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Myths about Social Media

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Re: Myths about Social Media

#41

Post by mrhands556 »

teucris wrote: post #15
teucris wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did some digging, here is the paper he references on echo chambers/bubbles: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21582440198327...

My initial concern, based on reading the abstract, is that since this study only looks at Twitter and not Facebook, it isn’t enough evidence to make any conclusions about echo chambers in a general way as so many people get their news from Facebook.

Twitter and Facebook are what you make of it.

Reddit popular is a total echo chamber. Almost every sub, outside of focused hobby subs, turn into echo chambers eventually.

The dynamics of reddit, with downvotes totally squelching dissenting opinions and upvotes promoting popular ones, is naturally going to turn into a total echo chamber.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#42

Post by mgraczyk »

madrox wrote: post #25

Unfortunately, his solutions are non-starters. Openness and oversight of data and algorithms won't do anything without clear ethical requirements. All it will really do is slow down iteration. Prioritizing tools to shield against of hateful content is not in the best interest of social media platforms. Sharing is the main mechanism of retention. As for the offline stuff...we've been trying to do that since before the…

> Prioritizing tools to shield against of hateful content is not in the best interest of social media platforms

It's well understood that hateful content is harmful to retention. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 long term projects at IG that were premised on this.

All major social networks prioritize tools to reduce hate because they know that consuming and sharing of hateful content is bad for their bottom line.

The problem is that people are hateful and they express hate online. It's no longer the case that social networks are amplifying this pattern in any way.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#43

Post by rhaksw »

I'm glad to see more of this conversation happening. I made reveddit [1] to provide oversight for secret removals which happen more often than you may think. For example, [2] is an upvoted comment from a mod-verified contributor that was removed, likely without notifying its author.

I wish reddit would indicate to the author when their comment has been removed by a moderator. I don't know if that will ever happen. It seems duplicitous to me to present your content differently to you than to everyone else (see the image at the top of [1]).

[1] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq

[2] https://archive.is/yk9QQ

edit: This comment was at the top of the thread for about an hour. Now it appears to have been flagged or modded to the very bottom: https://archive.is/LcsL7#selection-5181.0-5225.24

Re: Myths about Social Media

#44

Post by awb »

mstade wrote: post #12
royalroad wrote: post #5

Maybe it would be worth repeating the 'myths' he lists in the tweets: Myth 1: A lot of misinfo on social media No, research suggests there is little, shared by few & having small effects. Those sharing misinfo are not dumb. But they have intense political animus, which motivates to share what fits their worldview, true or false. Myth 2: Social media makes people hateful No, research suggests that online hate reflects…

I would love to read the research he's referring to, but I couldn't find any links or citations. I intuitively believe that there's truth to all of these so called myths, but I'd love to be proven wrong. Anyone know where I can read more about this?

The last Tweet links to a Dropbox with slides & citations:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6q94dkimrk75xr7/FT%20H%C3%B8ring%2...

Re: Myths about Social Media

#45

Post by awb »

disambiguation wrote: post #39
timoth3y wrote: post #18

This drives me nuts. The irony here is that one of the things social media does is force us to simplify our discourse to the point of infantilization. Subtly does not get traction. We need binary truths! Myths and myth-busters. None of the author's "myths" are myths. They are all true in a general sense. What the author is correctly pointing out is that there is more subtly. That to understand the real situation requ…

> one of the things social media does is force us to simplify our discourse In this case it's not because of social media, since the author cites a 10 min constraint to present to the Danish parliament.

If I only get 10min, I’m still including citations in my 10min presentation (which they claim to have done on the last Tweet in the thread linking to a Dropbox with slides and citations).

Last thing I want is to come across as someone who didn’t do their research.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#46

Post by Wojtkie »

rhaksw wrote: post #43

I'm glad to see more of this conversation happening. I made reveddit [1] to provide oversight for secret removals which happen more often than you may think. For example, [2] is an upvoted comment from a mod-verified contributor that was removed, likely without notifying its author. I wish reddit would indicate to the author when their comment has been removed by a moderator. I don't know if that will ever happen. It…

Thank you for developing reveddit. I use it a lot actually!

Re: Myths about Social Media

#47

Post by nomendos »

fullshark wrote: post #29
version_five wrote: post #13

I think the echo chamber one misses the point (or maybe the analogy of an echo chamber is bad). It's true that people are exposed to other views, but there is still the echo effect of what their bubble thinks of those other views. Two people discussing their differences is not the same as two (or N) bubbles hurling outrage at one another, which I think is closer to most of twitter - the echo chamber still applies wit…

The vast majority of people's exposure to other views are just the dumbest iterations of said views, for the express purpose of "dunking" on them to further calcify their previously held positions also. At least on twitter the goal is to find morons on the other side of the ideological divide and mock them.

I am not talking about obvious (and easily labeled morons), but instead there are many educated and real scientists that raise questions and there is no dialogue, but instead only defunct-fact checkers totalitarian response. Science is always open to listen, discuss and stand open to be corrected and in no time in history there was "attack on me is attack on science" attitudes that ended up be right or productive. It is circus in all places without this approach and open dialogue.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#48

Post by skullgrid »

codingdave wrote: post #22

"Research shows" needs citations. I get that they only had ten minutes to talk, but if you are going to post a long thread on twitter, adding sources would seem like a completely reasonable thing to do. Otherwise, this thread itself could be misinformation - we have no way to verify.

The citations are listed in the pdf document linked in the Twitter thread.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#49

Post by dgb23 »

onionisafruit wrote: post #36
nomdep wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Myth 2: Social media makes people hateful No, research suggests that online hate reflects offline frustrations that make them hateful both online & offline That conclusion seems completely wrong to me. Sure, there are previous frustrations, but when you feel attacked online, you become hateful as a defense mechanism… and of course, there is always some YouTube channel ready to reinforce that anger. And this happens w…

When I feel attacked online I stop going to the places where I don’t feel welcome. As you say, some people react by engaging and escalating, but I don’t think most people stick around long in those situations. What this guy is saying seems to be that the people who escalate are likely people who already behave that way offline.

My experience is that people are more socially refined when offline and that anti-social behavior is there but gets corrected and contained. Offline experiences can escalate much more but at tge same time there seems to be more conflict resolution. Everything is more intense.

But it’s refreshing to read about a different view on the topic.

Re: Myths about Social Media

#50

Post by lwerdna »

rhaksw wrote: post #43

I'm glad to see more of this conversation happening. I made reveddit [1] to provide oversight for secret removals which happen more often than you may think. For example, [2] is an upvoted comment from a mod-verified contributor that was removed, likely without notifying its author. I wish reddit would indicate to the author when their comment has been removed by a moderator. I don't know if that will ever happen. It…

Reveddit is great, thank you!
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