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I view this as the primary reason that protests and rioting have been significantly more widespread recently. In order for someone to feel good about protestin

by ve55 6y ago

I view this as the primary reason that protests and rioting have been significantly more widespread recently. In order for someone to feel good about protesting and rioting, it helps if people around them are doing it, so that it seems socially acceptable, and so that negative consequences are less likely to occur. Normally you would need to see this physically near you, but now with viral algorithms, all it takes is one protest in one location, broadcast to a billion people, and many of them will start to believe "there's all theses protests going on everywhere, so I might do it too". In some forms this is useful, but in others it is extremely dangerous and can allow for mass unrest based only upon what uncontrollable algorithms end up promoting due to what is the most viral content. Humans evolved in significantly smaller societies than they live in today, and it's very difficult to have proper intuition about how many people are doing various things after seeing hundreds of examples of them on the Internet. As a result I notice many people making estimates about the frequency of activities that are not only off by one order of magnitude, but sometimes more like three to six.

grawprog 6y ago
I live in a small community outside America. On Saturday I left the mall where I'd been subject to the 'new normal' covid distancing laws shit. Stepped out into the sunshine to see over 1000 people marching down the street in one huddled mass protesting because...riots in America. I watched a car's window get smashed because they wanted to drive through an intersection and had the audacity to ask if they could drive through. While we have issues with police and abuses of power here, it's not even a speck on the radar compared to America. There's real issues here worth protesting. There's a worrying lack of housing for people here in the last year since the psyche ward and homeless shelters shut down. Businesses have been closing down permanently for months, people are desperate for work, one of the largest clearcuts ever for the area has been proposed in the watershed where the town's drinking water comes from. It contains not only the oldest tree in Canada, so old that our tools can't penetrate deep enough to age it, but some of the largest intact old growth in the province, habitat for numerous endangered species and again, directly feeds nearly every river that supplies our water. Nobody cares, nobody even acknowledges the issues outside their door. But some riots in America are worth flaunting all the measures forced on people for months because they've been riled up to believe it matters more than everything we've been told to believe for months now because social media tells then they need to care.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  > it's not even a speck on the radar compared to America I do believe that there are problems with racism in state police in any country but I was surprised how restrained the police in America is by numbers. I would have expected much more death by the hands of the police. Outside of America there is certainly a stereotype of their police being cowboys. Still, I think the numbers alone clearly show police isn't going on rampages killing random people. State abuse today looks completely different.
- askafriend 6y ago
  I think you fail to understand just how prevalent these issues are for people of color every single day. Yes, these issues might be just a speck for you. But they're a stain on daily life for millions of people around the world (which is why you see people empathizing not just domestically, but internationally). Justifying one's existence and identity every single day is exhausting on a level that all other problems are simply irrelevant when existence is in question. I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase "When White people get the cold, Black people get the flu". Our problems are systemic and the way problems impact people in our society isn't equal. > There's a worrying lack of housing for people here in the last year since the psyche ward and homeless shelters shut down. Businesses have been closing down permanently for months, people are desperate for work, Now dig into the data and see what segment of the population these issues affect the most and disproportionately so. On top of all that, Black people have to worry about having to walk down the street too? Any reasonable person would say "fuck that".
  - crowdglass 6y ago
    > I think you fail to understand just how prevalent these issues are for people of color every single day. Beaten in public for not "taking a knee"? White supremacist. Fucking nazi scum. Latino killed by police? White person? Asian? Black cop killing a black person? CNN's silence is deafening. Only Black Lives Matter. > Justifying one's existence and identity every single day is exhausting on a level that all other problems are simply irrelevant when existence is in question. All those straight white men with their white privilege and white fragility that the media paints as evil, horrible, racist monsters never have to deal with that.
keenmaster 6y ago
People don't usually protest in person unless they really believe in the underlying cause. There are developers on HN who worry about a 500 millisecond delay in their app because users are so fickle that half a second puts them off. If people don't have half a second of patience, how much does it take to motivate them to go to a protest, shout, march, and sometimes even risk their lives? Sure, if we're not careful, if we don't implement the right controls, social media can be used for ill. However, I'd be very careful not to generalize from results like in the OP. There are groups of people that you wouldn't even pay attention to if it weren't for social media. There is suffering that would be invisible to the world if it weren't for social media. It is our duty to expend the small amount of energy required before assuming the worst about a freedom struggle, because sometimes solidarity is the only thing that powerless people can have.
- ve55 6y ago
  >there is suffering that would be invisible to the world if it weren't for social media. Definitely, but the algorithms for social media do not help the worst cases of the most suffering become more viral than more infrequent cases of lesser suffering. The issue is that all that matters is virality. Sometimes suffering is viral when it should be, but other times it is not, and when it is not, no one will care, because the algorithms of virality control what everyone will see and care about. We're seeing this right now with covid as it becomes less viral and fashionable to report on, and we've seen it previously with things like the mass factory farming of billions of animals, which doesn't seem to get a ton of attention nowadays, among many other terrible things, even though the magnitude of suffering involved is so great.
  - keenmaster 6y ago
    I've read enough history to be convinced that democratic-anything is usually better. Social media is a more democratic medium than traditional media. On the whole, that will turn out for the better, especially as we learn how to control the worst aspects of social media. Before Facebook came out, how much did news reporters, even on MSNBC, lead the conversation against systematic social and economic injustice towards African Americans? They failed miserably on that front. Now we don't have to rely on the media for that. The oppressed people themselves are leading the narrative, not because it's fashionable, but because they can't breathe.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
> uncontrollable algorithms What do you mean by this? Do you mean uncontrollable in the sense that we as users don't have much fine-grained control over what we're shown?
- ve55 6y ago
  I think I'd best say it as two parts, the first part is that the algorithms behind social media content are not known to us as end-users, which seems a bit unfair given that they control the entire world around us. The second is that there is a system at work here that no individual person or company is in control of. If one news agency decides to not publish content that is outrageous, they may simply just be out-competed by all the others that decide to maximize for outrage, and no improvement will occur. Similarly, it's difficult for social media companies to simply 'change' their algorithms to do good things and promote good content, for this reason and many others.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    Yep, gotcha. Thanks for the comprehensive response.
systemvoltage 6y ago
Life 20 years ago was kinda nice. Computers were cool. Sunday news is what you need to read to get global coverage. No social media or friends showing off their best and hiding the worse, neighbors and LAN parties, 9/11 happened and the country got together, I don't know... we didn't have insane Javascript frameworks. Things were much better. Ecommerce wasn't that big, so I actually went to the stores to buy stuff. Malls were cool. I am pretty sure I am wrong.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > 9/11 happened and the country got together, I don't know... we didn't have insane Javascript frameworks. You really just need a common enemy, some far away country that you can focus your energy on, that you can bomb etc. It will bring the country together ... and give you more advanced javascript frameworks.
- baddox 6y ago
  Perhaps you weren’t a member of any groups affected by the issues that have been protested recently and throughout recent history.
  - lelanthran 6y ago
    > Perhaps you weren’t a member of any groups affected by the issues that have been protested recently and throughout recent history. I am, and I still think that the protesters are making a mountain out of a molehill. Their response to police brutality is disproportionate. They are destroying innocent bystanders lives and livelihoods; the celebrities who are egging them on are doing so because their neighbourhoods, livelihoods and lives are not getting burned down (see https://www.rt.com/sport/490393-burn-that-shit-down-tweet-nba-reporter/ https://www.rt.com/sport/490393-burn-that-shit-down-tweet-nb...). Th only way to stop the protests is to bus protesters into those areas inhabited by these celebrity morons. The people who are arguing against the police using teargas on rioters will sing a different tune when the mob is coming down their street, burning everything in their path. I guarantee that they will call for an armed response to someone attempting to burn their house down.
blev 6y ago
Did you consider that perhaps you may be perceiving the majority illusion in regards to the prevalence of rioting as opposed to the prevalence of peaceful protests?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by ve55 6y ago

grawprog 6y ago

I live in a small community outside America. On Saturday I left the mall where I'd been subject to the 'new normal' covid distancing laws shit. Stepped out into the sunshine to see over 1000 people marching down the street in one huddled mass protesting because...riots in America. I watched a car's window get smashed because they wanted to drive through an intersection and had the audacity to ask if they could drive through. While we have issues with police and abuses of power here, it's not even a speck on the radar compared to America. There's real issues here worth protesting. There's a worrying lack of housing for people here in the last year since the psyche ward and homeless shelters shut down. Businesses have been closing down permanently for months, people are desperate for work, one of the largest clearcuts ever for the area has been proposed in the watershed where the town's drinking water comes from. It contains not only the oldest tree in Canada, so old that our tools can't penetrate deep enough to age it, but some of the largest intact old growth in the province, habitat for numerous endangered species and again, directly feeds nearly every river that supplies our water. Nobody cares, nobody even acknowledges the issues outside their door. But some riots in America are worth flaunting all the measures forced on people for months because they've been riled up to believe it matters more than everything we've been told to believe for months now because social media tells then they need to care.

raxxorrax 6y ago
> it's not even a speck on the radar compared to America I do believe that there are problems with racism in state police in any country but I was surprised how restrained the police in America is by numbers. I would have expected much more death by the hands of the police. Outside of America there is certainly a stereotype of their police being cowboys. Still, I think the numbers alone clearly show police isn't going on rampages killing random people. State abuse today looks completely different.
askafriend 6y ago
I think you fail to understand just how prevalent these issues are for people of color every single day. Yes, these issues might be just a speck for you. But they're a stain on daily life for millions of people around the world (which is why you see people empathizing not just domestically, but internationally). Justifying one's existence and identity every single day is exhausting on a level that all other problems are simply irrelevant when existence is in question. I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase "When White people get the cold, Black people get the flu". Our problems are systemic and the way problems impact people in our society isn't equal. > There's a worrying lack of housing for people here in the last year since the psyche ward and homeless shelters shut down. Businesses have been closing down permanently for months, people are desperate for work, Now dig into the data and see what segment of the population these issues affect the most and disproportionately so. On top of all that, Black people have to worry about having to walk down the street too? Any reasonable person would say "fuck that".
- crowdglass 6y ago
  > I think you fail to understand just how prevalent these issues are for people of color every single day. Beaten in public for not "taking a knee"? White supremacist. Fucking nazi scum. Latino killed by police? White person? Asian? Black cop killing a black person? CNN's silence is deafening. Only Black Lives Matter. > Justifying one's existence and identity every single day is exhausting on a level that all other problems are simply irrelevant when existence is in question. All those straight white men with their white privilege and white fragility that the media paints as evil, horrible, racist monsters never have to deal with that.

keenmaster 6y ago

People don't usually protest in person unless they really believe in the underlying cause. There are developers on HN who worry about a 500 millisecond delay in their app because users are so fickle that half a second puts them off. If people don't have half a second of patience, how much does it take to motivate them to go to a protest, shout, march, and sometimes even risk their lives? Sure, if we're not careful, if we don't implement the right controls, social media can be used for ill. However, I'd be very careful not to generalize from results like in the OP. There are groups of people that you wouldn't even pay attention to if it weren't for social media. There is suffering that would be invisible to the world if it weren't for social media. It is our duty to expend the small amount of energy required before assuming the worst about a freedom struggle, because sometimes solidarity is the only thing that powerless people can have.

ve55 6y ago
>there is suffering that would be invisible to the world if it weren't for social media. Definitely, but the algorithms for social media do not help the worst cases of the most suffering become more viral than more infrequent cases of lesser suffering. The issue is that all that matters is virality. Sometimes suffering is viral when it should be, but other times it is not, and when it is not, no one will care, because the algorithms of virality control what everyone will see and care about. We're seeing this right now with covid as it becomes less viral and fashionable to report on, and we've seen it previously with things like the mass factory farming of billions of animals, which doesn't seem to get a ton of attention nowadays, among many other terrible things, even though the magnitude of suffering involved is so great.
- keenmaster 6y ago
  I've read enough history to be convinced that democratic-anything is usually better. Social media is a more democratic medium than traditional media. On the whole, that will turn out for the better, especially as we learn how to control the worst aspects of social media. Before Facebook came out, how much did news reporters, even on MSNBC, lead the conversation against systematic social and economic injustice towards African Americans? They failed miserably on that front. Now we don't have to rely on the media for that. The oppressed people themselves are leading the narrative, not because it's fashionable, but because they can't breathe.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

> uncontrollable algorithms What do you mean by this? Do you mean uncontrollable in the sense that we as users don't have much fine-grained control over what we're shown?

ve55 6y ago
I think I'd best say it as two parts, the first part is that the algorithms behind social media content are not known to us as end-users, which seems a bit unfair given that they control the entire world around us. The second is that there is a system at work here that no individual person or company is in control of. If one news agency decides to not publish content that is outrageous, they may simply just be out-competed by all the others that decide to maximize for outrage, and no improvement will occur. Similarly, it's difficult for social media companies to simply 'change' their algorithms to do good things and promote good content, for this reason and many others.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  Yep, gotcha. Thanks for the comprehensive response.

systemvoltage 6y ago

Life 20 years ago was kinda nice. Computers were cool. Sunday news is what you need to read to get global coverage. No social media or friends showing off their best and hiding the worse, neighbors and LAN parties, 9/11 happened and the country got together, I don't know... we didn't have insane Javascript frameworks. Things were much better. Ecommerce wasn't that big, so I actually went to the stores to buy stuff. Malls were cool. I am pretty sure I am wrong.

luckylion 6y ago
> 9/11 happened and the country got together, I don't know... we didn't have insane Javascript frameworks. You really just need a common enemy, some far away country that you can focus your energy on, that you can bomb etc. It will bring the country together ... and give you more advanced javascript frameworks.
baddox 6y ago
Perhaps you weren’t a member of any groups affected by the issues that have been protested recently and throughout recent history.
- lelanthran 6y ago
  > Perhaps you weren’t a member of any groups affected by the issues that have been protested recently and throughout recent history. I am, and I still think that the protesters are making a mountain out of a molehill. Their response to police brutality is disproportionate. They are destroying innocent bystanders lives and livelihoods; the celebrities who are egging them on are doing so because their neighbourhoods, livelihoods and lives are not getting burned down (see https://www.rt.com/sport/490393-burn-that-shit-down-tweet-nba-reporter/ https://www.rt.com/sport/490393-burn-that-shit-down-tweet-nb...). Th only way to stop the protests is to bus protesters into those areas inhabited by these celebrity morons. The people who are arguing against the police using teargas on rioters will sing a different tune when the mob is coming down their street, burning everything in their path. I guarantee that they will call for an armed response to someone attempting to burn their house down.

blev 6y ago

Did you consider that perhaps you may be perceiving the majority illusion in regards to the prevalence of rioting as opposed to the prevalence of peaceful protests?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]