Comment by hx8

Comment by hx8 3 months ago

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It's a shame that this is true for many platforms. Social media platforms have the potential to be incredibly democratic. The more people watch content the more it's shown to other people. Anyone's voice could be amplified in a way that was limited to broadcast networking and printing presses in the past. A million small conversations can occur in such a way that they create a chorus of discussion about public interests. Now it seems like most platforms seem to be thinly veiled psyops hoping to trade quick dopamine for mindshare.

idle_zealot 3 months ago

> Social media platforms have the potential to be incredibly democratic.

> Now it seems like most platforms seem to be thinly veiled psyops hoping to trade quick dopamine for mindshare.

It's a matter of incentives. The profit motive is fundamentally opposed to a low-intervention platform for democratic communication. For a brief period we had some social media platforms that made gestures in the direction of free communication. Then the investor capital came rolling in, and they were expected to increase revenue. How do you increase revenue of your free communication platform? You sell the messaging. Call it promotion, advertising, whatever. The only thing of value you have at your disposal are people's eyeball, you're going to sell what they see. You could ask your users to pay for the service... but then 80% of them will flake to a rival service that's still free. If there's a way to marry the profit motive and a truly democratic social media platform then our best and brightest have yet to find it. I suspect it doesn't exist.

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  • swed420 3 months ago

    > It's a matter of incentives. The profit motive is fundamentally opposed to a low-intervention platform for democratic communication.

    Exactly.

    It seems the only way to sidestep this growing problem is to create a profit free platform, and view it almost as a utility but is openly owned and controlled by "the people."

    The vTaiwan and g0v ("gov zero") projects are relevant starter examples for a newer type of distributed governance:

    https://www.stearthinktank.com/post/deconstructing-binary-ci...

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    • Nasrudith 2 months ago

      That reminds me of the surprising and perverse effects witnessed during the Roman Empire's downward spiral.

      One of the reforms was going from citizen soldiers who must provide their own gear to government provided weaponry and armor. Despite on its face being more egalitarian this resulted instead in consolidation of personal power and lead to more stratification. Quartermasters became kingmakers, just like how coups were lead by quartermasters in the Napoleonic era as they controlled food and provided payment.

      There must always be an owner and don't trust "the people" to be anything more than a populist's device to assign legitimacy to their supporters and other dissenters.

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      • swed420 2 months ago

        > There must always be an owner and don't trust "the people" to be anything more than a populist's device to assign legitimacy to their supporters and other dissenters.

        That's a false dichotomy, especially in the example of vTaiwan, since it was a creation that operated in parallel with an already existing government.

        Basically, the platform itself didn't have any direct political power because at the end of the day it was "just an app" or series of apps.

        However, even without official power, its low barrier to public consensus building (that you call populism) enabled an efficient and highly organized form of government critique and accountability. This created a near realtime public awareness of the real world intricacies of problem X, Y, or Z that did not exist previously, and put pressure on the politicians in power to take these conclusions/demands somewhat seriously. It also literally helped them do their jobs better, and was far more responsive and precise than traditional electoral implementations.

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unyttigfjelltol 3 months ago

> Now it seems like most platforms seem to be thinly veiled psyops hoping to trade quick dopamine for mindshare.

The first step to reform would be to persuade legacy media to stop reporting the opinions trending on X/Twitter as "news". Stop reporting it entirely, it's manipulated, at best unverified, rubbish.

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  • cma 3 months ago

    It's their legal out against having to research stuff to prevent libel liability. And they can embed social media photos and videos that weren't even from the rights holder to avoid having to clear rights to anything.

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  • snypher 3 months ago

    That would require legacy reporters to get out on the streets and do some reporting.

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    • isodev 3 months ago

      Can you imagine, holding public servants (a president for example) accountable for their statements… practically unheard of in the last decade…

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      • Freedom2 3 months ago

        Americans have held all their presidents accountable in the way they deem best according to their values.

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      • [removed] 3 months ago
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llamaimperative 3 months ago

This is part of why I think there should exist a popular real-name-only network. It'd go far to prevent these types of attacks on the megaphone.

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  • ipython 3 months ago

    Isn’t that what Facebook is supposed to provide? From anecdotal evidence, people are happy to engage in vitriol online that they would never do face to face, real name or not.

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    • TheCleric 3 months ago

      Heck I’ve seen some nastiness on LinkedIn with people’s government name and employer right next to it.

      Real names don’t do much to prevent online assholery.

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      • ipython 3 months ago

        And to that point LinkedIn makes an active effort (in my experience) to highlight the most extreme political comments (I assume for the same reasons as any other social network- anger is a simple formula to fuel engagement).

        It insists on sending me push notifications of the most bizarre conspiracy theories, even after I muted the accounts. Super frustrating when all you want is basically an electronic business card catalog.

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    • llamaimperative 3 months ago

      1) No, Facebook does not confirm people’s real names

      2) This isn’t a solution to vitriol, it’s a solution to inorganic amplification

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      • ipython 3 months ago

        They absolutely do require confirmation in some cases - https://www.facebook.com/help/1090831264320592

        Of course that’s not foolproof and there are millions of bot accounts by facebooks own admission. But at the scale of billions of active users across the globe I’m not sure what approach could be 100%

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  • Nasrudith 2 months ago

    Why do people insist upon sacrificing anominity and thinking they will get anything in return for it? I could forgive it in the 00s but it is inexcusable in the 20s. Real name policies just causes people to double down more. It has not been a pancaea.

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    • llamaimperative 2 months ago

      Maybe re-read the comment. No one is insisting on anything. I’m wishing for more optionality.

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gunian 3 months ago

I blame the Zuck algorithmic feed ruined it all he was my favorite out of all the feudal barons too :(

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