Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 210 posts

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#61

Post by _mlbt »

unsignedint wrote: post #59

Social media as a vessel for diverse discussion is a tall order. It’s too public, too tied to context, and ultimately a no-win game. No matter how carefully you present yourself, you’ll end up being the “bad guy” to someone. The moment a discussion touches even lightly on controversy, healthy dialogue becomes nearly impossible. Think of it this way: you’re hosting a party, and an uninvited stranger kicks the door ope…

I still think old school linear forums are the best format for online discussion. They’re not perfect by any means, but I think they still beat all the alternatives I’ve tried.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#64

Post by bookman117 »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #21
farceSpherule wrote: post #12

Social media is the new smoking... Widespread adoption before understanding risks - embraced globally before fully grasping the mental health, social, and political consequences, especially for young people. Delayed but significant harm - can lead to gradual impacts like reduced attention span, increased anxiety, depression, loneliness, and polarization Corporate incentives misaligned with public health - media compa…

Not an accurate analogy in my opinion, but close. - Smoking feels good but doesn't provide any useful function. - Some social media use feels good and doesn't provide any useful function, but social media is extremely useful to cheaply keep in touch with friends and family and extremely useful for discovering and coordinating events. Fortunately the "keep in touch" part can be done with apps that don't have so much o…

[dead]

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#65

Post by moskie »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #42
IAmGraydon wrote: post #26

Social media in a profit-seeking system can't be fixed. Profit-seeking provides the evolutionary pressure to turn it into something truly destructive to users. The only way it can work is via ownership by a benevolent non-profit. However, that would likely eventually give in to corruption if given enough time. Outlawing it completely, as well as regulating the algorithmic shaping of the online experience, is probably…

If enough users are destroyed, advertisers (social media's real customers) won't have sufficient markets for their products, and profits will fall. Social media can't destroy its users and survive. Seriously though, I disagree. Social media in a profit-seeking system can work if the users are the ones who pay. The easiest way for this to work-now that net neutrality is no longer a thing-is bundling through user's pho…

I think you're on the right track, but not getting to what I view as the logical conclusion: publicly funded options, free at the point of service to everyone. I've also humored the idea of taking it one level of abstraction further: a publicly funded cloud computing infrastructure, access to which is free (up to a level of usage). People could then choose to use these cloud computing resources to host, say, federated instances of open social networks.

I mean, it will never happen, but I think it's a path that resolves a lot of problems, and therefore a fun thought experiment.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#66

Post by baubino »

_mlbt wrote: post #61
unsignedint wrote: post #59

Social media as a vessel for diverse discussion is a tall order. It’s too public, too tied to context, and ultimately a no-win game. No matter how carefully you present yourself, you’ll end up being the “bad guy” to someone. The moment a discussion touches even lightly on controversy, healthy dialogue becomes nearly impossible. Think of it this way: you’re hosting a party, and an uninvited stranger kicks the door ope…

I still think old school linear forums are the best format for online discussion. They’re not perfect by any means, but I think they still beat all the alternatives I’ve tried.

The old school forums also centered around a single topic or interest, which I think helped keep things focused and more civil. Part of the problem with social media is that it wants to be everything for everyone.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#67

Post by delichon »

unsignedint wrote: post #59

Social media as a vessel for diverse discussion is a tall order. It’s too public, too tied to context, and ultimately a no-win game. No matter how carefully you present yourself, you’ll end up being the “bad guy” to someone. The moment a discussion touches even lightly on controversy, healthy dialogue becomes nearly impossible. Think of it this way: you’re hosting a party, and an uninvited stranger kicks the door ope…

Whitelisting solves the problem for me. I curate every tweet I see with a browser extension. Strangers can't kick down the door. I only see content from my direct follows. It dramatically reduces the stress. Maybe a little like horse blinkers.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#68

Post by emseetech »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #13
duxup wrote: post #2

A lot of talk goes into how Facebook or other social media use algorithms to encourage engagement, that often includes outrage type content, fake news, rabbit holes and so on. But here's the thing ... people CHOOSE to engage with that, and users even produce that content for social media platforms for free. It's hard to escape that part. I remember trying Bluesky and while I liked it better than Twitter, for me it wa…

>people CHOOSE to engage with that brains are wired that way. Gossip and rage bait is not something that people actively decide for, it's subconscious. It's weird saying that this is the problem of individuals - propaganda is effective not because people are choosing to believe it.

Right. When we're talking about the scale of humanity itself, we've moved far past individual actions.

At the scale we're operating, if only 1% is susceptible to these algorithms, that's enough to translate to noticeable social issues and second-order effects.

And it's not 1%.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#69

Post by bluefirebrand »

_mlbt wrote: post #61
unsignedint wrote: post #59

Social media as a vessel for diverse discussion is a tall order. It’s too public, too tied to context, and ultimately a no-win game. No matter how carefully you present yourself, you’ll end up being the “bad guy” to someone. The moment a discussion touches even lightly on controversy, healthy dialogue becomes nearly impossible. Think of it this way: you’re hosting a party, and an uninvited stranger kicks the door ope…

I still think old school linear forums are the best format for online discussion. They’re not perfect by any means, but I think they still beat all the alternatives I’ve tried.

I like old school forums with like an optional chat room for people to sync in real time if they want

The era of sites with a phpbb forum and an irc channel was really fun for me and I miss it a lot

I made lots of friends that way in the past, close friends, and it's unlike anything I've encountered since then with social media

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#70

Post by throwawayq3423 »

delichon wrote: post #67
unsignedint wrote: post #59

Social media as a vessel for diverse discussion is a tall order. It’s too public, too tied to context, and ultimately a no-win game. No matter how carefully you present yourself, you’ll end up being the “bad guy” to someone. The moment a discussion touches even lightly on controversy, healthy dialogue becomes nearly impossible. Think of it this way: you’re hosting a party, and an uninvited stranger kicks the door ope…

Whitelisting solves the problem for me. I curate every tweet I see with a browser extension. Strangers can't kick down the door. I only see content from my direct follows. It dramatically reduces the stress. Maybe a little like horse blinkers.

Do you mind sharing this extension? I would prefer if it also shows the retweets of people you follow as that is an endorsement no matter what people say.
Post reply on HN