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I do. Here's a devil's advocate argument for social media: if you only leave it up to the government and certain approved organizations, or the extremely afflu

I do. Here's a devil's advocate argument for social media: if you only leave it up to the government and certain approved organizations, or the extremely affluent and well-capitalized to have a megaphone, you're effectively handing the keys to the information rails to a very small subset of the population who then gets to dictate what the rest of us get to hear about. With social media you're democratizing the megaphone, with, of course, all of the negative side-effects of giving the average Joe that sort of power. However, if you've ever lived under a regime where only a select few had that sort of power and they abused it to the extreme, you'd rather put up with pizza gate and alien conspiracy theories any day of the week. It's akin to an informational second amendment, with, of course, all of the controversy and philosophical differences that comes with. And of course you could debate the correct extent of these powers all day, similarly to how there's a difference between letting your citizens purchase a pepper spray can vs WMDs.

atmavatar 2y ago
> With social media you're democratizing the megaphone, with, of course, all of the negative side-effects of giving the average Joe that sort of power. That's an illusion. Users see only what the underlying algorithm has decided will increase their engagement. This behind-the-scenes curation of content all but eliminates this democratization you speak of.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago
  I'm only responding to the content of the posted article, which doesn't speak of the website owner putting their thumb on the scales to advance a particular narrative. I'm happy to advocate against that. But if the algorithm responds equally well to highly engaging posts from team A and team B, then ultimately the algorithm is fair, there's a level playing field. Would I prefer it if it boosted boring academic papers about nothingburgers that nobody will ever read? I suppose so, but clickbait is the content humanity wants to engage with, regardless of medium. It's up to each team to make sure that their comms are written in a way that cuts through the noise, like with any other form of marketing.
  - atmavatar 2y ago
    > But if the algorithm responds equally well to highly engaging posts from team A and team B, then ultimately the algorithm is fair, there's a level playing field. If only individuals of Team A see content from Team A and only individuals of Team B see content from Team B, regardless how equally Teams A and B get promoted as a whole on the platform, it's not really democratized. You merely have separate Team A and Team B platforms, except they're hosted on the same hardware and exposed via the same web address. The separation is entirely virtual and intentionally hidden from users. It's little different to a Team A member than if all of Team B was shadow-banned or to a Team B member than if all of Team A was shadow-banned.
    - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago
      But isn't this how all media (or everyday life) is already when people are given a choice? People self-segregate into Bluesky vs Twitter. MSNBC vs Fox News. Vox vs Breitbart. Shia mosques vs Sunni mosques. California vs Florida. People really like retreating into their own flock of fellow believers and don't want to be exposed to information contradicting their beliefs. Social media isn't doing anything new here, it's just selling the product people want to buy.
  - tzs 2y ago
    > But if the algorithm responds equally well to highly engaging posts from team A and team B, then ultimately the algorithm is fair, there's a level playing field That doesn't work well for topics where one team, A say, is free to just make up stuff and the other team, B, is constrained by trying to stick to verifiable facts. It gives A a massive advantage. First, it often takes time for B to develop a response to something new from A and by the time B's response comes out A has added several more posts. Even if B's post completely refutes that first A post, people will see that it hasn't addressed the additional A material and might think that means that additional material is fine. Second, it is easier, cheaper, and faster to generate A material than to generate B material, so A can make it so there is always plenty of un-refuted A material. They can also tweak any A material that B has refuted and claim that it was just a minor issue and they fixed it. The result is that readers see a lot more A than B material. Some might figure out from the B material that the people pushing A are not being truthful, but remember there are another dozen or more topics showing up in their feed each with its own A and B. Most people aren't going to be able to successfully figure out which is being truthful in all of those topics, and so we end up with a lot of people getting misled and scammed.
dragonwriter 2y ago
> With social media you’re democratizing the megaphone No, you aren’t. The megaphone is controlled by the owner of the social media network, not the user.

atmavatar 2y ago

> With social media you're democratizing the megaphone, with, of course, all of the negative side-effects of giving the average Joe that sort of power. That's an illusion. Users see only what the underlying algorithm has decided will increase their engagement. This behind-the-scenes curation of content all but eliminates this democratization you speak of.

8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago
I'm only responding to the content of the posted article, which doesn't speak of the website owner putting their thumb on the scales to advance a particular narrative. I'm happy to advocate against that. But if the algorithm responds equally well to highly engaging posts from team A and team B, then ultimately the algorithm is fair, there's a level playing field. Would I prefer it if it boosted boring academic papers about nothingburgers that nobody will ever read? I suppose so, but clickbait is the content humanity wants to engage with, regardless of medium. It's up to each team to make sure that their comms are written in a way that cuts through the noise, like with any other form of marketing.
- atmavatar 2y ago
  > But if the algorithm responds equally well to highly engaging posts from team A and team B, then ultimately the algorithm is fair, there's a level playing field. If only individuals of Team A see content from Team A and only individuals of Team B see content from Team B, regardless how equally Teams A and B get promoted as a whole on the platform, it's not really democratized. You merely have separate Team A and Team B platforms, except they're hosted on the same hardware and exposed via the same web address. The separation is entirely virtual and intentionally hidden from users. It's little different to a Team A member than if all of Team B was shadow-banned or to a Team B member than if all of Team A was shadow-banned.
  - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago
    But isn't this how all media (or everyday life) is already when people are given a choice? People self-segregate into Bluesky vs Twitter. MSNBC vs Fox News. Vox vs Breitbart. Shia mosques vs Sunni mosques. California vs Florida. People really like retreating into their own flock of fellow believers and don't want to be exposed to information contradicting their beliefs. Social media isn't doing anything new here, it's just selling the product people want to buy.
- tzs 2y ago
  > But if the algorithm responds equally well to highly engaging posts from team A and team B, then ultimately the algorithm is fair, there's a level playing field That doesn't work well for topics where one team, A say, is free to just make up stuff and the other team, B, is constrained by trying to stick to verifiable facts. It gives A a massive advantage. First, it often takes time for B to develop a response to something new from A and by the time B's response comes out A has added several more posts. Even if B's post completely refutes that first A post, people will see that it hasn't addressed the additional A material and might think that means that additional material is fine. Second, it is easier, cheaper, and faster to generate A material than to generate B material, so A can make it so there is always plenty of un-refuted A material. They can also tweak any A material that B has refuted and claim that it was just a minor issue and they fixed it. The result is that readers see a lot more A than B material. Some might figure out from the B material that the people pushing A are not being truthful, but remember there are another dozen or more topics showing up in their feed each with its own A and B. Most people aren't going to be able to successfully figure out which is being truthful in all of those topics, and so we end up with a lot of people getting misled and scammed.

dragonwriter 2y ago

> With social media you’re democratizing the megaphone No, you aren’t. The megaphone is controlled by the owner of the social media network, not the user.