3 ms·

That is unfortunately not trying to see the problem from the future hindsight. Which is the exercise that GP is suggesting.

heresie-dabord 5y ago
Social media is not a toxin of any sort. To call it "toxic" is a metaphor that expresses the revulsion that people feel for the idiocies that social media channels have uncovered. So I do disagree with the liberty of the metaphor in this case. Social media is the business of providing channels of communication to people in exchange for some lucrative data. Other businesses do this too (television, radio, newspapers). I am not at all a proponent of social media. The discourse is broken by petty, idiotic exchanges. The signal-to-noise ration is far too low and the sophisticated advertising techniques have become a form of surveillance that I reject. But petty, idiotic exchanges have always existed. So have ignorant people, propaganda, gullible people, and fanatics. They can meet in basements, in taverns, in temples, in arenas... The fundamental problem is failing education and social disorder. It takes great liberty of metaphor to compare social media to a real toxin. I share people's dislike of social media. But I will look back on the past decade and not blame any of the social-media companies for the idiocy of people who should know better through public education.
- chx 5y ago
  Failing education is certainly a big problem (and I financed a tiny reform school for five years trying to combat the tiniest of slices of it) but you are missing the power of reach. Not even Edward Murrow could dream of the reach of Facebook.
  - heresie-dabord 5y ago
    Television in the US has long had an astonishing reach. Even in 2021, there are media companies in the US that operate on a segmented market with notorious control (e.g. Fox). Would you say that the difference between television (TV) and social media (SM) is that TV can only push the propaganda from a central server, whereas SM provides the push of propaganda as well as mutual reinforcement through sharing comments? I find it all quite deplorable, I assure you. But I really think the "toxicity" is a precursor to the expression of the "toxic" opinions. They already existed, but were hushed by the shame of direct attribution in regular public discourse.
- Arainach 5y ago
  Knowing better does not make you immune to psychology. Social media, more than any other form of communication, is optimized to drive engagement through dopamine - the endless quest for likes, views, and so on. The weaponization of this to spread misinformation is an inevitable consequence of the business model, not an accident. The biggest players in the industry know these feedback loops and their consequences and encourage them still to prop up profits. This has serious consequences to society and to human lives. The executives of social media companies are just as culpable as the executives of oil companies who suppressed research on the effects of tobacco in the 60s/70s and global warming research in the 80s.
- mellavora 5y ago
  Lead poisoning does have a clear biological mechanism, establishing it as a toxin in a way that social media does not. However, the liberty of the metaphor is well justified. Social media is a plausible (not proven, but plausible) factor in a 57% increase in teen suicide between 2008 and 2018 (noting that rates were stable for the years 2000-2008, and that 2006 was the watershed year for smartphones and social media)[1]. I'm not motivated to dig out the numerous resources showing the deleterious influence of social media on teen psychology, but it doesn't take much searching if you are open. There are clear psychological mechanisms, and Facebook especially was clearly and explicitly designed to take advantage of these psychological mechanisms. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-11-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-11-508.pdf
  - heresie-dabord 5y ago
    > clearly and explicitly designed to take advantage of these psychological mechanisms. "Explicit manipulation" is a modus operandi of business and politics. At what point it becomes mephistophelian is largely determined by group conventions. Social media accounts can become for some people an avatar of self-worth. There is even the reputational business model, i.e. linking business profiles. (Let's leave aside for now the question of streaming sex-work and voyeurism.) But for the vast majority of users (I estimate hundreds of millions of users, on the back of a napkin), social media is not fatal or damaging. People connect, check friends' news and say hello, then disconnect. > not proven, but plausible We know that social media has been used in some cases for bullying and cruelty. The evidence has been tried in court. Social media has been a means of communication in these cases, like the anonymous telephone call or the stamped papermail. (The ghoulish Edgar J. Hoover had his vile FBI operation send at least one letter to MLK telling the civil-rights leader to kill himself.)[1] The worse tendencies of human nature have of course been known to us for some time. Adam Smith wrecked the job prospects of his friend David Hume. On Usenet of yore, there were flame wars: people pursuing a quarrel because someone is wrong on the Internet.[2] Also consider a funny piece by Woody Allen about two stubborn men playing chess by stamped papermail. Irascibility, stubbornness, cruelty, and schadenfreude joy are failings of character that are usually treated as legal. Bullying is a problem and is explicitly punishable in some codes of conduct. To cause death is much worse, of course. It is a crime. Bullying does happen every day, in hallways and buses and roadways and offices, among people of all ages. There are tyrannical bosses, tavern disputes, cruel remarks in sport, and the art and business of gossip. In some cases, we even applaud a great leader despite that fact that he treats people like rubbish. (I think of at least one famous figure in computing and one former elected leader of a large country.) In short, I would not say in this case that correlation equals causation, but correlation may indicate something disturbing about the collapse of group ethics and social discourse. I find social media deplorable for the tone of people's discourse. I also don't like television or malicious text messages. By the way, I upvoted your post. Cheers! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette... [2] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Xkcd https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Xkcd
- wruza 5y ago
  Social media is the business of providing channels of communication to people in exchange for In most popular cases, it is communication of people to finely drawn images of all sorts of ideas which bring money. Social media is not a social media, it’s an advertising/deception media. Face it: people on average are not able to socialize properly on a large scale, because the reality is boring and images of all sorts are escapist’s fun. That’s why cinema/theaters and artists existed since forever. “Social” media is a well-coined term that everyone accepted blindly.

heresie-dabord 5y ago

Social media is not a toxin of any sort. To call it "toxic" is a metaphor that expresses the revulsion that people feel for the idiocies that social media channels have uncovered. So I do disagree with the liberty of the metaphor in this case. Social media is the business of providing channels of communication to people in exchange for some lucrative data. Other businesses do this too (television, radio, newspapers). I am not at all a proponent of social media. The discourse is broken by petty, idiotic exchanges. The signal-to-noise ration is far too low and the sophisticated advertising techniques have become a form of surveillance that I reject. But petty, idiotic exchanges have always existed. So have ignorant people, propaganda, gullible people, and fanatics. They can meet in basements, in taverns, in temples, in arenas... The fundamental problem is failing education and social disorder. It takes great liberty of metaphor to compare social media to a real toxin. I share people's dislike of social media. But I will look back on the past decade and not blame any of the social-media companies for the idiocy of people who should know better through public education.

chx 5y ago
Failing education is certainly a big problem (and I financed a tiny reform school for five years trying to combat the tiniest of slices of it) but you are missing the power of reach. Not even Edward Murrow could dream of the reach of Facebook.
- heresie-dabord 5y ago
  Television in the US has long had an astonishing reach. Even in 2021, there are media companies in the US that operate on a segmented market with notorious control (e.g. Fox). Would you say that the difference between television (TV) and social media (SM) is that TV can only push the propaganda from a central server, whereas SM provides the push of propaganda as well as mutual reinforcement through sharing comments? I find it all quite deplorable, I assure you. But I really think the "toxicity" is a precursor to the expression of the "toxic" opinions. They already existed, but were hushed by the shame of direct attribution in regular public discourse.
Arainach 5y ago
Knowing better does not make you immune to psychology. Social media, more than any other form of communication, is optimized to drive engagement through dopamine - the endless quest for likes, views, and so on. The weaponization of this to spread misinformation is an inevitable consequence of the business model, not an accident. The biggest players in the industry know these feedback loops and their consequences and encourage them still to prop up profits. This has serious consequences to society and to human lives. The executives of social media companies are just as culpable as the executives of oil companies who suppressed research on the effects of tobacco in the 60s/70s and global warming research in the 80s.
mellavora 5y ago
Lead poisoning does have a clear biological mechanism, establishing it as a toxin in a way that social media does not. However, the liberty of the metaphor is well justified. Social media is a plausible (not proven, but plausible) factor in a 57% increase in teen suicide between 2008 and 2018 (noting that rates were stable for the years 2000-2008, and that 2006 was the watershed year for smartphones and social media)[1]. I'm not motivated to dig out the numerous resources showing the deleterious influence of social media on teen psychology, but it doesn't take much searching if you are open. There are clear psychological mechanisms, and Facebook especially was clearly and explicitly designed to take advantage of these psychological mechanisms. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-11-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-11-508.pdf
- heresie-dabord 5y ago
  > clearly and explicitly designed to take advantage of these psychological mechanisms. "Explicit manipulation" is a modus operandi of business and politics. At what point it becomes mephistophelian is largely determined by group conventions. Social media accounts can become for some people an avatar of self-worth. There is even the reputational business model, i.e. linking business profiles. (Let's leave aside for now the question of streaming sex-work and voyeurism.) But for the vast majority of users (I estimate hundreds of millions of users, on the back of a napkin), social media is not fatal or damaging. People connect, check friends' news and say hello, then disconnect. > not proven, but plausible We know that social media has been used in some cases for bullying and cruelty. The evidence has been tried in court. Social media has been a means of communication in these cases, like the anonymous telephone call or the stamped papermail. (The ghoulish Edgar J. Hoover had his vile FBI operation send at least one letter to MLK telling the civil-rights leader to kill himself.)[1] The worse tendencies of human nature have of course been known to us for some time. Adam Smith wrecked the job prospects of his friend David Hume. On Usenet of yore, there were flame wars: people pursuing a quarrel because someone is wrong on the Internet.[2] Also consider a funny piece by Woody Allen about two stubborn men playing chess by stamped papermail. Irascibility, stubbornness, cruelty, and schadenfreude joy are failings of character that are usually treated as legal. Bullying is a problem and is explicitly punishable in some codes of conduct. To cause death is much worse, of course. It is a crime. Bullying does happen every day, in hallways and buses and roadways and offices, among people of all ages. There are tyrannical bosses, tavern disputes, cruel remarks in sport, and the art and business of gossip. In some cases, we even applaud a great leader despite that fact that he treats people like rubbish. (I think of at least one famous figure in computing and one former elected leader of a large country.) In short, I would not say in this case that correlation equals causation, but correlation may indicate something disturbing about the collapse of group ethics and social discourse. I find social media deplorable for the tone of people's discourse. I also don't like television or malicious text messages. By the way, I upvoted your post. Cheers! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette... [2] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Xkcd https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Xkcd
wruza 5y ago
Social media is the business of providing channels of communication to people in exchange for In most popular cases, it is communication of people to finely drawn images of all sorts of ideas which bring money. Social media is not a social media, it’s an advertising/deception media. Face it: people on average are not able to socialize properly on a large scale, because the reality is boring and images of all sorts are escapist’s fun. That’s why cinema/theaters and artists existed since forever. “Social” media is a well-coined term that everyone accepted blindly.