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I think social media has proven pretty conclusively that giving the general population unfiltered information and enabling everyone to promote whatever they wan

I think social media has proven pretty conclusively that giving the general population unfiltered information and enabling everyone to promote whatever they want is in fact a terrible idea

marcosdumay 5y ago
How so? Social media only started being a societal problem after it became heavily filtered.
- bloopernova 5y ago
  I believe that is not correct. Social media is fine in basic forms, such as Reddit/HN style forum threads, and Facebook's keeping-in-touch-with-old-friends and arranging events. Mixing news into social media, sharing stories to Facebook, turned it from a coffee shop into a town square with a million soap boxes. Bad actors then seized that format and used it to spread propaganda and disinformation. That's not to say that the basic forms of social media were perfect, far from it. They're just as susceptible to manipulation. There's just something about Facebook's link to (mostly) real identities that elevates it to a hugely effective propaganda platform.
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    > Mixing news into social media, sharing stories to Facebook, turned it from a coffee shop into a town square with a million soap boxes. That only happened after Facebook decided to editorialize everybody's main view. People were not even used to sharing news at that point, but it was the only thing that Facebook allowed to spread. Anyway, I'm not sure about causality. But claiming that fake news spreading through a heavily editorialized medium is proof that people can not handle self selecting their information is a complete non-sequitur.
    - bloopernova 5y ago
      "That only happened after Facebook decided to editorialize everybody's main view. People were not even used to sharing news at that point, but it was the only thing that Facebook allowed to spread." That's a great point, I hadn't considered that. Thank you!

I think social media has proven pretty conclusively that giving the general population unfiltered information and enabling everyone to promote whatever they want is in fact a terrible idea

marcosdumay 5y ago

How so? Social media only started being a societal problem after it became heavily filtered.

bloopernova 5y ago
I believe that is not correct. Social media is fine in basic forms, such as Reddit/HN style forum threads, and Facebook's keeping-in-touch-with-old-friends and arranging events. Mixing news into social media, sharing stories to Facebook, turned it from a coffee shop into a town square with a million soap boxes. Bad actors then seized that format and used it to spread propaganda and disinformation. That's not to say that the basic forms of social media were perfect, far from it. They're just as susceptible to manipulation. There's just something about Facebook's link to (mostly) real identities that elevates it to a hugely effective propaganda platform.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  > Mixing news into social media, sharing stories to Facebook, turned it from a coffee shop into a town square with a million soap boxes. That only happened after Facebook decided to editorialize everybody's main view. People were not even used to sharing news at that point, but it was the only thing that Facebook allowed to spread. Anyway, I'm not sure about causality. But claiming that fake news spreading through a heavily editorialized medium is proof that people can not handle self selecting their information is a complete non-sequitur.
  - bloopernova 5y ago
    "That only happened after Facebook decided to editorialize everybody's main view. People were not even used to sharing news at that point, but it was the only thing that Facebook allowed to spread." That's a great point, I hadn't considered that. Thank you!