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Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

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Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#41

Post by asdff »

terminalshort wrote: post #35
asdff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty predictable what happens when you deny coverage for a treatment someone needs

But do they need it? How do you know? And don't say because the doctor said so, because doctors disagree all the time. When my grandfather was dying in his late 80s, the doctor said there was nothing he could do. So his children took him to another doctor, who said the same. And then another doctor, who agreed with the first two. But then they took him to a 4th doctor, who agreed to do open heart surgery, which didn'…

At that point, why cover anything at all if the doctor could always be wrong?

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#42

Post by HPsquared »

decipherer wrote: post #38
everdrive wrote: post #34

Social media itself is a grand experiment. What happens if you start connecting people from disparate communities, and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism? In years prior, you would be heavily shaped by the people you lived near. TV and internet broke this down somewhat, but social media really blew the doors off. Now it's the case that almost no one seems to be able to explain all the woes we're facing toda…

We have exited the age of information, and entered the age of irritation.

"Rage bait" is 2025 Oxford Word of the Year. We are reaching saturation levels now, I think, where people are becoming aware of it.

https://corp.oup.com/news/the-oxford-word-of-the-year-2025-i...

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#43

Post by imiric »

terminalshort wrote: post #16
imiric wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people in these industries are collectively responsible for millions of preventable deaths, and they, their families, and generations of their offspring are and will be living the best lives money can buy. And yet one person kills a CEO, and they're a terrorist.

Large and complex systems are fundamentally unpredictable and have tradeoffs and consequences that can't be foreseen by anybody. Error rates are never zero. So basically anything large enough is going to kill people in one way or another. There are intelligent ways to deal with this, and then there is shooting the CEO, which will change nothing because the next CEO faces the exact same set of choices and incentives a…

I'm not talking about unpredictable tradeoffs and consequences.

I'm talking about intentional actions that lead to deaths. E.g. [1] and [2], but there are numerous such examples. There is no plausible defense for this. It is pure evil.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Institute

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_Pharma

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#44

Post by gjsman-1000 »

everdrive wrote: post #34

Social media itself is a grand experiment. What happens if you start connecting people from disparate communities, and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism? In years prior, you would be heavily shaped by the people you lived near. TV and internet broke this down somewhat, but social media really blew the doors off. Now it's the case that almost no one seems to be able to explain all the woes we're facing toda…

> the destruction of institutions

More like the exposure of institutions. It’s not like they were more noble previously, their failings were just less widely understood. How much of America knew about Tuskegee before the internet? Or the time National Geographic told us all about the Archaeoraptor ignoring prior warnings?

The above view is also wildly myopic. You thought modern society overcame populist ideas, extreme ideas, and social revolution being very popular historically? Human nature does not change.

Another thing that doesn’t change? There are always, as evidenced by your own comment, always people saying the system wasn’t responsible, it’s external forces harming the system. The system is immaculate, the proletariat are stupid. The monarchy didn’t cause the revolution, ignorant ideologues did. In any other context, that’s called black and white thinking.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#45

Post by terminalshort »

asdff wrote: post #41
terminalshort wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do they need it? How do you know? And don't say because the doctor said so, because doctors disagree all the time. When my grandfather was dying in his late 80s, the doctor said there was nothing he could do. So his children took him to another doctor, who said the same. And then another doctor, who agreed with the first two. But then they took him to a 4th doctor, who agreed to do open heart surgery, which didn'…

At that point, why cover anything at all if the doctor could always be wrong?

Stupid question. If you have a better way to make decisions on insurance coverage then state it.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#47

Post by quesera »

asdff wrote: post #23
terminalshort wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large and complex systems are fundamentally unpredictable and have tradeoffs and consequences that can't be foreseen by anybody. Error rates are never zero. So basically anything large enough is going to kill people in one way or another. There are intelligent ways to deal with this, and then there is shooting the CEO, which will change nothing because the next CEO faces the exact same set of choices and incentives a…

Pretty predictable what happens when you deny coverage for a treatment someone needs

It would be a clean and compelling narrative, if Luigi or someone he loved was denied coverage for a necessary treatment!

But that doesn't seem to be true at all. He just had a whole lot of righteous anger, I guess. Gotta be careful with that stuff.

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#48

Post by advael »

terminalshort wrote: post #11
Grimblewald wrote: post #7

From history we know that research left unchecked and unrestricted can start leading to some really dark and horrible things. Right now I think it's a problem that social media companies can do research without answering to the same regulatory bodies that regular academics / researchers would. For example, they don't have to answer to independant ethics committees / reviews. They're free to experiement as they like o…

What counts as research? If I make UI changes, I guess it's ok to roll it out to everyone, because that's not an experiment, but if I roll it out to 1%, then that's research? If I own two stores and decide to redecorate one and see if sales increase vs the other store, do I need government approval? Also I would like an example of something a social media company does that you wouldn't be able to get approval to do o…

I think by now roughly half of us grew up in a world where global reach has been simply taken for granted. I don't think it's particularly onerous to say that there should be some oversight on what a business can and can't do in the context where that business is relying on public infrastructure and can affect the whole-ass world, personally

Re: Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry

#49

Post by rr808 »

everdrive wrote: post #34

Social media itself is a grand experiment. What happens if you start connecting people from disparate communities, and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism? In years prior, you would be heavily shaped by the people you lived near. TV and internet broke this down somewhat, but social media really blew the doors off. Now it's the case that almost no one seems to be able to explain all the woes we're facing toda…

Its interesting that TV is regulated. You can't put certain content on there and I'm sure the governments can ultimately control things. Now todays eyeballs are controlled by Meta and TikTok and I dont really trust them at all - they have too much unchecked power.
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