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Ugh... this topic is exhausting, blown out of proportion, red-baity, and the voices yelling about it from the hills are usually blind to all players but one in

Ugh... this topic is exhausting, blown out of proportion, red-baity, and the voices yelling about it from the hills are usually blind to all players but one in the game of propaganda/public influence. It's also been a big part of political scapegoating/distraction of recent years. It's a butchered topic, but with media revenue declining since the end of the 24/7 trump reality show, media is still reaching at this narrative since it still catches some eyes, still fresh in the public's mind, and still evokes outrage in their target audiences. Just so over hearing it, nevermind seeing that it has made its way to the front page of hn...

h2odragon 4y ago
"the front page of HN" is not so sacred; the politics of Tom Bombadil have been done and there's those that are so over that, too. Allow others the room to learn the weary cynical wisdom you've gained. Be open to the possibility that there still banality you haven't witnessed; and the hope of originality.
- throwaway743 4y ago
  Fair enough. Also, I appreciate the balanced optimism in your last lines.
  - klondike_klive 4y ago
    So shines a good deed in a weary world.
imiric 4y ago
Exhausting, yes, but I don't see how it can be blown out of proportion. The existence of social media is definitely undermining democracies, just like all previous mass propaganda machines, except with a larger and more accessible reach than ever before. There's nothing for researchers to study to reach this conclusion. Have we all forgotten about Cambridge Analytica? As a reminder, they used targetted ads to spread disinformation on social media, the effects of which have surely influenced the status of dozens of "democracies" around the world. It's certainly not the only company in that business, just one that happened to be widely publicized. Social media is not a unique tool in the arsenal of rich megalomaniacs, but to claim it doesn't have a major role in undermining democracies is willfully ignorant.
Lendal 4y ago
Maybe it would help to criticize the criticism. I think the current criticism is way oversimplified. It's not a social media problem per se. It's the current implementation and monetization of it. We have always had social media of some kind, even before the printing press. It is critical to democracy. We have even had an entity inserting themselves in between the speaker and the listener, filtering the discussion for their own benefit and using their own standards. That used to be newspapers, but now it's Facebook. The difference is the filtering standard is now centralized by very few entities, basically Facebook and Twitter. Whatever standard they employ basically amounts to centralized information planning. Whatever is the resulting harm becomes greatly magnified. In the past if a few editors were causing harm to democracy in one direction or another, that harm was limited in scope. Now the devastation is total. Because the players have 100% coverage. A breakup of some kind over this monopoly seems necessary now, before it becomes impossible.
throwaway_4ever 4y ago
> with media revenue declining since the end of the 24/7 trump reality show NYT and Reuters are both public companies with record levels of revenue and profit in 2021 and their recent quarters, compared to 2018-2020. Try again.

h2odragon 4y ago

"the front page of HN" is not so sacred; the politics of Tom Bombadil have been done and there's those that are so over that, too. Allow others the room to learn the weary cynical wisdom you've gained. Be open to the possibility that there still banality you haven't witnessed; and the hope of originality.

throwaway743 4y ago
Fair enough. Also, I appreciate the balanced optimism in your last lines.
- klondike_klive 4y ago
  So shines a good deed in a weary world.

imiric 4y ago

Exhausting, yes, but I don't see how it can be blown out of proportion. The existence of social media is definitely undermining democracies, just like all previous mass propaganda machines, except with a larger and more accessible reach than ever before. There's nothing for researchers to study to reach this conclusion. Have we all forgotten about Cambridge Analytica? As a reminder, they used targetted ads to spread disinformation on social media, the effects of which have surely influenced the status of dozens of "democracies" around the world. It's certainly not the only company in that business, just one that happened to be widely publicized. Social media is not a unique tool in the arsenal of rich megalomaniacs, but to claim it doesn't have a major role in undermining democracies is willfully ignorant.

Lendal 4y ago

Maybe it would help to criticize the criticism. I think the current criticism is way oversimplified. It's not a social media problem per se. It's the current implementation and monetization of it. We have always had social media of some kind, even before the printing press. It is critical to democracy. We have even had an entity inserting themselves in between the speaker and the listener, filtering the discussion for their own benefit and using their own standards. That used to be newspapers, but now it's Facebook. The difference is the filtering standard is now centralized by very few entities, basically Facebook and Twitter. Whatever standard they employ basically amounts to centralized information planning. Whatever is the resulting harm becomes greatly magnified. In the past if a few editors were causing harm to democracy in one direction or another, that harm was limited in scope. Now the devastation is total. Because the players have 100% coverage. A breakup of some kind over this monopoly seems necessary now, before it becomes impossible.

throwaway_4ever 4y ago

> with media revenue declining since the end of the 24/7 trump reality show NYT and Reuters are both public companies with record levels of revenue and profit in 2021 and their recent quarters, compared to 2018-2020. Try again.