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I've long held the opinion that Twitter and Facebook are just content in the medium, a bit like complaining about Sky, CNN or Fox on TV without looking at telev

I've long held the opinion that Twitter and Facebook are just content in the medium, a bit like complaining about Sky, CNN or Fox on TV without looking at television itself and the impact it had on communication. The internet has brought communication to everyone that travels at incredible speed. This has the effect of causing emotive responses, rather than reasoned. Requires no effort at all to respond, and encourages the toxicity you describe. What gains most traction are those posts that are the most emotive. It used to be "if it bleeds, it leads", but I suspect these days it's more akin to "emotion deserves promotion". Speed carries a number of other implications. For example, it allows a cheap, steady stream of constant information that can be completely irrelevant at best to you, plus it's information about which you often can do nothing about, except hit the reply button. This can only make things worse, because people feel powerless except in this superficial way. The other effect is the quantity of information, and it's impossible now for a user of the internet to wade through it, or even validate it without incredible effort. Our current techniques for filtering that information is essentially populist individualism: we rely on what other people have liked, linked to, or shared, but at the same time, read what is presented to us based on our previous interactions. I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that I perhaps pessimistically feel that these things are fundamentally baked into the medium, in much the same way that Neil Postman felt entertainment was intrinsically baked into television. Hopefully I'm wrong, and there are solutions to these things. Not sure what they are myself.

datalus 6y ago
The medium is the message :) [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
- lordgrenville 6y ago
  Well Neil Postman was a friend of McLuhan, and said "I can’t think of a book that I’ve written that I could have written if not for McLuhan". https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/neil-postman-on-technologys-faustian-bargain/ https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/neil-postman-...
Schiendelman 6y ago
Increasingly, the medium is the tribe. It’s not clear there are solutions to this because aligning on tribal beliefs is how we evolved to survive!
- calinet6 6y ago
  This is exactly it. The instant communication has created instant reinforcement for the tribe. It's something our minds aren't really ready to handle. I agree there may not be a solution, given the technology we now have and the minds we'll never improve upon in our lifetimes. But I think we have to try...
  - DougN7 6y ago
    That and you can instantly find a huge tribe. In the past you had to deal with others around you as well, which challenged ideas. Now you plug in to this huge tribe of anonymous people around the world and assume you’ve found the truth.
- indymike 6y ago
  I think this is a misunderstanding. Social platform users have little reason to leave one platform for another. Censorship is one of those few reasons. Censorship 8s at a very simple level telling those with different thoughts to go start a tribe somewhere else. Twitter isn't making good decisions. The killed Vine and gave Musicaly and then TikTok oxygen. Their censorship is giving rise to competitors.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Parler censors energetically also, it's just that it's owned by Breitbart rather than amoral profit-seeking VCs. The VCs censor whatever gets anyone upset, especially powerful people who can cause them legislative, legal, or tax trouble. Parler's owners censor sex and other things that don't agree with their ideological line, probably anti-racism, anti-military/police and positive depictions of the socialized functions of government (which can probably all be neatly grouped under "terrorism.")
afrojack123 6y ago
Yes and Twitter is FAKE NEWS. It is a known STATED LAW that electorates decide the president. This system was designed by Hamilton to prevent a popular but unfit candidate from becoming president. When somebody stated this on Twitter, Twitter gave this is information may not be correct warning. It is the LAW. Twitter fact checked the law. If Twitter was willing to mind its own business, Parler wouldn't exist.
- timpattinson 6y ago
  if the system was designed to prevent a popular but unfit candiate from becoming president, it's been broken since 2016.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    Note that the Republican party is to blame too for that. (As well as the Democrat party.)
    - dboreham 6y ago
      And Rupert Murdoch
  - throwawayyyyyyz 6y ago
    Nah, it was broken in 2008, and again in 2012 It started working again in '16
  - nkrisc 6y ago
    The winning candidate in 2016 wasn't even popular: he lost the popular vote.
    - mcphage 6y ago
      The popular candidate that the Electoral College prevented from becoming President was Clinton, it just turns out it's easier for an unfit candidate to win via the Electoral College than it is for an unfit candidate to win via the poplar vote.
bmitc 6y ago
The Internet just taps into the primal (that is, of primate) instincts of humans. We're just a bunch of apes with technology, and the Internet is just a conduit for our lackluster emotional brains to connect to each other. There is no way around it because humans are deeply emotionally flawed, and these flaws are amplified by our technology. No amount of technology will fix it, as it will just be another catalyst. Looking elsewhere in the branches of life for intelligence, such as octopuses, whales, in particular orcas, and elephants, we see different types. Are they more or less emotional? The communal spirit of elephants and that of orcas, the latter of which showcase particularly striking examples of cooperation, does make you wonder. But then it again, it makes you wonder if all higher forms of intelligence lead you to take advantage of a greater amount of situations and why we even bother trying to establish ourselves out there for other intelligent lifeforms to find.

datalus 6y ago

The medium is the message :) [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message

lordgrenville 6y ago
Well Neil Postman was a friend of McLuhan, and said "I can’t think of a book that I’ve written that I could have written if not for McLuhan". https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/neil-postman-on-technologys-faustian-bargain/ https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/neil-postman-...

Schiendelman 6y ago

Increasingly, the medium is the tribe. It’s not clear there are solutions to this because aligning on tribal beliefs is how we evolved to survive!

calinet6 6y ago
This is exactly it. The instant communication has created instant reinforcement for the tribe. It's something our minds aren't really ready to handle. I agree there may not be a solution, given the technology we now have and the minds we'll never improve upon in our lifetimes. But I think we have to try...
- DougN7 6y ago
  That and you can instantly find a huge tribe. In the past you had to deal with others around you as well, which challenged ideas. Now you plug in to this huge tribe of anonymous people around the world and assume you’ve found the truth.
indymike 6y ago
I think this is a misunderstanding. Social platform users have little reason to leave one platform for another. Censorship is one of those few reasons. Censorship 8s at a very simple level telling those with different thoughts to go start a tribe somewhere else. Twitter isn't making good decisions. The killed Vine and gave Musicaly and then TikTok oxygen. Their censorship is giving rise to competitors.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Parler censors energetically also, it's just that it's owned by Breitbart rather than amoral profit-seeking VCs. The VCs censor whatever gets anyone upset, especially powerful people who can cause them legislative, legal, or tax trouble. Parler's owners censor sex and other things that don't agree with their ideological line, probably anti-racism, anti-military/police and positive depictions of the socialized functions of government (which can probably all be neatly grouped under "terrorism.")

afrojack123 6y ago

Yes and Twitter is FAKE NEWS. It is a known STATED LAW that electorates decide the president. This system was designed by Hamilton to prevent a popular but unfit candidate from becoming president. When somebody stated this on Twitter, Twitter gave this is information may not be correct warning. It is the LAW. Twitter fact checked the law. If Twitter was willing to mind its own business, Parler wouldn't exist.

timpattinson 6y ago
if the system was designed to prevent a popular but unfit candiate from becoming president, it's been broken since 2016.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  Note that the Republican party is to blame too for that. (As well as the Democrat party.)
  - dboreham 6y ago
    And Rupert Murdoch
- throwawayyyyyyz 6y ago
  Nah, it was broken in 2008, and again in 2012 It started working again in '16
- nkrisc 6y ago
  The winning candidate in 2016 wasn't even popular: he lost the popular vote.
  - mcphage 6y ago
    The popular candidate that the Electoral College prevented from becoming President was Clinton, it just turns out it's easier for an unfit candidate to win via the Electoral College than it is for an unfit candidate to win via the poplar vote.

bmitc 6y ago

The Internet just taps into the primal (that is, of primate) instincts of humans. We're just a bunch of apes with technology, and the Internet is just a conduit for our lackluster emotional brains to connect to each other. There is no way around it because humans are deeply emotionally flawed, and these flaws are amplified by our technology. No amount of technology will fix it, as it will just be another catalyst. Looking elsewhere in the branches of life for intelligence, such as octopuses, whales, in particular orcas, and elephants, we see different types. Are they more or less emotional? The communal spirit of elephants and that of orcas, the latter of which showcase particularly striking examples of cooperation, does make you wonder. But then it again, it makes you wonder if all higher forms of intelligence lead you to take advantage of a greater amount of situations and why we even bother trying to establish ourselves out there for other intelligent lifeforms to find.