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A big problem with freeing up communications from everybody is how toxic some people and groups will be to others. Facebook is just a mirror, a fun-house mirror

A big problem with freeing up communications from everybody is how toxic some people and groups will be to others. Facebook is just a mirror, a fun-house mirror that magnifies some things and minimizes others, but it's not adding the content. Some "information" is best kept under wraps.

sharadov 6y ago
It gives voice to nut job fringe elements and brings them together in echo chambers. All bad stuff, someone has to shut this monstrosity down. It is out of control. The regulation BS will not work because it's become way too big to monitor and control.
- CountSessine 6y ago
  It isn't nut job fringe elements that commit genocide - in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia it was thousands and thousands of people - ordinary people - who either cooperated and enabled or sometimes even picked up machetes and guns to participate in the genocide. I don't feel like this is a facebook problem (although I wouldn't object to shutting them down - as long as we kill that other cancer, Twitter, too). I think this is a people-with-poor-education problem.
  - MrMan 6y ago
    Exactly this. However, smart people are manipulated by the illusion of individual choice and their ability make above-average decisions. Less intelligent people are manipulated through slightly different mechanisms, but intelligent people are enlisted just as surely, and their confidence in their own unique individual attributes creates a trap. We are social animals. Libertarianism is simply the will to power, not a an expression of truth. Every genocide is portrayed as a unique accident, but they follow the same gamelan. Facebook is literally a crowd control mechanism and it works no matter how smart you think you are.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    > it was thousands and thousands of people - ordinary people ... > I think this is a people-with-poor-education problem. Do you think that German adults in the 1930s had poor education?
    - mr_toad 6y ago
      From what I’ve read, the violence that ultimately lead to Hitlers grab for power was mostly between rank and file brownshirts and communists: young, working class males who were stirred up by the exact same sort of deliberate misinformation that is propagating in social networks today.
- rexpop 6y ago
  > nut job fringe elements This is not, to the best of my understanding, what's actually happening. Such elements are actively cultivated and their reach is facilitated by powerful benefactors. It's not a natural phenomenon. Right-wing populism must be bred and right-wing terrorists must be groomed. It's not simply an inevitable development of environmental factors, e.g. "the shape of the room," or the structure of online discourse. It's a deliberate campaign. These grooming networks are not organic. 1. https://datasociety.net/library/alternative-influence/ https://datasociety.net/library/alternative-influence/ 2. https://datasociety.net/library/media-manipulation-and-disinfo-online/ https://datasociety.net/library/media-manipulation-and-disin...
  - sharadov 6y ago
    I agree that they are being bred. Just like the Tea Party was not a collection of frustrated people tired of the system, like it was painted, but rather a party propped up by wealthy right wing interests. I just think that a platform like FB or Twitter makes it absurdly easy to do it.
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  I'm in my late 50s so I recall news in the 70s. There were basically 3 networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) and if there was a slant, they all had the same slant. There wasn't right-wing news and left-wing news there was just news. Sure, there were fringe elements like the John Birch Society, but they were considered so far out of the mainstream that they weren't even on most people's radar. We also still had the Fairness Doctrine. Now the fringe conspiracy theorists have huge followings. There's a very deep epistemic gap between the various factions of society. The possibility that this will spin out of control - especially since we have a leader who seems to want to fan the flames of division - is terrifying. Case in point: The Oregon fires are happening in the politically Redder part of the state, but many not too far from Portland. There are rumors going around in those Red areas that "left wingers" and BLM started the fires. Folks in those areas are generally very well armed. If those rumors get traction (and from looking through social media they seem to be) and people think that the folks on the left burned down their houses and towns... it's not gonna be pretty. We've already had trouble with right-wing groups showing up in Portland looking for a fight on several occasions and the police don't seem to be inclined to try to reign them in probably because these groups are so well armed. At this point I'd just as soon see FB, Twitter, et al shut down before this gets ugly. But I also suspect they'll find other outlets on the internet for spreading conspiracy theories.
schreiaj 6y ago
The issue is that Facebook is not simply a mirror, it’s one of those infinity mirrors. It doesn’t just let people spread their opinions it helps you find others with similar views. And then because those views align with your own you engage more so it reinforces the algorithm. It’s a positive feedback loop. (Positive in the sense that the relationship between input and output is not inverted)
- rexpop 6y ago
  > Facebook is just a mirror This is an echo of the "dumb pipes" argument, which characterizes social media as neutral carriers of both harmless and harmful content. While I recognize that harmful ideology originate outside of Facebook, it's really unhelpful to deny that in Facebook's capacity as "a fun-house mirror that magnifies some things and minimizes others" it's really very deliberately shaping the discourse, the zeitgeist and, as such, political reality. We don't know the algorithm's ultimate purpose. It is, inevitably, biased. What biases Facebook management has decreed (and how closely its implementation hews) is an unknown to those of us on the outside. But it's certainly not, at this point an accident. Whenever discussing algorithmic bias, I am always reminded of the old programming koan: 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937
jnwatson 6y ago
I think one of the reasons why folks are mad at Facebook is it uncovered the uncomfortable truth that freedom of speech is not a first-order good. I used to be a free speech maximalist, but it is clear that lack of education and aggressive state-actor PsyOps is simply too high a hurdle to overcome. I wouldn't be surprised if when historians look back in 50 years, that they determine that the Pandora's box of free information interchange from the Internet hastened the end of free society.
- loceng 6y ago
  Freedom of speech vs. freedom of reach.
  - jnwatson 6y ago
    speech x money = reach. The Supreme Court of the US decided that freedom of speech implies freedom of reach, including the financial means to do so.
    - dwaltrip 6y ago
      speech x technology x money = reach
    - loceng 6y ago
      Which gets balanced out greatly with policy proposals like Andrew Yang's Democracy Dollars, where every eligible voter gets allocated $100/year to contribute to the politician(s) of their choosing.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    It's really the same thing. Freedom of the press is also right there in the First Amendment, implying the right to reach an audience with a message.
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      At least with the press, historically, the editor was a human being (generally with a known set of allegiances), rather than an algorithm; and people had to pay for their news, which kept the publisher accountable. If people had multiple (interoperable) Facebooks to choose from, and had to pay for them based on how often they visited the site, I imagine the news / social media landscape would look a lot different.
swiley 6y ago
Facebook intentionally suggests posts that raise engagement, these push people to outrage. Facebook is curated, it’s on the oposite side of the spectrum from free.
- COGlory 6y ago
  This is the biggest issue, and hopefully will gain more eyeballs. This isn't a fair fight of the rational vs irrational in open discourse. Facebook has intentionally stacked the deck in favor of the irrational and amplified them artificially because it's correlative with "engagement". This isn't an organic outcome that just happens to be mediated by Facebook because it's the agora of our times. This is an unintended (I hope) side effect of a business model that intentionally skirts the line between inflammatory and violent because it also happens to be where maximum profit resides. And it was intentional, strategic, and extremely powerful.
  - laretluval 6y ago
    Engaging content spreads even if it isn't boosted. That's what engaging means. Facebook's algorithms might amplify the dynamic, but by how much?
    - COGlory 6y ago
      We don't know, and we may never. But we do know it's not a fair fight. The amount of psychologists and scientists Facebook actively employs is absolutely staggering [0]. The most educated person in a western country, with expendable income, hobbies, and endless sources of pleasure stands no chance. Someone in Ethiopia who is actually feeling the stresses of conflict and poverty? This isn't some accidental outcome of Facebook. Every data point suggests Facebook designed their system from the ground up to maximize it. [0] https://www.glassdoor.com/Jobs/Facebook-psychology-Jobs-EI_IE40772.0,8_KO9,19.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Jobs/Facebook-psychology-Jobs-EI_I...
      - laretluval 6y ago
        The fact that they're trying to optimize doesn't mean that it's effective. Psychologists don't know much.
qwerty456127 6y ago
> A big problem with freeing up communications from everybody is how toxic some people and groups will be to others. Another big problem is how stupid and violent many people are - enough to take Internet bullshit serious and kill people. I would only allow people into the Internet after they get educated and pass a test of not taking ANYTHING they find there too serious.
soneca 6y ago
I disagree. I believe Facebook profits from hate speech, this incentivizing is spread. I don’t buy that Facebook is merely a mirror and just reflecting what is already there. I believe is promoting and making stronger this kind of behaviors.

sharadov 6y ago

It gives voice to nut job fringe elements and brings them together in echo chambers. All bad stuff, someone has to shut this monstrosity down. It is out of control. The regulation BS will not work because it's become way too big to monitor and control.

CountSessine 6y ago
It isn't nut job fringe elements that commit genocide - in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia it was thousands and thousands of people - ordinary people - who either cooperated and enabled or sometimes even picked up machetes and guns to participate in the genocide. I don't feel like this is a facebook problem (although I wouldn't object to shutting them down - as long as we kill that other cancer, Twitter, too). I think this is a people-with-poor-education problem.
- MrMan 6y ago
  Exactly this. However, smart people are manipulated by the illusion of individual choice and their ability make above-average decisions. Less intelligent people are manipulated through slightly different mechanisms, but intelligent people are enlisted just as surely, and their confidence in their own unique individual attributes creates a trap. We are social animals. Libertarianism is simply the will to power, not a an expression of truth. Every genocide is portrayed as a unique accident, but they follow the same gamelan. Facebook is literally a crowd control mechanism and it works no matter how smart you think you are.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  > it was thousands and thousands of people - ordinary people ... > I think this is a people-with-poor-education problem. Do you think that German adults in the 1930s had poor education?
  - mr_toad 6y ago
    From what I’ve read, the violence that ultimately lead to Hitlers grab for power was mostly between rank and file brownshirts and communists: young, working class males who were stirred up by the exact same sort of deliberate misinformation that is propagating in social networks today.
rexpop 6y ago
> nut job fringe elements This is not, to the best of my understanding, what's actually happening. Such elements are actively cultivated and their reach is facilitated by powerful benefactors. It's not a natural phenomenon. Right-wing populism must be bred and right-wing terrorists must be groomed. It's not simply an inevitable development of environmental factors, e.g. "the shape of the room," or the structure of online discourse. It's a deliberate campaign. These grooming networks are not organic. 1. https://datasociety.net/library/alternative-influence/ https://datasociety.net/library/alternative-influence/ 2. https://datasociety.net/library/media-manipulation-and-disinfo-online/ https://datasociety.net/library/media-manipulation-and-disin...
- sharadov 6y ago
  I agree that they are being bred. Just like the Tea Party was not a collection of frustrated people tired of the system, like it was painted, but rather a party propped up by wealthy right wing interests. I just think that a platform like FB or Twitter makes it absurdly easy to do it.
UncleOxidant 6y ago
I'm in my late 50s so I recall news in the 70s. There were basically 3 networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) and if there was a slant, they all had the same slant. There wasn't right-wing news and left-wing news there was just news. Sure, there were fringe elements like the John Birch Society, but they were considered so far out of the mainstream that they weren't even on most people's radar. We also still had the Fairness Doctrine. Now the fringe conspiracy theorists have huge followings. There's a very deep epistemic gap between the various factions of society. The possibility that this will spin out of control - especially since we have a leader who seems to want to fan the flames of division - is terrifying. Case in point: The Oregon fires are happening in the politically Redder part of the state, but many not too far from Portland. There are rumors going around in those Red areas that "left wingers" and BLM started the fires. Folks in those areas are generally very well armed. If those rumors get traction (and from looking through social media they seem to be) and people think that the folks on the left burned down their houses and towns... it's not gonna be pretty. We've already had trouble with right-wing groups showing up in Portland looking for a fight on several occasions and the police don't seem to be inclined to try to reign them in probably because these groups are so well armed. At this point I'd just as soon see FB, Twitter, et al shut down before this gets ugly. But I also suspect they'll find other outlets on the internet for spreading conspiracy theories.

schreiaj 6y ago

The issue is that Facebook is not simply a mirror, it’s one of those infinity mirrors. It doesn’t just let people spread their opinions it helps you find others with similar views. And then because those views align with your own you engage more so it reinforces the algorithm. It’s a positive feedback loop. (Positive in the sense that the relationship between input and output is not inverted)

rexpop 6y ago
> Facebook is just a mirror This is an echo of the "dumb pipes" argument, which characterizes social media as neutral carriers of both harmless and harmful content. While I recognize that harmful ideology originate outside of Facebook, it's really unhelpful to deny that in Facebook's capacity as "a fun-house mirror that magnifies some things and minimizes others" it's really very deliberately shaping the discourse, the zeitgeist and, as such, political reality. We don't know the algorithm's ultimate purpose. It is, inevitably, biased. What biases Facebook management has decreed (and how closely its implementation hews) is an unknown to those of us on the outside. But it's certainly not, at this point an accident. Whenever discussing algorithmic bias, I am always reminded of the old programming koan: 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970937

jnwatson 6y ago

I think one of the reasons why folks are mad at Facebook is it uncovered the uncomfortable truth that freedom of speech is not a first-order good. I used to be a free speech maximalist, but it is clear that lack of education and aggressive state-actor PsyOps is simply too high a hurdle to overcome. I wouldn't be surprised if when historians look back in 50 years, that they determine that the Pandora's box of free information interchange from the Internet hastened the end of free society.

loceng 6y ago
Freedom of speech vs. freedom of reach.
- jnwatson 6y ago
  speech x money = reach. The Supreme Court of the US decided that freedom of speech implies freedom of reach, including the financial means to do so.
  - dwaltrip 6y ago
    speech x technology x money = reach
  - loceng 6y ago
    Which gets balanced out greatly with policy proposals like Andrew Yang's Democracy Dollars, where every eligible voter gets allocated $100/year to contribute to the politician(s) of their choosing.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  It's really the same thing. Freedom of the press is also right there in the First Amendment, implying the right to reach an audience with a message.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    At least with the press, historically, the editor was a human being (generally with a known set of allegiances), rather than an algorithm; and people had to pay for their news, which kept the publisher accountable. If people had multiple (interoperable) Facebooks to choose from, and had to pay for them based on how often they visited the site, I imagine the news / social media landscape would look a lot different.

swiley 6y ago

Facebook intentionally suggests posts that raise engagement, these push people to outrage. Facebook is curated, it’s on the oposite side of the spectrum from free.

COGlory 6y ago
This is the biggest issue, and hopefully will gain more eyeballs. This isn't a fair fight of the rational vs irrational in open discourse. Facebook has intentionally stacked the deck in favor of the irrational and amplified them artificially because it's correlative with "engagement". This isn't an organic outcome that just happens to be mediated by Facebook because it's the agora of our times. This is an unintended (I hope) side effect of a business model that intentionally skirts the line between inflammatory and violent because it also happens to be where maximum profit resides. And it was intentional, strategic, and extremely powerful.
- laretluval 6y ago
  Engaging content spreads even if it isn't boosted. That's what engaging means. Facebook's algorithms might amplify the dynamic, but by how much?
  - COGlory 6y ago
    We don't know, and we may never. But we do know it's not a fair fight. The amount of psychologists and scientists Facebook actively employs is absolutely staggering [0]. The most educated person in a western country, with expendable income, hobbies, and endless sources of pleasure stands no chance. Someone in Ethiopia who is actually feeling the stresses of conflict and poverty? This isn't some accidental outcome of Facebook. Every data point suggests Facebook designed their system from the ground up to maximize it. [0] https://www.glassdoor.com/Jobs/Facebook-psychology-Jobs-EI_IE40772.0,8_KO9,19.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Jobs/Facebook-psychology-Jobs-EI_I...
    - laretluval 6y ago
      The fact that they're trying to optimize doesn't mean that it's effective. Psychologists don't know much.

qwerty456127 6y ago

> A big problem with freeing up communications from everybody is how toxic some people and groups will be to others. Another big problem is how stupid and violent many people are - enough to take Internet bullshit serious and kill people. I would only allow people into the Internet after they get educated and pass a test of not taking ANYTHING they find there too serious.

soneca 6y ago

I disagree. I believe Facebook profits from hate speech, this incentivizing is spread. I don’t buy that Facebook is merely a mirror and just reflecting what is already there. I believe is promoting and making stronger this kind of behaviors.