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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 cont

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.

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.