61–70 of 349 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is this that much different to similar "concerns" about kids watching to much tv back in the 60's 70's etc.
With youtube you're one "recommended" video away from both morally dubious content targeting kids, and qanon conspiracy content.
For me the pandemic has actually allowed me to spend more time outdoors and with my children and as a result less time online. We have been taking walks daily and started gardening. I've cut down social media time to almost nothing on all major platforms (HN is my last "addiction"). The author claims the pandemic forced us inside and on social media--do people find this true for them?
What's interesting to me is, earlier in the pandemic I would hear more lofty plans for organizing online games and having more video calls between friends and family. It's amazing how quickly the motivation for this dissipated. Maybe because it's plainly cumbersome and awkward and just doesn't feel the same, and everyone I know still works.
For my part I think I've retreated from video/audio correspondence considerably. I still write to strangers online, which is social media, but feel like this experience has made me retreat into my shell. No substitution for seeing people in person.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't think it's the reddit admins It's actually the mods. A select small number of people are mods on the top 50 or so subreddits by size. They can control what gets posted, what gets upvoted and what gets silently censored. It's also an (unpaid) full time job, it's naive to think they're not monetising their power in any way.
>It's actually the mods. Mod means nothing -- I'm a reddit mod. Admin is paid employee of reddit with completely different access level. A planted story by a mod is still within the grounds of "astroturfing" accusing reddit admins is another order of magnitude of corruption higher. Like I said I don't think reddit admins are doing it but the author does seem to imply it.
I mean, is there any defensible reasons for why we often see the top powerusers on these subs also act as mods? I'm sure that they aren't behaving as "normal" mods.
I'd add that algorithmic feeds are another part of the triad (quartet?), and probably the worst offender. Personalized addictive content is on the rise (tiktok, YouTube, even Facebook and Twitter curate your newsfeed "for you" ), and these ml-determined feeds drive engagement to the highest possible levels, leading to an incredible waste of time, a distorted world view (mostly the posts with the highest engagement wi…
I think this is how AI takes over humanity. Humans are so short-sighted, we don't even need a superintelligence to outsmart us. We happily stand by and collect profits while letting the AI do whatever it wants. Really, we need regulation that makes companies care about side-effects of their AI technology.
I did an internship with a very profitable Swedish mobile game before the pandemic, and it was really interesting to see the doublethink: everyone knew we were making a drug, but people avoided speaking of it in that way. It was always "our most engaged players readily spend on in-game items", and never "the most addicted users spend money so they can continue playing" It was a great workplace, but I don't think it w…
F2P-with-purchases games should (a) require disclaimers, (b) be illegal and stiffly penalized for allowing minors to play, & (c) have their algorithms open to a gaming regulator (in the same way Las Vegas does).
I'd add that algorithmic feeds are another part of the triad (quartet?), and probably the worst offender. Personalized addictive content is on the rise (tiktok, YouTube, even Facebook and Twitter curate your newsfeed "for you" ), and these ml-determined feeds drive engagement to the highest possible levels, leading to an incredible waste of time, a distorted world view (mostly the posts with the highest engagement wi…
E.g. Gandhi would have been called "radical" without implying any violent tendency.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With youtube you're one "recommended" video away from both morally dubious content targeting kids, and qanon conspiracy content.
I think that's more a problem for the grandparents and parents
I did not see any evidence of malicious intent towards our users but a genuine belief we were enabling them to be more productive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
F2P-with-purchases games should (a) require disclaimers, (b) be illegal and stiffly penalized for allowing minors to play, & (c) have their algorithms open to a gaming regulator (in the same way Las Vegas does).
They should also disclose a spending ceiling. How much do you need to / can you spend to gain access to all the content. Do I need to spend $60, $600, $6000, $60,000 or is there no limit?
Mobile gaming is disgusting. And the few good developers that make good "traditional" games don't make enough money to keep developing.