Platform algorithms are a big part of the problem but I think this misses another important part. I don't think it is simple as a passive silent majority being drowned out by a few loud voices. For most of its history, Reddit didn't have an algorithm that promoted stories beyond upvotes and time since posting, that might even still be the case. Despite this, we have still seen a steady trend toward extreme views on t…
Honestly take me back to time ordered forums. Threads, voting, algorithms were all a mistake.
Toxicity on Social Media
91–100 of 136 posts
Re: Toxicity on Social Media
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social media is more like the printing press than any of those things. It radically changed the economics of distributing information. The printing press brought down the Catholic church and the Kings of Europe. The disruption caused by social media and disintermediated free distribution is just getting started.
You may notice that both the european kings and the church coexisted with the printing press for centuries. No, what did the kings in was the great war, and what broke the Catholic Church's stranglehold on Europe (because it's still around and hardly powerless) was either the french revolution or the great war again.
Re: Toxicity on Social Media
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regulating the algorithm is my favorite answer. Ban the recommendation engine on large social media sites. Make it a chronological feed of who you follow. Make it boring. I don't know all the details, but something like this.
I want some kind of algorithm though. If some of my friends post a lot and some post a little, I want to see a more even split. And I want to see some posts from friends of friends, and from strangers who are posting similarly to my friends.
In a perfect world it would be great to have a platform that allows open-sourced algorithms for people to choose from, although that's a crazy pipe dream.
Re: Toxicity on Social Media
#94There is a fatal flaw with the solution though: inauthentic users.
The solution aims to reduce the distortionary effects of social networks in a market of ideas and conversations.
Inatuthentic users have deceptive participation. There are 2 types: Trolls and organized/motivated inauthentic users.
These users have a strong incentive to protect the distorted perceptions in the exchange, and will adapt to reduce the effectiveness of Community Check.
(I have a theoretical solution for it, however I am not quite sure how to test it out)
Re: Toxicity on Social Media
#95I have been working on a monitoring and prebunking system for digital manipulation and desinformation. We are focusing not on the content or narrative but on the psychological patterns and manipulation techniques that are used. It's the most disturbing thing I have ever worked on, there is much more out there than moste people realize and a lot of it uses deceptive dark patterns. If somebody is interested in talking…
I have the following questions, in no particular order - I'm writing this comment off the top of my head in stream of consciousness while procrastinating:
- Why did you decide on a new technical system/platform as the way to go? This might sound like a silly question, but one thing I've noticed when talking to techies who are interested in this problem is that it can veer into 'I have a hammer, look at all these nails!' The reason I ask this is one thing I've noticed in working with the average person (or even very educated non-techy sorts) is that they view themselves as having little to no agency when interacting with technical systems, and I worry that adding another one just further encourages them to outsource that agency (just believing you instead of randos on Instagram/TT). This is versus things like outreach through different channels, formalized educational programs, producing of children's educational material (teach the parents while they read to their kids, for example, which lets them set aside the ego of being lectured to as an adult), traditional/alternative media campaigns, etc. If it's just a case of that's your skill set and resources, fair enough!
- You mentioned in a sister comment the low rates of media literacy. I 100% agree. Do you have/have you found any good ways to handle the combination of high education/socio-economic class and low media literacy? I've noticed very similar patterns across education levels, but my peers with graduate degrees or some manner of social 'success' fully believe themselves to be media literate and in fact some of them could recite most of the deceptive tricks and point them out if asked. They still knee-jerk believe things that confirm their priors.
- Is there any educational focus on heuristics and ways that the average person can satisfice their way to something better than the status quo? A lot of effort in this area seems to assume some platonic ideal of an informed, rational citizen with plenty of time to dedicate to educating themselves/learning better habits. Because of this, they tend to be information dumps. In addition to the low media literacy, there are a lot of people (at least here in America - I can't say for your education system) who lack the requisite knowledge to understand what you're telling them. I know that could sound a little insane, but a lot of people can't manage hypotheticals or understand second-order effects. We've also got the studies about people's attention spans. Going through what amounts to paragraphs of psychological text (or video) presented in a factual way will make people scroll or their eyes glaze over, but actions they can take in their life (e.g. stopping social media use for a month and noticing how their thoughts change, specifically following a small group/topic that you don't belong to/have much interest in to see how conversations change over time without personal investment, etc.) might be more approachable. Right now, the two approaches seem to be 'let experts educate you so you can learn a byzantine system in your 45 minutes a day of free time' and 'just go touch grass/let's go back to 1990'. I don't think either of those are realistic for the average person.
Re: Toxicity on Social Media
#96I liked the article and I also sympathize with a lot of the concerns around this topic because I am from the group that became silent after a while. Popular social media does not have any appetite for nuance. By design it cannot have that. Community checks are alright but I would rather spend an hour on hacker news trying to understand the nuanced perspective of 40 people than looking at very diluted opinion (4 choic…
Re: Toxicity on Social Media
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's manufactured controlled opposition which is designed to look crazier than unchecked capitalism, and it's succeeding wildly at its mission. See: wsws.org as a longstanding external example
So if reddit is more left than you are, it's "manufactured controlled opposition which is designed to look crazier than unchecked capitalism", and I guess if it's less left than you are, then they're a bunch of DINOs (LINOs?) like Manchin or Sinema?
Re: Toxicity on Social Media
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I personally feel Reddit is extremely polarized and toxic. It really depends on the community.
Yeah, have the same sentiment towards Twitter before it has been bought by Mr. Musk. You were always close to being banned. And the American government was colluding. I don't like the tone on X now, but hey, no one silences me, and that is awesome.
Re: Toxicity on Social Media
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if reddit is more left than you are, it's "manufactured controlled opposition which is designed to look crazier than unchecked capitalism", and I guess if it's less left than you are, then they're a bunch of DINOs (LINOs?) like Manchin or Sinema?
My god, Bluesky is probably actually run as manufactured controlled opposition from all the crazy stuff you see on there. It makes perfect sense. HOW DEEP DOES THIS GO.
rightward_ratchet++;
Re: Toxicity on Social Media
#100I liked the article and I also sympathize with a lot of the concerns around this topic because I am from the group that became silent after a while. Popular social media does not have any appetite for nuance. By design it cannot have that. Community checks are alright but I would rather spend an hour on hacker news trying to understand the nuanced perspective of 40 people than looking at very diluted opinion (4 choic…
Hacker news is not a representative subset of humanity. So you are restricting your range of understanding. Maybe that's necessary for mental health, (it is for me) but the tradeoff isn't great either.
But I also want to argue against the range of understanding argument. Attention has a limit. Anyone who wants develop a deep understanding for any topic would do themselves a disfavor by trying to expand their range aimlessly.
We can't all know everything all at once, so we should just develop some common sense for the most important topics instead. Like "people generally good and against violence". We used to have that once, we can rebuild it now.