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Facebook at its core is a green list of people or voices you approve of. Any misinformation, hatred, or groupthink... is coming from the world you approve. And

Facebook at its core is a green list of people or voices you approve of. Any misinformation, hatred, or groupthink... is coming from the world you approve. And with regards to groupthink, there is surely some basic level of personal burden arising from the freedom of association.

mikenew 6y ago
It doesn't matter. You can argue that "people shouldn't fall prey to groupthink" and I'd agree with you. But they do. We're talking about a group of 2.6 billion people, not an individual. On average, people are a product of their environment. And the environment, in this case, is a bad one. It promotes all the wrong things and the incentives are in all the wrong places.
- kmlx 6y ago
  the "environment" is in fact our society. you assume the cause is facebook, when in fact facebook is the effect of a sick society. but, facebook does help in bringing to light our abysmal failure in building society.
  - Joeri 6y ago
    It is a circle. Society influences facebook, facebook feeds back into society. For example, I’m convinced facebook’s amplification of pro-brexit and pro-trump messages in those campaigns was instrumental in their victory. No facebook, no president trump. I’ve also seen how facebook turned my sister into an anti-vaxxer. In essence you can look at facebook as a platform for information warfare. It tends to amplify lies, and some forces are more able to exploit that.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - kukx 6y ago
      It is your sister. You probably talk to her. Try convincing her. If you fail, is the Facebook to be blamed? I do not think so.
      - hellisothers 6y ago
        Yes. Because what is one voice (even family) vs the 100s of voices and constant reaffirmation of lies and misinformation.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
radegast 6y ago
> a green list you mean whitelist?
CraigJPerry 6y ago
I do agree but perhaps Facebook hastens a journey that some users were already on, towards more socially destructive behaviour. Perhaps the social proof of seeing those users encourages others to join on that path? Ultimately though i agree with your point which means even if i am right in thinking Facebook accelerates and encourages bad practices - it doesn’t matter because responsibility lives with each user, each individual.
- zarkov99 6y ago
  People are weak, ignorant and distracted. In a well functioning society, systems, including Facebook, have to be designed to compensate for, rather than exploit those characteristics.
- toofy 6y ago
  > ...perhaps Facebook hastens a journey that some users were already on... My suspicion is that we had built up guard rails that were somewhat effective in mitigating against the vulnerable falling completely into the cracks. We should have been doing better, but they were somewhat effective. I do think you’re spot on that one of its issues is that it encourages other vulnerable folks to join the path leading over the edge. And it makes it significantly easier for the predators to lure them. While all of us would like to believe we’re special, a large part of who we are comes from our inputs, while a lot of us are careful to vet what inputs we allow to plug into us, many of our people are absolutely not careful whatsoever–many are absolutely and thoroughly addicted to outrage (picture how many people we see who are constantly outraged about something which will never impact their personal lives whatsoever), combine that outrage addiction with the ability to weaponize mis/disinformation, and then combine this with the fact that everyone now has a megaphone, and then combine this with the fact that platforms like fb want to amp up that outrage addiction in order to secure it’s place on these people’s input hierarchies—take all of that, add in a mess of other pressures such our society’s refusal to address very real problems, and we can start to get a small glimpse of the ways in which fb’s algorithms are causing major problems.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
andrepd 6y ago
That's not true though is it? You see things in your feed from people other than your "friends" (ad content, friends of friends, businesses, news pages and "news" pages)
raverbashing 6y ago
Yes but mixed in with "pictures of your vacation" there's a reshare from disinformation pages

mikenew 6y ago

It doesn't matter. You can argue that "people shouldn't fall prey to groupthink" and I'd agree with you. But they do. We're talking about a group of 2.6 billion people, not an individual. On average, people are a product of their environment. And the environment, in this case, is a bad one. It promotes all the wrong things and the incentives are in all the wrong places.

kmlx 6y ago
the "environment" is in fact our society. you assume the cause is facebook, when in fact facebook is the effect of a sick society. but, facebook does help in bringing to light our abysmal failure in building society.
- Joeri 6y ago
  It is a circle. Society influences facebook, facebook feeds back into society. For example, I’m convinced facebook’s amplification of pro-brexit and pro-trump messages in those campaigns was instrumental in their victory. No facebook, no president trump. I’ve also seen how facebook turned my sister into an anti-vaxxer. In essence you can look at facebook as a platform for information warfare. It tends to amplify lies, and some forces are more able to exploit that.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kukx 6y ago
    It is your sister. You probably talk to her. Try convincing her. If you fail, is the Facebook to be blamed? I do not think so.
    - hellisothers 6y ago
      Yes. Because what is one voice (even family) vs the 100s of voices and constant reaffirmation of lies and misinformation.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

radegast 6y ago

> a green list you mean whitelist?

CraigJPerry 6y ago

I do agree but perhaps Facebook hastens a journey that some users were already on, towards more socially destructive behaviour. Perhaps the social proof of seeing those users encourages others to join on that path? Ultimately though i agree with your point which means even if i am right in thinking Facebook accelerates and encourages bad practices - it doesn’t matter because responsibility lives with each user, each individual.

zarkov99 6y ago
People are weak, ignorant and distracted. In a well functioning society, systems, including Facebook, have to be designed to compensate for, rather than exploit those characteristics.
toofy 6y ago
> ...perhaps Facebook hastens a journey that some users were already on... My suspicion is that we had built up guard rails that were somewhat effective in mitigating against the vulnerable falling completely into the cracks. We should have been doing better, but they were somewhat effective. I do think you’re spot on that one of its issues is that it encourages other vulnerable folks to join the path leading over the edge. And it makes it significantly easier for the predators to lure them. While all of us would like to believe we’re special, a large part of who we are comes from our inputs, while a lot of us are careful to vet what inputs we allow to plug into us, many of our people are absolutely not careful whatsoever–many are absolutely and thoroughly addicted to outrage (picture how many people we see who are constantly outraged about something which will never impact their personal lives whatsoever), combine that outrage addiction with the ability to weaponize mis/disinformation, and then combine this with the fact that everyone now has a megaphone, and then combine this with the fact that platforms like fb want to amp up that outrage addiction in order to secure it’s place on these people’s input hierarchies—take all of that, add in a mess of other pressures such our society’s refusal to address very real problems, and we can start to get a small glimpse of the ways in which fb’s algorithms are causing major problems.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

andrepd 6y ago

That's not true though is it? You see things in your feed from people other than your "friends" (ad content, friends of friends, businesses, news pages and "news" pages)

raverbashing 6y ago

Yes but mixed in with "pictures of your vacation" there's a reshare from disinformation pages