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> I know the common refrain is "Delete Facebook!" but that's the equivalent of abstinence-only education. We need to start talking about how to configure Screen

> I know the common refrain is "Delete Facebook!" but that's the equivalent of abstinence-only education. We need to start talking about how to configure Screen Time on iOS, or how to use Facebook's built-in tools to hide content you don't want to see. I see it more akin to the opioid crisis. Just like drug manufactures shouldn't be pushing opioids as a way to deal with minor pain and depression because they know it hooks users. Maybe social media companies shouldn't be pushing hateful and outrageous content to hook their users. You can sing about personal responsibility all you want. But these companies pay scientists millions of dollars a year to come up with ways to keep you hooked. The only way to win is not to play the game. Normal people are seriously outgunned here.

tppiotrowski 6y ago
Can you provide some reading material about the scientists that get paid millions of dollars to keep you hooked? This is the first time I’ve heard of scientists involved.
- theplague42 6y ago
  Literally any analyst or data science job related to growth or user engagement on social media. https://research.fb.com/category/data-science/ https://research.fb.com/category/data-science/
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - tacocataco 6y ago
    Thanks for the link. I feel the downvotes were unwarranted. (Not accusing you of Downvoting) Perhaps the user isn't familiar with the industry. I know I'm out of my league with most of the content posted here. https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
    - quantified 6y ago
      Thanks for the xkcd link!
- loopz 6y ago
  They for sure don't work on solving the climate crisis. That's unprofitable. Wall Street gobbled up most ph.D's and researchers years ago, but marketing/ads space have a stranglehold on much of it nowadays.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  There are lots of examples of this. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/18/facebook-cambridge-analytica-joseph-chancellor-gsr https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/18/facebook-cambri... > He was hired to work at Facebook as a quantitative social psychologist around November 2015, roughly two months after leaving GSR, which had by then acquired data on millions of Facebook users. https://venturebeat.com/2014/06/07/exclusive-to-sell-ads-in-the-developing-world-facebook-is-hiring-sociologists/ https://venturebeat.com/2014/06/07/exclusive-to-sell-ads-in-... > Corey has been working as a quantitative researcher at Facebook since last summer. His growth research team has “two sociologists and a manager trained in communications with a sociologist as an advisor,” according to an article he published early this year. The team helps expand Facebook to developing countries. Corey uses R-based software stack, collects data via Hive and uses a few other coding languages to do his job. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every... > We now know that’s exactly what happened two years ago. For one week in January 2012, data scientists skewed what almost 700,000 Facebook users saw when they logged into its service. Some people were shown content with a preponderance of happy and positive words; some were shown content analyzed as sadder than average. And when the week was over, these manipulated users were more likely to post either especially positive or negative words themselves. > This tinkering was just revealed as part of a new study, published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Many previous studies have used Facebook data to examine “emotional contagion,” as this one did. This study is different because, while other studies have observed Facebook user data, this one set out to manipulate it.
- ummonk 6y ago
  FANG pay is usually hundreds of thousands not millions, but most data scientists at these companies are working to optimize user engagement.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    They spend millions on multiple scientists, not per-head.
misdichotomy 6y ago
> Normal people are seriously outgunned here. This is quite right. PragmaticPulp's phrase "an act perpetrated by evil corporations on us helpless individuals" is a bit of rhetorical jujitsu, creating a strawman to set up a rallying cry "I believe people have agency!" You don't have to assume that individuals are "helpless", as if they are generally helpless and lacking agency, to agree that these corporations are exploiting them. That said, people's agency is limited (bounded rationality). Awareness of how one is being manipulated is not evenly distributed among the population (asymmetric information). And even when there is awareness, people are unevenly affected by it and unevenly empowered to deal with it.
- danaliv 6y ago
  Indeed, that's precisely what makes these techniques so powerful. For many people, even self-knowledge isn't a reliable defense.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  It’s not just normal people who are outgunned — I am tech-savvy and have had an iPhone since the day they were released. I know how to modify notification settings, but there’s nothing I can do preemptively when can simply Twitter add a new category of notifications, as they did the other day. I had to go into the notification settings within the app and disable this new category, and then do it again for each of the three accounts on my phone. Similarly, Lyft makes it nearly impossible to figure out where to turn off the coupon notifications. And don’t get me started on LinkedIn... This isn’t just an issue for normal people. It’s also time-consuming and troublesome for anyone short of the dev who built the dark pattern.
  - guntars 6y ago
    Why would you have notifications turned on for Twitter? Just turn them off. The trick is to intentionally go on social media and waste time, instead of being pulled in by a notification.
    - gnicholas 6y ago
goatinaboat 6y ago
these companies pay scientists millions of dollars a year to come up with ways to keep you hooked Exactly like tobacco companies had scientists on the payroll to boost addiction. That is the best and most accurate analogue for Facebook I believe, it’s like smoking, it’s addictive and it externalises its harmful effects.

tppiotrowski 6y ago

Can you provide some reading material about the scientists that get paid millions of dollars to keep you hooked? This is the first time I’ve heard of scientists involved.

theplague42 6y ago
Literally any analyst or data science job related to growth or user engagement on social media. https://research.fb.com/category/data-science/ https://research.fb.com/category/data-science/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tacocataco 6y ago
  Thanks for the link. I feel the downvotes were unwarranted. (Not accusing you of Downvoting) Perhaps the user isn't familiar with the industry. I know I'm out of my league with most of the content posted here. https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
  - quantified 6y ago
    Thanks for the xkcd link!
loopz 6y ago
They for sure don't work on solving the climate crisis. That's unprofitable. Wall Street gobbled up most ph.D's and researchers years ago, but marketing/ads space have a stranglehold on much of it nowadays.
ceejayoz 6y ago
There are lots of examples of this. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/18/facebook-cambridge-analytica-joseph-chancellor-gsr https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/18/facebook-cambri... > He was hired to work at Facebook as a quantitative social psychologist around November 2015, roughly two months after leaving GSR, which had by then acquired data on millions of Facebook users. https://venturebeat.com/2014/06/07/exclusive-to-sell-ads-in-the-developing-world-facebook-is-hiring-sociologists/ https://venturebeat.com/2014/06/07/exclusive-to-sell-ads-in-... > Corey has been working as a quantitative researcher at Facebook since last summer. His growth research team has “two sociologists and a manager trained in communications with a sociologist as an advisor,” according to an article he published early this year. The team helps expand Facebook to developing countries. Corey uses R-based software stack, collects data via Hive and uses a few other coding languages to do his job. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every... > We now know that’s exactly what happened two years ago. For one week in January 2012, data scientists skewed what almost 700,000 Facebook users saw when they logged into its service. Some people were shown content with a preponderance of happy and positive words; some were shown content analyzed as sadder than average. And when the week was over, these manipulated users were more likely to post either especially positive or negative words themselves. > This tinkering was just revealed as part of a new study, published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Many previous studies have used Facebook data to examine “emotional contagion,” as this one did. This study is different because, while other studies have observed Facebook user data, this one set out to manipulate it.
ummonk 6y ago
FANG pay is usually hundreds of thousands not millions, but most data scientists at these companies are working to optimize user engagement.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  They spend millions on multiple scientists, not per-head.

misdichotomy 6y ago

> Normal people are seriously outgunned here. This is quite right. PragmaticPulp's phrase "an act perpetrated by evil corporations on us helpless individuals" is a bit of rhetorical jujitsu, creating a strawman to set up a rallying cry "I believe people have agency!" You don't have to assume that individuals are "helpless", as if they are generally helpless and lacking agency, to agree that these corporations are exploiting them. That said, people's agency is limited (bounded rationality). Awareness of how one is being manipulated is not evenly distributed among the population (asymmetric information). And even when there is awareness, people are unevenly affected by it and unevenly empowered to deal with it.

danaliv 6y ago
Indeed, that's precisely what makes these techniques so powerful. For many people, even self-knowledge isn't a reliable defense.
gnicholas 6y ago
It’s not just normal people who are outgunned — I am tech-savvy and have had an iPhone since the day they were released. I know how to modify notification settings, but there’s nothing I can do preemptively when can simply Twitter add a new category of notifications, as they did the other day. I had to go into the notification settings within the app and disable this new category, and then do it again for each of the three accounts on my phone. Similarly, Lyft makes it nearly impossible to figure out where to turn off the coupon notifications. And don’t get me started on LinkedIn... This isn’t just an issue for normal people. It’s also time-consuming and troublesome for anyone short of the dev who built the dark pattern.
- guntars 6y ago
  Why would you have notifications turned on for Twitter? Just turn them off. The trick is to intentionally go on social media and waste time, instead of being pulled in by a notification.
  - gnicholas 6y ago

goatinaboat 6y ago

these companies pay scientists millions of dollars a year to come up with ways to keep you hooked Exactly like tobacco companies had scientists on the payroll to boost addiction. That is the best and most accurate analogue for Facebook I believe, it’s like smoking, it’s addictive and it externalises its harmful effects.