41–50 of 68 posts
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No it’s not, and a cursory glance at studies of human behaviour (what economics is really about, in a way) would dispel this notion.
Could you please elaborate on what you mean? Facebook is a company and therefore its success and failure is dependent on its customers/users, right?
The author seems to be filled with a sense of “knight-in-shining-armor-ism.” If Facebook’s actions really are a problem to most people, then most people would stop using it. He calls Zuckerberg a "pope-emperor" of Facebook's users, but that's because the users choose to give him power. If the users stop choosing to give him power, he loses it.
We can turn this to a giant regulate-tech topic but the source complaint, simple enough, was a desire to have the feed consume less of life’s attention and be more worthy of what attention he was giving it.
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I list two examples (as does Doctorow) of things that are pretty clearly bad for users: 1. attention marketplaces, 2: DRM. I am falling for no such trap I really don’t understand your angle there. My suggested solution to 1 is rather than try to regulate Facebook, which I agree is hand wavey, just ban the business model altogether because it demonstrably breeds machines and software that harm users. The “good guy” us…
what's an attention marketplace? facebook, twitter, reddit, ok, all gone. But then advertising is attention and a marketplace, so does that mean banning all online or app based advertising? Amazon has attention and it's a marketplace, so does Etsy.
A start might be to say: it is illegal both run a content platform and also to profit from the sale of targeted ads on your platform.
Or simply but more radically: you cannot use user data collected in the operation of a software platform in order to target advertisements to your users.
The goal would be to ban the bad incentives by eliminating the ability to profit. Yes that kills the profit. That’s the point. I don't think anybody is at war with e.g. a news site that runs an integrated ad on their headline or landing page or even a search engine that inserts its own contextual ads. We’re talking about dismantling the user content advertising platforms where the incentive becomes maximizing the time users spend on the platform.
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> Just imagine the politician of your nightmares being in control of the regulations. Exactly this! Every time I see someone proposing some new expansion of government reach and power, it seems to be considered only from the angle of “just think of what the (people I think of as the) good guys could do with this increased authority!” “Yeah, but what could the bad guys do with this increased authority? Because as sure…
You can 1) make something illegal without 2) requiring any sort of regulation.
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Just imagine the politician of your nightmares being in control of the regulations. I think the real issue is that people live in black holes of misinformation on the internet because that is where they want to be. When I look at the many Herman Cain Award threads on reddit, it seems the predominate original source of most posts is groups that the user signed up for. This isn't new, before Facebook, there were usenet…
> Just imagine the politician of your nightmares being in control of the regulations. Exactly this! Every time I see someone proposing some new expansion of government reach and power, it seems to be considered only from the angle of “just think of what the (people I think of as the) good guys could do with this increased authority!” “Yeah, but what could the bad guys do with this increased authority? Because as sure…
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> Just imagine the politician of your nightmares being in control of the regulations. Exactly this! Every time I see someone proposing some new expansion of government reach and power, it seems to be considered only from the angle of “just think of what the (people I think of as the) good guys could do with this increased authority!” “Yeah, but what could the bad guys do with this increased authority? Because as sure…
Why does it have to mean giving anyone power? We could for example enact privacy laws that make it illegal to share personal data. That gives no one power, and takes away power from corporations. We could enact laws that prevent targeted advertising, which would make it pointless to gather a lot of the data they gather in the first place. That doesn’t make the bad politician any more powerful. So on.
The author seems to be filled with a sense of “knight-in-shining-armor-ism.” If Facebook’s actions really are a problem to most people, then most people would stop using it. He calls Zuckerberg a "pope-emperor" of Facebook's users, but that's because the users choose to give him power. If the users stop choosing to give him power, he loses it.
> If Facebook’s actions really are a problem to most people, then most people would stop using it. Just like sugary soda, loot crates, cigarettes, and opium then? Companies design products that are bad for people all the time. > Zuck: they “trust me” > Zuck: dumb fucks This was said after his AOL hacking days [1], so he already had a certain predisposition towards "ordinary people". Given that his history and his pre…
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what's an attention marketplace? facebook, twitter, reddit, ok, all gone. But then advertising is attention and a marketplace, so does that mean banning all online or app based advertising? Amazon has attention and it's a marketplace, so does Etsy.
No you don’t ban by name like that. A start might be to say: it is illegal both run a content platform and also to profit from the sale of targeted ads on your platform. Or simply but more radically: you cannot use user data collected in the operation of a software platform in order to target advertisements to your users. The goal would be to ban the bad incentives by eliminating the ability to profit. Yes that kills…
That would hurt facebook and Twitter's revenue quite badly, but it would do nothing at all to stop the toxic effects of facebook particularly. My main problem with facebook isn't targeted adds, yes I'm against their toxic attitude to privacy but it's not their most toxic behaviour. The main problem for me is the way they turn peoples feeds into firehoses of radicalising, enraging, adrenaline juicing hostility.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just imagine the politician of your nightmares being in control of the regulations. I think the real issue is that people live in black holes of misinformation on the internet because that is where they want to be. When I look at the many Herman Cain Award threads on reddit, it seems the predominate original source of most posts is groups that the user signed up for. This isn't new, before Facebook, there were usenet…
> Just imagine the politician of your nightmares being in control of the regulations. Even the worst politician is (ostensibly) accountable to the people. Corporations are not.