I’m seeing one too many people blaming social media for this and social media for that because it’s just simply - social media. I think about this because I believe that you shouldn’t blame the tool because it is a tool, but blame the person who uses the tool for their intent.
Which means I’m on the side of the camp that actually knows lots of people abuse social media and has it demonized. It’s absolutely silly to just blame a concept or an idea for just being as is. So everyone else is going around blaming and blaming social media for their problems. Not too much the individuals that have contaminated it with their empty-brained existences.
And we all know that some of the more popular social media platforms are controlled by devoid-of-reality sychophants in Zuck, Spez, Musk that sways and stirs the volume of people on their platform with their equally as devoid ideas in how to manage.
Social Media, whether you like it or not, has a use. It’s a useful tool to engage with eachother as close as possible. Might be a bit saturated with many platforms to choose from.
But I just think social media being blamed for just being as is, is such a backwards way of thinking.
I read a book once - i know, crazy right? - looking at Facebook’s policies, strategies, and actions and reactions in relation to driving engagement and its algorithms. They know well what they are doing in regards to hate groups and driving opinions that veer into human rights abuses. If the profit motive is removed, as is the need for ‘hours on platform’ and engagement and feeding people the worst aspects of themselves back to themselves, then much of the malignancy is dampened if not removed. Even so, if we had nothing but benign platforms, I think that a) being always in contact with people is not necessarily a good thing as is claimed, and b) being in contact is not (necessarily) being connected, and fudging or confusing that is a problem in itself.
Just finished reading Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. No, social media isn’t the problem. We as people have had social media is some form of another for a long time.
The problem is the people running the social media. It’s always the people in charge taking advantage for money.
I don’t think social media is inherently evil, but profit motive creeps into people’s private lives and fundamentally corrupts the natural premise of social connection.
Social media is huge money, all through advertising. Advertising will use anything it can to manipulate an audience’s behavior, that’s what it exists for in terms of research and how organizations decide what ads to run and where: net engagement and sales figures. Whether to sell you a product or a political idea, it is most effective when you don’t realize you’re being advertised to. This encourages ad firms and political campaigns to manipulate user psychology to get the most meaningful results they can. I think the depth of insight all the data collection tech companies do opens a window to manipulate people in ways we haven’t really come to terms with as a society.
And while the fediverse is probably more resistant to advertising than a centrally controlled system, there is nothing stopping well crafted astroturfing in this space. Political astroturfing in particular doesn’t generally look like what someone expects an ad to look like because of its ubiquitous nature and its natural network effects.
As someone who became an adult before social media was a thing, it has absolutely been a detriment to society.
There’s great aspects to it and I utilize them. But as a whole, it has FUUUUCKED us up in a very significant way.
There is a direct correlation between the rise of social media and the absolute nosedive our political discourse has taken. Misinformation is SO much more prevalent now. And that rise in misinformation is definitely having real world effects.
“Source of all problems?” If you exaggerate it right in your question and then ask if it’s exaggerated, of course the answer will be yes.
“It’s just a tool” yes and when people say “social media” they mean the whole combination of the tools and how they are getting used. The whole “it’s just a tool” argument isn’t worth much. Yes, it is, and now that it’s been let loose in the world, we see how it is being used.
A match is “just a tool” but in a forest that’s dripping with gasoline, you can see how that tool will do exactly one job.
Social media is not just a tool; every single major social network has an algorithm with an agenda
Tools for connecting people cannot make editorial decisions. Tools for connecting people don’t try to manipulate those people into thinking certain ways.
If social networks were purely tools for connecting people who want to communicate, then we’d be having a different conversation.
If you ask me, we should recategorize Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc from “Social Networks” to “Content Distributors” because that’s what they are. They take content from the users and advertisers and prioritize what they want to promote in front of the users.
Signal, Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, etc don’t have algorithms with agendas so their purpose is purely social networking. They are the actual social networks.
Social media as a concept is not evil or whatever, but a platform with millions and millions of users under corporate control puts a lot of power and influence in the hands of a very small elite. This is the problem. Not the technology itself. With regulation or decentralisation the problem can be fixed. Imo.
It’s just a catalyst. Or rather a mirror
If you had moderate political views, social media algorithms will try to feed you more and more extremist views based on what you are actually reading or have an interest on. This is just capitalism at work because the more time you spend on those websites, the more ad renevue for the platform. As a result those radicalization algorithms will probably push your moderate views to extremist views… So yes… Social networking are one of the main problems.
In the context of engineering and technology: it’s a broader issue. It’s a matter of engineers either refusing to accept responsibility and accountability around the systems they build and the societal effects they have, or failing that, the companies that said engineers work for preventing them from doing so because profitability.
I say this as an engineer who has come to care a whole fucking lot about engineering ethics.
Social Media can be a valuable tool. I find that certain platforms attract different groups of people. I stay away from twitter because, well, we know how to find the nazis. Facebook is for people who like to argue and scam people. And instagram is for the utterly shallow and vapid people who think they are famous. Big ego central. There are nice people on any platform, but you do have to put up with a ton of shit depending on the platform. Watching TV does not rot your brain. Playing video games does not make you violent. Smoking pot does not make you a junkie. Kissing does not lead to sex & pregnancy.
Any activity/tool can do harm, but it’s the individual who is responsible for the action.
I like your sentiment but I have to admit I’m wary of perpetuating the narrative of personal responsibility, since it’s been used so often to excuse discrimination against people for perceived ‘deviant choices’. I would argue that the manifestations of individual behavioral dysfunction are a function of the corrosion of traditional social bonds combined with the unrealized societal effects of new communication technologies. Like a feedback loop of compromised people consuming media that validates their harmful or extreme worldviews.
The internet is a firehose pumped from the septic tank of the human psyche.
If it is a general feature of enough human minds, it ends up there.
So, be better, I guess?
Social media is probably the most powerful propaganda tool of all times.
In the 1960s you would say the same thing about TV, and you’d be right. Before that it was the cinema. It’s not because the mediums as such are inherently evil, but they carry an inherent power that can be used for evil.
Currently, social media is very much being used for evil.
There is, however, another element to it, and one that is completely new for social media. That’s the illusion that we can actually contribute in a meaningful way by participating.
Nobody believes they are actively fighting fascism by watching TV all day. Yet, on social media, well-meaning people are wasting their time shouting at clouds rather than going out in the real world and and actually achieve anything. They collectively tread in water as democracy dies, all the while they feel like they are “doing their part”. In other words, social media is pacifying as fuck.
I participate in the Fediverse because I have hope that we are building something different here; something that can derail the platforms that are currently used for evil, and something where the organization of actual opposition can be possible. I think it might be. But I am also afraid I am just wasting my time.
The problem with social media is that it makes very small communities and issues seem very large and important. So when you actually go outside to do something about it, you find out that the world doesn’t care and isn’t impacted by the issue nearly as much as you thought. It sends you right back to your cozy and comfortable online communities where everyone agrees on the important issues.
You are wasting your time because you’re correct, the way to make the world a better place to get up and do something.
Yes. Social media is literally just a fairly accurate reflection of us as a species and our civilization. If people wanted, things would be very different. People simply do not want equality or progress, they want to hate thy neighbour.
Social media is literally just a fairly accurate reflection of us as a species and our civilization.
Strong disagree. Capitalists sell it to us as a mirror, but it’s a distorted mirror that shows us exactly what they want us to see for whatever reason.
If they want to sell us diet pills, they will turn it into one of those amusement park mirrors that makes you look fat. If they want to overthrow democracy, they’ll turn it into a mirror where everyone standing around you suddenly look suspicious and cruel. And if the Russians want to pay them to get control of what people will see in the mirror, hell - that’s just freedom of expression.
Add on top that pretty much everyone on earth is staring mindlessly into the mirror for hours every day, and you got yourself what I would consider to be a problem.
Algorithms will show you something you already to some degree want to see see or nobody would visit social media. People like capitalism. They like authoritarian dictators. People like Trump, Musk etc. they do not act alone. Leftists and other assorted humanists and progressives are wildly unpopular because most of the public simply can’t imagine not having the sheer bloodlust they have for thy neighbor.
If people didn’t like any of this, they’d be here, not on Xitter. They know and they will make any reason up not to be here from the somewhat reasonable to the truly bizarre like pretending not to comprehend instances/servers while using discord, and that’s only if they even bother to virtue signal that lack of corporate control is something they want to appear to want, like how average joe will say in a survey he isn’t racist because he knows that’s socially desirable, even when he of course is and similarly in reality the public love every inch of the boot.
There’s no educating them, there’s no misinformation that can be debunked, it’s all excuses and these people reason backwards from what they want to believe and because of this and the bloodlust - the natural state of humanity is a fascist one and that’s why getting someone to agree you shouldn’t throw babies in the woodchipper is like pulling teeth and whenever a guy comes around saying he’ll double the baby crushing machine capacity nationwide at the expense of healthcare for everyone, endless unwashed hordes of barbarians come out of the woodwork voting for him.
Leftists and other assorted humanists and progressives are wildly unpopular because most of the public simply can’t imagine not having the sheer bloodlust they have for thy neighbor.
Believe it or not, this is not a necessity of human nature. It’s just your society that’s fucked up. And it’s probably not even that bad if you go out and talk to people rather than judge society by the distorted reflection given on social media.
Believe it or not, this is not a necessity of human nature. It’s just your society that’s fucked up.
Do you look at the prisoner’s dilemma and conclude that cooperation is the obvious answer?
The prisoner’s dilemma depends on the fact that the two prisoners cannot cooperate. If you allow information to flow between them it’s literally not a dilemma any more.
So yes.
If you mean cooperation with the police, how the hell did you derive that from my text?
If you allow information to flow between them it’s literally not a dilemma any more.
That’s novel information. Where did you learn that?
Two prisoners are arrested.
Both are given a choice: Rat out your buddy, and we’ll let you go with one year in prison. Keep your moth shut and we’ll give you four years. If you keep your moth shut and your buddy rats you out, you’ll get ten. If you both rat, you both get eight years.
The dominant strategy of both prisoners is to speak: In either case, ratting on their buddy will lower their punishment. However, if both prisoners choose this strategy, they end up losing collectively: Rather than both receiving four years as they would if they both kept their moth shut, they both yet eight years because they both talk.
That’s the basics of the dilemma. The years don’t matter, just the ranking of preferences.
If the prisoners can communicate, they will know that the other prisoner didn’t talk, and if one prisoner opens his mouth, he will know that the other prisoner will immediately do the same.
I learned the prisoner’s dilemma when I studied game theory. The fact that it depends on a lack of information flowing between the prisoners and that snitching is only the dominant strategy when it’s a single-round game is just parts of the assumptions of the dilemma.
I should also add that the prisoner’s dilemma is only a dilemma when it is played in only one round. Once it becomes a game of several rounds cooperation arises as the dominant strategy.
Then again, I’m not sure how the prisoner’s dilemma is relevant here in the first place, I just thought it was a funny point to make.
only a dilemma when it is played in only one round.
There is no fixed solution for the repeated case:
in such a simulation, tit-for-tat will almost always come to dominate, though nasty strategies will drift in and out of the population because a tit-for-tat population is penetrable by non-retaliating nice strategies, which in turn are easy prey for the nasty strategies. Dawkins showed that here, no static mix of strategies forms a stable equilibrium, and the system will always oscillate between bounds
I talk to people every day. Statistically, they’d vote to take my rights away so I keep my wits about me though and thank god each day we don’t live in an actual democracy lest minority blood will run in the streets.
If there’s anything I can agree with rightoids on, it’s that the average person should have absolutely no say in anything that happens to them and god forbid anyone else, all I want is a woke dictatorship at this point where the masses are very openly and directly brainwashed unto humanist ideals by elites who know what’s good for them, except these elites should be ethical scientists, “woke moralists”, other experts and humanists and not a handful of ultra-wealthy morons.
Social media is just a canvas for the average joe to show his true colours. I for one don’t like what I see, but I don’t blame the canvas for the paint our species chose.
Yeah, I’m not going to make the argument that people are fundamentally good either, and they are shaped by the media landscape they consume.
I live in a country where trans rights are not really questioned, and where I am feeling confident that they won’t be. Of course it still has ways to go and there are bad people, but trans rights have not become effectively politicized and it’s just not a point of contention.
It’s no fundamental rule of society that we have to go around hating each other. It’s a construct. That doesn’t mean it’s not the case where you live, but it’s something that can be changed.
Oh really, what country is this might I ask?
I currently live in Denmark. I have to admit I’m not following the public debate here very carefully, and there are plenty of backwards people around who will shout loudly about just about anything, but any reversal (or anything else than gradual strengthening) of trans rights would come as a huge surprise to me.
I am open for the possibility that I’m simply not following close enough. But I think the problem with trans rights is that it has become politicized, when it is really not a political issue. The fact that I have not heard about it at all in the public debate here is therefore, in my opinion, a good sign. For sure one can dig up shitty opinions if one starts looking for it, but they have not been given a defining role in the public debate as is the case in many countries.
the ones who own the social media are the source of so many problems.
