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

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#71

Post by randphys » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

jonfromsf wrote: post #68

throwkeep wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is a particularly well refined mob machine. No room for nuance, distribution at the speed of light directly into your feed and/or Trending, participants immediately rewarded for generating and spreading outrage. I get that a lot of this was unintentional, but the dynamic has now been known for a decade and has only gotten worse. Why has Twitter the company and its employees not taken action to deal with this?…

because it makes money. Why would they want to stop it? People have a weird mental model where they think private companies are the government. They're just a group of people getting paid to make money for investors.

Is it really only the job of government to make ethical decisions? Surely companies and employees can and should try to be ethical. Just because there is profit involved doesn't mean that we should throw out our humanity.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#72

Post by Syonyk » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

throwkeep wrote: post #63

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…

Twitter is a particularly well refined mob machine. No room for nuance, distribution at the speed of light directly into your feed and/or Trending, participants immediately rewarded for generating and spreading outrage. I get that a lot of this was unintentional, but the dynamic has now been known for a decade and has only gotten worse. Why has Twitter the company and its employees not taken action to deal with this?…

> Why has Twitter the company and its employees not taken action to deal with this?

Because it's not their job to moderate this stuff.

Angry, pissed off, outraged users are, from the perspective of social media companies, the best users. They refresh constantly (so more ad views), they come back constantly, and if they've gone away for too long, you can just figure out what's likely to piss them off the most, send them a notification, and they're right back into the ad delivery mill, engaged and outraged.

And all that means more money for the company. Which is their interest.

YouTube's guiding goal (at least some years back, as I heard it) was to increase hours watched. Period. Hours watched was the metric they optimized for, above all else. And it showed in the various recommendations that looked very broken from the outside world, but those tended to add hours watched.

I don't think the algorithms were nearly smart enough to know that they were recommending some conspiracy theorist gateway video, or extreme political content, or such. They simply knew, "If we get people to watch this video, they will then spend a lot more time on YouTube." So, the more people that watch that video one way or another, the more hours watched, problem improved! It's very "paperclip maximizer" seeming sort of algorithm.

Given that it's been known for years how to "drive your users nuts to keep them coming back" and social media companies have refined this to near perfection (it's Vegas in your pocket, without any of the regulations and rules Vegas casinos have to abide by), I'm in favor of some regulation on this sort of stuff, but I'm not at all sure it will actually matter. :/

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#73

Post by dionidium » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:47 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…

When the mob can literally set you on fire, then you should be worried about the mob, but, crucially, the mob on social media can't actually hurt you; they can only convince other people to hurt you. It's those other people, the people who hold positions of responsibility and authority -- your boss, your dean, anybody with the power to hire or fire you -- who are really responsible here. The shame of cancel culture is entirely theirs.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#74

Post by vlunkr » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

throwkeep wrote: post #63

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…

Twitter is a particularly well refined mob machine. No room for nuance, distribution at the speed of light directly into your feed and/or Trending, participants immediately rewarded for generating and spreading outrage. I get that a lot of this was unintentional, but the dynamic has now been known for a decade and has only gotten worse. Why has Twitter the company and its employees not taken action to deal with this?…

What could be changed about twitter to make this better? The entire design feeds right into this. I've heard it said that it was intended to be a place for good discussion, but I really don't believe that. Good discussion isn't had 140 characters at a time. The whole point of the site is to give everyone a megaphone.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#75

Post by ourmandave » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 2:51 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…

The twitter mob can come for you too.

If you're mis-identified and doxxed then your life can be in danger.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/what-its-like-to-get...

And the consequences for the accuser are nothing.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#76

Post by paxys » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

There are so many comments here blaming Twitter while blissfully unaware that HN fuels the exact same online outrage. Almost every day there's a " did bad thing to me" article on the front page and people immediately pick up their pitchforks and join the mob. You cannot fix the problem without acknowledging that we are all part of it.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#77

Post by jiofih » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

cindarin wrote: post #65

jiofih wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am ignoring nothing. It is obvious that the author is stating that social media causes breakdowns into unruly mobs. I disagree with that sentiment. The author and I have differing opinions. However, the author decided to post a longform article on the topic with no evidence to support their claims, and in some cases, outright lies. I don't believe that claims should go unchallenged, especially when made on such fli…

I guess you’re not on Twitter much? Mobs are an almost daily occurrence in my feed.

What are the lies? Where is your challenge of them? So far you’ve only tried to directly discredit the author and not offered any counterpoints.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#78

Post by 1234letshaveatw » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

Syonyk wrote: post #72

throwkeep wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is a particularly well refined mob machine. No room for nuance, distribution at the speed of light directly into your feed and/or Trending, participants immediately rewarded for generating and spreading outrage. I get that a lot of this was unintentional, but the dynamic has now been known for a decade and has only gotten worse. Why has Twitter the company and its employees not taken action to deal with this?…

> Why has Twitter the company and its employees not taken action to deal with this? Because it's not their job to moderate this stuff. Angry, pissed off, outraged users are, from the perspective of social media companies, the best users. They refresh constantly (so more ad views), they come back constantly, and if they've gone away for too long, you can just figure out what's likely to piss them off the most, send th…

"So what if our AI is becoming self-aware and making questionable decisions? Or job is to win government contracts" - skynet employee, August 3rd, 1997 :)

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#79

Post by abnry » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #73

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…

When the mob can literally set you on fire, then you should be worried about the mob, but, crucially, the mob on social media can't actually hurt you ; they can only convince other people to hurt you. It's those other people , the people who hold positions of responsibility and authority -- your boss, your dean, anybody with the power to hire or fire you -- who are really responsible here. The shame of cancel culture…

And what drives these decision makers to act so shamefully is the reputational economy. Yes, sometimes a boycott will damage the bottom line, but most often it is the damage to one's status within the wider society that is being protected by the decision to fire someone. If you personally want to avoid this, reduce your dependence on reputation.

Re: Don't let social media think for you

#80

Post by bnralt » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 3:08 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!)

I think people should spend a lot more time considering what they're trying to get informed about and for what purpose. Reading books (particularly older books), talking to a wide variety of people, looking at primary sources, paying attention to what's around you in your environment - all of those is going to put you in a much better position than being a media junkie.

For instance, if you want to be an informed voter, then spending a few minutes flipping through the Vote411 pamphlet put out by The League of Women Voters is going to put you ahead of the vast majority of people who absorb political news 24/7. It's also often the only information you'll find on many local races.

Often people will tell you that they're watching the news to be an informed voter, except they're mostly watching things that align with the decisions they've already made. I know many people who decided years ago how they feel about a national candidate, spend hours every week for years watching news that just reinforces that, and then zero knowledge about any of the candidates in local races where there vote actually has a much greater impact. That's not being an informed voter, that's feeding a bad habit.

Likewise with international news - what are people actually trying to accomplish? Most of the time it's not being informed, it's following a media narrative and ignoring things as soon as the narrative changes. Do you remember when Darfur was a big topic in the early 2000's? Mali about 9 years ago? Those conflicts are still ongoing, but seem to have been forgotten. How about "Bring Back Our Girls"? Likewise Libya, Syria, and a host of other conflicts that suddenly shift from "very important and everyone needs to be informed about it" to a distant memory.

Again, the way these things are treated isn't about keeping people informed, but feeding media junkie habits. And the nature of this kind of poor reporting has very real consequences - just look at the Iraq War. Ignorance is preferable to disinformation.