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Moral outrage in the digital age
- jochung 9y agoMoral outrage is hiding the fact that it's not the kids doing it. There is an entire network of activist organizations researching these issues, so that when tragedy strikes, a campaign can be astroturfed within a day, and pressure can be exercised on large corporate and public targets. This takes time, and effort, and willing megaphones in media. The biggest illusion of the social media era is that any of this is "organic" rather than instigated top-down, using human networks built slowly over time rather than spontaneously willed into being using the magic of Twitter. The media does not report, they shape the agenda, decide what is important and what isn't, and who gets to be heard under what sort of light. Even this article pulls the same scam: it sneaks the question by you of whether the "kids" will succeed, thus painting them as the only real people with agency. You don't need to believe in conspiracy or crisis actors to see this is bunk.
- CodeWriter23 9y agoIt’s really as simple as this. This is a 34 second clip of Edward Bernays, consultant to Joseph Stalin and father of the American Public Relations Industry illustrating how to transmute a reprehensible idea into an acceptable one. And doing it with a frightening amount of ease. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5dtg-qFPYDE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5dtg-qFPYDE
- bobthechef 9y agoMore good material: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ddVmKS3AOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ddVmKS3AOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBEclayBCdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBEclayBCdc
- CodeWriter23 9y agoThis one, he’s on Letterman and has Letterman call him “Doctor”. He wasn’t a Doctor nor. PhD. Tap in to find out why he did that. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i6hH3roMe4w https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i6hH3roMe4w
- maxxxxx 9y agoBernays was a genius, probably evil, but a genius nevertheless. His Wikipedia page is a worthwhile read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
- colordrops 9y agoDespite the down votes you've stated the situation quite clearly, nice job.
- drb91 9y agoWhat do you mean by “it” & “the agenda”? I’m not quite sure.
- coldtea 9y agoParent explained what he meant by "they set the agenda" literally in the same sentence: "[they] decide what is important and what isn't, and who gets to be heard under what sort of light."
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- unknown_apostle 9y agoAbsolutely. Social media may be new, but coopting or even creating "outrage" as a weapon to further a specific political agenda is nothing new. The Chinese cultural revolution with its hysterical Red Guards comes to mind (as a particularly harsh episode).
- wepple 9y agoThis is interesting, and people here seem to agree. Any research or anything I can read that gives more info/backs up your claim? I don’t doubt your claim and I’m sure it happens to a degree, but I also believe that 18 year olds are capable of saying “yeah, we’re not happy that our friends are dead and no one is doing anything about it” while a camera is switched on.
- Pulcinella 9y agoYou can watch Adam Curtis’ Century of the Self documentary. It’s about the rise of modern “Public Relations” and the systemization and proffessionalization of propoganda by corporations and governments. Teenagers are quite capable of doing what you said and organizing their outrage when they really feel like it. That doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t also vast political and social machines working to aid, defeat, or co-opt the students’ cause. And I say this as someone who agrees with the students.
- wepple 9y agothanks, that’s a very reasonable response & I’m going to take a look at the film you recommend
- thegreatcosmo 9y agoYea Bill Maher was saying something similar recently. Pretty eye opening.
- mistermann 9y agoThat's fairly interesting, do you have a link to what he said?
- Profragile 9y agoBill Maher is one of the clowns they used to get democrats to support killing innocent Middle Easterners after 9/11.
- nugi 9y agoIt appears some of those you describe are here downvoting. You are absolutely correct.
- crdoconnor 9y ago>There is an entire network of activist organizations researching these issues, so that when tragedy strikes, a campaign can be astroturfed within a day, and Those "corporate and public targets" do the exact same thing. This is just how politics works (sometimes wirh astroturfing, sometimes without). >pressure can be exercised on large corporate and public targets. Who use similar tactics but they do so with more money and resources than their diametrically opposed activist networks, and are typically way more reliant on astroturfing - e.g. when Comcast stuffed fake comments in the FCC comment box in its push to roll back net neutrality.
- KhanMahGretsch 9y agoEntirely correct... but only for media outlets and advocacy groups I disagree with, of course! </sarcasm>
- bobthechef 9y agoAnd many of those networks of activist organizations are tied to rich patrons. This is one reason why inequality is problematic. Inequality as such is not a problem, except for the purely envious, but in a wage slave economy like ours, money can buy extraordinary influence.
- JPKab 9y agoYou are correct. I'm a Virginia Tech alumni. A roommate was wounded, and my academic advisor and several former professors of mine died. The killer had handguns. When NBC chose to air the recorded manifesto that Cho recoded after he killed two students, but before he had gone to Norris Hall to kill entire classrooms, I knew they were ringing a dinner bell for more killers. Gun availability hasn't changed. Media reporting has. However they shape the narrative by selecting who to interview. Many Parkland students blame the FBI and Broward County police for ignoring dozens of specific warnings regarding the killer. They aren't included in interviews, at all. I resent the fact that the media repeatedly ignore the recommendations from the American Psychology Association and report the name and picture of the killers, fueling copy cat incidents, and conveniently ignore this in favor of guns. When NBC gave the killer of my academic advisor his dying wish to get ratings, I knew that they don't care about victims. They just want ratings and the controversy that feeds them.
- alphabettsy 9y agoIt’s interesting to see how it’s all played out. Fox News of course has only shown students blaming the FBI and pushing for armed teachers, also criticizing CNN. CNN has pretty much only shown the student activists pushing for gun control. And every network is out there for ratings. If they weren’t they wouldn’t be pushing the gore and brutality along with constantly talking about the perp, as you mentioned.
- alphabettsy 9y agoI’m sorry but I don’t believe that at all. Sure there are large groups pushing for change in certain areas but it’s significantly more likely these kids held these views before and now have an opportunity to voice them to a large audience. If you believe these kids really have no intention then you also need to believe Kim Davis the homophobic champion of the right or the cake bakers also did what they did and continue to do only at the urging of backing groups. I believe these people truly believe in their various causes, and while it’s possible some larger groups helped shaped them, I don’t think any of it can be called a scam.
- scanr 9y agoI think it might be good to consider outrage an externality that we should price in somehow. Not sure how we would do it.
- oldcynic 9y agoIf you're not careful that line of thought leads to something akin to the Chinese social credit system.
- scanr 9y agoI think outrage amplification may be a side effect of optimising for engagement. Do you think that changing that would be tantamount to having a social credit system? Or that a social credit system is the only way to price in outrage amplification?
- oldcynic 9y ago> outrage amplification may be a side effect of optimising for engagement I tend to agree, but I suspect that is the last thing the networks would be willing to change, as that is what keeps people there and gets advertising clicks. If it were to reach the point of attracting regulation, what could be regulated? Maximum engagement by the networks, impose some sort of ration, or regulate the users and their twitterings? So I could see it all too easily ending up solving the wrong problem in the wrong way. Honestly off the top of my head, I don't know how I would approach this. Especially when some of the possible approaches would be a conflict of interest for the networks.
- truculation 9y agoOutrage inflation is a thing but there's a limit to how far outrage could take society anyhow. Shaming and outrage are continuous with bullying. They only work on weak people. But it's still open to us to better society by improving ourselves as individuals.
- skummetmaelk 9y agoWeak people and people with a conscience.
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y agoPeople with a conscience should be convinced by calm discussion, not outage.
- andrepd 9y agoWhat about people that are not convinced by calm discussion? Sometimes violent struggle is needed to achieve a goal.
- paulryanrogers 9y agoViolence should be a last resort with clear boundaries. Sometimes it's better to suffer when there are no better alternatives.
- andrepd 9y agoYes, it should be a last resort. But the rest failing, violence is sometimes needed. Few social progress was ever made without violent struggle. Turning the other cheek isn't an option.
- TangoTrotFox 9y agoYou must consider that there is an equal but opposite version of you thinking this very thing. Just as implicitly convinced that if you fail to abide their way of thought in calm discussion, then there must be something wrong with you.
- amarant 9y agoFinally someone advocating civilized discussion instead of finger pointing! Really if we want to improve society we must stop screaming and get to work!
- the-dude 9y agoExclamation mark!
- moomin 9y agoSorry but this is dumb. Outrage culture, like the weaponisation of the abortion, drug and gun debates, has been going on since _at least_ the sixties. I mean, look at this picture and tell me how social media’s made this worse: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Little_Rock_Desegregation_1957.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Little_Rock_Desegregati... What social media has done is ensure you hear more from groups that previously didn’t get a voice. The outrage has always been there, and no progress has been made on those issues. Thinking social media is causing the left to get more vocal is like thinking cameraphones cause police shootings.
- bamboozled 9y agoThe author points out that it's different this time because you're not getting a more balanced perspective which you would've received from traditional media outlets and from interacting with other members of the public through face to face communication and potential confrontation. This is because social media companies have a vested interest in showing you things you only want to see to get you hooked on the site so they can make more money. Then you share more outrageous things because you get a hit of dopamine when another like minded person shares or agrees with your outrageous perspectives.
- fao_ 9y ago> a more balanced perspective which you would've received from traditional media outlets Are you serious? Traditional media outlets have always been run by the landed gentry (or their capitalist equivalents), and so have almost always reflected the ideas of the existing system.
- cristianpascu 9y agoIt's slightly harder to fill a whole newspaper page with non-nuanced text than it is to fill a tweet.
- moomin 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- hownottowrite 9y agoBetter to read the original framework in Nature [0]. Avoids the hot topics of the moment and focuses on the real issue, which is polarization of society. [0] "Moral outrage in the digital age" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0213-3.epdf?author_access_token=g7DCcgI5RN7lYtll2TN91dRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NeX9lcnqMb85KhxxCNXPvcT9GiKnBqrtnmpjrd_GOPGrJhzSoffolMzocFxY_IUgW1PXgqUTxBApfNabbmgnbQzUbucqLUbY5EV9bfCBawVA%3D%3D https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0213-3.epdf?autho...
- sctb 9y agoThanks! We've updated the link from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/modern-outrage-is-making-it-harder-to-bettersociety/article38179877/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/modern-outrage-is-ma....
- spodek 9y agoIs there a male/female breakdown in the pattern of expressing moral outrage, signaling, receiving reward from likes and share, and amplifying it? Does either sex express more outrage? Does either sex receive more rewarding likes and shares?
- nugi 9y agoA nuanced view? Are you sexist?! /s I highly suspect it is closely tied with each sexes favored topic. Most women are less interested in Right-to-Repair, where men seem much less interested in identity politics until either get the pointy end. I, like you, would favor data over conversation and pontificating. Already, studies of this type can be hard to fund. Introducing a component that could promote bias (real or percieved), is enough to often warrant its disconsideration, and it is unfortunate.
- andrepd 9y ago>men seem much less interested in identity politics Ahahahaha. Somehow, I really doubt it. Do you have any statistics to back you up or is that just your bias talking?
- kevinh 9y ago> where men seem much less interested in identity politics I wouldn't be surprised if there's a bias to this. After the 2016 election, there was discussion about the focus of Democrats on identity politics, but Trump's campaign was almost entirely identity politics, which was rarely explicitly called out. It seems as though when the group that holds the most political power (men, white people, Christians) has concerns, it's not viewed as identity politics, whereas for political minorities, it is.
- ygaf 9y agoI still don't understand what identity politics is. (as opposed to politics)
- 9y ago
- smoyer 9y agoI know I'm older than most here (and have the tri-focals to prove it) but did anyone else read this as "modem outrage"? Perhaps it's just the font used on HN because as I type this, it's pretty clear that: modem != modern But with formatted (and deemphasized) title text I see modem = modern. Back to the topic at hand - I don't think modern outage is much different than it used to be. The main difference is that it spreads much faster. Outrage used to start in one location and might take months to reach another part of the country (at which point it would be over in the originating location). Now it's possible to have everyone enraged (outraged?) at once.
- jfk13 9y ago> I know I'm older than most here (and have the tri-focals to prove it) but did anyone else read this as "modem outrage"? http://www.ironicsans.com/2008/02/idea_a_new_typography_term.html http://www.ironicsans.com/2008/02/idea_a_new_typography_term...
- smoyer 9y agoBookmarked! That's my kind of humor (and pinboard suggested the tags should be "design humor typography" which seems perfect).
- thegreatcosmo 9y agoI agree but then I hear old people talk about political bombings and student groups with guns in the 60s and I think its still better then that.
- tonyedgecombe 9y agoIt's very easy to take what we have for granted, you soon accept it as the norm. I'm not sure what the answer is, perhaps some enforced hardship now and then to remind us how things were.
- unknown_apostle 9y agoPerhaps the city you live in hasn't been visited by your average antifa or "black bloc" or pro-Palestinian protest group? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/world/europe/hamburg-germany-g-20-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/world/europe/hamburg-germ... (I use a NYTimes link so you get a "nuanced" view of the events in Hamburg.)
- walterstucco 9y agoAntifa is a blessing Perhaps your neighborhood has never been rushed by fascists...
- enraged_camel 9y agoI was about to flag your comment but decided not to. Instead, let me ask you this: why give a single-sided view of things? What about the far-right protests in Charlottesville or the “tiki marches” on Virginia Tech campus?
- leereeves 9y agoWhy would you even consider flagging a reasonable comment containing information you apparently don't dispute? According to Politico: "Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence" https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/01/antifa-charlottesville-violence-fbi-242235 https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/01/antifa-charlottesv... As you say, I'd like to see both sides of the story, so I would love to hear any evidence you've heard of right-wing groups attacking left-wing demonstrations. I haven't heard any yet. > What about the far-right protests in Charlottesville Evidence for the very point you were disputing. By all accounts, "Unite the Right" was billed as a march to protest the removal of a statue. As far as I know, no one has proven how the violence began, but it is clear that Antifa was there, making this another example of Antifa's presence at someone else's political rally ending in violence. > the “tiki marches” on Virginia Tech campus I'm not familiar with the details of this one and can't find it. The Charlottesville march (at UVA) dominates the search results. Was there violence at Virginia Tech? Were Antifa or similar groups involved? I'm not defending neo-nazi's here - I think their beliefs are both despicable and factually incorrect - but they've been marching in America for years without violence, until Antifa.
- ygaf 9y agoKey paragraph: > Like the boy who cried wolf, the Twitter mob crying "SHAME!" becomes easier to dismiss the less precisely it positions its crosshairs. To move the needle on gun control, public outrage needs to remain focused on the gun-violence epidemic, lawmakers' inaction and the lies of the NRA. But in the wake of the shooting, viral outrage has also erupted over U.S. President Donald Trump's crib sheet reminding him to express empathy for the victims and his unserious proposal to arm teachers. Just looking at the responses online, an observer from another planet might think we humans believe all these offences deserve equal attention. When everything is worthy of outrage, effectively nothing is. I really think kids by a certain age should be able to distinguish for themselves the importance of events from the hysteria of the writer. Maybe a cartoon series where twitter is the villain? At the end of each episode, the heroes realise they were being wound up.
- kelukelugames 9y agoI feel this is what happened with protests and marches. They are much less effective today because people are used to them.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Sag0Sag0 9y agoAnd because they are less likely to turn into a violent insurrection.
- HumanDrivenDev 9y agoOne thing I find interesting is that moral outrage and hygienic thought are now the domain of the left - a sharp contrast to even a couple of decades ago. If a young person wants to be edgy and rebel - they become far right, not far left. The 'alt-right' is largely a manifestation of this.
- Impossible 9y agoFar right being edgy and rebellious is only the case in a narrow segment of the world that happens to be overrepresented on HN. The right is rebellion for young, affluent, educated white men that attend liberal universities and work in tech. For everyone else being far right is either how things have always been or not in your own best interest.
- JBlue42 9y agoNot sure about the working in tech thing but that seems an apt description, at least from my college days. There was always a playing of the victim card since the politics of the students at the university were decently left. The funny thing is that, like most college towns, it was a blue oasis in a sea of red so their perspective on being victims was interesting, to say the least.
- HumanDrivenDev 9y agoI don't know how you've come to these conclusions. A huge segment of the working class is right-wing and always has been. Being far-right is a rebellion for the poor just as much as it is for the rich.
- qxzw 9y agoThis is dangerous. Complimented with _virtual moral high ground_, a lot of stupid people have a voice. Reminds me of [0]. Female porn star said she didn't want to shoot films with male porn stars who did gay porn prior. Of course many people found that outrageous. Cyber bullying made her kill herself. One would think women should have freedom to decide for themselves who they should have sex with. Ironic. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Ames#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Ames#Death