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I don't care who owns it, social media is a cancer. Decentralized social media is actually worse because it fragments information, which makes it harder to acce

I don't care who owns it, social media is a cancer. Decentralized social media is actually worse because it fragments information, which makes it harder to access, harder to collaborate on, hides subtle knowledge, and creates further in-groups and echo chambers. What gets highlighted is almost never what is more intellectual, moral, factual, important, or curated. Instead it's whatever is entertaining, angering, scary, validating. It's a machine for capturing people's baser instincts and biases and weaponizing them to make people stupid and reactive. And it's designed to be addictive. This isn't even just the "big" social media sites. Anything with a "feed" or "endless scroll" is designed to hook you, keep you there, keep you engaging. Cigarettes may not be your drug of choice, but TikTok may be. Go ahead and quit social media. You know what people almost universally report? They feel calmer. Happier. Healthier. Less scared. They have more free time. It's a weight off their shoulders. Now imagine the opposite of all that, affecting nearly everyone connected to the internet. Imagine what that does over decades. This machine is eroding society. In the future, we're going to find out that social media was worse than cigarettes. The addictive habit that slowly destroys lives - even nations - over decades. I'm not the only person who has had friends have nervous breakdowns from social media. This is a pubic health emergency, but we're treating it like its politics. Politics is just a symptom of the greater disease: an epidemic of manipulation machines designed to ruin our health for clicks. The machine doesn't even know it's doing this to us. It's just doing what it was programmed to do. And we lap it up, like so many flies wandering into the fly trap.

MrDrMcCoy 2y ago
While I agree for the most part, I have an observation and a question: Social media, specifically microblogging networks like old Twitter, were uniquely effective at delivering near real-time breaking updates in ways that left older news delivery systems in the dust. I could do without the vapid comments, but this one aspect has real utility and I don't really know of a way to replicate that in other systems. I say this as an outsider that would only occasionally use the site to search for breaking news that hasn't hit other outlets yet. My question is about where you draw the line on what constitutes a social network as the edges get blurry. Are comment sections social media? Are sites like Reddit and hacker News? Blogs? Blog networks with social features like Tumblr?
- adastra22 2y ago
  Old Twitter was phenomenal for news discovery. I quit news cold turkey, and got my current events from Twitter for years. Despite what you might think, the results were actually less biased and more accurate than mainstream news. They key is being very selective about how you follow, and staying of the “For You” algorithmic feed. That ended with Elon’s acquisition. Not because of anything nefarious, but rather Elon just didn’t understand what he bought. He saw it as a meme and shitposting service. Which it was for a subset of users, I guess. But the changes he brought massively undermined its utility for elite and connected microblogging, and it became far less useful for that purpose. Now that he is incentivizing content creators, it has become a text version of instagram or TikTok—nothing but vapid influencers chasing engagement.
  - beagle3 2y ago
    Can you elaborate? Personally, I was also very picky about who I follow, and also only use “Following” (never “For You”) and the only difference I felt with the Elon acquisition is less censorship — which is both good and bad — and makes it more useful as a news source.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      1. Getting rid of verified accounts made Twitter a lot less usable to actual society elites. The vast majority stopped using it the way they had before. The blue check mark’s value was not authentication of the account as claimed, but to other blue check marks it was a pre-filter on their feed (since they had access to the verified-only tab), so they could experience Twitter as a social network of big wigs only. Not very egalitarian and I admit to being disgusted by it at the time. In retrospect, it was genius and a net good. Society’s upper class (politicians, CEOs, celebrities, top journalists) spoke freely and frankly on Twitter, and we all got direct real-only access to those feeds. Not a bad setup. Now their Twitter accounts are managed by their PR team. 2. The new creator incentives have created a ton of people pushing out phony / insincere tweets, rage bait, memes, and stealing content. It has massively decreased signal to noise. I’m still on Twitter, but mostly out of habit and the few friends I met there that I can’t follow otherwise.
taeric 2y ago
I mean... Hacker News is a social media site. No? I think celebrity media sites are a trap. More so if you are able to post advertising. Social, itself, isn't necessarily bad. Social that is monetized is almost certainly a race for what makes money, though. Not what makes people social.
- tacitusarc 2y ago
  Hacker News is a news aggregator with a comments section. It certainly _feels_ categorically different from the algorithmically suggested endless scroll sites
  - devjab 2y ago
    HN is a social media and was designed as such back when it was a smaller group of tech founders an angel investors sharing knowledge and opportunities. That it has since grown into what is essentially a mix of various Reddit STEM subsides or whatever they call them doesn’t exactly make it any less of a social media. I think one of the few things that has kept it at least a little safe aside from the massive work of Dang is that you need a certain level of “karma” before you can interact with a lot of the functions. Still, if you look at the content and the discussions today they are very different from what they were. I haven’t used my original account for several years because it was associated with my real personality and that became toxic with the increase of Reddit users who would actively stalk you. It doesn’t have doom scroll, but it does have doom update.
  - mplewis 2y ago
    So what do you think Reddit is?
  - taeric 2y ago
    My argument for what makes it different was in my post. It doesn't try to monetize the social activity. It is still algorithm driven. Even has many features people typically don't know. Just nothing driving money that I know of.
    - 2y ago
alsetmusic 2y ago
> Decentralized social media is actually worse because it fragments information, which makes it harder to access, harder to collaborate on, hides subtle knowledge, and creates further in-groups and echo chambers. Yeah, probably. But I hadn’t posted to the IPO garbage site since ~2013-ish. I enjoy my preferred replacement. There are actual dialogues. It’s missing a lot of great content for niche topics, but I consider the intimacy a strength. True, I’m off all non-tech/science internet at the moment for mental wellbeing (USA citizen and I need less information about our current events, not more). And yes, that’s deliberate and it’s helped my state of mind. I’m reading more books and got back into a game I like. I just don’t think decentralization is all that bad. Echo chamber? Yes. But who on FB or the shitty bird site hasn’t self-selected for that?

MrDrMcCoy 2y ago

While I agree for the most part, I have an observation and a question: Social media, specifically microblogging networks like old Twitter, were uniquely effective at delivering near real-time breaking updates in ways that left older news delivery systems in the dust. I could do without the vapid comments, but this one aspect has real utility and I don't really know of a way to replicate that in other systems. I say this as an outsider that would only occasionally use the site to search for breaking news that hasn't hit other outlets yet. My question is about where you draw the line on what constitutes a social network as the edges get blurry. Are comment sections social media? Are sites like Reddit and hacker News? Blogs? Blog networks with social features like Tumblr?

adastra22 2y ago
Old Twitter was phenomenal for news discovery. I quit news cold turkey, and got my current events from Twitter for years. Despite what you might think, the results were actually less biased and more accurate than mainstream news. They key is being very selective about how you follow, and staying of the “For You” algorithmic feed. That ended with Elon’s acquisition. Not because of anything nefarious, but rather Elon just didn’t understand what he bought. He saw it as a meme and shitposting service. Which it was for a subset of users, I guess. But the changes he brought massively undermined its utility for elite and connected microblogging, and it became far less useful for that purpose. Now that he is incentivizing content creators, it has become a text version of instagram or TikTok—nothing but vapid influencers chasing engagement.
- beagle3 2y ago
  Can you elaborate? Personally, I was also very picky about who I follow, and also only use “Following” (never “For You”) and the only difference I felt with the Elon acquisition is less censorship — which is both good and bad — and makes it more useful as a news source.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    1. Getting rid of verified accounts made Twitter a lot less usable to actual society elites. The vast majority stopped using it the way they had before. The blue check mark’s value was not authentication of the account as claimed, but to other blue check marks it was a pre-filter on their feed (since they had access to the verified-only tab), so they could experience Twitter as a social network of big wigs only. Not very egalitarian and I admit to being disgusted by it at the time. In retrospect, it was genius and a net good. Society’s upper class (politicians, CEOs, celebrities, top journalists) spoke freely and frankly on Twitter, and we all got direct real-only access to those feeds. Not a bad setup. Now their Twitter accounts are managed by their PR team. 2. The new creator incentives have created a ton of people pushing out phony / insincere tweets, rage bait, memes, and stealing content. It has massively decreased signal to noise. I’m still on Twitter, but mostly out of habit and the few friends I met there that I can’t follow otherwise.

taeric 2y ago

I mean... Hacker News is a social media site. No? I think celebrity media sites are a trap. More so if you are able to post advertising. Social, itself, isn't necessarily bad. Social that is monetized is almost certainly a race for what makes money, though. Not what makes people social.

tacitusarc 2y ago
Hacker News is a news aggregator with a comments section. It certainly _feels_ categorically different from the algorithmically suggested endless scroll sites
- devjab 2y ago
  HN is a social media and was designed as such back when it was a smaller group of tech founders an angel investors sharing knowledge and opportunities. That it has since grown into what is essentially a mix of various Reddit STEM subsides or whatever they call them doesn’t exactly make it any less of a social media. I think one of the few things that has kept it at least a little safe aside from the massive work of Dang is that you need a certain level of “karma” before you can interact with a lot of the functions. Still, if you look at the content and the discussions today they are very different from what they were. I haven’t used my original account for several years because it was associated with my real personality and that became toxic with the increase of Reddit users who would actively stalk you. It doesn’t have doom scroll, but it does have doom update.
- mplewis 2y ago
  So what do you think Reddit is?
- taeric 2y ago
  My argument for what makes it different was in my post. It doesn't try to monetize the social activity. It is still algorithm driven. Even has many features people typically don't know. Just nothing driving money that I know of.
  - 2y ago

alsetmusic 2y ago

> Decentralized social media is actually worse because it fragments information, which makes it harder to access, harder to collaborate on, hides subtle knowledge, and creates further in-groups and echo chambers. Yeah, probably. But I hadn’t posted to the IPO garbage site since ~2013-ish. I enjoy my preferred replacement. There are actual dialogues. It’s missing a lot of great content for niche topics, but I consider the intimacy a strength. True, I’m off all non-tech/science internet at the moment for mental wellbeing (USA citizen and I need less information about our current events, not more). And yes, that’s deliberate and it’s helped my state of mind. I’m reading more books and got back into a game I like. I just don’t think decentralization is all that bad. Echo chamber? Yes. But who on FB or the shitty bird site hasn’t self-selected for that?