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This person is confusing ranked newsfeeds with free speech. Ranked newsfeeds are the actual poison, because they are their own form of censorship and amplificat

This person is confusing ranked newsfeeds with free speech. Ranked newsfeeds are the actual poison, because they are their own form of censorship and amplification for exploitative purposes. It’s fine if someone says something horrible or false on the internet, it’s not fine if a ranked newsfeed amplifies that message to millions of people because it’s engaging. This free speech or not argument is a complete straw man.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jraby3 6y ago
Exactly. Facebook along with google, Twitter, etc. become an echo chamber based on their tracking your precious history of what interested you.
josephg 6y ago
Yep. Alex Jones is a bit of a nut, and left alone I'd have no problem with him. But youtube recommended his videos 15 billion times, and presumably made a killing in advertising revenue off his videos. I don't have a problem with alex jones. I have a problem with social media companies promoting lies about reality in the name of engagement. Polluting our information ecology in the name of a quick advertising dollar is lazy and dishonest and they know it.
3131s 6y ago
Yes, and the effect is more pronounced when a site offers no other choice beyond ranking by a single hidden formula, like HN.
- aethertron 6y ago
  In the case of HN, what is the bad effect? HN's formula may be hidden but I think we have a good sense of its inputs: recency, upvotes, moderation to remove crap, and perhaps some boosting to promote YC interests.
humanrebar 6y ago
The article is saying monopoly is private government so Facebook is in opposition with democracy. "Free speech" doesn't appear in the article as a phrase. There seems to be more concern with the disruption of previous business models for journalism. Towards the end of the article, there is a little about centralized curation of information (hiding a candidate from view, etc.), which is tangential to free speech, I suppose, but not exactly the same thing.
amadeuspagel 6y ago
I don't understand the obsession some people have with ranked newsfeeds. I don't see what's wrong with showing people content they want. What content that is always depends on the user themselves. If they've liked a lot of horrible stuff before, they'll get more horrible stuff, if they've liked a lot of thoughtful stuff before, they'll get more thoughtful stuff.
- solaarphunk 6y ago
  The issue is that people are not rational actors, and their emotions can be manipulated into forming new habits. In this case, facebook's goal is maximizing time spent on site. They know if they get you into a state of emotional flow, you'll stay there for much longer. That is the purpose of ranked newsfeed. Companies just make the "relevance" argument, because it's not wrong, it's just not the whole story. Specifically, if you had a passing interest in a controversial topic, the algorithm will make sure to sink its barbs into you, and exploit you emotionally. This is especially real for older people who didn't grow up with the internet, or people who are blind to this issue. These two groups haven't learned to moderate their emotions and question the nature, or source, of the content.
- ViViDboarder 6y ago
  > I don't see what's wrong with showing people content they want. Showing them what who wants? The users? That’s be great, but today they are trained to show what the company wants, and the company wants to keep you on the site as long as possible to generate ad clicks. It’s designed for making you spiral into a topic.
  - nmfisher 6y ago
    If the users didn't like, they'd log off. Facebook optimizes to avoid that scenario. I know you don't like it, but this very clearly is content that people want to consume.
    - yorwba 6y ago
      No, if users didn't like anything they see on Facebook, they'd log off. Facebook optimizes to make money and they can't make money if people leave, so they try to avoid that scenario. But that doesn't mean all content is something people want to see, because Facebook can't make money either if users only consume content that doesn't make Facebook money, so they try to avoid that scenario. The profit-maximizing strategy is to show users a mixture of content they like (to keep them around) and money-making content, preferably all jumbled together so people can't easily tell the difference. (The same calculation is behind Google deemphasizing the difference between paid search ads and actual results.)
notacoward 6y ago
I don't think it's really ranked newsfeeds. It's also newsfeeds that pull in stuff you didn't specifically express an interest in. It starts with showing you stuff your friends merely liked or commented on, but didn't repost. Then it's things that they merely looked at, and groups that overlap with ones you're already in. Then posts that share some arbitrary characteristic with those you've read or liked. And so on. If I were only shown things that my friends actually posted, I'd be mostly OK with ranking them except that the ranking seems unstable and ends up reshuffling everything all the time. Not pulling in random crap would also slow or reduce the spread of disinformation. It would still exist, certainly, but without being able to exploit the Facebook equivalent of SEO it might not have quite the toxic effects that it does currently. Fortunately, I know a trick that makes my feed better behaved in all of these ways. Some day they're going to kill it (they briefly did break it once already due to sheer incompetence) and then Facebook will become unusable again.
- fatnoah 6y ago
  >Fortunately, I know a trick that makes my feed better behaved in all of these ways. I use a trick as well. I use the "Stop Showing Me This" option in the FB newsfeed. It took a couple days, but now I get zero political content.
- t-writescode 6y ago
  > I don't think it's really ranked newsfeeds. That's .... a kind of ranking. Personalized ranking made by algorithms based on what they want to show you using their own patterns is still ranking. Dynamically adjusting ranking based on new data (or not) is still ranking.
  - notacoward 6y ago
    As anyone who has worked with databases probably knows (definitely should know), selection and ordering/ranking are two different things.
    - t-writescode 6y ago
snarf21 6y ago
This is the issue. There is no such thing as news. It is infotainment designed to shock, outrage and be sticky for the sole purpose of selling advertising.
whimsicalism 6y ago
I personally think that the hard non-inferential view we have on free speech is holding us back somewhat (and also is hardly true in a world with "intellectual property"), but you're wrong to act like "it's not speech, it's ranked newsfeeds" is some killer dodge that free speech advocates haven't considered. > it’s not fine if a ranked newsfeed amplifies that message to millions of people because it’s engaging So companies are now restricted in what messages they are allowed to amplify?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jraby3 6y ago

Exactly. Facebook along with google, Twitter, etc. become an echo chamber based on their tracking your precious history of what interested you.

josephg 6y ago

Yep. Alex Jones is a bit of a nut, and left alone I'd have no problem with him. But youtube recommended his videos 15 billion times, and presumably made a killing in advertising revenue off his videos. I don't have a problem with alex jones. I have a problem with social media companies promoting lies about reality in the name of engagement. Polluting our information ecology in the name of a quick advertising dollar is lazy and dishonest and they know it.

3131s 6y ago

Yes, and the effect is more pronounced when a site offers no other choice beyond ranking by a single hidden formula, like HN.

aethertron 6y ago
In the case of HN, what is the bad effect? HN's formula may be hidden but I think we have a good sense of its inputs: recency, upvotes, moderation to remove crap, and perhaps some boosting to promote YC interests.

humanrebar 6y ago

The article is saying monopoly is private government so Facebook is in opposition with democracy. "Free speech" doesn't appear in the article as a phrase. There seems to be more concern with the disruption of previous business models for journalism. Towards the end of the article, there is a little about centralized curation of information (hiding a candidate from view, etc.), which is tangential to free speech, I suppose, but not exactly the same thing.

amadeuspagel 6y ago

I don't understand the obsession some people have with ranked newsfeeds. I don't see what's wrong with showing people content they want. What content that is always depends on the user themselves. If they've liked a lot of horrible stuff before, they'll get more horrible stuff, if they've liked a lot of thoughtful stuff before, they'll get more thoughtful stuff.

solaarphunk 6y ago
The issue is that people are not rational actors, and their emotions can be manipulated into forming new habits. In this case, facebook's goal is maximizing time spent on site. They know if they get you into a state of emotional flow, you'll stay there for much longer. That is the purpose of ranked newsfeed. Companies just make the "relevance" argument, because it's not wrong, it's just not the whole story. Specifically, if you had a passing interest in a controversial topic, the algorithm will make sure to sink its barbs into you, and exploit you emotionally. This is especially real for older people who didn't grow up with the internet, or people who are blind to this issue. These two groups haven't learned to moderate their emotions and question the nature, or source, of the content.
ViViDboarder 6y ago
> I don't see what's wrong with showing people content they want. Showing them what who wants? The users? That’s be great, but today they are trained to show what the company wants, and the company wants to keep you on the site as long as possible to generate ad clicks. It’s designed for making you spiral into a topic.
- nmfisher 6y ago
  If the users didn't like, they'd log off. Facebook optimizes to avoid that scenario. I know you don't like it, but this very clearly is content that people want to consume.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    No, if users didn't like anything they see on Facebook, they'd log off. Facebook optimizes to make money and they can't make money if people leave, so they try to avoid that scenario. But that doesn't mean all content is something people want to see, because Facebook can't make money either if users only consume content that doesn't make Facebook money, so they try to avoid that scenario. The profit-maximizing strategy is to show users a mixture of content they like (to keep them around) and money-making content, preferably all jumbled together so people can't easily tell the difference. (The same calculation is behind Google deemphasizing the difference between paid search ads and actual results.)

notacoward 6y ago

I don't think it's really ranked newsfeeds. It's also newsfeeds that pull in stuff you didn't specifically express an interest in. It starts with showing you stuff your friends merely liked or commented on, but didn't repost. Then it's things that they merely looked at, and groups that overlap with ones you're already in. Then posts that share some arbitrary characteristic with those you've read or liked. And so on. If I were only shown things that my friends actually posted, I'd be mostly OK with ranking them except that the ranking seems unstable and ends up reshuffling everything all the time. Not pulling in random crap would also slow or reduce the spread of disinformation. It would still exist, certainly, but without being able to exploit the Facebook equivalent of SEO it might not have quite the toxic effects that it does currently. Fortunately, I know a trick that makes my feed better behaved in all of these ways. Some day they're going to kill it (they briefly did break it once already due to sheer incompetence) and then Facebook will become unusable again.

fatnoah 6y ago
>Fortunately, I know a trick that makes my feed better behaved in all of these ways. I use a trick as well. I use the "Stop Showing Me This" option in the FB newsfeed. It took a couple days, but now I get zero political content.
t-writescode 6y ago
> I don't think it's really ranked newsfeeds. That's .... a kind of ranking. Personalized ranking made by algorithms based on what they want to show you using their own patterns is still ranking. Dynamically adjusting ranking based on new data (or not) is still ranking.
- notacoward 6y ago
  As anyone who has worked with databases probably knows (definitely should know), selection and ordering/ranking are two different things.
  - t-writescode 6y ago

snarf21 6y ago

This is the issue. There is no such thing as news. It is infotainment designed to shock, outrage and be sticky for the sole purpose of selling advertising.

whimsicalism 6y ago

I personally think that the hard non-inferential view we have on free speech is holding us back somewhat (and also is hardly true in a world with "intellectual property"), but you're wrong to act like "it's not speech, it's ranked newsfeeds" is some killer dodge that free speech advocates haven't considered. > it’s not fine if a ranked newsfeed amplifies that message to millions of people because it’s engaging So companies are now restricted in what messages they are allowed to amplify?