3 ms·

To take it one step further I'm convinced at this point that the social conundrum presented by Twitter and other social media platforms has extended far beyond

To take it one step further I'm convinced at this point that the social conundrum presented by Twitter and other social media platforms has extended far beyond the algorithm and the platforms themselves, and into how people interact in general. The reductionist, reactionary mode of thinking now rears its head in my real-world interactions. I wouldn't care as much if people kept that stuff on these social platforms that I spend next to zero time on, but I can't help but roll my eyes when my friends speak in "hot takes" as if I'm handing out certificates for internet points.

jancsika 5y ago
> To take it one step further I'm convinced at this point that the social conundrum presented by Twitter and other social media platforms has extended far beyond the algorithm and the platforms themselves, and into how people interact in general. A cryptographer once mentioned attacking the PGP WoT by uploading a shadow WoT that has different keys with the same emails/names and signing-graph structure. Similar to what you note-- the real problems come when some bona fide WoT user fucks up and accidentally signs a key from the shadow graph. Even if it's just a single accidental signature before the shadow WoT is spotted and cleaned up, the admin would probably want to quickly go out of band to actually fix the original WoT at that point-- otherwise perhaps the shadow admin got to the user first. :) (And of course if the shadow graph were uploaded incrementally over a wider period of time, the problems probably become a bigger pain in the ass.) The problem you mention is in the same category. But rather than being hypothetical, it is real and probably as bad an instance as someone could design given current technology. To make the WoT attack above comparable, I'm imagining a Debian user accidentally signing a shadow key, then receiving messages from that key that convince them Debian keyring is in fact the shadow key ring and they should use their permissions to destroy Debian. Edit: and I guess in keeping with the analogy, the purpose of the propaganda emails is to generate as much outrage in the recipient as possible, so that they may spend more time reading the entire email on the off chance they also spend one or two seconds extra looking at the ad in the email signature about a special on a nice pair of designer pants.
- seventytwo 5y ago
  > To make the WoT attack above comparable, I'm imagining a Debian user accidentally signing a shadow key, then receiving messages from that key that convince them Debian keyring is in fact the shadow key ring and they should use their permissions to destroy Debian. This is actually what’s happening with the partitioning of the information streams in the US. Even if everyone had identical brains, everyone operates on partial information of the world. If you provide left wing material to one group, and right wing material to the other group, they’ll polarize exactly as you’d expect, even being identical people existing in the same world. The problem isn’t balanced across the political spectrum, though - it just so happens that the right wing has a faultier take on reality than the left wing, but there’s no reason that couldn’t flip in the near future.
seventytwo 5y ago
That’s probably true. Prior to social media, the social benefit to making pithy, reductionist “takes” was small compared to maintaining in-person relationships in relatively good terms. Now, however, the perceived social benefit of those same takes is huge, as they can go viral online and rack up major internet points. This translates to real life interactions. Those relationships we would have preferred to maintain by keeping our mouths shut are now under attack because we inadvertently use our internet takes IRL. (Just a hypothesis…)

jancsika 5y ago

> To take it one step further I'm convinced at this point that the social conundrum presented by Twitter and other social media platforms has extended far beyond the algorithm and the platforms themselves, and into how people interact in general. A cryptographer once mentioned attacking the PGP WoT by uploading a shadow WoT that has different keys with the same emails/names and signing-graph structure. Similar to what you note-- the real problems come when some bona fide WoT user fucks up and accidentally signs a key from the shadow graph. Even if it's just a single accidental signature before the shadow WoT is spotted and cleaned up, the admin would probably want to quickly go out of band to actually fix the original WoT at that point-- otherwise perhaps the shadow admin got to the user first. :) (And of course if the shadow graph were uploaded incrementally over a wider period of time, the problems probably become a bigger pain in the ass.) The problem you mention is in the same category. But rather than being hypothetical, it is real and probably as bad an instance as someone could design given current technology. To make the WoT attack above comparable, I'm imagining a Debian user accidentally signing a shadow key, then receiving messages from that key that convince them Debian keyring is in fact the shadow key ring and they should use their permissions to destroy Debian. Edit: and I guess in keeping with the analogy, the purpose of the propaganda emails is to generate as much outrage in the recipient as possible, so that they may spend more time reading the entire email on the off chance they also spend one or two seconds extra looking at the ad in the email signature about a special on a nice pair of designer pants.

seventytwo 5y ago
> To make the WoT attack above comparable, I'm imagining a Debian user accidentally signing a shadow key, then receiving messages from that key that convince them Debian keyring is in fact the shadow key ring and they should use their permissions to destroy Debian. This is actually what’s happening with the partitioning of the information streams in the US. Even if everyone had identical brains, everyone operates on partial information of the world. If you provide left wing material to one group, and right wing material to the other group, they’ll polarize exactly as you’d expect, even being identical people existing in the same world. The problem isn’t balanced across the political spectrum, though - it just so happens that the right wing has a faultier take on reality than the left wing, but there’s no reason that couldn’t flip in the near future.

seventytwo 5y ago

That’s probably true. Prior to social media, the social benefit to making pithy, reductionist “takes” was small compared to maintaining in-person relationships in relatively good terms. Now, however, the perceived social benefit of those same takes is huge, as they can go viral online and rack up major internet points. This translates to real life interactions. Those relationships we would have preferred to maintain by keeping our mouths shut are now under attack because we inadvertently use our internet takes IRL. (Just a hypothesis…)