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> The company itself is a prime source of division in the United States of America Devil's advocate but why don't you see Facebook as a blank canvas where peop

> The company itself is a prime source of division in the United States of America Devil's advocate but why don't you see Facebook as a blank canvas where people can post whatever they want, and it's the people posting the dividing content responsible? Facebook is just the medium, no? Could be Reddit, could be Twitter. Why are you holding Facebook responsible in your mind?

soiler 4y ago
Do you think that's what Facebook is? Are you not aware of their content sorting algorithms?
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  I was under the impression the content sorting algorithms pay attention to metrics like engagement (likes/reactions/comments) and how long people read it, and then since it's their motive to keep you scrolling for as long as possible (so that you view as many ads as possible), they lean on their user data to promote hot stories that cause good engagement. Therefore, if the users consumer lots of "divisive" content and it causes good engagement, isn't it the user's fault for being such "fans" of the divisive content that it makes Facebook algorithms promote it?
  - strangetortoise 4y ago
    If a dealer repeatedly puts a needle in front of an addict, and encourages them to take it, and they end up giving in, who's responsible? The addict is of course not without blame, but at the very least I hope we can find a consensus that the dealer is behaving extremely immoral. This is essentially how I view facebook. It's abusing the human condition for profit with destructive effects.
    - fathyb 4y ago
      I think a better analogy would be with the tobacco industry. Both are controlled by huge multinationals, heavily connected with the advertising industry, and have a lot of influence and power in developing countries.
    - azinman2 4y ago
      You’re also forgetting the ability for ads to explicitly target people. So it’s more like finding the person who just lost their family and job and putting a needle in front of them. They weren’t an addict to begin with.
    - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
      Facebook isn’t coming over to your house and forcing you to navigate to their website. This would be more like the addict going to meet the dealer and then being offered what they want.
      - uoaei 4y ago
        Have you ever witnessed the struggle of addiction, either you or someone in your family?
  - lumb63 4y ago
    Would you say it is a heroin addict’s fault for getting addicted to opioids after a doctor pushed them into opioids when the doctor was far more aware of the risks than the patient? We all have the ability (and some might argue responsibility) to educate ourselves on what our actions cause, and that’s why a lot of people, myself included, minimize or avoid Facebook use. However, that doesn’t remove culpability from Facebook for pushing addicting, polarizing, or divisive content onto users. They are just pursuing profit, yes. But we as a society should really be pushing for their profit to be diminished by the extent it negatively impacts society. For instance, imagine Facebook were in part liable for terrorist attacks because it pushed radicalizing content, or partially liable for suicides, because it pushed content that destabilized someone’s mental health. We shouldn’t be tolerating them pushing content because the user is “such a fan” of the content any more than we tolerate doctors pushing addictive drugs, gambling or cigarette companies pushing their products, etc.
  - generalpf 4y ago
    Not all engagement is equal to Facebook. At one point they considered the angry reaction to be worth twice as much as the happy reaction when deciding if a story should be ranked up.
  - soiler 4y ago
    No. Hijacking emotional/biochemical triggers in our brains is not the same as giving us what we "want". It is the exact same problem as with clickbait/ragebait titles on content (which... often get shared to Facebook). People ruin their lives doing things that feel "good" in the moment all the time. Facebook is a machine for that.
ahtihn 4y ago
Because of algorithmic feeds, these platforms aren't just mediums. They actively shape what their users see.
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  But aren't the algorithms driven by what users engage with?
  - barelyauser 4y ago
    And you really believe that at face value? What drives the algorithm is profits. If it profits from pushing you into a bubble at the cost of shaping your world view, it will.
  - ahtihn 4y ago
    Sure, but if optimizing algorithms for engagement has negative societal effects, I still think these platforms can be partly held responsible for it. It's their decision what to optimize for right?
    - MuffinFlavored 4y ago
      At the end of the day they're a business. In America, I can't think of many things that have priority over capitalism (profit over all). Does Facebook have a right to exist and try their best to earn profit? Yes. In doing so, they become a middle man for trying to push ads. Does this have measurable negative societal effects? Arguably. I would say "depends on who you ask" but it's pretty hard to look at it subjectively instead of objectively when there is so much data showing it's true. But what's the alternative? Asking them to stop entirely? Unrealistic. Asking them to make less money not pushing certain content because it's divisive? That's the same content that got optimized to the top based on engagement statistics and is netting them "the most money" from advertisement views, right? I get what you are saying about the negative effects, I just don't know how realistic it is to hold Facebook accountable when their primary motive is profit. If society tears itself apart in the process because Facebook gave society the platform to do that, at what point does the government intervene and ask them "hey, help us police moral/ethics to control the effects"?
webscalist 4y ago
Facebook cancels, not posters.
artonge 4y ago
Not been on facebook fore some years now, but it is not "just" a medium. It is optimized to keep you on the site as much as possible, to show you as many ads as possible. This comes with the hard price of showing you what is divisive, as it keeps you engaged. So they do are responsible for prioritizing divisive posts and allowing ads that are so well targeted that they can make you tilt.
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  > It is optimized to keep you on the site as much as possible true or false: it pushes content to the top that users choose to engage in/with? Without users and their behavior, the Facebook platform would be empty/neutral. It's the users driving the divisiveness, etc.
  - artonge 4y ago
    No, as usual, don’t hate the player, hate the game. Facebook benefits from a huge network effect that locks people in if they want to keep in touch with their close ones. There is no alternative as you can't built a concurrent because facebook do not allow any interaction from the outside world. So people come to facebook to keep in touch, and stay because the content is addictive. Note that moste people are not posting, so they are not even contributing to the content. Note also that social networks are using our brain biase to keep us addicted.
swatcoder 4y ago
Because Facebook’s presentation isn’t content neutral. It optimizes for content with high engagement, and users quickly learn to tune their posts towards that so that their posts are seen. It becomes hard to get the photo of your pleasant day in front of your friends and family, but easy to bait Uncle Roger into a debate about politics or derisively rag on some easy target. Engaging posts are a specific kind of content and not all platforms optimize for them. Facebook isn’t the only one that does, but it’s looking like it was a pretty socially toxic experiment and Facebook is one of several companies now stuck on the wrong side of the story.
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  > It optimizes for content with high engagement, and users quickly learn to tune their posts towards that so that their posts are seen. Why is that Facebook's fault if they are just the middle man for their users (both on the content creation side and the content consuming/engagement side)?
  - bagavi 4y ago
    The same reason our society held the cigarette companies partially responsible for lung cancer deaths. Meta is not breaking any legal law circa 2023, but history will bucket it along with asbestos/cigarette businesses
  - swatcoder 4y ago
    Why is it Facebook’s fault that they chose to operate their platform a certain way? Probably because we generally associate responsibility with choice. Are users also responsible for their own choice to create and respond to engagement-optimized posts? Sure, but that’s an orthogonal concern to Facebook’s own choice and the responsibility they bear for it.
    - MuffinFlavored 4y ago
      I just don't get the line of thought that goes: "I don't like the content that ends up on + promoted through algorithms on Facebook, therefore, they should be responsible" It's not their content, and they aren't the ones engaging with it. They are pushing it because users post it and then engage in it. Say we got rid of Facebook tomorrow. This exact same problem would happen at another company/platform unless there was heavy intervention/moderation (which to my understand, Facebook absolutely already does some level of moderation?). What's that equivalent to? I'm not a "free speech advocate" or anything like that but what you're asking for is censorship instead of asking users to bear the responsibility of the content they consume.
californical 4y ago
Personally, I think their optimization of engagement will by default bring out the most extreme viewpoints, and the worst of people. They’d rather show you 10 extreme things in a row to make you outraged, than to show you 2 extreme and 8 normal. Facebook wasn’t always like this — it used to just be a place where you could see what your friends are up to.
quickthrowman 4y ago
Facebook optimizes for engagement, and maximizing engagement means making people scared, sad, or mad. Facebook emotionally manipulates its users to stay on Facebook as long as possible so they can show the user as many ads as possible. It was not like this 15 years ago. It’s not just the medium.
nanidin 4y ago
Facebook applies some magic to decide which posts show up in your feed and which comments show up at the top of those posts. When a metric like “engagement” is optimized for, this seems to result in controversial/divisive content making its way to the top. So yes, Facebook is a medium, but it is a medium that encourages certain content by rewarding it with more eyeballs and interaction than other content. As a contrast, Reddit’s default sort is “best” which tends to put higher scored comments towards the top. Users have the choice of sorting by controversial, but that is transparent to the user that that’s what they’re getting. Reddit’s downvote lets users effectively shun content in a way that Facebook doesn’t - this has its trade offs, as it seems to encourage groupthink and echo chambers.
yamtaddle 4y ago
My texting app is neutral. WhatsApp is basically neutral (and, hey, Facebook owns it). Facebook (and Youtube, and Twitter, and...) chooses which content to promote, for their own interests, which often correlate with generating outrage based on made-up bullshit. They're far from a "blank canvas".
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  > which often correlate with generating outrage based on made-up bullshit That's not what my YouTube feed is like whatsoever. I've "curated" it that way though. A lot of "not interested" or "don't recommend this channel" clicks.
edgyquant 4y ago
FWIW I hold them all responsible

soiler 4y ago

Do you think that's what Facebook is? Are you not aware of their content sorting algorithms?

MuffinFlavored 4y ago
I was under the impression the content sorting algorithms pay attention to metrics like engagement (likes/reactions/comments) and how long people read it, and then since it's their motive to keep you scrolling for as long as possible (so that you view as many ads as possible), they lean on their user data to promote hot stories that cause good engagement. Therefore, if the users consumer lots of "divisive" content and it causes good engagement, isn't it the user's fault for being such "fans" of the divisive content that it makes Facebook algorithms promote it?
- strangetortoise 4y ago
  If a dealer repeatedly puts a needle in front of an addict, and encourages them to take it, and they end up giving in, who's responsible? The addict is of course not without blame, but at the very least I hope we can find a consensus that the dealer is behaving extremely immoral. This is essentially how I view facebook. It's abusing the human condition for profit with destructive effects.
  - fathyb 4y ago
    I think a better analogy would be with the tobacco industry. Both are controlled by huge multinationals, heavily connected with the advertising industry, and have a lot of influence and power in developing countries.
  - azinman2 4y ago
    You’re also forgetting the ability for ads to explicitly target people. So it’s more like finding the person who just lost their family and job and putting a needle in front of them. They weren’t an addict to begin with.
  - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    Facebook isn’t coming over to your house and forcing you to navigate to their website. This would be more like the addict going to meet the dealer and then being offered what they want.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      Have you ever witnessed the struggle of addiction, either you or someone in your family?
- lumb63 4y ago
  Would you say it is a heroin addict’s fault for getting addicted to opioids after a doctor pushed them into opioids when the doctor was far more aware of the risks than the patient? We all have the ability (and some might argue responsibility) to educate ourselves on what our actions cause, and that’s why a lot of people, myself included, minimize or avoid Facebook use. However, that doesn’t remove culpability from Facebook for pushing addicting, polarizing, or divisive content onto users. They are just pursuing profit, yes. But we as a society should really be pushing for their profit to be diminished by the extent it negatively impacts society. For instance, imagine Facebook were in part liable for terrorist attacks because it pushed radicalizing content, or partially liable for suicides, because it pushed content that destabilized someone’s mental health. We shouldn’t be tolerating them pushing content because the user is “such a fan” of the content any more than we tolerate doctors pushing addictive drugs, gambling or cigarette companies pushing their products, etc.
- generalpf 4y ago
  Not all engagement is equal to Facebook. At one point they considered the angry reaction to be worth twice as much as the happy reaction when deciding if a story should be ranked up.
- soiler 4y ago
  No. Hijacking emotional/biochemical triggers in our brains is not the same as giving us what we "want". It is the exact same problem as with clickbait/ragebait titles on content (which... often get shared to Facebook). People ruin their lives doing things that feel "good" in the moment all the time. Facebook is a machine for that.

ahtihn 4y ago

Because of algorithmic feeds, these platforms aren't just mediums. They actively shape what their users see.

MuffinFlavored 4y ago
But aren't the algorithms driven by what users engage with?
- barelyauser 4y ago
  And you really believe that at face value? What drives the algorithm is profits. If it profits from pushing you into a bubble at the cost of shaping your world view, it will.
- ahtihn 4y ago
  Sure, but if optimizing algorithms for engagement has negative societal effects, I still think these platforms can be partly held responsible for it. It's their decision what to optimize for right?
  - MuffinFlavored 4y ago
    At the end of the day they're a business. In America, I can't think of many things that have priority over capitalism (profit over all). Does Facebook have a right to exist and try their best to earn profit? Yes. In doing so, they become a middle man for trying to push ads. Does this have measurable negative societal effects? Arguably. I would say "depends on who you ask" but it's pretty hard to look at it subjectively instead of objectively when there is so much data showing it's true. But what's the alternative? Asking them to stop entirely? Unrealistic. Asking them to make less money not pushing certain content because it's divisive? That's the same content that got optimized to the top based on engagement statistics and is netting them "the most money" from advertisement views, right? I get what you are saying about the negative effects, I just don't know how realistic it is to hold Facebook accountable when their primary motive is profit. If society tears itself apart in the process because Facebook gave society the platform to do that, at what point does the government intervene and ask them "hey, help us police moral/ethics to control the effects"?

webscalist 4y ago

Facebook cancels, not posters.

artonge 4y ago

Not been on facebook fore some years now, but it is not "just" a medium. It is optimized to keep you on the site as much as possible, to show you as many ads as possible. This comes with the hard price of showing you what is divisive, as it keeps you engaged. So they do are responsible for prioritizing divisive posts and allowing ads that are so well targeted that they can make you tilt.

MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> It is optimized to keep you on the site as much as possible true or false: it pushes content to the top that users choose to engage in/with? Without users and their behavior, the Facebook platform would be empty/neutral. It's the users driving the divisiveness, etc.
- artonge 4y ago
  No, as usual, don’t hate the player, hate the game. Facebook benefits from a huge network effect that locks people in if they want to keep in touch with their close ones. There is no alternative as you can't built a concurrent because facebook do not allow any interaction from the outside world. So people come to facebook to keep in touch, and stay because the content is addictive. Note that moste people are not posting, so they are not even contributing to the content. Note also that social networks are using our brain biase to keep us addicted.

swatcoder 4y ago

Because Facebook’s presentation isn’t content neutral. It optimizes for content with high engagement, and users quickly learn to tune their posts towards that so that their posts are seen. It becomes hard to get the photo of your pleasant day in front of your friends and family, but easy to bait Uncle Roger into a debate about politics or derisively rag on some easy target. Engaging posts are a specific kind of content and not all platforms optimize for them. Facebook isn’t the only one that does, but it’s looking like it was a pretty socially toxic experiment and Facebook is one of several companies now stuck on the wrong side of the story.

MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> It optimizes for content with high engagement, and users quickly learn to tune their posts towards that so that their posts are seen. Why is that Facebook's fault if they are just the middle man for their users (both on the content creation side and the content consuming/engagement side)?
- bagavi 4y ago
  The same reason our society held the cigarette companies partially responsible for lung cancer deaths. Meta is not breaking any legal law circa 2023, but history will bucket it along with asbestos/cigarette businesses
- swatcoder 4y ago
  Why is it Facebook’s fault that they chose to operate their platform a certain way? Probably because we generally associate responsibility with choice. Are users also responsible for their own choice to create and respond to engagement-optimized posts? Sure, but that’s an orthogonal concern to Facebook’s own choice and the responsibility they bear for it.
  - MuffinFlavored 4y ago
    I just don't get the line of thought that goes: "I don't like the content that ends up on + promoted through algorithms on Facebook, therefore, they should be responsible" It's not their content, and they aren't the ones engaging with it. They are pushing it because users post it and then engage in it. Say we got rid of Facebook tomorrow. This exact same problem would happen at another company/platform unless there was heavy intervention/moderation (which to my understand, Facebook absolutely already does some level of moderation?). What's that equivalent to? I'm not a "free speech advocate" or anything like that but what you're asking for is censorship instead of asking users to bear the responsibility of the content they consume.

californical 4y ago

Personally, I think their optimization of engagement will by default bring out the most extreme viewpoints, and the worst of people. They’d rather show you 10 extreme things in a row to make you outraged, than to show you 2 extreme and 8 normal. Facebook wasn’t always like this — it used to just be a place where you could see what your friends are up to.

quickthrowman 4y ago

Facebook optimizes for engagement, and maximizing engagement means making people scared, sad, or mad. Facebook emotionally manipulates its users to stay on Facebook as long as possible so they can show the user as many ads as possible. It was not like this 15 years ago. It’s not just the medium.

nanidin 4y ago

Facebook applies some magic to decide which posts show up in your feed and which comments show up at the top of those posts. When a metric like “engagement” is optimized for, this seems to result in controversial/divisive content making its way to the top. So yes, Facebook is a medium, but it is a medium that encourages certain content by rewarding it with more eyeballs and interaction than other content. As a contrast, Reddit’s default sort is “best” which tends to put higher scored comments towards the top. Users have the choice of sorting by controversial, but that is transparent to the user that that’s what they’re getting. Reddit’s downvote lets users effectively shun content in a way that Facebook doesn’t - this has its trade offs, as it seems to encourage groupthink and echo chambers.

yamtaddle 4y ago

My texting app is neutral. WhatsApp is basically neutral (and, hey, Facebook owns it). Facebook (and Youtube, and Twitter, and...) chooses which content to promote, for their own interests, which often correlate with generating outrage based on made-up bullshit. They're far from a "blank canvas".

MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> which often correlate with generating outrage based on made-up bullshit That's not what my YouTube feed is like whatsoever. I've "curated" it that way though. A lot of "not interested" or "don't recommend this channel" clicks.

edgyquant 4y ago

FWIW I hold them all responsible