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The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis
- easton 2y agohttps://archive.ph/oFpT2 https://archive.ph/oFpT2
- KittenInABox 2y agoMore and more I feel like online spaces are far more insidiously dangerous than anticipated. We have bots or malicious actors among the userbase explicitly to sow dissent and spin the quality of discussion downwards. We have algorithms that push content based on engagement, which isn't actually connection or anything resembling engaging with community. We then have online cultures that encourage lowering empathy for others and reveling when bad things happen to people who "deserve it", like "leopards eating faces" communities or punching women or whatever. I'm not being a centrist or anything like that but I feel online spaces actually socialize people to be lonelier by encouraging engagement via positions and activities that actively isolate us from each other, as opposed to genuine connections that come with say community service IRL.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI think the next decade will include a shift where we acknowledge that the web is a dark forest and we stop trying to block the scams/propagandists/malware/ads specifically and instead we start blocking everything that isn't signed by somebody we've met in person and trust explicitly (or somebody that they have met in person, etc...). We're going to have to learn a new kind of hygiene.
- datadrivenangel 2y agoExcept that phishing means our trusted contacts will get popped...
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoTrusting people with poor information hygiene is a hazard. Tell your friends. Train your parents.
- fullshark 2y agoThat's already here for me, and others I believe as the most interesting communication has moved to group chats. The open web is for advertising, and the best LLMs will be for information retrieval.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI'm a bit doubtful. You're seeing my words... do you have data on the transitive trust path between you and I? In the world I'm describing your browser wouldn't render this text unless it had confirmed that path decided that it was acceptable.
- fullshark 2y agoI'm exaggerating a bit, but the broad outline is essentially there already I think. The move to walled gardens everywhere (if we call this site a walled garden) is the first move almost everyone has made in terms of where they allocate attention. I think people will just move to smaller and smaller circles of interactions they trust (discord/group chats) especially if you don't need to query the open web for information anymore, and you trust an LLM agent for information retrieval / commerce.
- hooverd 2y agoI don't trust LLMs with the truth. I think they are an amazing tool for !!!generating!!! text; but they're wholly untethered from any sort of ground truth. Unfortunately what will happen, and I hate being right about, is that LLMs on everyone's phones will give dumbasses their own personal conspiracy/radicalization machine. You can generate all the text and images you'd ever want to give yourself the thrill of hate without any tether to reality.
- fullshark 2y agoI think it's more dangerous as a parasocial playground. You think you are making friends, but in fact it's a poor substitute and doesn't carry the risks/benefits of proper bonding with another human. This is independent of whether the other person is a bot or their communication is curated by an algorithm.
- pavel_lishin 2y agoCan you say more about those risks and benefits?
- fullshark 2y agoRisks - you might be exposed to an idea that challenges you, you might be bored for stretches of time, you might think the relationship is stronger than it is for the other side and embarrass yourself, especially if you read romantic interest. You might have to alter your behavior in the name of social grace. You might lose that companion. Benefits - IRL human companionship.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2y agoA system is kind of like an unthinking lifeform. It will adapt to find ways to make itself stronger and to grow. It will use whatever resources it has access to to and does not care about (or is even conscious of) the damage it does in the process. All systems are like a virus in this way. Social media as a system is just playing this out. The social media system feeds on engagement and use and, it turns out, that isolation and polarization lead to more social media engagement. So it adapts itself to make more that, the users well-being is irrelevant. Corporate bureaucracy, capitalism, religion even are similar. They may have been created for some purpose (that was useful for the people who created it), but once they reach a certain scale, that purpose inevitably shifts to simple self-perpetuation. Another example is a charity formed to help with some problem which it initially does well at. But then over time the charity matures and more and more of its funds are devoted to keeping the charity running, paying salaries, renting office space, paying for trips, organizing fund-raising events. Less goes to the cause. The primary purpose of all the fundraising then becomes to cover the overhead of doing all the fundraising. The cause is a second order consideration at best. Social media has matured from being about connection, information exchange, community building. Now its just to keeping the clicks and comments coming so the ad-revenue and data-mining can be used to cover the cost of the servers, developers, and executive bonuses.
- wink 2y agoI don't get how or why it seems to have gotten worse in the last 20-25 years. I was a very online teenager at the end of the 90s and I have formed friendships that last to this day. Or at least staying in touch. And it's not just me, it's the same for a lot of people I got to know offline who have different such circles. Maybe because it was just a smaller circle of people? Maybe because it was so not normal that people were much more cautious? Or because half of the online venues were run by hobbyists? Or because no companies and bots and people trying to make money were involved. Probably the latter.
- KittenInABox 2y agoI'm also a little confused, because I remember such common empathy-lacking rhetoric like demanding boob pics of any proclaimed female on the internet being common in my tween online years. Or sending shock stuff as a joke (2girls1cup, tubgirl etc). So its not like the internet didn't have troll-y cesspits. And yet somehow something has changed such that as a population we've been trained against forming human connections. Even 4chan organized against scientology once upon a time, that required at minimum real organizational labor and forming some kind of community action. I can't imagine any similar thing happening now.
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- arrosenberg 2y agoIMO back in the 90s anyone looking to do harm on the internet was working alone or in a small group. That's bad, but not a system-level danger. It wasn't trillions of dollars worth of market cap conspiring against us.
- PaulHoule 2y agoSee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations Early adopters of just about anything are smarter and better than the people who come along later.
- hindsightbias 2y ago
- ronnier 2y ago> Romance scams cost victims hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As people grow increasingly isolated “People” is accurate but this is largely a male dominated issue. Men are targeted at higher rates and fall for these scams at much higher rates. Men need to be taught that random unknown women will largely not message them at random for sex. It’s almost always a scam. These scammers are playing on the psychology of men’s deep desperation to meet women, and as it has become harder for men to meet women over the last decade, men are falling victim to these scams in large numbers.
- cdrini 2y agoI don't think this is true, I've only ever seen women talk about losing money due to romance scams on the news. Do you have any citations?
- ronnier 2y agoI work on this very issue at one of the world’s largest social media companies. It’s completely male dominated.
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- cdrini 2y agoFascinating! Well if y'all haven't already, it would be great if you could publish a study of your findings; what you're describing is basically the exact opposite of what I expected based on other reporting.
- HPsquared 2y agoGentle reminder that news reporting is not a representative sample of, well, just about anything. It's highly selected and filtered through several layers. The same is true of a survey of internet posts, or online surveys btw. It's very hard to get representative samples.
- knowitnone 2y agoPrime targets for state sponsored espionage. This is not a new problem but a growing one.
- danielodievich 2y agoThis was the topic of an amazing podcast Scam Inc from the Economist https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/scam-inc https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/scam-inc that I finished last week. It's subscriber only but absolutely worth it. Key points are: "Pig butchering" scams were developed and mastered by Chinese organized crime targeting chinese citizens first, before going worldwide. The crime is industrialized with call centers with thousands of people working on this. Many of these people are victims themselves, doing this against their will, trafficked from all over the world. Most call centers are in asia/asia adjacent, but also in eastern Europe and near Ireland Amount the scams steal is $500B<amount<$1T, more than all illegal drug trade in the world. Money is then washed via incredibly clever ways including sports betting. In fact there is very heavy connection to rise of betting everywhere. Final clean money is invested into real estate worldwide. Heck, my little island has fancy huge houses bought by chinese sitting empty all year long, likely from this. Nobody is safe from scams, especially the older/lonelier people. And yes, it is very much a national security threat. The podcast called out Singapore for doing a government sponsored and very empowered task force to combat it. USA was called out for sitting complacently. Listen to the podcast if you can. Great stuff.
- plutomeetsyou 2y agoMI is not a tiny island but I see your point, especially over the last 20+ years of living there. However, wealthy people buying multiple mansions around the world and letting them sit there idle is also a story as old as time.
- vorpalhex 2y agoYep my mom got caught on one of these - paying to "save a vulnerable puppy" only for the dog to "have a medical crises during transport", etc. If you have a loved one who is vulnerable: + Make it clear there is no shame in falling victim or seeking help + Teach them to "hang up and call back" anytime someone calls them and asks for money or passwords, personal data, etc. (This just saved her from a bank card scam) Currently my worry is AI voice impersonation because my mom genuinely doesn't believe that AI can clone a voice. My plan is to have JFK call her and give her an impassioned speech about being aware of scams.
- andrejodc 2y agoRecently I joined Tinder and Bumble and got more matches with scammers than with real people. I was not aware of pig butchering scams until I got curious about a young crypto-loving woman who helpfully taught me how buying and trading crypto works. Being inexperienced with crypto I just wanted to learn about the basics how to get started. Long story short: After some time the woman suggested to try out some shady crypto trading website with a small amount which indeed made me about 50$ profit and everything could be successfully cashed out. In the next phase she asked me to repeat the same with at least 5k to make 100% profit. Luckily all my alarm bells rang and I called it quits. However I can see how somebody less critical could fall for this. We need systems in place to prevent these schemes from succeeding.
- pfannkuchen 2y ago> young crypto-loving woman Your alarm bells didn’t ring here?
- c7THEC2DDFVV2V 2y agoAlarm bells ring after the first like.
- cmdtab 2y agoI know right. On dating app, of all places. Alarms should be screaming.
- andrejodc 2y agoThat's the point. You can't catch that immediately if you don't know what to look for. First the crypto part was mentioned much later. The profile was convincing. The woman said she is working as an illustrator and just mentioned that she does crypto in her free time. Also I know some friends who are also in the crypto space so it was for me not that unusual.
- lifestyleguru 2y agoI met a woman who hit the "jackpot". Flew to India for "yoga meditation camp" where she met some Indian AI crypto investors. After coming back home she sold her inherited flat, "invested" part of the money into "AI crypto fund" and rents housing. I do not want to know what she is up to currently.
- matrix87 2y agoI just can't take the people who fall for these seriously Not just the money part, but the whole online-only "long distance relationship" thing. Why would you spend hours investing your time in someone if there's no immediate plan for it to turn physical (doesn't even have to be sexual)? It's a thing I see redditors talking about like it's normal or something
- Bramfloris 2y ago[dead]
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