5 ms·

I've been watching both the corporate media, and social media, rot completely over the past 30 years. A large part of that was that early adopters tended to be

I've been watching both the corporate media, and social media, rot completely over the past 30 years. A large part of that was that early adopters tended to be more educated, played nicely, and were not involved in attention-seeking, sychophancy, and often, escapism. Another factor is the bright colors, moving videos and other eye candy, and psychological hacks like the emojis for "liking" and gaining "followers" which produce addictive feedback loops. Of course, this interview touches on valid points, but is not the whole picture. "Bad news travels fast" and gets more clicks. That helps explain the rot of the news media. Maybe I am oversimplifying too, however. Factors like sophisticated persuasion campaigns by various organizations, for example, cannot be discarded. Likewise with the advertisers.

dredmorbius 3mo ago
Agree strongly with your first factor. Early adopters often (though not always) self-select for higher-level interaction. This has been true of media dating back to cuneiform. A third factor addressing 21st century media rot is the absolute dependence on advertising, and the demonitisation of earlier ad-supported formats (print newspapers, print magazines, radio, television, and increasingly non-social-media online platforms) as ads transferred first to "new media" (itself an old story, though dating somewhat more recently to the origins of mass-advertising in the mid-19th century), and ultimately to "adtech", with highly-personalised, highly-targeted advertising. That latter both led advertisers to abandon non-targetable media (including generic online banner ads), and the increasing pandering of online media (especially Search and Social) to advertiser interests. This both killed ads-as-financial-foundation of other online media, and increasingly turned Search and Social into ad-delivery rather than information-delivery / community-connection platforms. It's the odd standouts which have independent funding which are still relatively immune to this. HN is one of those, some sites such as Metafilter and the Metaverse are others online. Public media would be another notable exception, though of course it is being increasingly targeted as well, largely for political reasons, notably in the US (NPR, PBS, and the late CPB), and UK (BBC). It's healthier elsewhere, notably in my experience, Germany.
- DaveZale 3mo ago
  Sure, Germany has excellent journalism. I visit dw.com often. derspiegel has very in-depth quality journalism too. And many others surely exist, I just don't know about them. 100% agree about the personalization of news topics and stories. When I look at my spouse's newsfeed in the evening (she uses yahoo) I remark to her "that's clickbait" and get a relatively violent reaction. "Relatively" because normally she is very pleasant. But tailoring the media to past viewing history is potentially very dangerous. In the wrong hands, the news feed could be tweaked just a little bit, day by day, week by week, to enable or worsen certain biases. And surely, we see some of this daily already. Why else would billionaires purchase large US media companies? The best guidance I've seen to have a well balanced view of world news, is to use several independent sources globally. Do not rely upon "newsfeeds" (doesn't it suggest that we are cattle in a way?), don't spend too much time in any one place, use a variety of search engines to confirm or disprove questionable conclusions, and try to read print books by reputable authors on topics that really fascinate us. Nassim Talib offered some good advice in his books on the so-called "news" - if you really want to see the value in the news, try to go to the library for a print newspaper, and look at the news from a week ago. Is it really as important to you as the "news" today? Very often, it will seem completely meaningless, ancient history. If that is the case, we are getting something from the information other than the information itself. It's something that has to be tried to learn the lesson. Advertising? I see very little, using linux with brave browser and various plug ins. When I use google chrome, the results are horrifying. I've used google for 30 years now, but have been de-googling for over a year now. It's been a healthy experience. I don't know what is happening with them. Maybe they abandoned the "don't be evil" prematurely?
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    One time I accidentally flicked onto German TV - I am not sure which channel - and they were talking about Berlin getting overrun by antisemitic mobs. I looked out my hotel window. No antisemitic mob. I really don't think they're more reliable than UK or US media.
    - DaveZale 3mo ago

dredmorbius 3mo ago

Agree strongly with your first factor. Early adopters often (though not always) self-select for higher-level interaction. This has been true of media dating back to cuneiform. A third factor addressing 21st century media rot is the absolute dependence on advertising, and the demonitisation of earlier ad-supported formats (print newspapers, print magazines, radio, television, and increasingly non-social-media online platforms) as ads transferred first to "new media" (itself an old story, though dating somewhat more recently to the origins of mass-advertising in the mid-19th century), and ultimately to "adtech", with highly-personalised, highly-targeted advertising. That latter both led advertisers to abandon non-targetable media (including generic online banner ads), and the increasing pandering of online media (especially Search and Social) to advertiser interests. This both killed ads-as-financial-foundation of other online media, and increasingly turned Search and Social into ad-delivery rather than information-delivery / community-connection platforms. It's the odd standouts which have independent funding which are still relatively immune to this. HN is one of those, some sites such as Metafilter and the Metaverse are others online. Public media would be another notable exception, though of course it is being increasingly targeted as well, largely for political reasons, notably in the US (NPR, PBS, and the late CPB), and UK (BBC). It's healthier elsewhere, notably in my experience, Germany.

DaveZale 3mo ago
Sure, Germany has excellent journalism. I visit dw.com often. derspiegel has very in-depth quality journalism too. And many others surely exist, I just don't know about them. 100% agree about the personalization of news topics and stories. When I look at my spouse's newsfeed in the evening (she uses yahoo) I remark to her "that's clickbait" and get a relatively violent reaction. "Relatively" because normally she is very pleasant. But tailoring the media to past viewing history is potentially very dangerous. In the wrong hands, the news feed could be tweaked just a little bit, day by day, week by week, to enable or worsen certain biases. And surely, we see some of this daily already. Why else would billionaires purchase large US media companies? The best guidance I've seen to have a well balanced view of world news, is to use several independent sources globally. Do not rely upon "newsfeeds" (doesn't it suggest that we are cattle in a way?), don't spend too much time in any one place, use a variety of search engines to confirm or disprove questionable conclusions, and try to read print books by reputable authors on topics that really fascinate us. Nassim Talib offered some good advice in his books on the so-called "news" - if you really want to see the value in the news, try to go to the library for a print newspaper, and look at the news from a week ago. Is it really as important to you as the "news" today? Very often, it will seem completely meaningless, ancient history. If that is the case, we are getting something from the information other than the information itself. It's something that has to be tried to learn the lesson. Advertising? I see very little, using linux with brave browser and various plug ins. When I use google chrome, the results are horrifying. I've used google for 30 years now, but have been de-googling for over a year now. It's been a healthy experience. I don't know what is happening with them. Maybe they abandoned the "don't be evil" prematurely?
- inigyou 3mo ago
  One time I accidentally flicked onto German TV - I am not sure which channel - and they were talking about Berlin getting overrun by antisemitic mobs. I looked out my hotel window. No antisemitic mob. I really don't think they're more reliable than UK or US media.
  - DaveZale 3mo ago