Social media and discussion - A Musky odour - The Bear and Badger

b0r1s

GooberTheHat wrote:

b0r1s wrote:

...that is a relatively easy fix compared to (as Brooks mentions) the core issue with the algos. They thrive on conflict and that has led to the population being combative. Even if there is an algo change now it is still going to take years or even decades for that worldwide confrontational attitude to change.

The thing is, the algorithms don't thrive on conflict, we do. The algorithms give us what they think we want based on our viewing habits and those of people like us. If they are serving up aggravating content, that's because that's what that viewer likes to watch (at least what grasps their attention).

Afraid this feels like a bit of a cop out to me. Saying that the algorithms didn't intend conflict doesn't matter if the output is conflict, and social media platforms know that it is. An analogy would be if Tesla's car developers writing code for autonomous driving that killed someone then said, "well it's not what our algorithm intended" and left the code in place.

Roujin

I'm not super into the legal side of things on social media reform and I'm not of the opinion that by preventing hate speech from being tolerated on a platform that we are going to drive these things underground, I think thedonald.win and Parler are examples that people with horrible views want to congregate in number online so they can all circle jerk around their favourite hate targets and fucking Q theories.

I think the rules that we have now are adequate in terms of free speech, I think it's perfectly acceptable for private platforms like Twitter/FB/Reddit to enforce their own terms of service that go over and above free speech laws. What I have an issue with is the almost total lack of moderation of these sites, presumably to enable the most number of users to exist on the platform for ad revenue. Instead of employing adequately sized teams of people to manage and review content, it's all pretty much just left to the algorithm to find the worst offenders and automate suspensions and bans in all but the worst cases, I think there is scope for law to be passed that mandates a minimum acceptable level of human oversight on these platforms in addition to the automated moderation that takes place. I don't think social media is too far removed from something like talk radio in terms of how the mechanism for the platform owner being responsible what people coming onto the platform say should work.

There could also be better information sharing between these companies for problem users as well. For instance right now there are some people in the US finding out they can't fly out of Washington because they went for a little tour around the inside of the capitol building, I think we could look at some sort of information sharing scheme, where IP addresses banned on one platform for are just banned across any site that signs up to the scheme. People will say "Oh but Rouj it's easy to change your IP" and yeah it is, but if like a lot of the people engaging in harmful rhetoric online you're just some boomer posting on Twitter or FB because you're mad about what you read in the Daily Mail, then you aren't the sort of person who typically knows you can still access apps that are removed from storefronts if you download the APK and side load it for example.

No one should have to tolerate having a load of chuds chatting shit online basically, if the only way these people are permitted to interact with society is by keeping their horrible thoughts in their own heads where they belong, fucking fine with me. There are plenty of places where racists can reform their world views, it's not the job of people trying to post pictures of their cats online to engage with these people and offer them a nice cuddle and some love and tell them they're special little pogchamps and gently talk them round from their bigoted viewpoints.

poprock

Roujin wrote:

I think there is scope for law to be passed that mandates a minimum acceptable level of human oversight on these platforms in addition to the automated moderation that takes place.

That’s an interesting idea. One independent moderator per X number of active users on a platform. Could even be a public body that does moderation cross-platform, funded by all the big tech brands who sign up to it.

Sounds like the sort of thing the EU might do.

Roujin

It's a big ask, because these are multinational platforms, so they only have to follow the law in the area in which they operate. I would prefer the platform holders themselves to do the moderating tbh, a governmental department for trawling forums for looking for my shitposting sounds pretty grim.

Certainly an EU law regarding the regulation of the platforms would at least help localised EDF wankery to have it's outreach dramatically reduced possibly, even if it wouldn't stop people hearing from patriots like the Boogaloo Boys, Proud Boys, Three Percenters from across the pond.

poprock

True. The international nature of the Internet is precisely why regulation is hard. But without a Star Trek style one-world government the best weapon we have is probably trading blocs like the EU. You want to do your Internet business in our region? You want access to our audience for your advertisers? You agree to moderation and you pay dues to fund it. Fuck it, might work.

poprock

I read some stuff recently about how the advertising industry might need to adapt if social media starts to change, regulation comes in, users start to drift away from the big central platforms, etc.

Lots of tech and ad analysts bleating on about how, if microtargeting is unsustainable, advertisers need to develop methods of working with minimal audience data, instead of the maximum they’ve been used to.

I mean … isn’t that just going back to how advertising always used to work? It’s not fucking rocket science, is it?

hunk

The irony of the internet. We have the power to search entire encyclopedia's and journals at our fingertips yet humanity prefers q-anon, hate groups and consumerism. Oh and pets. All because of eyeball engagement.

Tempy

hunk wrote:

The irony of the internet. We have the power to search entire encyclopedia's and journals at our fingertips yet humanity prefers q-anon, hate groups and consumerism. Oh and pets. All because of eyeball engagement.

Does it? or is it just very select and vocal few that have created an echo chamber that is magnified due to associations with populism?

hunk

Tempy wrote:

hunk wrote:

The irony of the internet. We have the power to search entire encyclopedia's and journals at our fingertips yet humanity prefers q-anon, hate groups and consumerism. Oh and pets. All because of eyeball engagement.

Does it? or is it just very select and vocal few that have created an echo chamber that is magnified due to associations with populism?

You're probably right that it's just a vocal few from the EC swing states. Nonetheless, their mobilisation, march and siege on the Capitol were very real. Scared tf out of the GOP in the building despite the fact it being their mob.

Trump also won more votes (45%?) than thought possible despite the previous four years. Don't underestimate the power, the pervasiveness of his disinformation campaign. It will take years of policy and regulations to undo the effects.

GurtTractor

This is all quite interesting stuff I think, and to me the solution(s) isn't at all obvious. I do think it's worth looking at what healthy online communities do right, certainly it requires a substantial amount of moderation, and that should definitely be left to private individuals. It can get more complicated with giant platforms like Twitter and Facebook, but user reporting of posts that break rules is key here. I feel like requiring evidence of good moderation rules and practices is probably quite reasonable.

This feeds into what I'm saying about trying to not push people away and further into their own echo chamber bubbles, the more people of divergent opinions you have within a group and the more eyes that are on the content the more likely it is that the really dangerous hate-filled stuff will be caught and challenged. If you just jeer and yell "go back to 4chan" or whatever, well they probably will, and just get more and more radicalised as they are exposed to ideas from people that tolerate them. There are always limits of course before the ban hammers have to come out, but really I'm talking about the way that we generally converse online, love and empathy is where it's at, hate breeds more hate.

I feel like the marginalisation of people with whom you disagree with is part of what leads to folk getting blindsided when controversial political candidates win unexpectedly, or when groups gather to go on violent marches. It's not the only reason of course, these things can happen even in a more cohesive society, but it seems much more likely to happen on a greater scale when you try and sweep what you see as all the ugly opinions under the rug.

Back to the topic of regulation, I really think we need to be careful about welcoming too much in the way of laws and restrictions for online content. It all seems ok if it's working against the horrible racists, but such laws can be so easily used against dissent more generally if the definitions for hate speech or encouragement of violence get fuzzy. For example there are jokes here over in the British Politics thread about storming this and guillotine that, and we all know that's not entirely serious or at least shouldn't be taken literally, but can some of you not see how laws might one day impact our freedom for such chat and that would be more than a little unfortunate?

I might be quite wrong about worrying so much about that, and I hope I am and it will all be fine, but it's worth looking around at the state of some other countries and thinking how easily it could happen here.

GurtTractor

poprock wrote:

I read some stuff recently about how the advertising industry might need to adapt if social media starts to change, regulation comes in, users start to drift away from the big central platforms, etc. Lots of tech and ad analysts bleating on about how, if microtargeting is unsustainable, advertisers need to develop methods of working with minimal audience data, instead of the maximum they’ve been used to. I mean … isn’t that just going back to how advertising always used to work? It’s not fucking rocket science, is it?

I would love to see a massive shake up and culling of advertisers, which would hurt a bunch of companies and people but I really think there needs to be a better model. Like I would be more ok with some kind of personalised opt-in thing where you can select the exact categories and companies that promote their stuff to you, basically like when you sign up for email news about new products you actually care about. I don't really know how that would work in practice, I just know I hate the way it's done right now.

Yossarian

Nobody is arguing for more laws. We have the laws, this is about getting social media platforms to make their users abide by them. Redefine social media as publishers rather than platforms and use the laws that already exist.

Roujin

I don't think moderation of people calling for the death of US Senators and inciting violence for example will make them change their minds. Moderation of these platforms can only silence these people, their posts are removed until they agree to delete them and they get their account back, or what they wrote is so bad they are banned.

Let's come at this from another angle, what should we be doing then, when we are confronted by hate on a social media platform to help these people?

Edit: FTR I'm on the bare man can get the block and delete treatment, but am open to other avenues for dealing with hate speech whatever they may be.

poprock

Give their heads a wobble, obviously.

GurtTractor

There's a difference between a publisher and a public space though, social media are more like public spaces filled with chattering people (and bloody billboards everywhere). I know that they are private platforms technically, but they are some of the only ways people have to broadly converse online. Imagine if a park was required to be responsible for anything said inside, seems a little dystopian? Ehh I know that analogy won't hold up, I just think that it should be a little more complicated than 'social media company/forum X is a publisher therefore they should abide by the same rules'. Somewhere for people to generate and talk about dissent is an essential part of a reasonably free society.

Roujin

Well the thing is, if you go to a private park and just shout racist things at people, someone will complain and then someone from security comes and removes you.

If you go to a public space and shout racist things, someone will complain and the the police will come and have a word.

I don't understand why there is a drive to allow people to spout nonsense that's harmful online? If you do that in public, no one starts a conversation with you to talk you around into not being a piece of shit?

GurtTractor

Roujin wrote:

I don't think moderation of people calling for the death of US Senators and inciting violence for example will make them change their minds. Moderation of these platforms can only silence these people, their posts are removed until they agree to delete them and they get their account back, or what they wrote is so bad they are banned. Let's come at this from another angle, what should we be doing then, when we are confronted by hate on a social media platform to help these people? Edit: FTR I'm on the bare man can get the block and delete treatment, but am open to other avenues for dealing with hate speech whatever they may be.

I have said that there are always limits, at some point you have to just say no fuck off or change your ways, directly inciting violence as you mentioned is a good example. I'm more talking about when people just offer their opinion which may be rooted in ignorance or hate then get 'dunked' on by all and sundry, if it all possible we should be trying to integrate challenging people and ideas into our society rather than just disenfranchising them. It's not easy, it's very very difficult, but it seems to be a better approach just purely tactically if not also ethically.

Roujin

Have you done an accidental racism online and been dunked on for it in the past?

Yossarian

GurtTractor wrote:

Somewhere for people to generate and talk about dissent is an essential part of a reasonably free society.

This wouldn’t be endangered by treating social media companies as publishers, it would just motivate these companies to deal with people who cross the line into other things.

As for your park analogy, you’re right, it doesn’t hold up. This isn’t about punishing social media companies for every little thing said on their platform, it’s about making these companies take responsibility for the content that they host and profit off of.

RedDave2

"An accidental racism"

Brilliant. Partridge tier quality.

GurtTractor

Roujin wrote:

Well the thing is, if you go to a private park and just shout racist things at people, someone will complain and then someone from security comes and removes you. If you go to a public space and shout racist things, someone will complain and the the police will come and have a word. I don't understand why there is a drive to allow people to spout nonsense that's harmful online? If you do that in public, no one starts a conversation with you to talk you around into not being a piece of shit?

Well yes there's a clear distinction between talking amongst yourselves and shouting so that everyone can hear, that is a good point. I knew the analogy was a shite one.

I guess part of what I'm saying is that one person's perception of nonsense might be another's challenging rhetoric, I don't think we should focus so heavily on racism etc just here as that clearly steps over a line, but more think carefully about what is defined as 'acceptable speech'.

GurtTractor

Have you done an accidental racism online and been dunked on for it in the past?

Nope. I do hate what seems like a 'dunk culture' though, which is like a big ugly pile-on to people's mistakes, Twitter is particularly suited to it. It's almost seems like a sport to some people. Criticism is a good thing, it's just the nature of how people do it that I object to, I think it's ultimately counter-productive.

Roujin

Can you give us an example of challenging rhetoric? Is that like when Jordan Peterson gives a speech or something?

GurtTractor

I can't think of anything off the top of my head and please don't start casually lumping me in with various pundits, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about where people start going "oh you sound exactly like X" or making out that you've got all your ideas from such people as a way of casting doubt on your ideas and getting onlookers to dismiss or prejudge what you have to say. Not that that's what you are doing here necessarily, but it's yet another very uncareful way people have of talking to each other.

I'll think of some examples for what I mean, but you can imagine any sort of proposal about say, an alternate political system being seen as 'dangerous'.

Yossarian

GurtTractor wrote:

You can imagine any sort of proposal about say, an alternate political system being seen as 'dangerous'.

No I can’t, not when I can buy this from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Communist-Manifesto-Artimorean-Classics/dp/B08SB6QP3D/ref=mp_s_a_1_3

Or this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Capital-Critique-Political-Economy-Classics/dp/0140445684

Roujin

GurtTractor wrote:

Have you done an accidental racism online and been dunked on for it in the past?

Nope. I do hate what seems like a 'dunk culture' though, which is like a big ugly pile-on to people's mistakes, Twitter is particularly suited to it. It's almost seems like a sport to some people. Criticism is a good thing, it's just the nature of how people do it that I object to, I think it's ultimately counter-productive.

I'll be honest, there is as much dunking on twitter as there is people posting hate.

No one likes getting dunked on, if you say something out of ignorance, or because you hold viewpoints that others don't like and they descend on your tweet and correct you, maybe take the hint that what you posted was pretty dumb and that a sizable chunk of people are disagreeing with you.

That's the thing with free speech and platforms like twitter, if you want to voice your opinion publicly to everyone on the platform, then you have to accept that everyone is entitled to their response to you.

It sounds like what you really want gurt is a safe space where people can raise their challenging rhetoric without fear of people with furries for avatars dropping sassy gifs in reply and shutting down reasoned debate by showing up the absurdity of the original opinion posted.

GurtTractor

Yossarian wrote:

GurtTractor wrote:

You can imagine any sort of proposal about say, an alternate political system being seen as 'dangerous'.

No I can’t, not when I can buy this from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Communist-Manifesto-Artimorean-Classics/dp/B08SB6QP3D/ref=mp_s_a_1_3 Or this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Capital-Critique-Political-Economy-Classics/dp/0140445684

Yeah we are lucky enough to live somewhere with a good tolerance for dissent, but that can all change very rapidly. I'm not saying that it is necessarily, but it could and we should be vigilant.

GurtTractor

Roujin wrote:

Have you done an accidental racism online and been dunked on for it in the past?

Nope. I do hate what seems like a 'dunk culture' though, which is like a big ugly pile-on to people's mistakes, Twitter is particularly suited to it. It's almost seems like a sport to some people. Criticism is a good thing, it's just the nature of how people do it that I object to, I think it's ultimately counter-productive.

I'll be honest, there is as much dunking on twitter as there is people posting hate. No one likes getting dunked on, if you say something out of ignorance, or because you hold viewpoints that others don't like and they descend on your tweet and correct you, maybe take the hint that what you posted was pretty dumb and that a sizable chunk of people are disagreeing with you. That's the thing with free speech and platforms like twitter, if you want to voice your opinion publicly to everyone on the platform, then you have to accept that everyone is entitled to their response to you.

I understand why dunking is a thing and why it can be useful, I just think it often goes too far into an almost gleeful gloating online bloodsport. A feeding frenzy of righteous verbal mockery. It's fucking ugly. You can be coming from a place of love and hope, making an important argument about something that will affect people's lives, and still be an absolute cunt about it. I think we should absolutely pull each other up on our bullshit, but we should do it with love and kindness as much as possible, lest we start to resemble that which we hate so much.

Roujin wrote:

It sounds like what you really want gurt is a safe space where people can raise their challenging rhetoric without fear of people with furries for avatars dropping sassy gifs in reply and shutting down reasoned debate by showing up the absurdity of the original opinion posted.

Thanks for another shining example of the sort of cuntery I'm trying to highlight and dissuade people from, lumping me in as someone reprehensible. Sort yourself out.

No I don't want that, I want a place where people can speak freely about a range of topics and be challenged about them, without fear of a baying mob of dunktwats attacking them personally instead of their ideas. Moderation is always important, I shouldn't have to qualify that I don't want to see bigoted bullshit everywhere.

equinox_code

Social media platforms turning on Trump is all good for now because fuck him he's a dick, but I find it hard to believe there won't eventually come a time when forces for positive change are shut down and silenced too. The meaningful revolutions will have a huge obstacle to overcome.

poprock

GurtTractor wrote:

Thanks for another shining example of the sort of cuntery I'm trying to highlight and dissuade people from, lumping me in as someone reprehensible. Sort yourself out.

Roujin made a fair point there though, Gurt.

To me, what you’re complaining about boils down to people’s behaviour, not the platforms they’re displaying it on. Your concerns seem to be about people, not about social media being a space for them to just behave like people do.

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