4 ms·

But there are links both to and from social media sites, aren't there?

by personjerry 11y ago

soheil 11y ago
As he also mentioned Instagram for instance doesn't allow links in posts.
johnchristopher 11y ago
Try keeping up with newspaper comments that are driven by Facebook. It's a nightmare to follow conversations.
amirmansour 11y ago
Yes, but I also think you have to consider how those links are presented and interacted with. It's not just a link, it's got "like" button. What you see is people posting and even crafting links to optimize for that "number of likes" metric. That's how you end up with the stream of junk on FB: quick bait links with the potential for instant gratification. Also for many people this stream is their one-stop-shop web, which is fine, do whatever you like, but now it has reached the point where social media has to be appeased just to get people to look beyond the stream, which I think goes against the openness philosophy of the internet. As the builders of the web (majority of HN base) we should stay conscious of this philosophy.
- ethbro 11y ago
  Relevant Eli Pariser: https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_b... I thought the "stream as something that only gazes inward" was a nice metaphor. "Aren't there outward links on Facebook?" is a less relevant question to the author's point than "What's the chance I click on a link in Facebook and it takes me to something unexpected?"
ngoel36 11y ago
Yes but the few social media sites get to control how a link to anywhere else appears. For example, try updating your Facebook status with a video. If you upload the raw mp4 directly, the video will autoplay in your friends' news feeds, generating more engagement & likes. If you instead post a YouTube link, your friends will see one screenshot in an ugly embedded player. Facebook, intentionally or not, gets to control part of YouTube's fate and relevance. It has every right to, but that's a bit scary when it's the only way to share a video with my friends.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Google does the exact same thing with queries. Plenty of queries will be answered with data harvested from the pages that those queries originally led to. Now google shows a box on the side with the facts collected from the underlying pages. No more need to go visit any of those. Then there's google images, which shows the images on the google site itself (a vast copyright infringement, unlike the search engine result pages these are copies of the images at quite high resolution). Every web company, as soon as they get large enough will stop playing nice and will start trying to lock their users into their own ecosystem.
  - yohui 11y ago
    > Then there's google images, which shows the images on the google site itself (a vast copyright infringement, unlike the search engine result pages these are copies of the images at quite high resolution). Well, image search would be a lot less useful if it didn't show images. And Google's image thumbnails are very modest resolution copies. The larger image previews displayed when clicking a specific image result are actually hotlinked from the original source, and hence not copyright violations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_linking#Copyright_law_issues_that_inline_linking_raises https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_linking#Copyright_law_i...
    - scholia 11y ago
      > The larger image previews displayed when clicking a specific image result are actually hotlinked from the original source So the website pays the cost without getting the benefit of a visit?
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        Exactly. As if hotlinking makes it better.
      - yohui 11y ago
        Heads you're a copyright thief, tails you're a bandwidth thief... The larger image preview is still moderately sized (it loads the original image but in a smaller frame), so most users probably click through to the original page (since most users aren't savvy enough to right-click and go to the image directly, or mouse over to the "view image" button).

But there are links both to and from social media sites, aren't there?

soheil 11y ago

As he also mentioned Instagram for instance doesn't allow links in posts.

johnchristopher 11y ago

Try keeping up with newspaper comments that are driven by Facebook. It's a nightmare to follow conversations.

amirmansour 11y ago

Yes, but I also think you have to consider how those links are presented and interacted with. It's not just a link, it's got "like" button. What you see is people posting and even crafting links to optimize for that "number of likes" metric. That's how you end up with the stream of junk on FB: quick bait links with the potential for instant gratification. Also for many people this stream is their one-stop-shop web, which is fine, do whatever you like, but now it has reached the point where social media has to be appeased just to get people to look beyond the stream, which I think goes against the openness philosophy of the internet. As the builders of the web (majority of HN base) we should stay conscious of this philosophy.

ethbro 11y ago
Relevant Eli Pariser: https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_b... I thought the "stream as something that only gazes inward" was a nice metaphor. "Aren't there outward links on Facebook?" is a less relevant question to the author's point than "What's the chance I click on a link in Facebook and it takes me to something unexpected?"

ngoel36 11y ago

Yes but the few social media sites get to control how a link to anywhere else appears. For example, try updating your Facebook status with a video. If you upload the raw mp4 directly, the video will autoplay in your friends' news feeds, generating more engagement & likes. If you instead post a YouTube link, your friends will see one screenshot in an ugly embedded player. Facebook, intentionally or not, gets to control part of YouTube's fate and relevance. It has every right to, but that's a bit scary when it's the only way to share a video with my friends.

jacquesm 11y ago
Google does the exact same thing with queries. Plenty of queries will be answered with data harvested from the pages that those queries originally led to. Now google shows a box on the side with the facts collected from the underlying pages. No more need to go visit any of those. Then there's google images, which shows the images on the google site itself (a vast copyright infringement, unlike the search engine result pages these are copies of the images at quite high resolution). Every web company, as soon as they get large enough will stop playing nice and will start trying to lock their users into their own ecosystem.
- yohui 11y ago
  > Then there's google images, which shows the images on the google site itself (a vast copyright infringement, unlike the search engine result pages these are copies of the images at quite high resolution). Well, image search would be a lot less useful if it didn't show images. And Google's image thumbnails are very modest resolution copies. The larger image previews displayed when clicking a specific image result are actually hotlinked from the original source, and hence not copyright violations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_linking#Copyright_law_issues_that_inline_linking_raises https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_linking#Copyright_law_i...
  - scholia 11y ago
    > The larger image previews displayed when clicking a specific image result are actually hotlinked from the original source So the website pays the cost without getting the benefit of a visit?
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Exactly. As if hotlinking makes it better.
    - yohui 11y ago
      Heads you're a copyright thief, tails you're a bandwidth thief... The larger image preview is still moderately sized (it loads the original image but in a smaller frame), so most users probably click through to the original page (since most users aren't savvy enough to right-click and go to the image directly, or mouse over to the "view image" button).