Don't let social media think for you • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#51

Post by jiofih » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

cindarin wrote: post #41

tristor wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that's an accurate representation of the point the author of the article was trying to make. I believe that their point was that we should not pile on with mobs, believing that popularity or trends of the moment are correct (letting social media think for you) and instead perform our own analysis of available information or better yet avoid contentious situations altogether. Their point wasn't really…

There's no analysis here. There's no detail whatsoever; those are intentionally omitted, supposedly to protect the readers from being bored. Instead, the blogger offers only opinion with no support at best, and falsehoods presented as truth at worst. I choose not to let them think for me. I will not disavow social media simply because some blogger expressed their own irrational, negative opinions of it.

Very edgy. But you’re not making any sense.

The article has a clear message about mob mentality which you’re simply choosing to ignore. It’s an opinion piece, it doesn’t need “truths”. You can disagree if you want, but not discredit it.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#52

Post by arrozconcosas » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

Social media is great for finding people with similar interests. I like to cook a certain type of food, and there is a community there of people who share ideas and the dishes they have made. I like it. It's great.

If 'hate' is your 'interest', then you can find lots of people with similar hate online.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#53

Post by giantg2 » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

The most powerful propaganda are the ideas that the people believe are their own.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#54

Post by mkr-hn » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

weezin wrote: post #44

mkr-hn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "losing track of what behavior is publicly acceptable in the ever changing Overton window." A good skill to cultivate for this worry is listening without interrupting or judging when you get feedback. Often what someone who feels hurt wants, regardless of the merit of that hurt, is to feel heard. Listening is timeless. "I don't fully understand, but I hear you." Sometimes the best you can do is get someone to move…

Thank you for sharing, I think what I'm also worried about is lack of sharing, for example the black squares on instagram. I was called out for not posting one (I had 1 picture on IG from 3 years ago). Although I imagine that wouldn't have happened had I deleted IG prior. I just can see "I don't fully understand" when asked about something will become willful ignorance to people that deem the context unavoidable.

I think I'll have to take my own advice and say that, within the limits of my experience hanging out with lots of other marginalized people, this isn't something I see. It mostly seems to come from Well-Intentioned Allies™ outside the worlds I inhabit, and the people who aggro at folks who don't make the gesture are a subset of that.

What I do for gestures aimed at marginalizations I don't share is listen to the people they're aimed at, but that can be hard if you aren't in a community where they exist in sufficient numbers and are comfortable sharing for a broad cross-section of opinions. I didn't even know any other out and vocal queer people until I started hanging out with furries, and even they have trouble making space for people of color to be out and vocal.

I don't have a good solution to finding that cross-section, so I can see how getting off social media entirely is the safest path.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#55

Post by robotbikes » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

bnralt wrote: post #36

tester34 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's poor deal, it's not worth. Just because I may learn some small things that probably does not affect me directly and additionally receive some news that make my mood worse due to hearing some yet another negative news about bad stuff / politics / yada yada, what's the point? 80% of the news I read is HN and some programming related websites and whenever I jump into "mainstream" media, then I feel like I'm reading…

Indeed. The other problem is that the news is often filled with misleading narratives that lead people to be less informed than before, and that it creates a huge opportunity cost in terms of attention. When you cut out the news you start to notice a lot of things around you that you were glossing over before.

Corporate media is also pretty much an extension of corporate public relation firms a lot of the time. For instance I turned on broadcast TV for one minute this morning only to find a Amazon sponsored segment parading as a news piece promoting a feel good story about how Amazon was good for small businesses. People don't trust corporate media for good reason but many viewers probably lack training in media literacy that would be helpful for both consumers of social media and traditional media outlets. Vetting the veracity of independent news outlets is even more challenging at times and a failure to do so can result in suppression of good information and the propogation of disinformation.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#56

Post by Brendinooo » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

After reading the quote at the beginning, the article didn't go the way I thought it would.

I end up seeing a lot more shades of gray because of my experience on Twitter. If you ever ask yourself "how could someone possibly believe...", that someone is on Twitter and probably wants to tell you why.

I generally operate under the stance of "the platform is neutral, it's what we make of it that matters". I'm not entirely sure that's true - I am currently on a Twitter hiatus to reset some things mentally - but it's true to an extent.

Why are you on the site? Do you want the sensationalism, the absolutism, the drama? Or do you want to hear thoughtful discussion from a range of interesting voices?

This post articulates Twitter's pitfalls, but I'm not sure they're inherent or unavoidable.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#57

Post by elliekelly » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

SamBam wrote: post #42

The mob is a huge problem with Twitter (and adjacent social media), and the issue with a mob is purely that of its size. It's the size that makes the mob, and everyone who has ever considered chiming in to add their voice why so-and-so was bad should stop to think about whether the world really needs that additional voice. Each individual voice may be perfectly right . So-and-so may really have done wrong. But did th…

> Each individual voice may be perfectly right. So-and-so may really have done wrong. But did they really do such wrong that the 10,000th voice is needed?

This is how I felt yesterday reading the repl.it thread.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#58

Post by jfengel » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #13

It's bizarre to use an author who demands 5/5 star reviews and insults personally people who gave her 4/5 star reviews in a take about nuance criticizing the people who criticized her for doing that . Blogs are also social media, this is just additional pile-in. I think this is supposed to be better because it uses too many words, tries to make the personality flaws that it ascribes to reviewers universal, and has a…

Aggravatingly, in a lot of circumstances, 5/5 means "acceptable" and anything less is varying degrees of "unacceptable". That's not good, but it's very real. Uber drivers who fall below 4.6 can lose business, so a 4 rating can literally cost them money.

Given that they might as well just go to a thumbs-up/thumbs-down system. There are a number of situations where I'd love to give somebody 4 stars as a way of saying "You did good but I'd prefer X", but I don't want that to be a black mark.

I make the same mistake some times. If all other things are equal on a product I'll pick the 4.8 star one over the 4.6 star one, even though I know perfectly well that these are worse than useless.

That's no excuse for an author to be a dick about it, but it's a really stupid bind they're caught in.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#59

Post by tester34 » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #50

bnralt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. The other problem is that the news is often filled with misleading narratives that lead people to be less informed than before, and that it creates a huge opportunity cost in terms of attention. When you cut out the news you start to notice a lot of things around you that you were glossing over before.

How do you get informed on things happening on the other side of the world? (please don’t say Twitter!)

Generally:

a) Through friends

b) It's so big that's almost everywhere and you cannot escape it

c) I don't get informed (but may later in time)

Of course it's not perfect approach

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#60

Post by shadowgovt » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

Brendinooo wrote: post #56

After reading the quote at the beginning, the article didn't go the way I thought it would. I end up seeing a lot more shades of gray because of my experience on Twitter. If you ever ask yourself "how could someone possibly believe...", that someone is on Twitter and probably wants to tell you why. I generally operate under the stance of "the platform is neutral, it's what we make of it that matters". I'm not entirel…

Personally, I still believe the platform is neutral, and what we make of it matters. But if we make mostly bad things out of it, modifying the platform (or, if the platform's owners will not modify it, choosing voluntarily to leave it) may be a sensible reaction.

Leaf-fall and dead trees on the ground are neutral, but if a forest fire is rampaging a dozen miles away, you cut a firebreak through that stuff instead of taking a laissez-faire approach and letting it be fuel to carry the fire to the nearest populated town. And if you live in that town and you notice the local firefighters don't much care about firebreaks (or cannot successfully cut them given the size and frequency of fires), maybe it's time to pack up and move.