4 ms·

Ask HN: Are social networks inherently shitty?

7 points by l33tbro 9y ago

Given the way Sean Parker nowadays describes them as "social validation feedback loops", do you think a worthwhile social network can exist?

DiabloD3 9y ago
No, I don't think they were ever justifiable in the first place.
bunderbunder 9y ago
There's an essay in the book The Best Software Writing I (edited by Joel Spolsky) that talks about how social networking represents an inherently poor model of real human social networks. Here's an online link: http://www.danah.org/papers/Supernova2004.html http://www.danah.org/papers/Supernova2004.html It's from 2004, so it lacks the perspective of having seen how virtually all of the history of social networking unfolded. And it flogs on negative stereotypes around both programmers and people with autism in a way that really grates. So I can't recommend the essay generally. But it does have some interesting observations. One is the jarring crudeness of simplifying the infinitely complex and nuanced texture of real webs of social connections down to a simple 1-bit flag: "Are you my friend? Yes or no." Facebook has subsequently made the graph bitartite, so now you can "friend" people and "follow" companies, but that's barely an improvement. I'm no longer a Facebook user, but their recent "X is not your friends" ad campaign got me thinking about that fact again. The campaign seems to be trying to imply that they really do understand my social life, and they are going to get in line with it. But the jarring simplicity of the message just reminded me how much they don't. My social network is not just a list of people I happen to associate with. It's the guy I talk philosophy with, it's the people I went to college with, with whom I still get together to catch up while our kids (all about the same age) run feral in the backyard. It's grad school classmates with whom I can share the gory details of my successes, failures and frustrations with data engineering and fitting machine learning models, and whom I can call on for help when I'm having trouble, and who call on me for help for the same. And it's people who really don't want me to ever mention words like "conjugate transpose" in their presence, but do want to hear about the everyday joys and challenges of simultaneously going to graduate school and raising their grandchildren. Facebook doesn't - can't - understand any of that subtlety. Consequently, it doesn't - can't - provide a satisfying experience for facilitating my real social life. As a medium for creating and then feeding a minor addiction to clicks of the "like" button in response to photos of my kids, in exchange for "a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use" them, on the other hand, it seems to be amazingly well-optimized.
- pwg 9y ago
  > As a medium for creating and then feeding a minor addiction to clicks of the "like" button in response to photos of my kids, in exchange for "a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use" them, on the other hand, it seems to be amazingly well-optimized. Their model appears to be largely based around perpetuating the high-school clic mentality for the purpose of shoving advertising at the clic members in order to profit. The addiction (just as in the high-school clic) is to be a member of the "in" crowd (for whatever definition of "in" applies). Which is probably why there is only "friend" (which clearly fails, as you detail, to capture the nuances of real social interaction). With only a single linking level, each new clic member feels just as important as another, feeding the addiction just a little bit (the "I'm important, because X is friends with me" mindset).
- l33tbro 9y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation. Would be an interesting read, despite the misfires around "real friends". Conjugate what-now? I actually love delving into ghe details and processes of my friends' jobs. Then again I've never really been one for small talk.
sbinthree 9y ago
I think at a certain point they became a failed social experiment and that we may not have something like it long term. Humans need outgroups, hierarchies and privacy. If you try to change or remove that you really just end up with a different form of it.
himom 9y ago
Disclaimer: I was the lead sysadmin at an ivy school’s residential housing dept and cofounder of a VIP email startup. Yes (star star) For contact information, scheduling/coordinating, interest/news and friend-of-friend romance/friend/activity partner discovery, a social network of sufficient connectedness has obvious value. If pictures (except a standardized headshot), bragging, cyberdisinbitionism, sharing, ads, bots, fake users, state hacks, commercial spammers, influence/sentiment peddling/consent manufacturing, extremely risky selfies, undesirable radical inclusion and gossip can be eliminated/minimized, then it seems feasible to have a solid, useful social network that isn’t working against you or your friends. I think a social network like a light version of ASW for cool mortals but limited in terms of messaging, videos/pics and public/group sharing would be good... everyone whom wants to join has to be invited/vouched, pay a $499 USD one-time fee, pass a real background check and create a sufficiently complete and interesting profile in order to be reviewed for final acceptance. This way, the quality and signal of the network remains high and the worry is less... such high barriers are so that safety, comfort, value and preselection remain high and undiluted by commercial or popular pressures. Furthermore, customer funding eliminates the need for ad-support, privacy invasions and other questionable monetization schemes. Such an app would need to grow in private alpha much as FB did by first launching at large, prestigious universities where social networks are clearly valuable and worth guarding. Be somewhat open.. but not too open and not too closed.

7 points by l33tbro 9y ago

Given the way Sean Parker nowadays describes them as "social validation feedback loops", do you think a worthwhile social network can exist?

DiabloD3 9y ago

No, I don't think they were ever justifiable in the first place.

bunderbunder 9y ago

There's an essay in the book The Best Software Writing I (edited by Joel Spolsky) that talks about how social networking represents an inherently poor model of real human social networks. Here's an online link: http://www.danah.org/papers/Supernova2004.html http://www.danah.org/papers/Supernova2004.html It's from 2004, so it lacks the perspective of having seen how virtually all of the history of social networking unfolded. And it flogs on negative stereotypes around both programmers and people with autism in a way that really grates. So I can't recommend the essay generally. But it does have some interesting observations. One is the jarring crudeness of simplifying the infinitely complex and nuanced texture of real webs of social connections down to a simple 1-bit flag: "Are you my friend? Yes or no." Facebook has subsequently made the graph bitartite, so now you can "friend" people and "follow" companies, but that's barely an improvement. I'm no longer a Facebook user, but their recent "X is not your friends" ad campaign got me thinking about that fact again. The campaign seems to be trying to imply that they really do understand my social life, and they are going to get in line with it. But the jarring simplicity of the message just reminded me how much they don't. My social network is not just a list of people I happen to associate with. It's the guy I talk philosophy with, it's the people I went to college with, with whom I still get together to catch up while our kids (all about the same age) run feral in the backyard. It's grad school classmates with whom I can share the gory details of my successes, failures and frustrations with data engineering and fitting machine learning models, and whom I can call on for help when I'm having trouble, and who call on me for help for the same. And it's people who really don't want me to ever mention words like "conjugate transpose" in their presence, but do want to hear about the everyday joys and challenges of simultaneously going to graduate school and raising their grandchildren. Facebook doesn't - can't - understand any of that subtlety. Consequently, it doesn't - can't - provide a satisfying experience for facilitating my real social life. As a medium for creating and then feeding a minor addiction to clicks of the "like" button in response to photos of my kids, in exchange for "a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use" them, on the other hand, it seems to be amazingly well-optimized.

pwg 9y ago
> As a medium for creating and then feeding a minor addiction to clicks of the "like" button in response to photos of my kids, in exchange for "a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use" them, on the other hand, it seems to be amazingly well-optimized. Their model appears to be largely based around perpetuating the high-school clic mentality for the purpose of shoving advertising at the clic members in order to profit. The addiction (just as in the high-school clic) is to be a member of the "in" crowd (for whatever definition of "in" applies). Which is probably why there is only "friend" (which clearly fails, as you detail, to capture the nuances of real social interaction). With only a single linking level, each new clic member feels just as important as another, feeding the addiction just a little bit (the "I'm important, because X is friends with me" mindset).
l33tbro 9y ago
Thanks for the recommendation. Would be an interesting read, despite the misfires around "real friends". Conjugate what-now? I actually love delving into ghe details and processes of my friends' jobs. Then again I've never really been one for small talk.

sbinthree 9y ago

I think at a certain point they became a failed social experiment and that we may not have something like it long term. Humans need outgroups, hierarchies and privacy. If you try to change or remove that you really just end up with a different form of it.

himom 9y ago

Disclaimer: I was the lead sysadmin at an ivy school’s residential housing dept and cofounder of a VIP email startup. Yes (star star) For contact information, scheduling/coordinating, interest/news and friend-of-friend romance/friend/activity partner discovery, a social network of sufficient connectedness has obvious value. If pictures (except a standardized headshot), bragging, cyberdisinbitionism, sharing, ads, bots, fake users, state hacks, commercial spammers, influence/sentiment peddling/consent manufacturing, extremely risky selfies, undesirable radical inclusion and gossip can be eliminated/minimized, then it seems feasible to have a solid, useful social network that isn’t working against you or your friends. I think a social network like a light version of ASW for cool mortals but limited in terms of messaging, videos/pics and public/group sharing would be good... everyone whom wants to join has to be invited/vouched, pay a $499 USD one-time fee, pass a real background check and create a sufficiently complete and interesting profile in order to be reviewed for final acceptance. This way, the quality and signal of the network remains high and the worry is less... such high barriers are so that safety, comfort, value and preselection remain high and undiluted by commercial or popular pressures. Furthermore, customer funding eliminates the need for ad-support, privacy invasions and other questionable monetization schemes. Such an app would need to grow in private alpha much as FB did by first launching at large, prestigious universities where social networks are clearly valuable and worth guarding. Be somewhat open.. but not too open and not too closed.