4 ms·

Ya, for all the faults of social media, and we know there are many, the ability to publicly shame companies doing sketchy things into changing is a plus. Who kn

Ya, for all the faults of social media, and we know there are many, the ability to publicly shame companies doing sketchy things into changing is a plus. Who knows how this falls in the balance between good and evil?

ItsMe000001 9y ago
How often does that work? It's like a lottery (quite possibly with the odds being just as bad). Some few, very very few times this works. Does that really change anything significantly in the grand scheme of things? Without having any numbers either I suspect overall impact is negligible. It's just enough for feel-good headlines. If it had an impact things should actually improve on a larger scale, I don't see any of that. From problems with government and/or police to corporate behavior, I don't see the positive trend (neither a negative one, it's just that things keep chugging along on a random walk as they always have, and whether you are optimistic or pessimistic depends on what selective information makes it into your brain).
- dawhizkid 9y ago
  I feel like there's a case for a Change.org that is more just "getting a bunch of people to shame companies on social media to change X" IMO the reason support on Twitter works surprisingly well is because execs are very tuned in to social media sentiment/PR crisis aversion, so there's a lot of eyes on things people post publicly.
  - ItsMe000001 9y ago
    I have no doubt that the rate at which bad things come out has increased. My question is about the net total - it seems to me that overall everything has pretty much stayed the same. Questions to myself: Am I right? Due to higher order effects, or due to unrelated orthogonal influences, or both? Examples for concrete questions: Did work conditions improve? Did product longevity improve? Did customer service improve? Do people live better, longer, happier? Is politics more honest? Do we trust politicians, companies (or insert any profession or entity you like) more? Is there more fairness? Freedom (example: "free range kids")? When you complain (and you are right about it), what are the chances that anything changes - and actually for the better, not just a workaround/quick fix without actual long-term net total improvement? Quite a bit room for subjectivity of course.

ItsMe000001 9y ago

How often does that work? It's like a lottery (quite possibly with the odds being just as bad). Some few, very very few times this works. Does that really change anything significantly in the grand scheme of things? Without having any numbers either I suspect overall impact is negligible. It's just enough for feel-good headlines. If it had an impact things should actually improve on a larger scale, I don't see any of that. From problems with government and/or police to corporate behavior, I don't see the positive trend (neither a negative one, it's just that things keep chugging along on a random walk as they always have, and whether you are optimistic or pessimistic depends on what selective information makes it into your brain).

dawhizkid 9y ago
I feel like there's a case for a Change.org that is more just "getting a bunch of people to shame companies on social media to change X" IMO the reason support on Twitter works surprisingly well is because execs are very tuned in to social media sentiment/PR crisis aversion, so there's a lot of eyes on things people post publicly.
- ItsMe000001 9y ago
  I have no doubt that the rate at which bad things come out has increased. My question is about the net total - it seems to me that overall everything has pretty much stayed the same. Questions to myself: Am I right? Due to higher order effects, or due to unrelated orthogonal influences, or both? Examples for concrete questions: Did work conditions improve? Did product longevity improve? Did customer service improve? Do people live better, longer, happier? Is politics more honest? Do we trust politicians, companies (or insert any profession or entity you like) more? Is there more fairness? Freedom (example: "free range kids")? When you complain (and you are right about it), what are the chances that anything changes - and actually for the better, not just a workaround/quick fix without actual long-term net total improvement? Quite a bit room for subjectivity of course.