disc, next year the world has less capacity to produce cars. A lot of capital will need to be obtained, and that will need to be turned into factories over several years before the world's productive capacity is restored. Meanwhile, people will have fewer new cars.

If Facebook, Twitter, or even (many parts of) Google disappear... Alternatives will emerge almost immediately. Social networking is not expensive to provide, and certainly not capital intensive. It'll be via a different UI, but none of us will lack for social media, messaging and such.

This is a crucial difference, economically. Social media is worth literal trillions, yet the industry could disappear without any consumer shortages.

Something to consider, as the power of these giants starts to resemble the old colonial trading companies'. This may be the least necessary industry ever.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#327

Post by maigret »

shajznnckfke wrote: post #280
maigret wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it is fine sending a comment expressing opinion. There are so many qualitatives differences: - This is human to human communication, not an optimised algorithm. - People here are not sending you 10 comments and looking at the one which you engaged the most time, because they don't have the metrics. Social media knows how many seconds you looked at a post and classify it with AI, they can make a profile of your cur…

In a conversation, you subconsciously build a model of the mind of person you are talking to, and your words are tuned to fill the gap between what they know and are thinking and the ideas you are trying to express. If I think back through my life, the communication that has affected me most as been from humans in face-to-face conversations, not on websites. But I could be bad at objectively evaluating this. I think…

Look at the documentary... One of the guy explains that AI is not yet good enough to surplace humans at their strengths, but can game us on our weaknesses. This is the exact point that people think it's not having an impact on them, while it has, even so subtle.

As a person, you can get better at convincing people of course, and masses of people even - humanity has gone through that with ups and downs. Now we have a system that's working totally differently. From example, I remind reading that many conspiracists build distance with their friends and family as they close themselves to in-person discussion or any argumentation not fitting their views.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#328

Post by messo »

kenjackson wrote: post #133
ttul wrote: post #56

The moment that got me in this film was when they described how social network monetization algorithms gently move us toward a more radical position. We are better targets for advertisers when we spend more time on the platform. The platform doesn't care _why_ we're on the platform; it just wants us to be there as much as possible. If the platform nudges us toward radical right-wing conspiracies, so be it. Similarly,…

Why does it move us to a more radical position? Is it because the more radical you are the more time you spend on the platform? I haven't seen it, but I'm somewhat confused. FB and Instagram just show me posts from friends and family? Most youth sports, social events (weddings, dinners), babies, etc... FB does have some political posting, but IG very little. And YouTube has virtually nothing political. I never go to…

Your experience exemplifies one of the problems with social media: the radically different information diet served to different users.

All of the platforms you mentioned can be profoundly political and filled with extreme content, depending on which rabbit whole you have been exposed to and captivated by.

EDIT: I forgot to attempt to answer your actual question, sorry. It's not that the platforms intentionally tries to radicalize you. The algorithms are programed to keep your attention for as long as possible, to keep you engaged and scrolling through your feed. The more time you spend on their platform, there more ads they can show you and the more money they make.

The radicalization is largely (I believe) an unintended consequence caused by the fact that recommending and showing you content that engages you emotionally makes you spend more time with them. This can also be exploited by people, groups or even nations who want to propagate a certain message or worldview.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#329

Post by Aachen »

jasoneckert wrote: post #168

While I enjoyed Jaron Lanier's perspectives during this documentary, I'm somewhat disappointed that the solution he proposed in his 3-part video series for the New York Times was omitted: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/23/opinion/data-...

Which is what? From the titles and what I remember from the social dilemma, it's putting some value on personal data and either paying people for it or taxing it?

Re: The Social Dilemma

#330

Post by kkdsafjid »

dalbasal wrote: post #326

There is a major point of difference, between online media monopolies and the old railroad, infrastructure and commodity monopolies of old is "What happens if they dissolve." If Toyota fell off the edge of the disc, next year the world has less capacity to produce cars. A lot of capital will need to be obtained, and that will need to be turned into factories over several years before the world's productive capacity i…

Are you sure social networking is not expensive to provide? What makes you think so?
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