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This all seems to have gotten utterly out of hand and gone a bit crazy. I stopped using Facebook when my friends started to express political views more than s

This all seems to have gotten utterly out of hand and gone a bit crazy. I stopped using Facebook when my friends started to express political views more than social content. I wanted a place to hang out with friends, not rage. People don't do that in real life. Not that much, anyway. Somehow it seems like over the next five years or so it all descended into madness and everyone became a politician. What went wrong? How can Facebook even be used to 'spread a narrative' if it's just my friends? Why are my friends posting this nonsense rather than stuff about their lives? Something just doesn't add up to me. I don't understand what other people want from a social platform. The same seems to apply to Twitter. Everyday, normal people, seem to be spending their lives raging at each other. What gives? I want a pint now. Damn. The real world is stranger than fiction.

venantius 8y ago
I think the relatively simple answer is that it turns out most people are far more subject to simple tribalism than we previously wanted to admit. Memes are incredibly powerful mind viruses and we (collectively) have done a really great job of weaponizing them over the past 30 years. I don't think this is Facebook's "fault" in isolation since we see the same trend across most social networks, but I do think it suggests that social networks ought to be regulated, if for no other reason than that it's pretty clear that the default behaviors we're already seeing emerge en masse are not good for society or for us on an individual basis.
- wowzap 8y ago
  Books are incredibly powerful mind viruses and we have done a really great job of weaponizing them over the past thousand years.
  - venantius 8y ago
    I know you mean this in jest, but for a good part of the last century this was absolutely true.
    - PavlovsCat 8y ago
      What would be examples of such books?
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - venantius 8y ago
        The bible? Uncle Tom's Cabin? Das Kapital? It's not that hard to find books that - by themselves - caused revolutions or major social change.
        PavlovsCat 8y ago
        They referred to books weaponized in the last century. As far as that goes, The Bible and Uncle Tom's Cabin, sure. But "Das Kapital"? Was that even widely read? How was it weaponized, e.g. did people refer to it, even though nobody had read the book? As for a book causing change "by itself": One thing about the Bible is that the content itself is nothing compared to the claim that it's the word of God. It could have completely different content, as long as there were people seriously devoted to it being the word of God, it would have an effect. That's why it usually it involves missionaries or being raised into it. Is it even possible to encounter that book "by itself"? And it didn't exist for a few centuries when the things it supposedly causes already were done. A book breaking a taboo for example, and that in turn faciliting social change that was a long way coming, is not the same as a "book causing social change by itself". I don't know enough about it and the context, but it says on the Wikipedia page about Uncle Tom's Cabin: > Uncle Tom's Cabin first appeared as a 40-week serial in The National Era, an abolitionist periodical, starting with the June 5, 1851, issue. It was originally intended as a shorter narrative that would run for only a few weeks. Stowe expanded the story significantly, however, and it was instantly popular, such that several protests were sent to the Era office when she missed an issue. Because of the story's popularity, the publisher John P. Jewett contacted Stowe about turning the serial into a book. So at the very least, there was something there already. I'm sure it was weaponized, but how did it cause social change? Did it cause people who loved slavery to now dislike slavery? Did it make formerly happy slaves unhappy? I honestly don't know, and since my asking for examples is taken as the claim "there are no examples", I would ask you to treat my questions as actual questions. Das Kapital was written to prove an scientific underpinning for a labour movement that already existed, long after the Communist Manifesto. So here too I'd ask, what social change did it cause by itself?
  - strikelaserclaw 8y ago
    at least books require one to read and maybe lets information hit the frontal cortex. memes are so basal, they can completely defame someone or prove a certain point by completely by passing rationality, they really are far more dangerous in modern society.
- dorchadas 8y ago
  Sasse's new book actually looks at this. I was reading the description of it today, and it basically said that the collapse of local communities, combined with the rise of easy sharing, has essentially made political parties the new "tribes" in America. Seems like an interesting thesis, even if I don't agree with him on other things.
kodablah 8y ago
> What went wrong? For a large amount of users, nothing went wrong. > The same seems to apply to Twitter. Everyday, normal people, seem to be spending their lives raging at each other. "seem"... one wonders whether the picture painters and squeakiest wheels have changed our perception of everyday normal people instead of those people actually changing. A perusing of the anti-big-web-tech headlines...um...I mean op-eds every week reveals clear direction/intent. Not to say these companies are infallible, but it sure becomes harder for people to recognize the difference between real, inflicted harm and perceived harm.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  I think this is the more accurate reflection. The loudest rabble-rousers on either side are the only ones you hear because everyone else is just getting on with their normal lives. As it so happens, it's profitable to rabble-rouse if you're in the business of selling clicks, so media increasingly functions only to enrage and divide instead of to inform. Obviously this isn't true for all media but it's becoming more prevalent in our common discourse.
CompelTechnic 8y ago
The constant raging is a consequence of the fact that outrage is much more viral than honest debate. One of the things I like most about hacker news is the fact that its culture supports decent debate. A small fraction of this is from the thread format, but most of it is from the pre-existing culture of its users. If you want good social media, find a few sites that act as a nexus for the culture you love. Otherwise, you are lost in the sea of lowest-common-denominator media.
- forgottenpass 8y ago
  Really? I just see tribalism with a lot more bloviating here. The subject matter experts can occasionally be baited into posting, but I'm more accustomed to seeing the kinda-clued-in authoritatively misexplain the convenient narratives to the even-less-aware. Any attempt to tell someone obviously out of their depth to stuff it is against the rules here, so unless you already know a topic it's hard to tell when a conversation is arguing in circles.
  - panarky 8y ago
    > I just see tribalism with a lot more bloviating here. > the kinda-clued-in authoritatively misexplain the convenient narratives Excellent example of this phenomenon here --> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17861950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17861950
    - forgottenpass 8y ago
      Oh snap!
strikelaserclaw 8y ago
a) People always crave attention and validation --Internet increasingly makes it easy to give validation to people which is shallow. (i.e people who don't know you saying how great your comments, how great your life is, how great your political views are) b)people crave emotion (good or bad) --Due to the way these social media companies are structured, they only want user engagement, they don't really care about quality of engagement. So they purposefully design it to be as addictive as possible. This means shallow content seeps up foremost that generates strong emotional responses. c) Politics, sports, things like these activities are very tribal, and so generate strong emotions. They also give people validation because people can attach themselves to a movement and feel part of a community and be validated by other members of that community. The more tribal these movements (us vs them), the more drama, the more excitement for the user. I would argue social media companies might actually be worse off by not taking advantage of these trends (fiduciary wise) because for sure some other company will. It's like living in one of those drama tv shows.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
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basch 8y ago
>I stopped using Facebook when my friends started to express political views more than social content. Nearly every argument I hear that says "facebook newsfeed sucks" boils down to "the people you choose to follow share crappy shit." Unfollow them. Facebook is a tool, it works based on how YOU choose to configure it. If you follow the sites you like, instead of the sites and people you dont, facebook does work. You can hide sources you dont like. Im kind of rubbed the wrong way by "this thing doesnt work the way I want out of the box, but I also dont want it thinking for me." Facebook IS to blame for creating a tool, getting people to use it, getting people to like things, and THEN changing the rules for how those likes behave (becoming a folllow button.) Try creating a list, liking 100-200 quality sources, adding those sources to the list, unliking/unfollow them, and bookmark your list as your main facebook bookmark.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  > Nearly every argument I hear that says "facebook newsfeed sucks" boils down to "the people you choose to follow share crappy shit." Unfollow them. Here is the failure of Facebook, right here. Facebook says that their mission is to connect people, but they've created a platform where all the incentives are for people to get into arguments and then disconnect from each other to stop the arguments. In general, people can disagree about things and still have productive, friendly relationships. But it's harder (not easier) to do that on Facebook than it is in real life... that's a major product failure IMO.
  - basch 8y ago
    the failure is mixing news and photos. people subscribed to each other to see their status/away message and vacation/baby photos. then sharing/reposting "news" to your timeline became easier. its easier to press share than it is to create content. by virtue of "the time it takes to propogate something vs make something" sharing became the default, and by volume, most common behavior on facebook. I use facebook to follow news sources, like an ai driven feed reader, and I use messenger to stay connected to people. I dont stay connected to people by watching what they post to their timeline. In my post you replied to, I said it WAS a product failure, that they moved the goal post of what a like/wall/share was. If they had built NEW features instead of adapting old ones, this situation would be different. Instead they reappropriated the wall as the "share this article" space, and the like as the follow. Facebook f'd up by overlaying a twitter clone onto their existing product, instead of building it as an additional component/page/module/feed.
ungzd 8y ago
The same happens here, on HN. 2-3 years ago there were mostly articles about programming, computing and information technology (as originally intended), but now it mostly consists of mainstream news, politics and depressing stories about the end of the world. (It's better than half year ago, though, now only 80% BBCs and nytimes, not 100%)
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  I think that the real world came to get us. We had our nice little tech enclave. And then we discovered that, even if we didn't care about politics, politics was still being done to us - governments were making policies that we had to live under, no matter how libertarian we were. We found out that housing policy had real consequences for our lives. We found out stuff like that in non-tech area after non-tech area. And after being negatively affected by stuff that we wanted to ignore, some of us started paying attention to it - not because we wanted to, but because we felt like we had to.
JacobJans 8y ago
> Something just doesn't add up to me. You're missing a key ingredient. Facebook placed a third-parties between you and your friends. Those third parties are businesses that run pages What percentage of posts on your Facebook newsfeed originate from your friends versus pages? That is what has changed. The reason? So Facebook can sell ads.

venantius 8y ago

I think the relatively simple answer is that it turns out most people are far more subject to simple tribalism than we previously wanted to admit. Memes are incredibly powerful mind viruses and we (collectively) have done a really great job of weaponizing them over the past 30 years. I don't think this is Facebook's "fault" in isolation since we see the same trend across most social networks, but I do think it suggests that social networks ought to be regulated, if for no other reason than that it's pretty clear that the default behaviors we're already seeing emerge en masse are not good for society or for us on an individual basis.

wowzap 8y ago
Books are incredibly powerful mind viruses and we have done a really great job of weaponizing them over the past thousand years.
- venantius 8y ago
  I know you mean this in jest, but for a good part of the last century this was absolutely true.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    What would be examples of such books?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - venantius 8y ago
      The bible? Uncle Tom's Cabin? Das Kapital? It's not that hard to find books that - by themselves - caused revolutions or major social change.
      - PavlovsCat 8y ago
        They referred to books weaponized in the last century. As far as that goes, The Bible and Uncle Tom's Cabin, sure. But "Das Kapital"? Was that even widely read? How was it weaponized, e.g. did people refer to it, even though nobody had read the book? As for a book causing change "by itself": One thing about the Bible is that the content itself is nothing compared to the claim that it's the word of God. It could have completely different content, as long as there were people seriously devoted to it being the word of God, it would have an effect. That's why it usually it involves missionaries or being raised into it. Is it even possible to encounter that book "by itself"? And it didn't exist for a few centuries when the things it supposedly causes already were done. A book breaking a taboo for example, and that in turn faciliting social change that was a long way coming, is not the same as a "book causing social change by itself". I don't know enough about it and the context, but it says on the Wikipedia page about Uncle Tom's Cabin: > Uncle Tom's Cabin first appeared as a 40-week serial in The National Era, an abolitionist periodical, starting with the June 5, 1851, issue. It was originally intended as a shorter narrative that would run for only a few weeks. Stowe expanded the story significantly, however, and it was instantly popular, such that several protests were sent to the Era office when she missed an issue. Because of the story's popularity, the publisher John P. Jewett contacted Stowe about turning the serial into a book. So at the very least, there was something there already. I'm sure it was weaponized, but how did it cause social change? Did it cause people who loved slavery to now dislike slavery? Did it make formerly happy slaves unhappy? I honestly don't know, and since my asking for examples is taken as the claim "there are no examples", I would ask you to treat my questions as actual questions. Das Kapital was written to prove an scientific underpinning for a labour movement that already existed, long after the Communist Manifesto. So here too I'd ask, what social change did it cause by itself?
- strikelaserclaw 8y ago
  at least books require one to read and maybe lets information hit the frontal cortex. memes are so basal, they can completely defame someone or prove a certain point by completely by passing rationality, they really are far more dangerous in modern society.
dorchadas 8y ago
Sasse's new book actually looks at this. I was reading the description of it today, and it basically said that the collapse of local communities, combined with the rise of easy sharing, has essentially made political parties the new "tribes" in America. Seems like an interesting thesis, even if I don't agree with him on other things.

kodablah 8y ago

> What went wrong? For a large amount of users, nothing went wrong. > The same seems to apply to Twitter. Everyday, normal people, seem to be spending their lives raging at each other. "seem"... one wonders whether the picture painters and squeakiest wheels have changed our perception of everyday normal people instead of those people actually changing. A perusing of the anti-big-web-tech headlines...um...I mean op-eds every week reveals clear direction/intent. Not to say these companies are infallible, but it sure becomes harder for people to recognize the difference between real, inflicted harm and perceived harm.

beaconstudios 8y ago
I think this is the more accurate reflection. The loudest rabble-rousers on either side are the only ones you hear because everyone else is just getting on with their normal lives. As it so happens, it's profitable to rabble-rouse if you're in the business of selling clicks, so media increasingly functions only to enrage and divide instead of to inform. Obviously this isn't true for all media but it's becoming more prevalent in our common discourse.

CompelTechnic 8y ago

The constant raging is a consequence of the fact that outrage is much more viral than honest debate. One of the things I like most about hacker news is the fact that its culture supports decent debate. A small fraction of this is from the thread format, but most of it is from the pre-existing culture of its users. If you want good social media, find a few sites that act as a nexus for the culture you love. Otherwise, you are lost in the sea of lowest-common-denominator media.

forgottenpass 8y ago
Really? I just see tribalism with a lot more bloviating here. The subject matter experts can occasionally be baited into posting, but I'm more accustomed to seeing the kinda-clued-in authoritatively misexplain the convenient narratives to the even-less-aware. Any attempt to tell someone obviously out of their depth to stuff it is against the rules here, so unless you already know a topic it's hard to tell when a conversation is arguing in circles.
- panarky 8y ago
  > I just see tribalism with a lot more bloviating here. > the kinda-clued-in authoritatively misexplain the convenient narratives Excellent example of this phenomenon here --> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17861950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17861950
  - forgottenpass 8y ago
    Oh snap!

strikelaserclaw 8y ago

a) People always crave attention and validation --Internet increasingly makes it easy to give validation to people which is shallow. (i.e people who don't know you saying how great your comments, how great your life is, how great your political views are) b)people crave emotion (good or bad) --Due to the way these social media companies are structured, they only want user engagement, they don't really care about quality of engagement. So they purposefully design it to be as addictive as possible. This means shallow content seeps up foremost that generates strong emotional responses. c) Politics, sports, things like these activities are very tribal, and so generate strong emotions. They also give people validation because people can attach themselves to a movement and feel part of a community and be validated by other members of that community. The more tribal these movements (us vs them), the more drama, the more excitement for the user. I would argue social media companies might actually be worse off by not taking advantage of these trends (fiduciary wise) because for sure some other company will. It's like living in one of those drama tv shows.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

basch 8y ago

>I stopped using Facebook when my friends started to express political views more than social content. Nearly every argument I hear that says "facebook newsfeed sucks" boils down to "the people you choose to follow share crappy shit." Unfollow them. Facebook is a tool, it works based on how YOU choose to configure it. If you follow the sites you like, instead of the sites and people you dont, facebook does work. You can hide sources you dont like. Im kind of rubbed the wrong way by "this thing doesnt work the way I want out of the box, but I also dont want it thinking for me." Facebook IS to blame for creating a tool, getting people to use it, getting people to like things, and THEN changing the rules for how those likes behave (becoming a folllow button.) Try creating a list, liking 100-200 quality sources, adding those sources to the list, unliking/unfollow them, and bookmark your list as your main facebook bookmark.

snowwrestler 8y ago
> Nearly every argument I hear that says "facebook newsfeed sucks" boils down to "the people you choose to follow share crappy shit." Unfollow them. Here is the failure of Facebook, right here. Facebook says that their mission is to connect people, but they've created a platform where all the incentives are for people to get into arguments and then disconnect from each other to stop the arguments. In general, people can disagree about things and still have productive, friendly relationships. But it's harder (not easier) to do that on Facebook than it is in real life... that's a major product failure IMO.
- basch 8y ago
  the failure is mixing news and photos. people subscribed to each other to see their status/away message and vacation/baby photos. then sharing/reposting "news" to your timeline became easier. its easier to press share than it is to create content. by virtue of "the time it takes to propogate something vs make something" sharing became the default, and by volume, most common behavior on facebook. I use facebook to follow news sources, like an ai driven feed reader, and I use messenger to stay connected to people. I dont stay connected to people by watching what they post to their timeline. In my post you replied to, I said it WAS a product failure, that they moved the goal post of what a like/wall/share was. If they had built NEW features instead of adapting old ones, this situation would be different. Instead they reappropriated the wall as the "share this article" space, and the like as the follow. Facebook f'd up by overlaying a twitter clone onto their existing product, instead of building it as an additional component/page/module/feed.

ungzd 8y ago

The same happens here, on HN. 2-3 years ago there were mostly articles about programming, computing and information technology (as originally intended), but now it mostly consists of mainstream news, politics and depressing stories about the end of the world. (It's better than half year ago, though, now only 80% BBCs and nytimes, not 100%)

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I think that the real world came to get us. We had our nice little tech enclave. And then we discovered that, even if we didn't care about politics, politics was still being done to us - governments were making policies that we had to live under, no matter how libertarian we were. We found out that housing policy had real consequences for our lives. We found out stuff like that in non-tech area after non-tech area. And after being negatively affected by stuff that we wanted to ignore, some of us started paying attention to it - not because we wanted to, but because we felt like we had to.

JacobJans 8y ago

> Something just doesn't add up to me. You're missing a key ingredient. Facebook placed a third-parties between you and your friends. Those third parties are businesses that run pages What percentage of posts on your Facebook newsfeed originate from your friends versus pages? That is what has changed. The reason? So Facebook can sell ads.