12 ms·

I suspect we will continue to see services that unbundle social media's hottest topics. Social media may have created an outrage economy -- a subset of the att

I suspect we will continue to see services that unbundle social media's hottest topics. Social media may have created an outrage economy -- a subset of the attention economy. But like ebay, craigslist, etc, the social media platforms' broad focus means their product can't specialize when strong trends emerge. The outrage will be unbundled by niche companies. I actually think this is a good thing. Seeing conspiracy theories on the same platform as your cousin's family photos, or nobel winners, has a legitimacy-building effect on the outrage content. Maybe on its own platform it will look more like what it actually is. Nobody mistakes the tabloids in the checkout aisle for a legitimate newspaper.

entropea 6y ago
>I suspect we will continue to see services that unbundle social media's hottest topics. I'd love to see people go back to early 2000's PHPBB-similar specific topic/hobby/interest forums with tens to hundreds, maybe a couple thousand members. The good days.
- jrnichols 6y ago
  I wouldn't even mind seeing more actual usenet groups again. but then the same problems will creep up again. and spam. relentless spam. in my view, spam and spammers are the worst thing that happened to forums. a constant arms race against spammers and then script kiddie types trying to break into forums, often so they could spam even more ads. but I like the sentiment. there are still plenty of phpBB type forums out there, and I like them. It's much better than having everything hidden away behind the barbed wire wall of Facebook Groups.
LatteLazy 6y ago
I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I agree there is a positive to isolating the worst of social media off on a separate site. On the other hand, we're (maybe) just starting to see Facebook etc take some action on the worst elements of social media. This subverts that and makes it harder for Facebook to take further action in the future: shareholders will rightfully ask "what if you lose even more users by banning <socially negative thing>". Also, the bad thing about fb etc is that they just want to sell you advertising. But that's also the good thing, Facebook don't care about your politics, they don't particularly want to influence you as a person, they just want you to click on ads for shit you don't need. I wonder about other social networks, eventually someone will weaponise one, and sell votes rather than clicks. Is this the start of that? An expressly Conservative social network is much better placed to sell souls than clicks...
- faitswulff 6y ago
  Inevitably these kinds of safe spaces for hate speech lead to hate crimes: https://www.wired.com/story/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-gab-tree-of-life/ https://www.wired.com/story/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-ga... As long as the FBI are aware and can prevent these things, I suppose it's a nice honeypot, but if not then it's a literal weaponization of social media.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    I actually hadn't thought of that side of it but you're right. This must be a good source to see what groups and where on the spectrum of "unhappy to planning sedition"...
  - ch4s3 6y ago
    I'm not sure that we can provably say that they LEAD to crimes. I think there's a strong case to be made that people interested in carrying out these crimes find like minded people online and engage in meme culture. You can probably make a good case that things like 8chan encourage copy-cat elements in these attacks. I'm just not quite sure the case has been convincingly made that internet cess pools generate crime that would't otherwise happen. I could probably be convinced otherwise, but I'm not sure.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - concordDance 6y ago
    Note that echochambers leading to enough hate is a problem for both "left" and "right" aligned people. The violent actions of some people claiming to be Antifa being a recent example. Echochambers based on hatred (of Trump supporters, "SJW"s or black people) just leads to awfulness, what's needed is controlled exposure to average members of the hated group to cool them down.
- calinet6 6y ago
  I think it just delays a bigger problem, kicks the can down the road. In 2-4 years' time, we'll have an even bigger festering cesspool of self-reinforced beliefs than ever before, and an more difficult time having rational discourse among our society about how to run it.
npsimons 6y ago
> Nobody mistakes the tabloids in the checkout aisle for a legitimate newspaper. This is the first good argument I've heard for the alt-right abandoning platforms with some standards of veracity, and it's an excellent idea. Sort of like how everyone knows what 4chan is about, and the moment you hear someone repeat some Qanon stuff you know you can stop listening.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  'Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Qanon the wise? I thought not. It's not a story the Liberal Media would tell you. It's a Conservative legend.' (Please note, I'm not equating Conservatives with the Sith, here. I'm making the point that a story being censored can make it seem more interesting and more credible, even if it is heard from a source that is deemed disreputable by some).
joezydeco 6y ago
I suspect we will continue to see services that unbundle social media's hottest topics. I've seen this before with Usenet groups that got too bogged down with infighting and trolls, so splinter groups formed off on handmade vBulletin/phpbb sites or wherever. They always imploded shortly afterward. A safe space eventually falls to the same splintering, just in more fractal detail. Some of them survive the implosion and come out of the wreckage in okay condition, but a lot never come back. Clay called it right, 17 years ago. https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisitsownworstenemy.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisit...
- zzzeek 6y ago
  thanks for sharing what a great read! "And the adults who had set up Communitree were horrified, because they were being overrun by these students. The place that was founded on open access had too much open access, too much openness. They couldn’t defend themselves against their own users. The place that was founded on free speech had too much freedom. They had no way of saying, “No, that’s not the kind of free speech we meant.” But that was a requirement. In order to defend themselves against being overrun, that was something that they needed to have that they didn’t have, and in the end, they simply shut the site down."
- chillacy 6y ago
  That was an awesome article, I really wish I read it sooner. So many of today’s problems are predicted within. My favorite parts: 1. Designing Social software is as different from UX design as UX is from bare functionality. 2. Tech groups are not immune from using “vilification of external enemies” to increase group cohesion, where enemies included Microsoft in the 90s, it’s probably surveillance capitalism today. 3. Unrestrained social software can lead to constitutional crisis: the tension between individuals and group, the rights and responsibilities of each, what’s the social contract for an online community? That’s more political science than computer science.

entropea 6y ago

>I suspect we will continue to see services that unbundle social media's hottest topics. I'd love to see people go back to early 2000's PHPBB-similar specific topic/hobby/interest forums with tens to hundreds, maybe a couple thousand members. The good days.

jrnichols 6y ago
I wouldn't even mind seeing more actual usenet groups again. but then the same problems will creep up again. and spam. relentless spam. in my view, spam and spammers are the worst thing that happened to forums. a constant arms race against spammers and then script kiddie types trying to break into forums, often so they could spam even more ads. but I like the sentiment. there are still plenty of phpBB type forums out there, and I like them. It's much better than having everything hidden away behind the barbed wire wall of Facebook Groups.

LatteLazy 6y ago

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I agree there is a positive to isolating the worst of social media off on a separate site. On the other hand, we're (maybe) just starting to see Facebook etc take some action on the worst elements of social media. This subverts that and makes it harder for Facebook to take further action in the future: shareholders will rightfully ask "what if you lose even more users by banning <socially negative thing>". Also, the bad thing about fb etc is that they just want to sell you advertising. But that's also the good thing, Facebook don't care about your politics, they don't particularly want to influence you as a person, they just want you to click on ads for shit you don't need. I wonder about other social networks, eventually someone will weaponise one, and sell votes rather than clicks. Is this the start of that? An expressly Conservative social network is much better placed to sell souls than clicks...

faitswulff 6y ago
Inevitably these kinds of safe spaces for hate speech lead to hate crimes: https://www.wired.com/story/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-gab-tree-of-life/ https://www.wired.com/story/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-ga... As long as the FBI are aware and can prevent these things, I suppose it's a nice honeypot, but if not then it's a literal weaponization of social media.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  I actually hadn't thought of that side of it but you're right. This must be a good source to see what groups and where on the spectrum of "unhappy to planning sedition"...
- ch4s3 6y ago
  I'm not sure that we can provably say that they LEAD to crimes. I think there's a strong case to be made that people interested in carrying out these crimes find like minded people online and engage in meme culture. You can probably make a good case that things like 8chan encourage copy-cat elements in these attacks. I'm just not quite sure the case has been convincingly made that internet cess pools generate crime that would't otherwise happen. I could probably be convinced otherwise, but I'm not sure.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- concordDance 6y ago
  Note that echochambers leading to enough hate is a problem for both "left" and "right" aligned people. The violent actions of some people claiming to be Antifa being a recent example. Echochambers based on hatred (of Trump supporters, "SJW"s or black people) just leads to awfulness, what's needed is controlled exposure to average members of the hated group to cool them down.
calinet6 6y ago
I think it just delays a bigger problem, kicks the can down the road. In 2-4 years' time, we'll have an even bigger festering cesspool of self-reinforced beliefs than ever before, and an more difficult time having rational discourse among our society about how to run it.

npsimons 6y ago

> Nobody mistakes the tabloids in the checkout aisle for a legitimate newspaper. This is the first good argument I've heard for the alt-right abandoning platforms with some standards of veracity, and it's an excellent idea. Sort of like how everyone knows what 4chan is about, and the moment you hear someone repeat some Qanon stuff you know you can stop listening.

dane-pgp 6y ago
'Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Qanon the wise? I thought not. It's not a story the Liberal Media would tell you. It's a Conservative legend.' (Please note, I'm not equating Conservatives with the Sith, here. I'm making the point that a story being censored can make it seem more interesting and more credible, even if it is heard from a source that is deemed disreputable by some).

joezydeco 6y ago

I suspect we will continue to see services that unbundle social media's hottest topics. I've seen this before with Usenet groups that got too bogged down with infighting and trolls, so splinter groups formed off on handmade vBulletin/phpbb sites or wherever. They always imploded shortly afterward. A safe space eventually falls to the same splintering, just in more fractal detail. Some of them survive the implosion and come out of the wreckage in okay condition, but a lot never come back. Clay called it right, 17 years ago. https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisitsownworstenemy.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisit...

zzzeek 6y ago
thanks for sharing what a great read! "And the adults who had set up Communitree were horrified, because they were being overrun by these students. The place that was founded on open access had too much open access, too much openness. They couldn’t defend themselves against their own users. The place that was founded on free speech had too much freedom. They had no way of saying, “No, that’s not the kind of free speech we meant.” But that was a requirement. In order to defend themselves against being overrun, that was something that they needed to have that they didn’t have, and in the end, they simply shut the site down."
chillacy 6y ago
That was an awesome article, I really wish I read it sooner. So many of today’s problems are predicted within. My favorite parts: 1. Designing Social software is as different from UX design as UX is from bare functionality. 2. Tech groups are not immune from using “vilification of external enemies” to increase group cohesion, where enemies included Microsoft in the 90s, it’s probably surveillance capitalism today. 3. Unrestrained social software can lead to constitutional crisis: the tension between individuals and group, the rights and responsibilities of each, what’s the social contract for an online community? That’s more political science than computer science.