7 ms·
why? you don't have to use them. should HN be banned?
by tempworkac 2y ago
why? you don't have to use them. should HN be banned?
- zzzeek 2y agohacker news has a lot of ideological community problems but HN is not "massively centralized", it's just a narrow window into the US tech scene with a relatively small community of people. I think there's a great argument that says the first amendment is not a suicide pact. The social media environment right now is having an unprecedented destructive effect on US democracy. I think TikTok is right there as a key player in spreading weapons-grade, state-sponsored mush to younger people.
- tempworkac 2y agobut HN is centralized, so you agree if HN exceeds some arbitrary amount of users it should be banned? how ridiculous. tiktok is not any better or worse than facebook, youtube, or the mainstream media.
- lenerdenator 2y agoHell, I'd make that arbitrary amount 300. That's about the number of social connections the human brain is really meant to handle.
- spencerflem 2y agoIts worse for the US Govt in that they cannot secretly ask them to control what gets seen
- suraci 2y agoTBO, TikTok and Twitter are far more diverse than HN, which is merely an echo chamber, only slightly better than a subreddit. Although I like HN more than TikTok, it's so funny
- AlexandrB 2y agoWhat matters is not the diversity of the overall userbase but the diversity of what gets shown to you. From my (limited) experience TikTok is hyper-targeted and will narrow in on your interests/biases quickly and keep you in that bubble. HN (and reddit) generally lacks this hyper-targeting. Obviously, just the act of going to HN is selecting for a certain cross-section of opinions, but once you're there what you see is determined by the community and not by your own personal preferences.
- gcr 2y agoIt sounds like you’re saying that personalized feeds are the key problem?
- AlexandrB 2y agoAbsolutely. In two specific ways: 1. There's often little or no visibility on how this personalization happens. People with often try to guess and steer the algorithm but the reality is you don't know. This means that unpopular opinions can be quietly suppressed with no detectable censorship. On the poster/creator side this presents as constant paranoia about "shadow banning" and the like. 2. The personalized feeds are effectively endless. This allows for repetition that really amplifies any biases/fears. For example, suppose you're worried that the roads are getting more dangerous and you go on Instagram and start looking at car crash reels. Instagram will happily feed you as much of these as you can stomach and it starts to affect your perception of reality. Never mind that you're looking at incidents captured over a period of years from all over the world, seeing them all back to back will probably give you anxiety the next time you go to cross the street. Now apply this same logic to any political topic...
- suraci 2y agoTiktok(or other algorithm-suggesting platforms) provides echo chambers for each user HN/subreddit provides a single echo chamber for everyone that's why I like HN more, I don't want to be in my echo chamber, I perfer visiting your chamber
- whimsicalism 2y agoevery generation thinks they’re the first to argue that there are negative effects of free expression.
- TheOtherHobbes 2y agoIt's not free expression when someone else chooses what everyone sees. Threads is notorious for de-boosting posts with external links. This is a deliberate choice which filters facts and external references out of the conversation. Or you can just delay the feed of posters you don't like. They arrive at every debate a day late, while your favourites go through immediately. And to more people. And so on. There's nothing free about any of this. It's covert behaviour and sentiment modification. With a newspaper you get an editorial angle, so you can choose it if you want it. Social media pretends to be a neutral conduit. But it's carefully curated and manipulated, and you don't know how or why.
- whimsicalism 2y agoEditorial discretion is absolutely part of free expression
- refurb 2y agoI recall similar arguments about the printing press. “But the masses will be able to access the scripture without guidance! Society will crumble!”
- daveguy 2y agoTo be fair, scripture doesn't actively change to increase obsessive engagement at the expense of all else.
- whimsicalism 2y agoit does, just more slowly - modern religions are absolutely the result of natural selection for virality and fervor in the field of ideas
- daveguy 2y agoI'd argue the two are like comparing apples and oranges. Yes, there is a competition of ideas, but accepted scripture is changed so much more slowly than society itself that it cannot exploit the zeitgeist of any one trend. More importantly, it doesn't change differently to each individual to maximize addictive interaction. The slowness is a feature. I'm not saying there aren't some problems with religion being exploitative, but the responsiveness is what makes social media a much more effective manipulator.
- refurb 2y agoBut the argument was that your average peasant would not be able to understand the scripture and be deceived. Not that different from arguing that your average American can’t see through propaganda on TikTok - I think they can. And if the argument is that it’s addictive, I mean ok? Lots of things are addictive that aren’t severely harmful. We tolerate those as well. The argument about teens is an entirely different one, I’m talking about adults.
- intended 2y agoYou know, I think lots of us on HN, can at least be the people who can and should go to next levels of this discussion. So yes - we should definitely agree that all new technology for publishing (publishing? COntent creation?) result in issues of free speech. I will say that each of these, have had different issues, and that from Radio onwards, we are dealing with several issues (side effects ?) that become more intense with each new media developed. I'll jump to the end, but Social media is definitely different from the printing press. We certainly get new and improved benefits, such as the distribution of publishing power to individuals. At the same time, we are getting issues with an abundance of content, that people need content to be eye catching, in order to gain an audience. Theres also a tendency for networks to consolidate over time, so at the start of the radio era, or TV era, you have a bunch of cable networks, then over time they start collapsing into larger groups, which are better able to survive. Fully admit that these are highly generalized, I am just thinking of what others can chime in with.
- trosi 2y agoTeens don't get addicted to Hacker News
- ipsum2 2y agoSpeak for yourself. I've been using hacker news since high school, 10+ years ago and haven't been able to stop.
- whimsicalism 2y agospeak for yourself
- rwyinuse 2y agoAlmost any form of media can be addicting. Kids these days might watch TikTok, but my worst addiction since young age has been reading online news. Once I got diagnosed with ADHD and tried stimulant medicine, I noticed that the time I spend reading news, social media and playing games dropped dramatically. So, effectively all these activities have been nothing more than drugs for my dysfunctional brain. When my brain isn't deficient in dopamine, I seem to automatically spend most of my time on something more useful. Probably wouldn't be writing this if my meds weren't wearing off at this time of day.
- Kiro 2y ago
- lm28469 2y agoThis is the level 0 of reasoning about these topics... We live in organised societies, nobody is forcing you to do crack but people doing crack will definitely lower the experience of everyone they interact with (and more given the burden on shared goods like healthcare, infrastructures, &c.), that's why we collectively decided that crack shouldn't be sold to 13 years old kids. Now of course this is very flawed and we'll always have things slipping through the cracks (alcohol, tobacco, junk food, &c.), but unless you want to live in a mad max type of world you have to accept some level of regulation, and that level of regulation, in a working society, should be determined through politics If tiktok is crack, HN is honey. One becomes problematic much quicker than the other, when you see a kid spending 5 hours a day on HN hit me up
- voidfunc 2y agoWon't someone think of the Children!!!? Social media is just the demon of the day. In the 80s it was that damn rock music ruining our kids and in the 90s it was violent video games and rap. Every generation has their "this thing is corrupting the youth" moment.
- phist_mcgee 2y agoI don't recall violent video games and rap music influencing elections.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- grahamj 2y agoI wish it had - I’d vote for the person fighting for my right to party
- decremental 2y ago[dead]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]