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The platforms do it because of armies of miserable people online looking for an outlet to their outrage. So the platforms are stuck trying to appease the angry

The platforms do it because of armies of miserable people online looking for an outlet to their outrage. So the platforms are stuck trying to appease the angry mob, while spending as little resources on it as possible (hence, shitty algorithms). And I think I even know where the mob came from. Humans apparently have an intrinsic need to have some goals to be passionate about. And since the "economies of scale" have optimized away individual decision-making as outlets for passion, we see a surge of the good-old tribal instincts. Cancel culture is certainly a progress from stabbing and eating the members of the competing tribe, it is still a manifestation of the same kind of instinct that will bring nothing good until people find (or, likely, create) a bigger problem to worry about.

drewcoo 4y ago
> armies of miserable people online looking for an outlet to their outrage I just call them "lawyers."
vegetablepotpie 4y ago
To me, what you talk about with “economies of scale” is similar to the depravation of access to the power process people experience in industrial society that Ted Kaczynski described in Industrial Society and its Future. The work that our species did to stay alive, such as find food, is already handled by society, and the ability to influence the direction our lives, has been exported to corporate board rooms and legislative assemblies. As a result people now engage in surrogate activities to satisfy their needs to engage in the power process. This includes things like entertainment media, subcultures, and sports. Social media is another instantiation of surrogate activities. I think it’s no wonder that moderation is not benefiting the general public.
Spivak 4y ago
> The platforms do it because of armies of miserable people online looking for an outlet to their outrage. I find this funny because I initially assumed you were talking about the seemingly infinite number of people posting the "straddle the line like it's a Hitachi wand" flamebait that typically gets axed. There's no way to make everyone happy, but I think there's a chance we can broadly agree that there's very little harm done by being overzealous when it comes to using the banhammer on outrage porn. I mean HN basically does the same thing but on a smaller scale.
nomel 4y ago
> trying to appease the angry mob I think this is half correct. They do it to prevent the angry mob from reaching out to advertisers. I don't think they care about angry mobs, themselves.
atchoo 4y ago
There is more to it than that. Look up the use of Facebook in the genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar. I see multiple comments in this thread about snowflakes and cancel culture but they miss that social media is a profoundly powerful instigator of race hate and violence. This is no defence of Facebook's actions here but any suggestion that a hands off approach without policing racial language needs to be conscious of the harm it has already lead to. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
- gretch 4y ago
  Paywalled, so I can’t directly address the points in the article. Do humans not have thousands of years of genocide each other long before Facebook? It’s hard for me to believe that if only Facebook did not exist, everything would be fine in Myanmar. No, almost certainly they would have found a way to kill the other tribe.
nobody9999 4y ago
>So the platforms are stuck trying to appease the angry mob, while spending as little resources on it as possible (hence, shitty algorithms). Actually, I'd posit that the platforms are drooling with anticipation and glee at being able to monetize that angry mob. Anger, fear and outrage boosts engagement after all. And that's what platforms want, because increased engagement means increased ad revenue. And that's not exactly breaking news either.
soundnote 4y ago
The people also utilize political ideologies whose primary tenets are things like "destabilize" and "deconstruct" as a surrogate religion instead of the passé ones that have proven themselves capable of underpinning functional society for thousands of years.
- staticman2 4y ago
  I suppose your local warlord ordering you to murder people in the crusades was "functional" society and writing mean things on Twitter is "nonfunctional" society in your mind.
  - soundnote 4y ago
    A society that doesn't loathe itself and goes to war to murder other people is healthier than a society that loathes itself and still goes to war to murder other people. Neither is ideal, but one results in one place being shitty and one being okay, the other makes two places shitty to live in. As far as I'm concerned, international politics / geopolitics is appallingly Melian and I wish it were some other way but I think it's just the sociopathic shitshow we're stuck with.
    - staticman2 4y ago
      The crusades were just an example, Deuteronomy 21:18-21 says stubborn and drunken children are to be stoned to death by all the men of the city. No foreign adventurism is involved. Very "functional". Many heroes of the bible also had slaves, and the bible does not suggest there is anything wrong with that. Although some religious people campaigned against slavery in America, the fact the bible does not state slavery was wrong, and depicts it as something God's favorite humans engaged in, was used as a counter argument to defend slave-owning by religious people.

drewcoo 4y ago

> armies of miserable people online looking for an outlet to their outrage I just call them "lawyers."

vegetablepotpie 4y ago

To me, what you talk about with “economies of scale” is similar to the depravation of access to the power process people experience in industrial society that Ted Kaczynski described in Industrial Society and its Future. The work that our species did to stay alive, such as find food, is already handled by society, and the ability to influence the direction our lives, has been exported to corporate board rooms and legislative assemblies. As a result people now engage in surrogate activities to satisfy their needs to engage in the power process. This includes things like entertainment media, subcultures, and sports. Social media is another instantiation of surrogate activities. I think it’s no wonder that moderation is not benefiting the general public.

Spivak 4y ago

> The platforms do it because of armies of miserable people online looking for an outlet to their outrage. I find this funny because I initially assumed you were talking about the seemingly infinite number of people posting the "straddle the line like it's a Hitachi wand" flamebait that typically gets axed. There's no way to make everyone happy, but I think there's a chance we can broadly agree that there's very little harm done by being overzealous when it comes to using the banhammer on outrage porn. I mean HN basically does the same thing but on a smaller scale.

nomel 4y ago

> trying to appease the angry mob I think this is half correct. They do it to prevent the angry mob from reaching out to advertisers. I don't think they care about angry mobs, themselves.

atchoo 4y ago

There is more to it than that. Look up the use of Facebook in the genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar. I see multiple comments in this thread about snowflakes and cancel culture but they miss that social media is a profoundly powerful instigator of race hate and violence. This is no defence of Facebook's actions here but any suggestion that a hands off approach without policing racial language needs to be conscious of the harm it has already lead to. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

gretch 4y ago
Paywalled, so I can’t directly address the points in the article. Do humans not have thousands of years of genocide each other long before Facebook? It’s hard for me to believe that if only Facebook did not exist, everything would be fine in Myanmar. No, almost certainly they would have found a way to kill the other tribe.

nobody9999 4y ago

>So the platforms are stuck trying to appease the angry mob, while spending as little resources on it as possible (hence, shitty algorithms). Actually, I'd posit that the platforms are drooling with anticipation and glee at being able to monetize that angry mob. Anger, fear and outrage boosts engagement after all. And that's what platforms want, because increased engagement means increased ad revenue. And that's not exactly breaking news either.

soundnote 4y ago

The people also utilize political ideologies whose primary tenets are things like "destabilize" and "deconstruct" as a surrogate religion instead of the passé ones that have proven themselves capable of underpinning functional society for thousands of years.

staticman2 4y ago
I suppose your local warlord ordering you to murder people in the crusades was "functional" society and writing mean things on Twitter is "nonfunctional" society in your mind.
- soundnote 4y ago
  A society that doesn't loathe itself and goes to war to murder other people is healthier than a society that loathes itself and still goes to war to murder other people. Neither is ideal, but one results in one place being shitty and one being okay, the other makes two places shitty to live in. As far as I'm concerned, international politics / geopolitics is appallingly Melian and I wish it were some other way but I think it's just the sociopathic shitshow we're stuck with.
  - staticman2 4y ago
    The crusades were just an example, Deuteronomy 21:18-21 says stubborn and drunken children are to be stoned to death by all the men of the city. No foreign adventurism is involved. Very "functional". Many heroes of the bible also had slaves, and the bible does not suggest there is anything wrong with that. Although some religious people campaigned against slavery in America, the fact the bible does not state slavery was wrong, and depicts it as something God's favorite humans engaged in, was used as a counter argument to defend slave-owning by religious people.