4 ms·

Social media can be fixed by legislating it out of existence. It doesn't even need a watchdog agency like the environment does.

marcinzm 5y ago
Define social media? Does discord count? Does mastadon count? Do forums count? Does hacker news count? Stack overflow? Github?
- smolder 5y ago
  All of those do count, but many people have a narrower definition because of how the term "social media" is often shorthand for Twitter, FB, IG, and similar when used in the traditional media.
  - marcinzm 5y ago
    My point is that if you want to ban something then you need a specific dividing line other than "like Twitter." Otherwise either everything is banned or nothing is banned since everyone just uses loopholes. And if everything is banned you better be sure you actually want everything banned.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
Remove Section 230 protections for profit driven social networks, carve out exemptions for public goods and other sites operated without a profit intent (Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, Hacker News, etc) and the problem solves itself (the cost to police/moderate the platform rises above a point where the revenue returned is no longer sufficient to make the endeavor worthwhile). Social media is toxic due to the social fabric impact being externalized and socialized while the profits are privatized.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Sadly, the solution so described amounts to nationalizing free speech (between the removal of protections and the "blessing" of some few channels). Wouldn't fly in the US, so it's a non-starters since those companies are based in the US.
  - busterarm 5y ago
    Except in reality it's the opposite. Free Speech is SO IMPORTANT that it can't be fettered by private companies for private gain like Facebook.
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      No disagreement that free speech is important, but the solution proposed up-thread wouldn't safeguard it. In practice, it would instead limit controversial content to only a small set of sites while everything else (for fear of lawsuits currently headed off by S230 protections) would either close shop or become more moderated than it already is. ... This is in addition to the legal / philosophical criticism that the government repealing S230 protection for all but a few websites would be equivalent to the government providing libel-lawsuit protection to only a few state-sanctioned media outlets. Wholly incompatible with the first amendment.
    - soundnote 5y ago
      It really doesn't matter the system - people are already upset that people they don't like are doing things like selling NFTs (please don't buy NFTs, they're cringe)
- smolder 5y ago
  I could get behind some more restrictions on websites of a certain size, but putting any burden on brand-new web site owners beyond urgently dealing with problematic content is too much of a burden. It just acts as a moat for powerful incumbents, and they have far too deep moats as it is.
- chx 5y ago
  OK, Facebook is now a non profit which only income comes from selling ad space to "Definitely Not Facebook Inc" at such a price which avoids racking up profits. (Like ad house of old.)
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Non profit can't have shareholders, and there are regulations around how non profits operate financially.
- viro 5y ago
  That would just destroy all user generated content on the internet....
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    It would destroy user generated content below the value of moderation cost on certain platforms.
    - viro 5y ago
      You can't know the quality of content before it is submitted. It would effectively turn the internet into TV. Did you forget web hosting is also protected by section 230? Web hosting as we know it would go away. Every site update would need to be pre-approved by the web hosting company.
jacquesm 5y ago
What makes you think HN is exempt from that? If you feel it needs fixing by killing it then why are you participating in it, and by extension validating it rather than arguing for that fix?
- busterarm 5y ago
  I could survive without HN. The internet existed before it. We had things like webrings and mailing lists that were highly personal forms of communication & aggregation. You could even find content that you wanted online before Google made search pay-to-play. Killing social media and requiring services (like email, etc) not be an ad-supported free model (where the product is the user) would completely transform the internet (and its balance of power) as we know it and for the better. SomethingAwful charging $10 for an account was always/accidentally the right idea.
  - NoGravitas 5y ago
    This, 100%. I only come to the Orange Website to see what bad ideas are currently popular in the industry, and it never fails to provide.
  - handrous 5y ago
    My consistent answer to the "if companies weren't allowed to spy on you and do other horrible shit, and if ad dollars dried up, all these sites would go away!" argument is that all those sites have value approaching zero anyway. So they go away. Oh well. The Web loses 1% of its decent content, while the remaining 99% gets higher visibility, more funding, more interest/attention (which can improve quality, as in, say, collaborative communities like Wikipedia, or open source). The rest of the cost is the loss of a bunch of shit content that most people could/would replace with time-wasters like sudoku or Tetris or entertainment magazines, and carry on with life. Seems like a bargain to me.
    - busterarm 5y ago
      You also couldn't have megalithic companies like Google that bait you into their ecosystem with "free shit" like Gmail and search completely bankrolled out of their other primary enterprise. Google uses Ads to unevenly compete with every other software company on the planet. Google can buy your company and outpay you for engineers with what is essentially their financial fingernail clippings. The thing that's gained in this scenario is all of the talent that could be going to other things besides optimizing ads.
ryan93 5y ago
Care to explain why your hackernews profile says "Censors have never been on the right side of history" ?
- busterarm 5y ago
  That's not censorship. I'm not out celebrating when a country like Turkey or something blocks Twitter. No, I'm advocating the Amish approach. It's perfectly reasonable and noble for a society to get together and decide "we're not going to use X". There's nothing censorial about that. It's the same kind of logic people use to advocate against things like ICEs and eating meat. Are vegans trying to "censor" your meat-eating? No. It's the same kind of reasoning behind us having _any_ laws to begin with. And I'm not even talking about blocking Twitter. I'm saying that legislatively we should make sure that no company with a product like it can do business in our country(-ies). The same way that we have laws in place that prevent companies from business practices like "dumping toxic waste next to your housing development" under threat of force (like we will fine you to hell and back and then throw you in prison). Is that censorship too? Come back with a more thoroughly-reasoned argument, please.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    I need a thoroughly reasoned argument? You are comparing twitter to physical toxic waste.

marcinzm 5y ago

Define social media? Does discord count? Does mastadon count? Do forums count? Does hacker news count? Stack overflow? Github?

smolder 5y ago
All of those do count, but many people have a narrower definition because of how the term "social media" is often shorthand for Twitter, FB, IG, and similar when used in the traditional media.
- marcinzm 5y ago
  My point is that if you want to ban something then you need a specific dividing line other than "like Twitter." Otherwise either everything is banned or nothing is banned since everyone just uses loopholes. And if everything is banned you better be sure you actually want everything banned.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

Remove Section 230 protections for profit driven social networks, carve out exemptions for public goods and other sites operated without a profit intent (Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, Hacker News, etc) and the problem solves itself (the cost to police/moderate the platform rises above a point where the revenue returned is no longer sufficient to make the endeavor worthwhile). Social media is toxic due to the social fabric impact being externalized and socialized while the profits are privatized.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Sadly, the solution so described amounts to nationalizing free speech (between the removal of protections and the "blessing" of some few channels). Wouldn't fly in the US, so it's a non-starters since those companies are based in the US.
- busterarm 5y ago
  Except in reality it's the opposite. Free Speech is SO IMPORTANT that it can't be fettered by private companies for private gain like Facebook.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    No disagreement that free speech is important, but the solution proposed up-thread wouldn't safeguard it. In practice, it would instead limit controversial content to only a small set of sites while everything else (for fear of lawsuits currently headed off by S230 protections) would either close shop or become more moderated than it already is. ... This is in addition to the legal / philosophical criticism that the government repealing S230 protection for all but a few websites would be equivalent to the government providing libel-lawsuit protection to only a few state-sanctioned media outlets. Wholly incompatible with the first amendment.
  - soundnote 5y ago
    It really doesn't matter the system - people are already upset that people they don't like are doing things like selling NFTs (please don't buy NFTs, they're cringe)
smolder 5y ago
I could get behind some more restrictions on websites of a certain size, but putting any burden on brand-new web site owners beyond urgently dealing with problematic content is too much of a burden. It just acts as a moat for powerful incumbents, and they have far too deep moats as it is.
chx 5y ago
OK, Facebook is now a non profit which only income comes from selling ad space to "Definitely Not Facebook Inc" at such a price which avoids racking up profits. (Like ad house of old.)
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Non profit can't have shareholders, and there are regulations around how non profits operate financially.
viro 5y ago
That would just destroy all user generated content on the internet....
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  It would destroy user generated content below the value of moderation cost on certain platforms.
  - viro 5y ago
    You can't know the quality of content before it is submitted. It would effectively turn the internet into TV. Did you forget web hosting is also protected by section 230? Web hosting as we know it would go away. Every site update would need to be pre-approved by the web hosting company.

jacquesm 5y ago

What makes you think HN is exempt from that? If you feel it needs fixing by killing it then why are you participating in it, and by extension validating it rather than arguing for that fix?

busterarm 5y ago
I could survive without HN. The internet existed before it. We had things like webrings and mailing lists that were highly personal forms of communication & aggregation. You could even find content that you wanted online before Google made search pay-to-play. Killing social media and requiring services (like email, etc) not be an ad-supported free model (where the product is the user) would completely transform the internet (and its balance of power) as we know it and for the better. SomethingAwful charging $10 for an account was always/accidentally the right idea.
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  This, 100%. I only come to the Orange Website to see what bad ideas are currently popular in the industry, and it never fails to provide.
- handrous 5y ago
  My consistent answer to the "if companies weren't allowed to spy on you and do other horrible shit, and if ad dollars dried up, all these sites would go away!" argument is that all those sites have value approaching zero anyway. So they go away. Oh well. The Web loses 1% of its decent content, while the remaining 99% gets higher visibility, more funding, more interest/attention (which can improve quality, as in, say, collaborative communities like Wikipedia, or open source). The rest of the cost is the loss of a bunch of shit content that most people could/would replace with time-wasters like sudoku or Tetris or entertainment magazines, and carry on with life. Seems like a bargain to me.
  - busterarm 5y ago
    You also couldn't have megalithic companies like Google that bait you into their ecosystem with "free shit" like Gmail and search completely bankrolled out of their other primary enterprise. Google uses Ads to unevenly compete with every other software company on the planet. Google can buy your company and outpay you for engineers with what is essentially their financial fingernail clippings. The thing that's gained in this scenario is all of the talent that could be going to other things besides optimizing ads.

ryan93 5y ago

Care to explain why your hackernews profile says "Censors have never been on the right side of history" ?

busterarm 5y ago
That's not censorship. I'm not out celebrating when a country like Turkey or something blocks Twitter. No, I'm advocating the Amish approach. It's perfectly reasonable and noble for a society to get together and decide "we're not going to use X". There's nothing censorial about that. It's the same kind of logic people use to advocate against things like ICEs and eating meat. Are vegans trying to "censor" your meat-eating? No. It's the same kind of reasoning behind us having _any_ laws to begin with. And I'm not even talking about blocking Twitter. I'm saying that legislatively we should make sure that no company with a product like it can do business in our country(-ies). The same way that we have laws in place that prevent companies from business practices like "dumping toxic waste next to your housing development" under threat of force (like we will fine you to hell and back and then throw you in prison). Is that censorship too? Come back with a more thoroughly-reasoned argument, please.
- ryan93 5y ago
  I need a thoroughly reasoned argument? You are comparing twitter to physical toxic waste.