7 ms·

By night, YouTube and Facebook secretly take baseball bats to the windshields of our minds. By day, YouTube and Facebook sell us glass repair services, at a sp

by tomc1985 9y ago

By night, YouTube and Facebook secretly take baseball bats to the windshields of our minds. By day, YouTube and Facebook sell us glass repair services, at a special price no less! YT and FB could fix these social issues overnight, if they wanted to: turn off autoplay, turn off recommendations, restore chronological timelines, and dial down the ads. But they won't because that is the core of their business model. Instead they offer bullshit mind-repair services to fix the damage they continue to do.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
Or: auto logout. It's how I effectively dampered by Facebook usage. No apps on the phone, log out when done on the desktop. Adds a picosecond for considering whether you're tabbing over out of addiction or free will.
- lallysingh 9y ago
  Have you considered not using fb anymore? Try the delete account feature - they give you a few weeks before it's actually deleted. I found that I didn't actually miss it.
  - joshvm 9y ago
    It gets quite fun if you don't use it. Facebook starts sending really needy notifications like "X just commented on a picture" or "Y just liked this" to try and make you login. I think there's an apocryphal metric (which is probably true) that users must always have one unread notification when they login. There's no way of turning these messages off short of unfollowing every one of your friends individually.
    - ryandrake 9y ago
      Interesting. My FB account is dormant but not deleted. I have not used it in over 5 years, and I don’t recall seeing emails like this.
      - ggg9990 9y ago
        They probably give up at some point, and may have built the feature less than 5 years ago.
      - joshvm 9y ago
        I only get this on mobile (having the app installed), email is thankfully unaffected. But presumably if you logged in, you'd find a bunch of notifications that were largely irrelevant to you.
    - InitialLastName 9y ago
      Yeah if I haven't logged in in a bit but there aren't any "real" notifications, it gives me a notification like "Do you know N", where N is invariably a person I've never met, with whom I have no mutual friends or common groups.
    - blanderman 9y ago
      I have noticed that if you have the app open but have no activity for a short while they pop up a notification, often for something relatively obscure like a new comment in a group that you're a member of, I guess to try and regain your interest. I definitely fell for it the first few times.
    - Humdeee 9y ago
      Hmmm, I think LinkedIn does this as well... I've seen it more than a couple times now and I hate seeing badges on any of my mobile apps.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
jacquesm 9y ago
> turn off autoplay, turn off recommendations, restore chronological timelines, and dial down the ads I suspect it wouldn't even cost them all that much but no amount of discomfort of the users can balance out a few bucks of extra income.
quotemstr 9y ago
Any strategy for the betterment of society that depends on for-profit companies voluntarily forgoing legal ways to earn a profit is doomed to failure. It's elaborate do-gooder fan fiction. The world does not work that way. The world shouldn't work that way either: if companies stopped providing the goods and services people needed because a few self-appointed guardians of the public good scream about it on social media, we'd never have been able to make progress at all, since these activists have no special power to distinguish change from regression, and so err toward stasis. If you want high-engagement features disabled, fine. Propose a law. Let's duke it out in the process of government. You will lose, badly, because your position is wildly unpopular with the vast body of the population.
- exergy 9y ago
  What a myopic comment, and dripping with unwarranted vitriol. The world absolutely _should_ work that way. Companies _should_ have half a brain to realise that selling bottled water is bad for the environment, that fracking causes earthquakes, that sugar is the root of all dietary evil, that tobacco is carcinogenic, that overfishing causes unspeakable damage to ocean life, that SUVs are colossal wastes of space and fuel... All the companies doing the above are providing wildly popular goods and services. And a lot of them are perfectly legal too. Your suggestion implies that all this is just dandy, thank you very much, so take your hemp clothing and your vegan sandals and your do-gooderness off of my property and gtfo acting as a "self appointed guardian". What kind of extreme libertarian hard-on does a man have to possess to believe that all of this is how society SHOULD work? I deeply resent this sentiment that you have to take the good with the bad of a free market society because there is no alternative. Of course there is! Regulate these idiots into the ground! While this is clearly a pipe dream, that's a long way away from the statement that this is how society _should_ be.
  - ggg9990 9y ago
    It’s not a pipe dream in Northern Europe.
  - Humdeee 9y ago
    > What a myopic comment, and dripping with unwarranted vitriol. For those who are vocabulary stunted (like me apparently): myopic: nearsighted. vitriol: cruel and bitter criticism.
douglaswlance 9y ago
Who's to say that the minds they're building aren't more suitable for a future environment? You're assuming the future is like the past, which is most assuredly won't be.
- okmokmz 9y ago
  I truly hope that being addicted to instant gratification via a dopamine response doesn't make one more suited for future environments. I can't see how that would be healthy or productive
- iamnothere 9y ago
  Building minds? They aren't building minds; evolution is what built minds, and it hasn't had time to adapt to this situation. Modern media is exploiting bugs in the mind's structure for profit, and these companies are leaving plenty of damage in their wake. If the future is passive consumption of propaganda and marketing content masquerading as "entertainment", you can count me out. I'll go chop wood and raise chickens while I watch for the system to collapse under its own weight.
- andrei_says_ 9y ago
  Unable to focus? Addicted to consumption of stimuli and trance-like states? Uncapable of postponing the impulse of instant gratification? Idiocracy portrais that kind of future very well.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Sargos 9y ago
Besides the ads I really like all of those things. You make them sound so nefarious with no useful purpose. I find new channels all the time from my recommendations and if I didn't have autoplay then I wouldn't be able to coast on a topic I want to learn about passively. It's immensely useful to me and just because you don't like it doesn't make it some evil plot to control our minds. Remember that TV has had autoplay since its inception. It's just a natural way to consume media passively.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  Also, there's an option to turn autoplay off. It's a special kind of nefarious that lets you opt out at any time.
- plankers 9y ago
  Perhaps part of the problem is that exact "coasting" mentality that you mention. Autoplay disincentivizes users to seek out their own content, which would help build the skills which are useful for finding new, interesting information on the internet. The deeper philosophical question seems to be whether it's more desirable for people to have the skills to control their own education or whether it's more desirable to optimize tools for bringing educational resources to people. You can go a bit deeper than that and ask whether it's more desirable to have a population of independent thinkers or like-minded thinkers. We'd probably be better off with a bit of both. I prefer to frame these kinds of arguments in terms of educational materials, which you can kinda loosely call most forms of media.
- hobofan 9y ago
  Also on Youtube, you can easily toggle autoplay at any time, and in contrast to FB & Twitter there still _is_ a page for subscription videos in chronological order. Yes, "bad" (who is to judge?) defaults might be slightly immoral, but they are at least giving users the option to not use them.
Reedx 9y ago
It's actually in large part up to you what content they feed you. Twitter, fb, it's who you put in your feed. YouTube, it's based on what you watch. Consume garbage, get more garbage. YouTube actually has a treasure trove of content and once you find it, you get more of it[1]. And their recommendations are really handy to see related content. No ads with YouTube Red. [1] e.g., I mostly see stuff from channels like CGP Grey, Kurzgesagt, Veritasium, Vsauce, Every Frame a Painting, Vox, Jordan Peterson, Matthias Wandel, Nerdwriter1, AvE, TED Talks, SciShow, Engineer Guy, LastWeekTonight, SmarterEveryDay, etc...
- Lurker397412 9y ago
  No ads with uBlock or by avoiding forum threads too
- slig 9y ago
  Matthias Wandel's channel was one of the first I subscribed on YouTube. Such brilliant and humble guy, and inspiring in multiple ways.
- plankers 9y ago
  No ads with NewPipe either. And no fees ;)
tw1010 9y ago
You're right. "Help you stop watching" effectively shifts the blame from the corporation onto the consumer. It's an entirely self serving strategy made under the guise of ethics.
kolpa 9y ago
> at a special price no less! the price is $0. How do you feel about HN's implementation of the same feature (noprocrast)? https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomc1985 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomc1985
thankthunk 9y ago
> YT and FB could fix these social issues overnight What social issues? I remember old conservatives railing about gansta rap and south park causing social issues back i the day. Now it's old people whining about YT and FB. They aren't cause of social issues and they aren't the solution either. No more than smartphones or flat screen TVs. > if they wanted to: turn off autoplay, turn off recommendations, Why should they? > But they won't because that is the core of their business model. Sure. But what about the people who want recommendations or autoplay? What's with select group of people on HN and their totalitarian mindset? Just because you don't have impulse control doesn't mean others don't have it. I like recommendations because it helps me find relevant videos. For example, if I search for C# or Haskell tutorials, it's great to see other C# or haskell videos. Same thing for recipes or how-to videos or nature videos or anything else. Why should I and others be denied something because you don't like it? It's crazy that some of the people on "hacker" news are so dedicated on censorship. Somehow hacker news turned from a very programmer/tech/free speech forum to old people whining about their lives and society. How about personal responsibility? How about not blaming others for your own short coming? > Instead they offer bullshit mind-repair services to fix the damage they continue to do. I agree, they shouldn't give in. Instead they should tell advertisers and people who whine to simply stop using youtube. I don't understand why youtube and the rest of social media/tech industry simply put their foot down and say enough is enough. What about hacker news? Do you think hacker news should be shut down? Is hacker news responsible for social issues?
- plankers 9y ago
  > What social issues? I remember old conservatives railing about gansta rap and south park causing social issues back i the day. Now it's old people whining about YT and FB. They aren't cause of social issues and they aren't the solution either. No more than smartphones or flat screen TVs. Gangsta rap and South Park are content. This thread is about platforms and how the medium can shape the message. The analogy does not hold water. The rest of your comment is kinda off-topic and ranty, but that wasn't a great way to start it. Friendly advice.
coastal-fiesta 9y ago
Youtube autoplay is quite easy to turn off, fwiw.
- stochastic_monk 9y ago
  If you’re like me and try to reduce being tracked by using a private browsing window, you have to do this every single time you go to Youtube. Same with annotations, which I see as pure intrusion. It’s annoying at least.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

Or: auto logout. It's how I effectively dampered by Facebook usage. No apps on the phone, log out when done on the desktop. Adds a picosecond for considering whether you're tabbing over out of addiction or free will.

lallysingh 9y ago
Have you considered not using fb anymore? Try the delete account feature - they give you a few weeks before it's actually deleted. I found that I didn't actually miss it.
- joshvm 9y ago
  It gets quite fun if you don't use it. Facebook starts sending really needy notifications like "X just commented on a picture" or "Y just liked this" to try and make you login. I think there's an apocryphal metric (which is probably true) that users must always have one unread notification when they login. There's no way of turning these messages off short of unfollowing every one of your friends individually.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    Interesting. My FB account is dormant but not deleted. I have not used it in over 5 years, and I don’t recall seeing emails like this.
    - ggg9990 9y ago
      They probably give up at some point, and may have built the feature less than 5 years ago.
    - joshvm 9y ago
      I only get this on mobile (having the app installed), email is thankfully unaffected. But presumably if you logged in, you'd find a bunch of notifications that were largely irrelevant to you.
  - InitialLastName 9y ago
    Yeah if I haven't logged in in a bit but there aren't any "real" notifications, it gives me a notification like "Do you know N", where N is invariably a person I've never met, with whom I have no mutual friends or common groups.
  - blanderman 9y ago
    I have noticed that if you have the app open but have no activity for a short while they pop up a notification, often for something relatively obscure like a new comment in a group that you're a member of, I guess to try and regain your interest. I definitely fell for it the first few times.
  - Humdeee 9y ago
    Hmmm, I think LinkedIn does this as well... I've seen it more than a couple times now and I hate seeing badges on any of my mobile apps.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

jacquesm 9y ago

> turn off autoplay, turn off recommendations, restore chronological timelines, and dial down the ads I suspect it wouldn't even cost them all that much but no amount of discomfort of the users can balance out a few bucks of extra income.

quotemstr 9y ago

Any strategy for the betterment of society that depends on for-profit companies voluntarily forgoing legal ways to earn a profit is doomed to failure. It's elaborate do-gooder fan fiction. The world does not work that way. The world shouldn't work that way either: if companies stopped providing the goods and services people needed because a few self-appointed guardians of the public good scream about it on social media, we'd never have been able to make progress at all, since these activists have no special power to distinguish change from regression, and so err toward stasis. If you want high-engagement features disabled, fine. Propose a law. Let's duke it out in the process of government. You will lose, badly, because your position is wildly unpopular with the vast body of the population.

exergy 9y ago
What a myopic comment, and dripping with unwarranted vitriol. The world absolutely _should_ work that way. Companies _should_ have half a brain to realise that selling bottled water is bad for the environment, that fracking causes earthquakes, that sugar is the root of all dietary evil, that tobacco is carcinogenic, that overfishing causes unspeakable damage to ocean life, that SUVs are colossal wastes of space and fuel... All the companies doing the above are providing wildly popular goods and services. And a lot of them are perfectly legal too. Your suggestion implies that all this is just dandy, thank you very much, so take your hemp clothing and your vegan sandals and your do-gooderness off of my property and gtfo acting as a "self appointed guardian". What kind of extreme libertarian hard-on does a man have to possess to believe that all of this is how society SHOULD work? I deeply resent this sentiment that you have to take the good with the bad of a free market society because there is no alternative. Of course there is! Regulate these idiots into the ground! While this is clearly a pipe dream, that's a long way away from the statement that this is how society _should_ be.
- ggg9990 9y ago
  It’s not a pipe dream in Northern Europe.
- Humdeee 9y ago
  > What a myopic comment, and dripping with unwarranted vitriol. For those who are vocabulary stunted (like me apparently): myopic: nearsighted. vitriol: cruel and bitter criticism.

douglaswlance 9y ago

Who's to say that the minds they're building aren't more suitable for a future environment? You're assuming the future is like the past, which is most assuredly won't be.

okmokmz 9y ago
I truly hope that being addicted to instant gratification via a dopamine response doesn't make one more suited for future environments. I can't see how that would be healthy or productive
iamnothere 9y ago
Building minds? They aren't building minds; evolution is what built minds, and it hasn't had time to adapt to this situation. Modern media is exploiting bugs in the mind's structure for profit, and these companies are leaving plenty of damage in their wake. If the future is passive consumption of propaganda and marketing content masquerading as "entertainment", you can count me out. I'll go chop wood and raise chickens while I watch for the system to collapse under its own weight.
andrei_says_ 9y ago
Unable to focus? Addicted to consumption of stimuli and trance-like states? Uncapable of postponing the impulse of instant gratification? Idiocracy portrais that kind of future very well.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Sargos 9y ago

Besides the ads I really like all of those things. You make them sound so nefarious with no useful purpose. I find new channels all the time from my recommendations and if I didn't have autoplay then I wouldn't be able to coast on a topic I want to learn about passively. It's immensely useful to me and just because you don't like it doesn't make it some evil plot to control our minds. Remember that TV has had autoplay since its inception. It's just a natural way to consume media passively.

ImSkeptical 9y ago
Also, there's an option to turn autoplay off. It's a special kind of nefarious that lets you opt out at any time.
plankers 9y ago
Perhaps part of the problem is that exact "coasting" mentality that you mention. Autoplay disincentivizes users to seek out their own content, which would help build the skills which are useful for finding new, interesting information on the internet. The deeper philosophical question seems to be whether it's more desirable for people to have the skills to control their own education or whether it's more desirable to optimize tools for bringing educational resources to people. You can go a bit deeper than that and ask whether it's more desirable to have a population of independent thinkers or like-minded thinkers. We'd probably be better off with a bit of both. I prefer to frame these kinds of arguments in terms of educational materials, which you can kinda loosely call most forms of media.
hobofan 9y ago
Also on Youtube, you can easily toggle autoplay at any time, and in contrast to FB & Twitter there still _is_ a page for subscription videos in chronological order. Yes, "bad" (who is to judge?) defaults might be slightly immoral, but they are at least giving users the option to not use them.

Reedx 9y ago

It's actually in large part up to you what content they feed you. Twitter, fb, it's who you put in your feed. YouTube, it's based on what you watch. Consume garbage, get more garbage. YouTube actually has a treasure trove of content and once you find it, you get more of it[1]. And their recommendations are really handy to see related content. No ads with YouTube Red. [1] e.g., I mostly see stuff from channels like CGP Grey, Kurzgesagt, Veritasium, Vsauce, Every Frame a Painting, Vox, Jordan Peterson, Matthias Wandel, Nerdwriter1, AvE, TED Talks, SciShow, Engineer Guy, LastWeekTonight, SmarterEveryDay, etc...

Lurker397412 9y ago
No ads with uBlock or by avoiding forum threads too
slig 9y ago
Matthias Wandel's channel was one of the first I subscribed on YouTube. Such brilliant and humble guy, and inspiring in multiple ways.
plankers 9y ago
No ads with NewPipe either. And no fees ;)

tw1010 9y ago

You're right. "Help you stop watching" effectively shifts the blame from the corporation onto the consumer. It's an entirely self serving strategy made under the guise of ethics.

kolpa 9y ago

> at a special price no less! the price is $0. How do you feel about HN's implementation of the same feature (noprocrast)? https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomc1985 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomc1985

thankthunk 9y ago

> YT and FB could fix these social issues overnight What social issues? I remember old conservatives railing about gansta rap and south park causing social issues back i the day. Now it's old people whining about YT and FB. They aren't cause of social issues and they aren't the solution either. No more than smartphones or flat screen TVs. > if they wanted to: turn off autoplay, turn off recommendations, Why should they? > But they won't because that is the core of their business model. Sure. But what about the people who want recommendations or autoplay? What's with select group of people on HN and their totalitarian mindset? Just because you don't have impulse control doesn't mean others don't have it. I like recommendations because it helps me find relevant videos. For example, if I search for C# or Haskell tutorials, it's great to see other C# or haskell videos. Same thing for recipes or how-to videos or nature videos or anything else. Why should I and others be denied something because you don't like it? It's crazy that some of the people on "hacker" news are so dedicated on censorship. Somehow hacker news turned from a very programmer/tech/free speech forum to old people whining about their lives and society. How about personal responsibility? How about not blaming others for your own short coming? > Instead they offer bullshit mind-repair services to fix the damage they continue to do. I agree, they shouldn't give in. Instead they should tell advertisers and people who whine to simply stop using youtube. I don't understand why youtube and the rest of social media/tech industry simply put their foot down and say enough is enough. What about hacker news? Do you think hacker news should be shut down? Is hacker news responsible for social issues?

plankers 9y ago
> What social issues? I remember old conservatives railing about gansta rap and south park causing social issues back i the day. Now it's old people whining about YT and FB. They aren't cause of social issues and they aren't the solution either. No more than smartphones or flat screen TVs. Gangsta rap and South Park are content. This thread is about platforms and how the medium can shape the message. The analogy does not hold water. The rest of your comment is kinda off-topic and ranty, but that wasn't a great way to start it. Friendly advice.

coastal-fiesta 9y ago

Youtube autoplay is quite easy to turn off, fwiw.

stochastic_monk 9y ago
If you’re like me and try to reduce being tracked by using a private browsing window, you have to do this every single time you go to Youtube. Same with annotations, which I see as pure intrusion. It’s annoying at least.