6 ms·

Iran's blogfather: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are killing the web

134 points by jameslk 6y ago

anoncow 6y ago
So true. Endless distractions taking up countless man-hours.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  So? You can argue that this form of distraction doesn't bring net-happiness but what is wrong with pointless distractions that make people happy? Before this we had TV and before that Radio and before that Books and so on and so on.
  - DoingIsLearning 6y ago
    I genuinely dislike Apple but their CEO has just shared some insights that very much go against your premise of social networks as just another harmless entertainment industry. "At a moment of rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms, we can no longer turn a blind eye to a theory of technology that says all engagement is good engagement -- the longer the better -- and all with the goal of collecting as much data as possible" "What are the consequences of seeing thousands of users join extremist groups, and then perpetuating an algorithm that recommends even more?" "Will the future belong to the innovations that make our lives better, more fulfilled and more human? Or will it belong to those tools that prize our attention to the exclusion of everything else, compounding our fears and aggregating extremism, to serve ever-more-invasively-targeted ads over all other ambitions?"
    - dionian 6y ago
      and of course, we all know who gets to define 'extremism'
      - TeaDrunk 6y ago
        Could you clarify? I don't understand the implication here. The above language can apply equally to any number of large, sometimes violent, protests that are primarily built on and disseminate information via a social media platform.
        JKCalhoun 6y ago
        I thought extremism pretty much defined itself. Any political position that is void of any factual evidence to back it up, that acknowledges no nuance.... Just off the top of my head, but I think we all know extremism when we see/hear it.
        TeaDrunk 6y ago
        Yes, that's why I'm asking what the parent meant by "we all know who gets to define 'extremism'" because the rhetoric suggests my assumption of a broadly applicable notion of extremism might be incorrect.
        chevill 6y ago
        >Just off the top of my head, but I think we all know extremism when we see/hear it. I think there's a substantial amount of people that don't. Or rather, they can easily identify extremism in people they don't relate to while completely ignoring it in people that they find even the tiniest amount of common ground with. This seems to be the natural and inevitable result of treating politics like a team sport for 200+ years.
  - JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
    Those things weren’t proven over and over again to lead to massive depression and mental health issues. TV ok somewhat bad but not all bad. It made us all on the same page, believing the same facts and entertained. Radio had to be pretty much all good. A kid listening to old radio shows laying in front of the console was in pure heaven. Facebook, etc. is purely detrimental to humanity like cigarettes or meth. I’d post the references but there are simply too many. I’ve never seen a study that didn’t find Facebook, Twitter, etc. detrimental to mental health.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Radio, books and TV often bring a lot more intellectual development and perspective than engagement-optimized content.
    - JKCalhoun 6y ago
      Only if you walk away from the experience thinking about it, processing it, perhaps thinking differently yourself. Few television shows did that for me — "Connections" is a HN favorite and changed my way of thinking. Several books by Kurt Vonnegut (and Dune as well, FWIW) also changed how I think about the world. Content is important is my point.
    - TeaDrunk 6y ago
      I don't know if this is true. The most popular and widely watched TV is reality TV drivel that is IMO no more intellectually stimulating than, say, 'Professional craftsmaker REACTS to viral TikTok videos!'.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- sn_master 6y ago
  And only accepted speech is allowed. No longer your own private blog space to say whatever you wanted..
  - tomjakubowski 6y ago
    Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have had content moderation from the beginning. They're just like web forums. They were never "private blog spaces to say whatever you wanted". There's been a "Report" button on all these sites for years. Even Myspace routinely banned users and groups over content issues. Here's one from 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20111011112224/http://www.secularstudents.org/node/1933 https://web.archive.org/web/20111011112224/http://www.secula...
    - dionian 6y ago
      Its nothing like it was today. It wasn't part and parcel of politics and elections like it is today. People weren't being ruined by woke mobs
    - zoobab 6y ago
      Even Hackernews has censored entire threads.
      - throwaway3699 6y ago
        The scale really changes things though...
    - sn_master 6y ago
      I was talking about the Internet as a whole turning into these walled gardens rather than older times where blogs were common. Even in case of FB, there wasn't as much crackdown on political groups as its happening now.
bartart 6y ago
I wonder how many of his original blog's visitors were just bots. Also social networks have really lowered the barrier to entry for posting your thoughts online. The marketplace of ideas is much more crowded.
- asciident 6y ago
  That seems a bit unfair to jump to thinking about bots, as he noted he had a lot of engaged visitors that commented and sent him emails. While the marketplace is more crowded, the number of markets has shrink. To continue your analogy, each marketplace vender used to be its own market, so you had a lot of options. Now there were really only 2-4 giant marketplaces, and vendors with a good location have made it really difficult to set up shop.
aminozuur 6y ago
I too am Persian. But I don't think we can blame Facebook for making a consistent user experience, where people can get whatever information/memes they want, sorted algorithmically to the users' taste.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Can you blame tobacco companies for making something so addictive and harmful? It seems like we can and do.
  - polynomial 6y ago
    That's the beauty of it. Harm from smoking is considered (by most accounts) objectively, medically, measurably bad. Harm from social media addiction isn't quantified in terms of cancer and death. "No one ever died from browsing Facebook" is likely false, but would be generally accepted as arguably true. "No one ever died because of Facebook" should be understood to be obviously untrue to a well-informed person.
    - JKCalhoun 6y ago
      Honestly, I feel millions of us (billions?) have died a little inside with the rise of Facebook and the like. But I'm speaking metaphorically, of course.
      - Nasrudith 6y ago
        We have met the enemy and he is us is the real issue. It isn't easy to accept it but by all remotely reasonable standards a large chunk of the population are horrible people. Just look at the approval towards the National Guard's actions at Kent State. Strip away the status and "supports using the military to shoot unarmed and non-violentn students on campus" is not something a non-horrible person supports. But people find scapegoats so much easier. Facebook is vapid trash because vapid trash is highly popular.
        6y ago
Kye 6y ago
(2015)
Bakary 6y ago
His blogging golden age was in reality a time where there were simply far fewer users in general, and they were far more likely to be the type to seek out this sort of content and the activist relationship with the online world that he describes. Most people aren't really interested in that sort of discourse, or in changing the world, or in intellectual biodiversity and alternate views. The web wasn't killed by companies, it selected the companies that catered most to what most people actually want out of the web. He confuses his loss of status as a sign of the web's destruction but it is more a case of failing to capture the interest of changing demographics.
- emilsedgh 6y ago
  This is absolutely the correct read into this. Kudos for seeing this matter so clearly.
- tomaszs 6y ago
  It is tempting to discuss demographics, however it is still true there is a group of people, that still enjoys reading, and this part is left behind by social media. Since you can not link from insta and tiktok, you can not share longer meaningful articles. And even if you do, external links are ranked lower by social media platforms. Maybe, authors should create videos, however it seems people who have important things to say shy from video form. The question is if really video is the right choice for valuable content, or is not. Personally I think it is not a right medium for valuable content, therefore social media lacking features supporting text are just forcing not only enthusiastic readers, but also new demographics to consume brain fast-food. And it really is sad considering how much value has the Internet. I am thus glad that this place still exists.
  - nicbou 6y ago
    There are still places to share those links, places that didn't exist before, and that reach a larger demographic. Blogging is getting a smaller share of a much larger pie, but in absolute terms, it's not going anywhere.
  - graeme 6y ago
sidpatil 6y ago
(2015)
notsureaboutpg 6y ago
Eh, if you read the article, seems like he just wasn't as popular after his release from prison (understandably there are others who probably provide the content his audience seeks). Facebook, Twitter, etc. are still viable ways to market a blog in this day and age. I see a lot of people doing it well. It's also worth noting that when he was imprisoned there was more appetite for Iranian dissident posts in the West than there is now. Now after Persepolis, green movement, departure of Ahmedinejad, JCPOA, and Trump the appetite for that kind of content has died down a lot.
zoobab 6y ago
Twitter and Facebook have been filtering the content they don't like, like the Assange trial reports: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/people-need-to-reclaim-the-internet/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/people-need-... We need a way to end this TOS feudalism.
- mro_name 6y ago
  indieweb.org/POSSE for the masses?
foxhop 6y ago
If you run a blog and are considering adding comments to allow for discourse outside of social media, checkout out my software and service called https://www.remarkbox.com/ https://www.remarkbox.com/ I made it pay-what-you-can today. works anywhere that supports HTML.
tomComb 6y ago
In a different vein, Twitter is actually pretty good in that it really embraces the web (links), whereas Facebook tries to replace the web and keep you in is proprietary platform. Maybe that's why Facebook makes so much more money.
- djohnston 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean, FB doesn't do anything to URLs except occasionally add a thumbnail preview if you post it. Google is the one trying to kill URLs with their AMP garbage.
  - raviisoccupied 6y ago
    Facebook and LinkedIn are well known for de-emphasising posts with links to external websites in their users' feeds.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Hnsuz 6y ago
Yes they are. Should be banned

134 points by jameslk 6y ago

anoncow 6y ago

So true. Endless distractions taking up countless man-hours.

marcinzm 6y ago
So? You can argue that this form of distraction doesn't bring net-happiness but what is wrong with pointless distractions that make people happy? Before this we had TV and before that Radio and before that Books and so on and so on.
- DoingIsLearning 6y ago
  I genuinely dislike Apple but their CEO has just shared some insights that very much go against your premise of social networks as just another harmless entertainment industry. "At a moment of rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms, we can no longer turn a blind eye to a theory of technology that says all engagement is good engagement -- the longer the better -- and all with the goal of collecting as much data as possible" "What are the consequences of seeing thousands of users join extremist groups, and then perpetuating an algorithm that recommends even more?" "Will the future belong to the innovations that make our lives better, more fulfilled and more human? Or will it belong to those tools that prize our attention to the exclusion of everything else, compounding our fears and aggregating extremism, to serve ever-more-invasively-targeted ads over all other ambitions?"
  - dionian 6y ago
    and of course, we all know who gets to define 'extremism'
    - TeaDrunk 6y ago
      Could you clarify? I don't understand the implication here. The above language can apply equally to any number of large, sometimes violent, protests that are primarily built on and disseminate information via a social media platform.
      - JKCalhoun 6y ago
        I thought extremism pretty much defined itself. Any political position that is void of any factual evidence to back it up, that acknowledges no nuance.... Just off the top of my head, but I think we all know extremism when we see/hear it.
        TeaDrunk 6y ago
        Yes, that's why I'm asking what the parent meant by "we all know who gets to define 'extremism'" because the rhetoric suggests my assumption of a broadly applicable notion of extremism might be incorrect.
        chevill 6y ago
        >Just off the top of my head, but I think we all know extremism when we see/hear it. I think there's a substantial amount of people that don't. Or rather, they can easily identify extremism in people they don't relate to while completely ignoring it in people that they find even the tiniest amount of common ground with. This seems to be the natural and inevitable result of treating politics like a team sport for 200+ years.
- JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
  Those things weren’t proven over and over again to lead to massive depression and mental health issues. TV ok somewhat bad but not all bad. It made us all on the same page, believing the same facts and entertained. Radio had to be pretty much all good. A kid listening to old radio shows laying in front of the console was in pure heaven. Facebook, etc. is purely detrimental to humanity like cigarettes or meth. I’d post the references but there are simply too many. I’ve never seen a study that didn’t find Facebook, Twitter, etc. detrimental to mental health.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Radio, books and TV often bring a lot more intellectual development and perspective than engagement-optimized content.
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    Only if you walk away from the experience thinking about it, processing it, perhaps thinking differently yourself. Few television shows did that for me — "Connections" is a HN favorite and changed my way of thinking. Several books by Kurt Vonnegut (and Dune as well, FWIW) also changed how I think about the world. Content is important is my point.
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    I don't know if this is true. The most popular and widely watched TV is reality TV drivel that is IMO no more intellectually stimulating than, say, 'Professional craftsmaker REACTS to viral TikTok videos!'.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
sn_master 6y ago
And only accepted speech is allowed. No longer your own private blog space to say whatever you wanted..
- tomjakubowski 6y ago
  Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have had content moderation from the beginning. They're just like web forums. They were never "private blog spaces to say whatever you wanted". There's been a "Report" button on all these sites for years. Even Myspace routinely banned users and groups over content issues. Here's one from 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20111011112224/http://www.secularstudents.org/node/1933 https://web.archive.org/web/20111011112224/http://www.secula...
  - dionian 6y ago
    Its nothing like it was today. It wasn't part and parcel of politics and elections like it is today. People weren't being ruined by woke mobs
  - zoobab 6y ago
    Even Hackernews has censored entire threads.
    - throwaway3699 6y ago
      The scale really changes things though...
  - sn_master 6y ago
    I was talking about the Internet as a whole turning into these walled gardens rather than older times where blogs were common. Even in case of FB, there wasn't as much crackdown on political groups as its happening now.

bartart 6y ago

I wonder how many of his original blog's visitors were just bots. Also social networks have really lowered the barrier to entry for posting your thoughts online. The marketplace of ideas is much more crowded.

asciident 6y ago
That seems a bit unfair to jump to thinking about bots, as he noted he had a lot of engaged visitors that commented and sent him emails. While the marketplace is more crowded, the number of markets has shrink. To continue your analogy, each marketplace vender used to be its own market, so you had a lot of options. Now there were really only 2-4 giant marketplaces, and vendors with a good location have made it really difficult to set up shop.

aminozuur 6y ago

I too am Persian. But I don't think we can blame Facebook for making a consistent user experience, where people can get whatever information/memes they want, sorted algorithmically to the users' taste.

StavrosK 6y ago
Can you blame tobacco companies for making something so addictive and harmful? It seems like we can and do.
- polynomial 6y ago
  That's the beauty of it. Harm from smoking is considered (by most accounts) objectively, medically, measurably bad. Harm from social media addiction isn't quantified in terms of cancer and death. "No one ever died from browsing Facebook" is likely false, but would be generally accepted as arguably true. "No one ever died because of Facebook" should be understood to be obviously untrue to a well-informed person.
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    Honestly, I feel millions of us (billions?) have died a little inside with the rise of Facebook and the like. But I'm speaking metaphorically, of course.
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      We have met the enemy and he is us is the real issue. It isn't easy to accept it but by all remotely reasonable standards a large chunk of the population are horrible people. Just look at the approval towards the National Guard's actions at Kent State. Strip away the status and "supports using the military to shoot unarmed and non-violentn students on campus" is not something a non-horrible person supports. But people find scapegoats so much easier. Facebook is vapid trash because vapid trash is highly popular.
      - 6y ago

Kye 6y ago

(2015)

Bakary 6y ago

His blogging golden age was in reality a time where there were simply far fewer users in general, and they were far more likely to be the type to seek out this sort of content and the activist relationship with the online world that he describes. Most people aren't really interested in that sort of discourse, or in changing the world, or in intellectual biodiversity and alternate views. The web wasn't killed by companies, it selected the companies that catered most to what most people actually want out of the web. He confuses his loss of status as a sign of the web's destruction but it is more a case of failing to capture the interest of changing demographics.

emilsedgh 6y ago
This is absolutely the correct read into this. Kudos for seeing this matter so clearly.
tomaszs 6y ago
It is tempting to discuss demographics, however it is still true there is a group of people, that still enjoys reading, and this part is left behind by social media. Since you can not link from insta and tiktok, you can not share longer meaningful articles. And even if you do, external links are ranked lower by social media platforms. Maybe, authors should create videos, however it seems people who have important things to say shy from video form. The question is if really video is the right choice for valuable content, or is not. Personally I think it is not a right medium for valuable content, therefore social media lacking features supporting text are just forcing not only enthusiastic readers, but also new demographics to consume brain fast-food. And it really is sad considering how much value has the Internet. I am thus glad that this place still exists.
- nicbou 6y ago
  There are still places to share those links, places that didn't exist before, and that reach a larger demographic. Blogging is getting a smaller share of a much larger pie, but in absolute terms, it's not going anywhere.
- graeme 6y ago

sidpatil 6y ago

(2015)

notsureaboutpg 6y ago

Eh, if you read the article, seems like he just wasn't as popular after his release from prison (understandably there are others who probably provide the content his audience seeks). Facebook, Twitter, etc. are still viable ways to market a blog in this day and age. I see a lot of people doing it well. It's also worth noting that when he was imprisoned there was more appetite for Iranian dissident posts in the West than there is now. Now after Persepolis, green movement, departure of Ahmedinejad, JCPOA, and Trump the appetite for that kind of content has died down a lot.

zoobab 6y ago

Twitter and Facebook have been filtering the content they don't like, like the Assange trial reports: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/people-need-to-reclaim-the-internet/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/people-need-... We need a way to end this TOS feudalism.

mro_name 6y ago
indieweb.org/POSSE for the masses?

foxhop 6y ago

If you run a blog and are considering adding comments to allow for discourse outside of social media, checkout out my software and service called https://www.remarkbox.com/ https://www.remarkbox.com/ I made it pay-what-you-can today. works anywhere that supports HTML.

tomComb 6y ago

In a different vein, Twitter is actually pretty good in that it really embraces the web (links), whereas Facebook tries to replace the web and keep you in is proprietary platform. Maybe that's why Facebook makes so much more money.

djohnston 6y ago
I'm not sure what you mean, FB doesn't do anything to URLs except occasionally add a thumbnail preview if you post it. Google is the one trying to kill URLs with their AMP garbage.
- raviisoccupied 6y ago
  Facebook and LinkedIn are well known for de-emphasising posts with links to external websites in their users' feeds.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Hnsuz 6y ago

Yes they are. Should be banned