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I think it's a Facebook problem. Facebook, and other social media, incentivise "engagement". Content that makes people angry and get into bile-filled back-and-
by Karellen 6y ago
I think it's a Facebook problem. Facebook, and other social media, incentivise "engagement".
Content that makes people angry and get into bile-filled back-and-forth screaming matches with each other is fucking amazing for engagement, so Facebook et al push it to the top of peoples' feeds in order to get them to keep clicking, and to keep serving them ads.
Maybe Facebook hasn't really changed since it began, and "maximising engagement" has always been their main priority. But it's probably a pretty safe bet that they've put a lot of effort into that, and got much, much better at it in the last 15 years.
From the article:
> In July, Nick Clegg, a former Deputy Prime Minister of the U.K. who is now a top flack at Facebook, published a piece on AdAge.com and on the company’s official blog titled “Facebook Does Not Benefit from Hate,” in which he wrote, “There is no incentive for us to do anything but remove it.”
I would disagree. I submit that hate drives engagement, engagement drives eyeballs on adverts, and eyeballs on adverts drives $$$$, which absolutely benefits Facebook, and gives them an incentive to keep hate on the platform.
- threatofrain 6y agoWhere is this bad, addictive content coming from? Isn't that all content from a list of people or businesses that you green-list yourself?
- josephg 6y agoSure; but if facebook shows me 1% of all the content from people I follow, it exerts a huge amount of editorial power. And it doesn't use that editorial power to serve users. It uses that power to keep people addicted to the site so they can sell more advertisements. The fact that my friendships are weaponized doesn't make facebook any less culpable. I'm a pretty nice guy. But if you made a supercut of 1% of what I say in a day, you could tell any story you like. It would be my words, but its your narrative.
- threatofrain 6y agoWhat is the extent of FB's ability to craft narrative? What is the most egregious example of FB editorializing? It should be easy for people to find examples online with over 2B users.
- bleepblorp 6y agoThe degree of confidence in your dismissal is odd given how prominently Facebook's emotional manipulation experiment has been covered by major market media outlets. See, e.g.: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinkers-with-users-emotions-in-news-feed-experiment-stirring-outcry.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinke... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-apologises-psychological-experiments-on-users https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-...
- kthejoker2 6y agoDid you not RTFA? Read the section on Britain First again. Its entire premise is Facebook has created an enormous amount of carveouts and tolerances for hate speech and divisive content to protect revenue and growth.