4 ms·

In general I think I agree with you, but on forums this is subtly different. In a general internet forum, it's up to you decide what you read. On FB, there's

by bb88 5y ago

In general I think I agree with you, but on forums this is subtly different. In a general internet forum, it's up to you decide what you read. On FB, there's an algorithm that determines your feed, and therefore the profit of Facebook itself. If FB were connecting people, making the world a better place, and making profit by doing that, I think I'd be fine with that. But it looks like FB can trade the general good will of people, replace it with extremism and make a profit doing so. And if that's true, I think we need to seriously look at section 230. There's a series of commons that we all share (e.g. water, air). I'm not quite sure if this fits in this category, but for democracy to work, people have to agree to not resort to violence to solve their problems. Trading the common good will for your fellow country men for profit, while watching the world burn, is I think not what we want as a society.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Every forum has an algorithm (including this one, which sorts by upvotes and hides dead content unless the user asks for it).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bb88 5y ago
  Hacker News doesn't have an algorithm to decides what's the best posts and should appear in a person's feed. It has editors/moderators.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    The contents of the main page aren't decided by editors and moderators. It's an algorithm... granted, a simple one, but an algorithm nonetheless. Weighted factor of upvotes and age. It's even game-able, if a person has a large enough posse to dump upvotes on a topic after creating it.
    - bb88 5y ago
      So I think there's two big differences. 1. Most people use facebook to keep track of their friends and family rather than email these days. Part of it is that you can announce the new baby in the family and it goes to everyone. But the FB algorithm decides what you view. So the most engaging a post is, the more likely it will show up in your feed. The problem is that not all posts go to everyone, and if you actually want to see what's happening with Uncle Ed's cancer treatment, you have to physically go to his facebook page. Why? See point #2: 2. There was a time before Twitter/FB where ads paid for the server the forum was on. Social media realized that "targeted engagement" could be profitable. So by tweaking their algorithms to keep people on the platform, they would make more in ad revenue as they can sell more ads. Of course this led to stories where good friends had died a year ago, and the facebook algorithm "neglected" to prioritize it on feeds, because it wasn't as engaging as the Bills/Jets game the day before.
- annadane 5y ago
  Hacker News in absolutely no way shape or form has an algorithmic system on the same level Facebook has, it is manifestly a bad analogy
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    It's not an analogy, it's just a literal truth. HN has an algorithm (of far less complexity than Facebook's) for determining what shows up at the top of the news page and the comments on a topic. A possible question of interest, were this lawsuit to find Facebook guilty, is "If someone somehow gamed HN's algorithm (which is relatively simple, so would in practice be pretty easy to game) to encourage a genocide, should HN be liable?" How complicated the algorithm is likely does not enter into the reasoning for culpability.
    - bb88 5y ago
      So HN is largely not making money off their website, since they're aren't selling targeted advertising -- at least not to the extent FB makes. If your targeted algorithm makes the company money off planning a genocide, and if you're aware of it and do nothing about it (because lawyers say blah blah section 230 blah blah), that's a real problem. If you're making money from people whining about a bad call in a football game, so what? But if your company actively promotes criminal content and profits from it, then section 230 probably isn't going to save you. Either it will change, or the courts will force you to.

by bb88 5y ago

shadowgovt 5y ago

Every forum has an algorithm (including this one, which sorts by upvotes and hides dead content unless the user asks for it).

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bb88 5y ago
Hacker News doesn't have an algorithm to decides what's the best posts and should appear in a person's feed. It has editors/moderators.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  The contents of the main page aren't decided by editors and moderators. It's an algorithm... granted, a simple one, but an algorithm nonetheless. Weighted factor of upvotes and age. It's even game-able, if a person has a large enough posse to dump upvotes on a topic after creating it.
  - bb88 5y ago
    So I think there's two big differences. 1. Most people use facebook to keep track of their friends and family rather than email these days. Part of it is that you can announce the new baby in the family and it goes to everyone. But the FB algorithm decides what you view. So the most engaging a post is, the more likely it will show up in your feed. The problem is that not all posts go to everyone, and if you actually want to see what's happening with Uncle Ed's cancer treatment, you have to physically go to his facebook page. Why? See point #2: 2. There was a time before Twitter/FB where ads paid for the server the forum was on. Social media realized that "targeted engagement" could be profitable. So by tweaking their algorithms to keep people on the platform, they would make more in ad revenue as they can sell more ads. Of course this led to stories where good friends had died a year ago, and the facebook algorithm "neglected" to prioritize it on feeds, because it wasn't as engaging as the Bills/Jets game the day before.
annadane 5y ago
Hacker News in absolutely no way shape or form has an algorithmic system on the same level Facebook has, it is manifestly a bad analogy
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  It's not an analogy, it's just a literal truth. HN has an algorithm (of far less complexity than Facebook's) for determining what shows up at the top of the news page and the comments on a topic. A possible question of interest, were this lawsuit to find Facebook guilty, is "If someone somehow gamed HN's algorithm (which is relatively simple, so would in practice be pretty easy to game) to encourage a genocide, should HN be liable?" How complicated the algorithm is likely does not enter into the reasoning for culpability.
  - bb88 5y ago
    So HN is largely not making money off their website, since they're aren't selling targeted advertising -- at least not to the extent FB makes. If your targeted algorithm makes the company money off planning a genocide, and if you're aware of it and do nothing about it (because lawyers say blah blah section 230 blah blah), that's a real problem. If you're making money from people whining about a bad call in a football game, so what? But if your company actively promotes criminal content and profits from it, then section 230 probably isn't going to save you. Either it will change, or the courts will force you to.