4 ms·
Why do you TRUST the numbers you see on social media sites (including Hacker News!)? They should not be your tools for reasoning about the world (not even a lit
by mrspeaker 8y ago
Why do you TRUST the numbers you see on social media sites (including Hacker News!)? They should not be your tools for reasoning about the world (not even a little bit) - there's no way you can know if those numbers were created by the community, bots, the site owners, or "other".
Being influenced at all by numbers where there is no accountability for site owners of their origins seems increasingly like a bad idea.
- morsmodr 8y agoAgree totally with this. It also encourages people to not think for themselves, further increasing the herd mentality. The lame defense sometimes given for this is - Well people do not have time so the numbers help them decide. That is another load of crap, the illusion that people don't have time. People should consistently question what they read and 'like' things they truly love. That said, I am trying to think how this feature of 'hiding likes' can also be tampered with because that is human nature
- ryandrake 8y agoIt also reinforces us to confuse popularity with quality, a common mistake on the Internet going all the way back to PageRank.