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Personalization and algorithmic sorting/filtering needs to be outlawed. This is the only way that our country can finally stop dividing and come together. For
by russellbeattie 5y ago
Personalization and algorithmic sorting/filtering needs to be outlawed. This is the only way that our country can finally stop dividing and come together.
For the last century or so, we all had a consistent sense of shared ideals because traditional media presented all the same news and ads to everyone. This, it turns out, is a good thing for society - especially one with hundreds of millions of people.
Social media, however, manipulates everything that you see. I understand why - following just a few dozen accounts which post multiple times a day - on any service - and soon you will literally need to be doing nothing but scrolling all day to see all the posts. And most people are following hundreds of people. The math doesn't add up, so the algorithms try to increase engagement by bubbling interesting content to the top.
It turns out that the most engaging content is hatred and demagoguery - both in recommendations and advertising ("Let's Go Brandon t-shirts! Just $9.99!). Obviously not good, but what can we do since, for the most part, all that hatred is legal free speech.
The only way we can solve this is not by trying to limit free speech, but by limiting who doesn't see/hear it. Ads and suggested content need to be the exact same for everyone on an information service, and all sorting and filtering needs to be explicit.
Facebook KNOWS they are killing civil discourse and they KNOW the cause. They are too greedy to care. Which is why we need a law.
- boppo1 5y agoI dunno. Until the recent changes, Instagram has been very very much a net positive for me. I've connected with artists I love, learned how to improve my work, and paid a particular woodworker north of $1k for a couple pochade boxes I absolutely adore. Without Instagram, my life would be significantly less fulfilling. Caveat though: I'm very good at clicking 'not interested' for content that isn't right in my particularly desired niche.