social media, the problem?

I saw a recent report about an internal study Facebook did about divisiveness. They determined that their algorithms designed to increase engagement (time and number of posts), actually leads to increased divisiveness.

They decided that increased engagement was more valuable to them than the negative (?) consequence of higher divisiveness.

JR

Tristan Harris is one of the most concise and persistent speakers to this issue

https://www.tristanharris.com

His episode with Sam Harris is an easy and excellent listen on these issues - https://samharris.org/podcasts/what-is-technology-doing-to-us/

Only the first 45 mins is free but if you find it useful there is lots more out there including a Ted Talk and other interviews.

IMO opinion the social media outrage machine is indeed a part of the problem but it is overlayed on top of many other deep issues in the U.S. and globally.

I think the better question is: Why does social media increase divisiveness?

Is it because they allow full-blown crazy, out of thin-air conspiracy-theories, crimes, and socially-unexceptable behavior, and even proud racial-hate disguised as politics, trying to make it more exceptable-looking today?

Is it because all these things that were previously passed-off as “my crazy uncle” or “boys will be boys”, or however anyone compartmentalized it before, is now out in the open and people are finding other people just as mentally unstable or as fearful of others that don’t look like them?

Is it because we’ve had twenty to twenty-five years worth or more of 24-hour talk entertainment media making all these things feel acceptable via politics to these people and now their kin?

So now a social media company makes a decision, for one reason or another, to make a change, starting with the US’s highest-profile user. He’s claiming his protected rights are being violated, but clearly they are not. Instead, the company’s protected rights are being threatened to be violated.

JohnRoberts said:

I saw a recent report about an internal study Facebook did about divisiveness. They determined that their algorithms designed to increase engagement (time and number of posts), actually leads to increased divisiveness.

They decided that increased engagement was more valuable to them than the negative (?) consequence of higher divisiveness.

JR

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I decided a long time ago that I did'nt want to take part in the whole social network hysteria, so im not on Facebook, Tweeter, Instagram or any of that crap, and it is bliss.

I've been off of all major social media outlets (IG, FB, Twitter, Ect.) for a little over 3 years. Since my leaving, I'm in a much healthier state of being. And I have learned a lot from being off it, particularly who my real friends are, and just to what extent people that you used to know or currently "know" use social media as a means of surveillance.

My main concern with social media was that I felt that not only was I willfully participating in my own brainwashing, and falling slave to the political and business agendas of facebook, and the agendas of those who use facebook as a tool for brainwashing, but I could see the opinions of the people in my life influenced by what I knew was social media driven news/politics/opinions ect based on popular news post, and or shared information - I was really picking up on this sort of "hive minding" that was happening in my immediate community, and social media community.

If you ask me, it's not JUST social media that is the problem, it is the smartphone in general. We as humans have been using it as poverty inducing numbing devices. People constantly buy stuff on their phones, they constantly expose themselves to news articles, opinions, and force themselves to make micro decisions on purchases induced by ad space on the internet. One cannot logon without being confronted with the decision, "20% off, wow, what a deal, should I take advantage of that or not?". Flooding our dopamine receptors with endless photos, videos, interactions, and content that we've never seen before. Nothing in the real world will ever be as exciting to our brains.

The more time we spend in an echo chamber of people pointing the finger at each other, the longer we the people will be divided, and easily influenced. If we are divided, we are conquered, and the more people that are born into this planet, the more people there are to control. What better way to control the people then by dividing them, removing their ability to survive and replacing it with a reliance on the implemented system for their basic human needs, and then making them feel that they are missing the ingredients for a happy life; they must consume in order fulfill their needs and consume to be happy, spending those hard earned paychecks. The more we consume the more we impoverish ourselves. In a society where money is power and only those with large sums can make decisions, it leaves the rest of us at their mercy. Now, more than ever, corporations exercise their power to influence politics.

Social media is not the only problem, it's the inability for people to identify to what extent they are being controlled, and willfully enslaving themselves to the system with blinders on their eyes. If we all wake up and refuse to participate, surrender our convenience for a moment, or even just create stronger boundaries of what we will and will not tolerate, we can create a shift towards a better use of this tool that we call the internet.

Recording Engineer said:

I think the better question is: Why does social media increase divisiveness?

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In case i was not clear, Facebook's study found that their algorithm to increase engagement increased divisiveness... probably a positive feedback thing.

JR

Is it because they allow full-blown crazy, out of thin-air conspiracy-theories, crimes, and socially-unexceptable behavior, and even proud racial-hate disguised as politics, trying to make it more exceptable-looking today?

Is it because all these things that were previously passed-off as “my crazy uncle” or “boys will be boys”, or however anyone compartmentalized it before, is now out in the open and people are finding other people just as mentally unstable or as fearful of others that don’t look like them?

Is it because we’ve had twenty to twenty-five years worth or more of 24-hour talk entertainment media making all these things feel acceptable via politics to these people and now their kin?

So now a social media company makes a decision, for one reason or another, to make a change, starting with the US’s highest-profile user. He’s claiming his protected rights are being violated, but clearly they are not. Instead, the company’s protected rights are being threatened to be violated.

Click to expand...

I know... That was in reply to the title.

justinheronmusic said:

Social media is not the only problem, it's the inability for people to identify to what extent they are being controlled, and willfully enslaving themselves to the system with blinders on their eyes. If we all wake up and refuse to participate, surrender our convenience for a moment, or even just create stronger boundaries of what we will and will not tolerate, we can create a shift towards a better use of this tool that we call the internet.

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ding ding ding we have a winner.... 

Politics is all about manufacturing consent. Politicians paint mental pictures with words, thats why they are so attracted to TV cameras like moths to a flame to get their artifice seen.

Back to my original point, facebook determined with their own study that they were making us more rigidly divided. This also helps their business of selling targeted advertising to both sides. Reportedly when Zukerberg dismissed this study,  he said he didn't want to hear anything more about the subject, realizing it could harm his profits if we were less divided as a nation.

Human decision making is rarely completely logical but often triggered by us using mental short cuts. Master persuaders understand how we decide and use this to sell us toilet paper or political candidates. Social media is not "the" problem per se, human decision making evolved to conserve mental energy (lazy?). We need to know ourselves a little better and try not be so easily manipulated.

JR

PS: I have read too many books on related themes in recent years to easily list them all but IMO a few authors to check out include ; Robert Cialdini, Steven Pinker, Yuval Harari, Douglas Murray, Daniel Kahneman, Scott Adams, and more...

ruairioflaherty said:

IMO opinion the social media outrage machine is indeed a part of the problem but it is overlayed on top of many other deep issues in the U.S. and globally.

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Bingo!

I recently saw some research that listed the USA as a heavily religious society. That sounded odd, until I read the definition of "religious". In that case, it was explained as a society built on belief, not reason. Didn't sound as odd..

But it’s not like this is new with social media. Where is the divisiveness conversation of 24-hour talk entertainment media, presented as news, of the last 25 or so years? Social media is just following that model with a different platform, adding to the problem.

But what about the political parties themselves? We’ve allowed them to get us here (increased divisiveness) with these platforms.

And now our highest leader is going further crazy over a social media company finally beginning (just a toe dipped) to not follow this norm.

Recording Engineer said:

Where is the divisiveness conversation of 24-hour talk entertainment media, presented as news, of the last 25 or so years?

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That conversation is long overdue.

Recording Engineer said:

But what about the political parties themselves?

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Long overdue conversation as well.  I'm not optimistic though,  as I still see the majority of people entrenched in a "yeah but the other side is worse" mentality.  Real change will only come when both major parties are rejected. Sadly, for many, the letter behind someone's name is more important than their competence and integrity.

john12ax7 said:

That conversation is long overdue.

Long overdue conversation as well.  I'm not optimistic though,  as I still see the majority of people entrenched in a "yeah but the other side is worse" mentality.  Real change will only come when both major parties are rejected. Sadly, for many, the letter behind someone's name is more important than their competence and integrity.

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Regrettably I do not see such easy answers. As pogo said, I have seen the enemy and it is us. 

An unintended (?) consequence of instant frictionless communication is that we no longer get time to digest news events, and prepare more thoughtful responses.

I identified social media as a possible problem to start this discussion but they are just behaving in their own self interest for better and worse.

Social media (twitter specifically) is about to get a lesson in the difference between being a platform that shares other peoples content unfiltered, and a publisher that edits and selectively presents content.

legal def said:

PUBLISHER. One who does by himself or his agents make a thing publicly known; one engaged in the circulation of books, pamphlets, and other papers. 2. The publisher of a libel is responsible as if he were the author of it, and it is immaterial whether he has any knowledge of its contents or not;

A platform is not responsible (legally) for the content that is posted.

===
Immunity for Online Publishers Under the Communications Decency Act
This page provides some background on section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("Section 230") and highlights the types of claims and online activities it covers as well as the types of activities that might fall outside Section 230's immunity provisions.

For general information on legal liability associated with publishing the content of others, see the section on Publishing the Statements and Content of Others in this guide.

Background on Publisher and Distributor Liability

Under standard common-law principles, a person who publishes a defamatory statement by another bears the same liability for the statement as if he or she had initially created it. Thus, a book publisher or a newspaper publisher can be held liable for anything that appears within its pages. The theory behind this "publisher" liability is that a publisher has the knowledge, opportunity, and ability to exercise editorial control over the content of its publications.

Distributor liability is much more limited. Newsstands, bookstores, and libraries are generally not held liable for the content of the material that they distribute. The concern is that it would be impossible for distributors to read every publication before they sell or distribute it, and that as a result, distributors would engage in excessive self-censorship. In addition, it would be very hard for distributors to know whether something is actionable defamation; after all, speech must be false to be defamatory.

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That law was passed to support web media but now it appears some are trying to have it both ways. Facebook seems smarter (or has better lawyers) than Twitter, as we will soon see.

This topic is red hot right now because POTUS has been using Twitter to communicate with voters going around a generally opposition mainstream media filtering and outright ignoring his statements. I am not a fan of POTUS tweets, and almost wish he was a drinker as that could explain some of the stupid ones. 

About the only solution I can imagine is for the public to somehow become "aware" of how they are being played by politicians, media, even merchants selling TP.  For this to work SNL and and the pseudo news shows on comedy channels need to showcase example after example of opinion leaders deceiving the public, sadly for now they aligned with only one team so promoting the biased world view of that one side.

Insert my poker game patsy joke  here...  Good luck... don't be the patsy.

JR

Just talking with my neighbor about one of her son's friends. Just to preface, they try to produce hip hop in their bedrooms.....

I guess there's some game like charades kids play with some FB live  app or something. The one kid made a guess and it sounded like "big big" but with an N...

Anyhow, he's facing legal action and possible un-acceptance ? (was accepted) from college here because someone  and all the families supporting them is making a  deal about it.....

Sigh....

Kids....

boji said:

If you care to dredge up that link, I would not mind reading it, thanks. 

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Don't have a link... I read about it in a WSJ newspaper article. It was an internal study done by Facebook's engagement team and reportedly when they presented it to Zuckerberg he said not only forget it but don't show him anything like that again. 
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I just did a search and the FB spokesman denied that it was sidelined but did not deny the that the report existed. Apparently they run a tighter ship than the US government regarding leaks.

FWIW, I've been screaming about the dangers of data-is-the-new-oil, Social Media social control from the rooftops for years. It does way more than fill us with divisiveness.

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IMO many people are way too casual with personal information, OTOH apple phone security has been effectively used by terrorist organizations for bad intentions.

SM (Social Media, not the other one, (whip crack!) but they have a lot in common)...SM, is just one giant Sorting Machine that walks us into our dog collars of confirmation bias, pats us on our heads by giving us an avatar and tiny doghouse in its data landscape to call home, while our similarly-minded friends give us treats of words, videos, and links. We wag our tails, bark at traffic, and don't even care we're on an ad-revenue-generating treadmill, powering the whole thing.  Our limbic systems have been hijacked for profit, premeditatively, and it's only going to get harder to identify the hijackings as AI gets smarter. So lose the collar (which is difficult) and limit exposure --with an egg timer if you have to-- when entering the SM dungeons.  FB, Twitter, YT, IG, SC, Google et al-- they have NOT made any agreements with us on a "safe word" to stop the pleasure/pain, because for them, it's not larping, it's QE reportings. 

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I have already noted scientific reports about google steering sentiment with their search algorithms (old school persuasion technique updated for modern technology.)

Big technology is just pursuing what they get rewarded for.  While it may almost be too late, we need to cultivate viable competition that behaves better, but that won't happen until we understand that we are the product and being sold cheaply.

JR

Anyhow, he's facing legal action and possibly [worse].

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Engaging the internet with personal feelings and such has always been risky, but the politically correct church is bringing online converts into the fold at pace.  Problem is, this church is forcing everyone into correct displays of right action and thought, which just drives bad actors underground, or gives them something to justify backwards thinking.  Any basic review of human psychology would suggest the way forward has to include a great deal of compassion, hive-mind compassion or otherwise.

Edit: Cops included.

I don't see social media as being a cause,  but rather exacerbating a pre-existing underlying problem. An us vs  them mentality where groups are unwilling to call out and discipline their own even in cases of obvious wrongdoing. This applies to politics, religion,  and other groups as well. We are now seeing the devastating consequences of this going  on for far too long with the police.

***stop press*** apparently facebook employees don't like President Trumps posts and staged a "virtual walkout", whatever that means. 

I wonder if they can receive virtual pay?

I still think Facebook has smarter lawyers than twitter.

JR

Certainly the "socials" are a super efficient spyware …  8)
thanks to the fact that those who post their entire private lives ..

maybe because they didn't understand what they are doing.. ?  :
(a good lawyer could be a great help to them about..)

but also a very good advertising place for companies , shops , artisans , artists, athletes,  …
and who needs visibility for their profession.. 

(… unfortunately also for bad politicians..)
peace

This might be enlightening:

https://www.meta-nomad.net/avoiding-the-global-lobotomy/