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Your comment contains great content, but it’s also fairly non sequitur. It appears that you didn’t read the article, and instead are responding to the (silly/st

Your comment contains great content, but it’s also fairly non sequitur. It appears that you didn’t read the article, and instead are responding to the (silly/stupid) headline. The concerns addressed in the article make it much more difficult to take the posture you’re taking here.

hodgesrm 9y ago
Thanks. I just want to say I did read it. It has a number of concerns that are mixed together in a way that's not entirely consistent, compelling, or even especially new. Consider the idea that democracy is being destroyed because people are helpless addicts of social media. You can make a plausible argument that American society and democracy are going through a troubled spell. But it's a big step to say that's all or even largely the fault of social media. It's true that Facebook makes it easier to develop echo chambers that group people by political persuasion. But hey, there's emerging poll evidence that American conservatives and liberals don't even want to marry each other. [0] There are many other causes at work here like failing education systems, economic dislocation, the capturing of the the political system by moneyed interests, etc. That's not even considering real political disputes over things like health care, immigration, and crime. Plus many of the disturbing trends we see now predate social media. Also, the article essentially dismisses fake news and trolls ("symptoms of a deeper problem"). The fact that you can't verify sources easily is not a symptom. It's a fundamental problem with the Internet today that is not all that different from the dark money problem in American politics. Overall this article reads like a variation of Nick Carr's "The Shallows" which I read and quite enjoyed. However, I don't think the threat to our intellects is as dire as he says. In the current article it's even a little surprising to me that tech people discount the possibility that something will come along that really upsets the apple cart at Facebook and Google. These are pretty new companies after all and they were the first to get really big on the Internet. This is not the end of the story, especially if the Internet breaks up into essentially national blocks. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/upshot/are-you-married-to-your-party.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/upshot/are-you-married-to...
- ivanhoe 9y ago
  Speaking of the fake news, Internet and the social media are at the same time THE BEST way to verify information. How would one go to independently verify some news article in 80s? There was no quick way to do it, and consequently nobody did it, people just expected it's true if it's in the newspapers (and often it wasn't). Now you just need to google a little or google search the image and the problem solved - or even better, surround yourself with others paranoid enough to do the googling on every piece of info. There was no a single fake news in my feeds (and it's not just US news but our local, even more untrustworthy, ones), that within a few hours someone didn't reply with "fake" and a link to prove it. You just need to follow and friend with intelligent people from the both sides of political spectrum and let them filter out the noise for you. And also you need to discipline yourself not to over-emotionally jump to the conclusions - arguably this is the hardest part and also the main reason social networks are considered harmful: you can respond immediately, so responses are much more emotionally driven, people never bother thinking of all the angles.
  - makomk 9y ago
    I think, fundamentally, this ability of people to get information from outside the traditional news media may be the whole reason the press are so alarmed. Previously, the press had huge sway over what people thought and that certainly hasn't been good for democracy over here in the UK (I'm not sure the last time a party managed to gain power here without Murdoch's backing). You don't see so much concern about that, or about mainstream publications repeating fake news, or journalists starting and spreading bullshit on social media - even though an awful lot of the successful viral fakes I've seen on Twitter lately were started and/or spread by reputable journalists. Their criticism is aimed squarely at the new technology undermining their established power base.
    - peoplewindow 9y ago
      Absolutely this. The recent "fake news", "omg people are brainwashed by social media" hysteria is coming almost entirely from the parts of the traditional media that are keenest on having a monopoly over political influence. Observe that the Guardian burns money at a catastrophic rate and run begging boxes on every article ... because they prioritise influence over profit. They can't stand the idea of hiding their writing behind a paywall because they see their mission as to influence first, and make money second. What's more they always have, the Guardian has never made a profit (it was subsidised by unrelated businesses until recently). My trust in the media has steadily declined over the years and what's killed my trust has been the times I've fact checked articles and discovered they're lying to me. Sometimes I felt it was deliberate and other times it clearly represented colossal laziness on the part of the journalists.

hodgesrm 9y ago

Thanks. I just want to say I did read it. It has a number of concerns that are mixed together in a way that's not entirely consistent, compelling, or even especially new. Consider the idea that democracy is being destroyed because people are helpless addicts of social media. You can make a plausible argument that American society and democracy are going through a troubled spell. But it's a big step to say that's all or even largely the fault of social media. It's true that Facebook makes it easier to develop echo chambers that group people by political persuasion. But hey, there's emerging poll evidence that American conservatives and liberals don't even want to marry each other. [0] There are many other causes at work here like failing education systems, economic dislocation, the capturing of the the political system by moneyed interests, etc. That's not even considering real political disputes over things like health care, immigration, and crime. Plus many of the disturbing trends we see now predate social media. Also, the article essentially dismisses fake news and trolls ("symptoms of a deeper problem"). The fact that you can't verify sources easily is not a symptom. It's a fundamental problem with the Internet today that is not all that different from the dark money problem in American politics. Overall this article reads like a variation of Nick Carr's "The Shallows" which I read and quite enjoyed. However, I don't think the threat to our intellects is as dire as he says. In the current article it's even a little surprising to me that tech people discount the possibility that something will come along that really upsets the apple cart at Facebook and Google. These are pretty new companies after all and they were the first to get really big on the Internet. This is not the end of the story, especially if the Internet breaks up into essentially national blocks. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/upshot/are-you-married-to-your-party.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/upshot/are-you-married-to...

ivanhoe 9y ago
Speaking of the fake news, Internet and the social media are at the same time THE BEST way to verify information. How would one go to independently verify some news article in 80s? There was no quick way to do it, and consequently nobody did it, people just expected it's true if it's in the newspapers (and often it wasn't). Now you just need to google a little or google search the image and the problem solved - or even better, surround yourself with others paranoid enough to do the googling on every piece of info. There was no a single fake news in my feeds (and it's not just US news but our local, even more untrustworthy, ones), that within a few hours someone didn't reply with "fake" and a link to prove it. You just need to follow and friend with intelligent people from the both sides of political spectrum and let them filter out the noise for you. And also you need to discipline yourself not to over-emotionally jump to the conclusions - arguably this is the hardest part and also the main reason social networks are considered harmful: you can respond immediately, so responses are much more emotionally driven, people never bother thinking of all the angles.
- makomk 9y ago
  I think, fundamentally, this ability of people to get information from outside the traditional news media may be the whole reason the press are so alarmed. Previously, the press had huge sway over what people thought and that certainly hasn't been good for democracy over here in the UK (I'm not sure the last time a party managed to gain power here without Murdoch's backing). You don't see so much concern about that, or about mainstream publications repeating fake news, or journalists starting and spreading bullshit on social media - even though an awful lot of the successful viral fakes I've seen on Twitter lately were started and/or spread by reputable journalists. Their criticism is aimed squarely at the new technology undermining their established power base.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    Absolutely this. The recent "fake news", "omg people are brainwashed by social media" hysteria is coming almost entirely from the parts of the traditional media that are keenest on having a monopoly over political influence. Observe that the Guardian burns money at a catastrophic rate and run begging boxes on every article ... because they prioritise influence over profit. They can't stand the idea of hiding their writing behind a paywall because they see their mission as to influence first, and make money second. What's more they always have, the Guardian has never made a profit (it was subsidised by unrelated businesses until recently). My trust in the media has steadily declined over the years and what's killed my trust has been the times I've fact checked articles and discovered they're lying to me. Sometimes I felt it was deliberate and other times it clearly represented colossal laziness on the part of the journalists.