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The End of Social Media

miikavonbell.com

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Re: The End of Social Media

#61

Post by markbnj »

Gunax wrote: post #13
markbnj wrote: post #4

>> Some time ago I tried to find information about Crocodiles, the animals. Instead, I got results about Crocs shoes and zero information about the actual crocodiles. I just entered 'crocodile' into Google search while signed into my normal private account, and got a ton of useful information about crocodiles. Shoes were nowhere to be found in the first 30 or 40 results that I scanned. I don't know if the OP is using…

This might be a bad example, since crocs and crocodiles are different words. But in some regions, 'croc' is used much more often than 'crocodile' in the same way that Americans say 'sitcom' much more often than 'situational comedy'. Even though it's an abbreviation, it's eclipsed the full word in frequency. But I think the author's general point isn't about the information being unavailable (even if croc was the whol…

Fair enough, and yeah searching for 'crocs' unsurprisingly returns a boatload of shoe results. This is a broader issue I think, in that coming up with good search terms that are likely to return the results you need is a bit of a skill.

Re: The End of Social Media

#63

Post by pphysch »

AlbertCory wrote: post #52

This is a junk article. Why is it even on the front page? 60 years ago, before even the ARPANET, there was Newton Minow giving a speech [1] about how TV was garbage (the "vast wasteland" speech). If you want to read something timeless, read that instead. [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/09/the-vast-wast...

Ironically, instead of linking to Minow's speech, you link to another "junk article" that reads like an ad for Harvard ("Hey look, this famous guy's daughter works at Harvard. Here are some random related facts." --the Harvard Gazette).

The mind boggles.

Re: The End of Social Media

#64

Post by bryan_w »

zhdc1 wrote: post #27
lotsofpulp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> albiet in some cases very innacurate I would correct to most cases. Or that the information you get is without sufficient context to be of use.

Actually, I've found that they tend to be fairly accurate at reporting 'what' is happening - it's hard for several people at the same time to post unique, fake videos of people driving around with guns while others are posting corroborating textual accounts. The 'why' part is a completely different matter. If there's any interpretation or time difference between the event and the post, scepticism is absolutely warran…

It's not that hard if you use "residential proxies"

Re: The End of Social Media

#65

Post by el-salvador »

Sebb767 wrote: post #57
donretag wrote: post #54

Here is my take: content creators are the problem. When Friendster, MySpace,Facebook, et al started, it was about connecting friends online. People that already had a connection. When you shared something, you wanted to share something personal with friends. YouTube was about sharing your home videos. Not for money, but for actually sharing. What a strange concept! Then people noticed you can monetize their content.…

Yet monetization enabled great content creators to generate something with a high production value or live their dream by earning money while doing the things they love. Veratasium or VSauce, for example, are a great channels, but they would've never gotten where they are now if they wouldn't have been able to earn money with it. A similar topic comes up in music all the time, too: People accuse their favorite band o…

I've noticed that before IG and Tiktok influencers become popular, their content is more authentic / less cookie-cutter. Also their followers leave better comments (they are only followed by those who genuinely like them).

Re: The End of Social Media

#66

Post by nonameiguess »

donretag wrote: post #54

Here is my take: content creators are the problem. When Friendster, MySpace,Facebook, et al started, it was about connecting friends online. People that already had a connection. When you shared something, you wanted to share something personal with friends. YouTube was about sharing your home videos. Not for money, but for actually sharing. What a strange concept! Then people noticed you can monetize their content.…

Maybe at one point social networks were actually social networks, but that isn't what they are any more. They're poorly-moderated, poorly-curated entertainment distribution platforms. People who own data centers and URLs figured out you can cut out the middlemen of studios, editors, publishers, et al, and the quality of content may go way down, but the quantity will go way up and cost to produce will go way down, in many cases to zero if you just let arbitrary users create your content for you, and engagement was never correlated with quality anyway.

The fact that consumers as well as creators need permanent accounts in order to use the platform enabled a level of tracking that normal studios and publishers could never have dreamed of. Warners could never put activity loggers into their viewer's eyeballs to figure out the exact rate at which the content of frame N leads them to continue watching at frame N + n. They had to rely on some level of positive word of mouth and positive reviews. They needed to leave some lasting impression that after their viewers spent a few minutes going home and thinking about it, they still thought the content was worth recommending.

That is all gone now.

Re: The End of Social Media

#67

Post by lofties »

pphysch wrote: post #63
AlbertCory wrote: post #52

This is a junk article. Why is it even on the front page? 60 years ago, before even the ARPANET, there was Newton Minow giving a speech [1] about how TV was garbage (the "vast wasteland" speech). If you want to read something timeless, read that instead. [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/09/the-vast-wast...

Ironically, instead of linking to Minow's speech, you link to another "junk article" that reads like an ad for Harvard ("Hey look, this famous guy's daughter works at Harvard. Here are some random related facts." --the Harvard Gazette). The mind boggles.

The full speech[1] for those interested.

[1] https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm

Re: The End of Social Media

#68

Post by claytongulick »

thickened wrote: post #35

Miika- This article is a dog whistle for right-wing behaviour and is quite frankly problematic, starting with this quip in the first paragraph which sets the stage: "[...] instead of letting algorithms and machine learning decide what is good for you." We've spent a good twenty years now, and longer really, building the infrastructure to ensure that when it comes to the World Wide Web, FAAMNG+ companies - not just re…

> This article is a dog whistle for right-wing behaviour and is quite frankly problematic

Every time I see a sentence like this, I interpret it as the first step of an attempt to reduce speech.

Step 1: Identify 'problematic' content.

Step 2: Create rules to limit the distribution of 'problematic' content.

Step 3: Broaden the definition of 'problematic' content to include anything that disagrees with a specific point of view.

Step 4: Dystopian hell straight from Orwell.

> can make sure that the things you see, and the way the algorithms work, are done in a way that is good for you.

Is this a 'woosh' moment? Is this intended to be satire?

> I used to be against mass surveillance, logging everything

> Is this what we should look into next?

If this is satire, can you please clarify?

Re: The End of Social Media

#69

Post by simmanian »

donretag wrote: post #54

Here is my take: content creators are the problem. When Friendster, MySpace,Facebook, et al started, it was about connecting friends online. People that already had a connection. When you shared something, you wanted to share something personal with friends. YouTube was about sharing your home videos. Not for money, but for actually sharing. What a strange concept! Then people noticed you can monetize their content.…

I feel it's not useful to separate out the content creators from the network itself. Most of the "bad" things we see in today's social media are byproducts of how these networks behave as a whole. Put differently, how Youtube functions today is the result of the interactions between Youtube's algorithm to maximize profit for Google, content creators' drive to get more views, and consumers' desire to find more addicting things. You change one piece of the network and the network will behave very differently.

I find this to be very hopeful, because it means we can design and form networks that elevate people, not lower them into mindless zombie states.

Re: The End of Social Media

#70

Post by wombatmobile »

"New technology, this kind or any other kind, is a kind of Faustian bargain. It always gives us something important, but it also takes away something that's important. That's been true of the alphabet, the printing press, and telegraphy right up to the computer."

Neil Postman on Cyberspace, 1995

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49rcVQ1vFAY

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