3 ms·

> platforms with violent political rhetoric are still highly available to those who would seek them out I would submit that they are no longer highly available

> platforms with violent political rhetoric are still highly available to those who would seek them out I would submit that they are no longer highly available or their core userbase has moved on to the "dark web". The genius of the centralized social media platform is that it lives on advertising dollars. The advertisers will pull back whenever a platform becomes too uncontrolled. This was the case when Pewdiepie's accidental Nazi reference video was released. A massive pullback in advertising dollars 'forced' YouTube to reconsider its previously lax content policies and policing. That's not to say that YouTube is some pleasant walled garden, but rather that those creating videos and making real money from the site are incentivized to police their own behavior and rhetoric. Most people talking about 'divisive' content are talking around the Trump/QAnon fiasco. Which is very different from the internet I grew up on where even on a 'kids site' you would often see users calling for outright genocide of specific racial groups.

Nextgrid 5y ago
> becomes too uncontrolled Given the amount of content out there, there's potential to be stuck in a local maximum where there's enough harmful content to cause negative externalities, but not enough to be seen as the majority of the content. This is reinforced by algorithmic feeds and targeted advertising where there's just no way for someone (whether the advertisers themselves or an independent watchdog) to tell what's actually going on, since their feed will be significantly different from someone stuck in an echo chamber full of harmful content. > Most people talking about 'divisive' content are talking around the Trump/QAnon fiasco Not even Trump per-se. The problem goes far beyond Trump and his political party when he - the supposed "leader" - gets booed by his own crowd. QAnon is just one example of terribly harmful content out there, but there's plenty more, from the Covid vaccine conspiracies, alternative "medicine", or just plain racism/nationalism and neo-Nazism. > where even on a 'kids site' you would often see users calling for outright genocide of specific racial groups. The forum software wasn't promoting said content though, so they were likely to remain a minority, which is both easier to control and explain away ("there are bad people on the Internet, learn to ignore it"). Facebook on the other hand will happily keep feeding you more and more of said content if it sees that you engage with it.

Nextgrid 5y ago

> becomes too uncontrolled Given the amount of content out there, there's potential to be stuck in a local maximum where there's enough harmful content to cause negative externalities, but not enough to be seen as the majority of the content. This is reinforced by algorithmic feeds and targeted advertising where there's just no way for someone (whether the advertisers themselves or an independent watchdog) to tell what's actually going on, since their feed will be significantly different from someone stuck in an echo chamber full of harmful content. > Most people talking about 'divisive' content are talking around the Trump/QAnon fiasco Not even Trump per-se. The problem goes far beyond Trump and his political party when he - the supposed "leader" - gets booed by his own crowd. QAnon is just one example of terribly harmful content out there, but there's plenty more, from the Covid vaccine conspiracies, alternative "medicine", or just plain racism/nationalism and neo-Nazism. > where even on a 'kids site' you would often see users calling for outright genocide of specific racial groups. The forum software wasn't promoting said content though, so they were likely to remain a minority, which is both easier to control and explain away ("there are bad people on the Internet, learn to ignore it"). Facebook on the other hand will happily keep feeding you more and more of said content if it sees that you engage with it.