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My first thought after election day was that Brandolini's Law had been successfully weaponized, and that Firaxis should get busy adding it to the tech tree in C

by pohl 10y ago

My first thought after election day was that Brandolini's Law had been successfully weaponized, and that Firaxis should get busy adding it to the tech tree in Civ 6. Sam Biddle wrote an article[1] in The Intercept recently where he uses a phrase that would be a great name for this new tech:"Internet-Augmented Ignorance" The clickbait phenomenon appears to be a much bigger problem today than it did a week ago. A week ago, I thought of it as a mere annoyance. Now I fear it is an existential threat – especially in light of Zuckerberg's take: "I think the idea that fake news on Facebook—of which it’s a very small amount of the content—influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea." [1] https://theintercept.com/2016/11/10/facebook-im-begging-you-please-make-yourself-better/ https://theintercept.com/2016/11/10/facebook-im-begging-you-...

dictum 10y ago
"Sam Biddle wrote an article [on] the clickbait phenomenon" Well, leave it to the experts.
- pohl 10y ago
  The article that I linked to may be one that not everybody agrees with, but it is a well-written and thoughtful article that isn't anywhere near the clickbait-farm model. If the problem were merely that people selectively shared thoughtful but biased articles within their own information bubble, the problem would not be so severe. The clickbait problem, in contrast, is that people share – within milliseconds - articles that are designed merely to siphon money from that dopamine hit, with no good-faith effort to even make any sense whatsoever.
cowardlydragon 10y ago
What is the big-O of rolling back bullshit viral posts? The viral posts get to spread organically, at a rate through the social graph equal to the appeal chance. However, to refute it, you must first research the response with sufficient veracity / references. That is probably the original 10x. But then you must move the refutation, which seems to have a much reduced virality factor, to the necessary places the viral bullshit spread. That would require constant searches of the graph. If the graph is "secured", then locating the instances/replications of the viral bullshit could be practically impossible. Even if you had access, the viral bullshit can replicate, since the very thing that makes it viral makes it memorable, and you'd need to do constant sweeps of the social graph to repress it.

by pohl 10y ago

dictum 10y ago

"Sam Biddle wrote an article [on] the clickbait phenomenon" Well, leave it to the experts.

pohl 10y ago
The article that I linked to may be one that not everybody agrees with, but it is a well-written and thoughtful article that isn't anywhere near the clickbait-farm model. If the problem were merely that people selectively shared thoughtful but biased articles within their own information bubble, the problem would not be so severe. The clickbait problem, in contrast, is that people share – within milliseconds - articles that are designed merely to siphon money from that dopamine hit, with no good-faith effort to even make any sense whatsoever.

cowardlydragon 10y ago

What is the big-O of rolling back bullshit viral posts? The viral posts get to spread organically, at a rate through the social graph equal to the appeal chance. However, to refute it, you must first research the response with sufficient veracity / references. That is probably the original 10x. But then you must move the refutation, which seems to have a much reduced virality factor, to the necessary places the viral bullshit spread. That would require constant searches of the graph. If the graph is "secured", then locating the instances/replications of the viral bullshit could be practically impossible. Even if you had access, the viral bullshit can replicate, since the very thing that makes it viral makes it memorable, and you'd need to do constant sweeps of the social graph to repress it.