4 ms·

> China's seemingly made a point of outsourcing their most polarizing algorithmic decisions to the rest of the world but not to their own population Exactly.

> China's seemingly made a point of outsourcing their most polarizing algorithmic decisions to the rest of the world but not to their own population Exactly. We're a decade into the social media experiment now, and it's absolutely clear that it in its current form it doesn't make us smarter, it doesn't make us happier, and it doesn't bring us closer. If anything, it makes people sick and it weakens the social fabric. The proposed solution of "more free speech better" is clearly not working in the face of organized, AI-fueled, nation-state manipulation efforts. Hacker News is made up of people with a birds-eye view of social media technology. Most of us understand how it works and who operates it. I think it's important to know what an incredible position this is to be in, and to remember that most people aren't like us. Most people can't just say, "screw it, I'll get my information elsewhere." I think we'll improve over time, but we're at least a generation away from any kind of widespread media literacy. What do we do in the meantime?

Dalewyn 4y ago
>I think it's important to know what an incredible position this is to be in, The old saying goes that knowledge is power; everyone here with deep knowledge of computers and the things they enable really are in a blessed position.
olkingcole 4y ago
Thank you for this comment. I would like to add that social media and foreign manipulation thereof has been demonstrated to be spectacularly capable of affecting peoples' mental states and beliefs and by extension our stability as a country. We haven't figured out how to deal with it yet in a way that balances with our values of free speech and enterprise but a platform with tiktok's pervasiveness taking orders directly from the Chinese government is a huge, bright and shining risk that our government knows it needs to address. Not to mention the data collection.
- rumblerock 4y ago
  Exactly. We've already seen the damage that foreign manipulation can cause when they're exploiting the cracks of FB, Twitter, etc. It doesn't take much imagination to think about what the art of the possible is when you can control the system itself.
lazystar 4y ago
history repeats itself. what did the folks in the 1890s do when hearst controlled the newspapers?

Dalewyn 4y ago

>I think it's important to know what an incredible position this is to be in, The old saying goes that knowledge is power; everyone here with deep knowledge of computers and the things they enable really are in a blessed position.

olkingcole 4y ago

Thank you for this comment. I would like to add that social media and foreign manipulation thereof has been demonstrated to be spectacularly capable of affecting peoples' mental states and beliefs and by extension our stability as a country. We haven't figured out how to deal with it yet in a way that balances with our values of free speech and enterprise but a platform with tiktok's pervasiveness taking orders directly from the Chinese government is a huge, bright and shining risk that our government knows it needs to address. Not to mention the data collection.

rumblerock 4y ago
Exactly. We've already seen the damage that foreign manipulation can cause when they're exploiting the cracks of FB, Twitter, etc. It doesn't take much imagination to think about what the art of the possible is when you can control the system itself.

lazystar 4y ago

history repeats itself. what did the folks in the 1890s do when hearst controlled the newspapers?