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Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

theatlantic.com

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Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#81

Post by jasonv »

busterarm wrote: post #32
blhack wrote: post #27

I must have really different experiences than all of these people that write these articles (it seems like there has been something like this, every week on HN, for the last 10 years) My facebook is mostly people showing pictures of stuff, sharing memes, some movie discussion groups, event planning groups. It seems like mostly just people using facebook as a proxy for real world interactions. Twitter on the other han…

You're in a socioeconomically-stratified filter bubble on facebook. My facebook was sufficiently diverse and my feed was exactly like twitter, even though none of my friend group were twitter users. I closed all of my social accounts. Doomsday machine is _exactly_ how I would describe all social media.

Back when I had Facebook, it was just RSS for me. I wasn't a member of many groups, and I realized I mostly followed organizations and entities. Well, I also followed people, but they were all reluctant social media users. They didn't post, so I found no value in Facebook any longer. It was easy for me to leave.

I un-followed everyone on Twitter some-time ago and set up TweetDelete to delete all my tweets after 2 weeks. I started re-following select accounts on Twitter, and it's not that many. In fact, I frequently find no new content on Twitter, so I am free to ignore it for a while.

I also found that I unfollow any accounts from humans that post too often. Anyone who's sitting on Twitter all day... I don't want to follow. Not very often is it valuable. Even the reasonable constant-posters, they're just jacked into their twitter-sphere. I don't need that. It's a weird thing, to have a job and crank out 20-40 tweets/day.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#82

Post by 1ark »

blhack wrote: post #27

I must have really different experiences than all of these people that write these articles (it seems like there has been something like this, every week on HN, for the last 10 years) My facebook is mostly people showing pictures of stuff, sharing memes, some movie discussion groups, event planning groups. It seems like mostly just people using facebook as a proxy for real world interactions. Twitter on the other han…

I have exactly the same experience on both FB and Twitter. And the same reflection for a while regarding recent articles. Most on my FB feed are sharing moments of their life. Twitter is a chaos of retweets etc.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#83

Post by blhack »

busterarm wrote: post #60
blhack wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am? My Facebook feed contains people who make over $1M/yr, and people who live in their car. Some right wing people talking about how suspicious they think the election was, and left wing people talking about how bad those people are. I’m not sure how that’s me living is a socioeconomically stratified filter bubble. My twitter on the other hand, is mostly (all?) left wing Silicon Valley/tech types. It’s diverse in…

I'm not shaming you. Congrats, you made it. But you're basically talking about all Bay Area people, which is not a representative cross-section of America as a whole in any way shape or form. I've lived all over this country and abroad, succeeded, failed, been homeless, succeeded again. My social circle is absurdly broad and my Facebook looked like people fighting each other all the time. Facebook has even confirmed…

>But you're basically talking about all Bay Area people, which is not a representative cross-section of America as a whole in any way shape or form.

What? I live in Arizona, and I grew up in the midwest. I've only ever even been to the bay area like 4 times in my life. Most of my friends are in Arizona, and then some in North Dakota, northern MN, and Iowa.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#84

Post by Balgair »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #30

The Atlantic has always been a kind of tabloid for people who fancy themselves intellectuals, especially with its cover stories. After seeming like they were really on the brink for a few years there, not really knowing how to do digital, they turned it around - apparently by doubling down on this approach. High-minded clickbait for right-thinking elites, in other words. Have a look at their "most popular articles" b…

> The Atlantic has always been a kind of tabloid for people who fancy themselves intellectuals, especially with its cover stories

Case in point: Ghostbusters has a brief gag on The Atlantic and it's over the top writing in 1984.

Timestamp at 1:55 in this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwKR_y93izs

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#85

Post by earthboundkid »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #71
earthboundkid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery ended because human beings (the slaves) made it end. They revolted constantly, and the threat of revolt wasn't worth the money savings. No European wanted another Hati, so that was the beginning of the end. In the case of the US, after the Civil War had begun, slaves fled to the Union camps in large numbers, which forced the Union to emancipate and enlist them. Anyway, capitalism doesn't have human values. No…

There's a theory that slaveowners were just outcompeted by machine owners...

Machines don't make you stop doing slavery. If anything, the forces go the other way: slavery was dying in the US at the end of the 1700s (slavery had been legal in the North too but was being abolished slowly) then the cotton gin made it suddenly hugely profitable in the South and gave it a big boost.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#86

Post by BlueTemplar »

earthboundkid wrote: post #85
BlueTemplar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a theory that slaveowners were just outcompeted by machine owners...

Machines don't make you stop doing slavery. If anything, the forces go the other way: slavery was dying in the US at the end of the 1700s (slavery had been legal in the North too but was being abolished slowly) then the cotton gin made it suddenly hugely profitable in the South and gave it a big boost.

Hmm, what about outcompeting militarily?

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#87

Post by gwbas1c »

blhack wrote: post #27

I must have really different experiences than all of these people that write these articles (it seems like there has been something like this, every week on HN, for the last 10 years) My facebook is mostly people showing pictures of stuff, sharing memes, some movie discussion groups, event planning groups. It seems like mostly just people using facebook as a proxy for real world interactions. Twitter on the other han…

> My facebook is mostly people showing pictures of stuff, sharing memes, some movie discussion groups, event planning groups. It seems like mostly just people using facebook as a proxy for real world interactions.

Lucky you!

For me: A childhood friend's mother reposts anti-muslim propaganda right out of the nazi playbook. My friends on the left also repost stuff that's tonedeaf, but it's a bit harder to explain why.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#88

Post by fatnoah »

jancsika wrote: post #66
blhack wrote: post #27

I must have really different experiences than all of these people that write these articles (it seems like there has been something like this, every week on HN, for the last 10 years) My facebook is mostly people showing pictures of stuff, sharing memes, some movie discussion groups, event planning groups. It seems like mostly just people using facebook as a proxy for real world interactions. Twitter on the other han…

> I must have really different experiences than all of these people that write these articles (it seems like there has been something like this, every week on HN, for the last 10 years) Me too! It's almost as if the recommendation algorithm and ad model end up showing and reinforcing different types of content and behavior for different sets of users. We really need a good word for this process how different people o…

This has been my experience as well. I am FB friends with some very right wing people (Coronavirus skeptic types) and left wing people (literal anarchists). My feed remains fairly innocuous and is mostly photos and comments from friends with the occasional discussion friend.

Occasionally I do have to mute someone that's getting too annoying or use the "stop showing me this" feature for certain re-shared content. These are actions I take every few months, so it's not a very regular maintenance.

Re: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

#89

Post by FabHK »

runawaybottle wrote: post #2

I hate to be this dismissive, but I couldn’t find a single paragraph in that article that provided any kind of compelling analysis or insight into human behavior. I’m less concerned about misinformation propagating through a platform vs why misinformation even works on someone. I don’t care if the whole country of Russia sat there and told you lies with fake accounts 24/7, I want to know why you believed any of it. A…

> Anyways, is The Atlantic supposed to be a reputable website?

The Atlantic has been a monthly magazine for over 150 years. It is as reputable as, dunno, the New Yorker, Harpers, Mother Jones, etc.

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