6 ms·

Bollocks. Look up Hearst, or "yellow journalism" or the Spanish-American War. Modern social media does it faster but it's no different than the newspaper empi

Bollocks. Look up Hearst, or "yellow journalism" or the Spanish-American War. Modern social media does it faster but it's no different than the newspaper empires of yesteryear.

spodek 6y ago
Also the East India Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
sjg007 6y ago
It’s the speed and reach that’s the problem.
- insert_coin 6y ago
  They said the same thing about the printing press.
  - novaRom 6y ago
    Both KGB and Stazi did fully control their citizens. Today there's no any serious technical restriction to get compromising information on anyone or better to say on everyone from any county. So, almost total control - see Trump, Farage, LePan, AFD, etc.
    - voxic11 6y ago
      What does that have to do with social media?
      - novaRom 6y ago
        Are you serious? The report warns that social media “are now tilting dangerously toward illiberalism” as more governments and “unscrupulous partisan operatives” use social media for repressive purposes. These include not only malign propaganda campaigns at home and abroad, but also growing government use of social media for mass surveillance. “As a result of these trends,” Freedom House reports, “global internet freedom declined for the ninth consecutive year in 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/seanlawson/2019/11/07/evidence-mounts-of-social-medias-negative-impacts-for-democracy/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/seanlawson/2019/11/07/evidence-...
  - apocalypstyx 6y ago
    And in a way it was true; it did aid in destroying the world as it was known. But we inhabit the world that emerged from those struggles, so the victors write the history (and print it). If a new political regime were to arise from or through, say, twitter and overthrow all prior established regimes, the rectitude of that technology would be just as reaffirmed through equivalent hagiography.
- echelon 6y ago
  It's not the speed or the reach. It's the virality and the engagement algorithms that boost reactionary content. They've weaponized dopamine.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  Arguably the curation and format, and perhaps the incentives. Twitter optimized for angry reactions and misunderstandings, deliberately, to drive clicks. Lately more traditional media does the same thing.
viridian 6y ago
We are in bad shape if the best defense one can give of the current media is to call it a more efficient version of the worst period in modern journalistic history.
- Applejinx 6y ago
  We're in bad shape. But that was quite true: yellow journalism is exactly the same as what we've got. History repeats.
dahfizz 6y ago
Sometimes, a difference in magnitude can become a difference in kind. The speed, algorithms, engagement, etc of modern social media is entirely unprecedented, and makes it an entirely new problem we have to deal with.
- jinkyu 6y ago
  this post gets it.
  - silexia 6y ago
    Most people on Hacker News are entrepreneurs that run their own private businesses. Social media platforms are not some sort of public utility. Social media platforms are private businesses owned by private individuals who can choose who they want to let in and who they want to kick out just like any restaurant or bar or concert hall. If you dislike who a social media platform allows or does not allow, just use a different one. For example, many Trump supporters use parler... A platform which is known to kick off liberal voices. Or better yet, just set up your own blog on your own host and do whatever you want.
    - jschwartzi 6y ago
      The problem here with the Libertarian argument of "live and let live" is that clearly these people didn't.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      Turns out the state has the power to regulate private businesses, and when a business has so much power that it can unilaterally influence (even threaten) democratic process, the state ought to regulate it (or else it regulates the state).
      - Natanael_L 6y ago
        For internet services in general (and most other non-broadcast communications), free speech laws in many jurisdictions prevent most (or all) types of content regulation.
wiremine 6y ago
100% agree with this perspective: "history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes" The number of voices on twitter is the rhyme: Hearst and a small number of people controlled the message back then. Twitter bears responsibility, but they are ultimately not editorializing everybody all the time.
- CaptArmchair 6y ago
  Reading this, I think it's worth quoting Hannah Arendt. At this point in history, her words are deafening relevant: > “Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil.” The failure of Twitter isn't active editorializing or the lack thereof. The failure of Twitter is to not provide the necessary affordances in its design, its functionality, its business model, its values, its policies, its mission and its vision that allows a userbase of over a billion people to self-govern itself in a way that helps prevent what happened yesterday. ... and that's absolutely, undeniably a failure to think about the consequences of the product that Twitter has pushed into the world for the past 15 years. ... and it's not only a failure. It's a failure lost in it's own pure and utter banality. Twitter isn't free of from criticisms. It's not a force of nature or the universe that disrupted lives in unfortunate ways. It's a product designed with a clear intent by humans for other humans. And therein lies the responsibility of Twitter, and everyone who provides a soapbox for others, to which it should be held accountable. History doesn't repeat itself unless we repeat - remember, reflect, rehash, re-tell - history. And we do that from a place of empathy and understanding. Everything else is inconsequential.
  - wiremine 6y ago
    > The failure of Twitter is to not provide the necessary affordances in its design, its functionality, its business model, its values, its policies, its mission and its vision that allows a userbase of over a billion people to self-govern itself in a way that helps prevent what happened yesterday. Assuming that line of thinking, where'e the root cause, and when should it have been identified? I've been on twitter since literally day two (I'm user 1018 or something like that). It was a farce back in the day: people talking about cats is my clearest memory. Ev posted on the Odeo blog and I checked it out. I remember the fail whale days. At that point, it was a struggling start up with a start up tech stack. At what point specifically did Twitter jump the shark and should have reinvented itself? It's an honest question and not rhetorical. It's easy to Monday morning quarterback its entire existence and call for self governance for a corporate product. It's harder to point to where and when and how that should have happened. If we can have _that_ discussion, we can inform future twitters, which I agree is a very worthwhile cause. Otherwise, your comments sound eloquent, but ultimately are devoid of any utility. Edit: Also, just now noticed your username... the analogy was not intentional in that regard. :-P
m-i-l 6y ago
The old newspaper empires typically operated at the national level, rather than global level (even the Wolff/Reuters/Havas telegraph cartel operated within specific geographical boundaries). Similarly, for-profit companies with quasi-governmental powers operated within specific spheres of influence, plus they were more overt in their powers, e.g. the East India Company had a royal charter giving it the ability to wage war within their territories. Social media platforms, on the other hand, have been directly implicated in bloodshed and interfering with democratic elections all over the world for years, e.g. the Arab Spring and ensuing civil wars, foreign bot farms influencing election results, etc., all under the guise of being innocuous platforms e.g. for sharing funny cat pictures. Not suggesting they should be banned, and I don't think we should just give up and say it is too hard a problem to fix. Just finally accept that social media platforms are dangerous weapons, and treat them as such. Many countries already have good legislation around mixing politics and conventional media, we just need the the legislation to catch up with new media before too much further damage is done.

Bollocks. Look up Hearst, or "yellow journalism" or the Spanish-American War. Modern social media does it faster but it's no different than the newspaper empires of yesteryear.

spodek 6y ago

Also the East India Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

sjg007 6y ago

It’s the speed and reach that’s the problem.

insert_coin 6y ago
They said the same thing about the printing press.
- novaRom 6y ago
  Both KGB and Stazi did fully control their citizens. Today there's no any serious technical restriction to get compromising information on anyone or better to say on everyone from any county. So, almost total control - see Trump, Farage, LePan, AFD, etc.
  - voxic11 6y ago
    What does that have to do with social media?
    - novaRom 6y ago
      Are you serious? The report warns that social media “are now tilting dangerously toward illiberalism” as more governments and “unscrupulous partisan operatives” use social media for repressive purposes. These include not only malign propaganda campaigns at home and abroad, but also growing government use of social media for mass surveillance. “As a result of these trends,” Freedom House reports, “global internet freedom declined for the ninth consecutive year in 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/seanlawson/2019/11/07/evidence-mounts-of-social-medias-negative-impacts-for-democracy/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/seanlawson/2019/11/07/evidence-...
- apocalypstyx 6y ago
  And in a way it was true; it did aid in destroying the world as it was known. But we inhabit the world that emerged from those struggles, so the victors write the history (and print it). If a new political regime were to arise from or through, say, twitter and overthrow all prior established regimes, the rectitude of that technology would be just as reaffirmed through equivalent hagiography.
echelon 6y ago
It's not the speed or the reach. It's the virality and the engagement algorithms that boost reactionary content. They've weaponized dopamine.
throwaway894345 6y ago
Arguably the curation and format, and perhaps the incentives. Twitter optimized for angry reactions and misunderstandings, deliberately, to drive clicks. Lately more traditional media does the same thing.

viridian 6y ago

We are in bad shape if the best defense one can give of the current media is to call it a more efficient version of the worst period in modern journalistic history.

Applejinx 6y ago
We're in bad shape. But that was quite true: yellow journalism is exactly the same as what we've got. History repeats.

dahfizz 6y ago

Sometimes, a difference in magnitude can become a difference in kind. The speed, algorithms, engagement, etc of modern social media is entirely unprecedented, and makes it an entirely new problem we have to deal with.

jinkyu 6y ago
this post gets it.
- silexia 6y ago
  Most people on Hacker News are entrepreneurs that run their own private businesses. Social media platforms are not some sort of public utility. Social media platforms are private businesses owned by private individuals who can choose who they want to let in and who they want to kick out just like any restaurant or bar or concert hall. If you dislike who a social media platform allows or does not allow, just use a different one. For example, many Trump supporters use parler... A platform which is known to kick off liberal voices. Or better yet, just set up your own blog on your own host and do whatever you want.
  - jschwartzi 6y ago
    The problem here with the Libertarian argument of "live and let live" is that clearly these people didn't.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    Turns out the state has the power to regulate private businesses, and when a business has so much power that it can unilaterally influence (even threaten) democratic process, the state ought to regulate it (or else it regulates the state).
    - Natanael_L 6y ago
      For internet services in general (and most other non-broadcast communications), free speech laws in many jurisdictions prevent most (or all) types of content regulation.

wiremine 6y ago

100% agree with this perspective: "history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes" The number of voices on twitter is the rhyme: Hearst and a small number of people controlled the message back then. Twitter bears responsibility, but they are ultimately not editorializing everybody all the time.

CaptArmchair 6y ago
Reading this, I think it's worth quoting Hannah Arendt. At this point in history, her words are deafening relevant: > “Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil.” The failure of Twitter isn't active editorializing or the lack thereof. The failure of Twitter is to not provide the necessary affordances in its design, its functionality, its business model, its values, its policies, its mission and its vision that allows a userbase of over a billion people to self-govern itself in a way that helps prevent what happened yesterday. ... and that's absolutely, undeniably a failure to think about the consequences of the product that Twitter has pushed into the world for the past 15 years. ... and it's not only a failure. It's a failure lost in it's own pure and utter banality. Twitter isn't free of from criticisms. It's not a force of nature or the universe that disrupted lives in unfortunate ways. It's a product designed with a clear intent by humans for other humans. And therein lies the responsibility of Twitter, and everyone who provides a soapbox for others, to which it should be held accountable. History doesn't repeat itself unless we repeat - remember, reflect, rehash, re-tell - history. And we do that from a place of empathy and understanding. Everything else is inconsequential.
- wiremine 6y ago
  > The failure of Twitter is to not provide the necessary affordances in its design, its functionality, its business model, its values, its policies, its mission and its vision that allows a userbase of over a billion people to self-govern itself in a way that helps prevent what happened yesterday. Assuming that line of thinking, where'e the root cause, and when should it have been identified? I've been on twitter since literally day two (I'm user 1018 or something like that). It was a farce back in the day: people talking about cats is my clearest memory. Ev posted on the Odeo blog and I checked it out. I remember the fail whale days. At that point, it was a struggling start up with a start up tech stack. At what point specifically did Twitter jump the shark and should have reinvented itself? It's an honest question and not rhetorical. It's easy to Monday morning quarterback its entire existence and call for self governance for a corporate product. It's harder to point to where and when and how that should have happened. If we can have _that_ discussion, we can inform future twitters, which I agree is a very worthwhile cause. Otherwise, your comments sound eloquent, but ultimately are devoid of any utility. Edit: Also, just now noticed your username... the analogy was not intentional in that regard. :-P

m-i-l 6y ago

The old newspaper empires typically operated at the national level, rather than global level (even the Wolff/Reuters/Havas telegraph cartel operated within specific geographical boundaries). Similarly, for-profit companies with quasi-governmental powers operated within specific spheres of influence, plus they were more overt in their powers, e.g. the East India Company had a royal charter giving it the ability to wage war within their territories. Social media platforms, on the other hand, have been directly implicated in bloodshed and interfering with democratic elections all over the world for years, e.g. the Arab Spring and ensuing civil wars, foreign bot farms influencing election results, etc., all under the guise of being innocuous platforms e.g. for sharing funny cat pictures. Not suggesting they should be banned, and I don't think we should just give up and say it is too hard a problem to fix. Just finally accept that social media platforms are dangerous weapons, and treat them as such. Many countries already have good legislation around mixing politics and conventional media, we just need the the legislation to catch up with new media before too much further damage is done.