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This is just an ad hominem argument, and becoming tired. Every time an opinion is published in a newspaper, the first comment is along the lines of "old media t

This is just an ad hominem argument, and becoming tired. Every time an opinion is published in a newspaper, the first comment is along the lines of "old media trying to protect themselves". Where else would things like this be published and reach an audience?

blfr 9y ago
I don't know about every other time but my comment explicitly states that they lost their influence and there's nothing to protect any more. What's weird is they are now hoping someone else will take over. Especially weird since Facebook will happily take over old media's advertisers base and then charge them for access to their own audience at the other end. It's already happening.
peoplewindow 9y ago
It's not an ad hominem argument. That would be saying "the argument is wrong because it's made by the Washington Post". I think the assertion here is more subtle: newspapers are really the only outlets attacking social media and claiming it brainwashes people. This isn't something that ever comes up in other discussions or forums as far as I can tell. Certainly I discuss politics with my own friends and Facebook or Twitter are not at the top of their lists of concerns. In contrast, much of the traditional press publishes hysterical clickbaity screeds like "6 ways social media has become a direct threat to democracy" almost every day. They're obsessed with the topic. But we've seen this all before. It used to be that Google News was the bogeyman. It is reasonable to point out journalists talk about this issue far greater issue than other classes of people, and that maybe this issue - if it exists at all - is really not as dramatic as they make it out to be.
- samastur 9y ago
  They aren't. I, as many other people I read, have been arguing about SM threat for years, but unlike newspapers I like most people have a very very limited reach. Just because our reach is too short for you to notice it does not mean we don't exist.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    What, saying it's a direct threat to democracy itself? Care to link to examples of you arguing that 10 years ago? The Telegraph has a good meta-discussion on this topic, about how modern "liberal elites" (ugh, hate that name) have embraced totalitarianism: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/brexit-barcelona-liberal-elites-have-lost-faith-self-determination/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/brexit-barcelona-... (unfortunately it's paywalled) When a billionaire newspaper owner like Omidyar writes an article in the Washington Post that repeats dubious conspiracy theories, calls targeted ads "dark posts", and just in general argues repeatedly for people exactly like himself to control the flow of information on the internet, this is not based on anything new. It certainly isn't anything to do with social media. It's just the same thing that's been going on for millenia - people in power getting scared and confused when the little people start rebelling, and concluding that censorship and control is the answer. If Trump had been elected in the 1990's exactly the same kind of article would have been written but instead of "social media" it'd have been talking about "the internet superhighway" and "the World Wide Web" instead, as that'd have been the newest form of information dispersal at the time.
    - samastur 9y ago
      Why 10 years ago? I wrote this in 2014: http://markos.gaivo.net/articles/chirp-squawk-cackle-or-honk.html http://markos.gaivo.net/articles/chirp-squawk-cackle-or-honk... However I effectively stopped using Twitter in 2011 for these same reasons and have been arguing about dangers of Twitter, FB and ilk even before then. Regretfully in places not well archived. Not that it matters because my reach is practically non-existent. I was also far from being original or pioneering.
      - peoplewindow 9y ago
        Good response! I read your article. I agree with everything in it, but I don't think it argues that Twitter is a threat to democracy. The word democracy does not appear anywhere in it, for example. You argued that Twitter is vacuous, empty, filled with half or quarter baked ideas and that the brevity of messages leads to anti-intellectual arguments. That it's a notch above monkey speak. And you speculated that this may have some sort of impact on society, possibly, or maybe it was just useless and a missed opportunity. I actually never used Twitter and actively avoid it, for all the reasons you give. Still, I wouldn't argue it's a threat to democracy. The sort of people who get into empty headed Twitter fights weren't going to write rational, well thought out essays if Twitter didn't exist. They'd just not write at all.

blfr 9y ago

I don't know about every other time but my comment explicitly states that they lost their influence and there's nothing to protect any more. What's weird is they are now hoping someone else will take over. Especially weird since Facebook will happily take over old media's advertisers base and then charge them for access to their own audience at the other end. It's already happening.

peoplewindow 9y ago

It's not an ad hominem argument. That would be saying "the argument is wrong because it's made by the Washington Post". I think the assertion here is more subtle: newspapers are really the only outlets attacking social media and claiming it brainwashes people. This isn't something that ever comes up in other discussions or forums as far as I can tell. Certainly I discuss politics with my own friends and Facebook or Twitter are not at the top of their lists of concerns. In contrast, much of the traditional press publishes hysterical clickbaity screeds like "6 ways social media has become a direct threat to democracy" almost every day. They're obsessed with the topic. But we've seen this all before. It used to be that Google News was the bogeyman. It is reasonable to point out journalists talk about this issue far greater issue than other classes of people, and that maybe this issue - if it exists at all - is really not as dramatic as they make it out to be.

samastur 9y ago
They aren't. I, as many other people I read, have been arguing about SM threat for years, but unlike newspapers I like most people have a very very limited reach. Just because our reach is too short for you to notice it does not mean we don't exist.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  What, saying it's a direct threat to democracy itself? Care to link to examples of you arguing that 10 years ago? The Telegraph has a good meta-discussion on this topic, about how modern "liberal elites" (ugh, hate that name) have embraced totalitarianism: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/brexit-barcelona-liberal-elites-have-lost-faith-self-determination/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/brexit-barcelona-... (unfortunately it's paywalled) When a billionaire newspaper owner like Omidyar writes an article in the Washington Post that repeats dubious conspiracy theories, calls targeted ads "dark posts", and just in general argues repeatedly for people exactly like himself to control the flow of information on the internet, this is not based on anything new. It certainly isn't anything to do with social media. It's just the same thing that's been going on for millenia - people in power getting scared and confused when the little people start rebelling, and concluding that censorship and control is the answer. If Trump had been elected in the 1990's exactly the same kind of article would have been written but instead of "social media" it'd have been talking about "the internet superhighway" and "the World Wide Web" instead, as that'd have been the newest form of information dispersal at the time.
  - samastur 9y ago
    Why 10 years ago? I wrote this in 2014: http://markos.gaivo.net/articles/chirp-squawk-cackle-or-honk.html http://markos.gaivo.net/articles/chirp-squawk-cackle-or-honk... However I effectively stopped using Twitter in 2011 for these same reasons and have been arguing about dangers of Twitter, FB and ilk even before then. Regretfully in places not well archived. Not that it matters because my reach is practically non-existent. I was also far from being original or pioneering.
    - peoplewindow 9y ago
      Good response! I read your article. I agree with everything in it, but I don't think it argues that Twitter is a threat to democracy. The word democracy does not appear anywhere in it, for example. You argued that Twitter is vacuous, empty, filled with half or quarter baked ideas and that the brevity of messages leads to anti-intellectual arguments. That it's a notch above monkey speak. And you speculated that this may have some sort of impact on society, possibly, or maybe it was just useless and a missed opportunity. I actually never used Twitter and actively avoid it, for all the reasons you give. Still, I wouldn't argue it's a threat to democracy. The sort of people who get into empty headed Twitter fights weren't going to write rational, well thought out essays if Twitter didn't exist. They'd just not write at all.