Comment by VyseofArcadia
4 days ago
I feel like the actual big difference between social media when we were in high school (hello age cohort pal) and social media now is the algorithmic feed. There was a time when you'd have a couple dozen friends on Facebook, who were people you actually know in real life, and you'd check Facebook, read you feed in chronological order, and then reach the end. Like with email.
The algorithmic feed, in addition to time spent on social media, has also intensified online discourse in a way that I believe to be harmful to society. What people see now is not the most recent things their friends were posting, no matter how banal, but whatever it is that the algorithm judges most engaging. Truth doesn't matter. Now the conspiracy theories and weird new age shit that your one hippy friend posted constantly have an audience. That kind of thing is engaging, so it floats to the top.
I'd be perfectly fine with just banning social media altogether. Never before in history has the value of a barrier to entry to publishing something been more apparent. But as a compromise, I would accept banning the algorithmic feed.
> I feel like the actual big difference between social media when we were in high school (hello age cohort pal) and social media now is the algorithmic feed.
Bringo.
The day Facebook implemented the feed as the main page rather than the original homepage was the day social media went sideways. It's little more than a Skinner box with a bright candy coating and it has just gotten more egregious over time. It's right on the tin, "Feed".
I'd be interested to see how much R&D budget has gone into hiring persons in the field of psychology to tweak the dopamine treadmill over time.
I distinctly remember when the chronological timeline was done away with, people were extremely pissed.
I remember the day they introduced the chronological newsfeed! People were pissed about that. Nobody wanted a list of all their wall posts to be published to everyone who could see them.
Prior to newsfeed, FB was obviously an N-N platform, but the interactions were more 1-1. You used the network to find and connect, but you interacted with individuals (on their wall). The newsfeed tipped the focus toward 1-N interactions, and direct messages solidified that (no more wall posts).
I believe GP is comparing pre-feed and post-feed days, not chrono feed vs algo feed.
For its first few years, Facebook had no feed at all.
1 reply →
> It's right on the tin, "Feed"
+5 Insightful
You just say "bingo"
That's the wrong movieshow, ya dangus.
For your health
Treat algorithmic feeds as "publications" by machines. Treat these social media companies as publishers and allow them to be sued for libel, with damage amounts based on reach.
If there's no algorithmic feed and the company is truly just a self publishing utility then keep the section 230 protections
Yup, I absolutely don't understand how they're able to get away with choosing material to promote and then not call themselves publishers.
They're acting as editors for a publication. Hold them accountable like the publication companies they are.
Want to continue getting safe-harbor exemptions for user submitted content? No fucking algorithmically chosen feeds.
CDA 230 was written specifically to overturn a defamation ruling that held online platforms responsible for content; this was specifically a result of Jordan Belfort - the Wolf of Wall Street - suing to censor negative opinions of his fraudulent investment offerings.
Prior to that lawsuit, the existing law regarding defamation was that you could hold a newspaper accountable for what they had printed, but not the newsstand selling the newspaper. The courts in the Jordan Belfort cases decided to categorize online services based on their moderation policy: if you published literally anything sent to you, you were the newsstand[0]; if you decided not to publish certain things then you were a newspaper.
In case it isn't obvious, this is an unacceptable legal precedent for running any sort of online service. The only services that you could legally run would either be the most free-wheeling; or the most censurious, where everything either has to be pre-checked by a team of lawyers for risk and only a small amount of speech ever gets published, or everything gets published, including spam and bullshit.
To make things worse, there is also standing precedent in Mavrix v. LiveJournal regarding DMCA safe harbor[1] that the use of human curation or moderation strips you of your copyright safe harbor. The only thing DMCA 512 protects is machine-generated feeds (algorithmic or chronological).
So let's be clear: removing CDA 230 safe harbor from a feature of social media you don't like doesn't mean that feature goes away. It means that feature gets more and more censored by the whims of whatever private citizens decide to sue that day. The social media companies are not going to get rid of algorithmic feeds unless you explicitly say "no algorithmic feeds", because those feeds make the product more addictive, which is how they make money.
The "slop trough" design of social media is optimal for profit because of a few factors; notably the fact that social media companies have monopolistic control over the client software people use. Even browser extensions intended to hide unwanted content on Facebook have to endure legal threats, because Facebook does not want you using their service as anything other than a slop trough.
So if you want to kill algorithmic feeds, what you want to do is kill Facebook's control over Facebook. That means you want legal protections for third-party API clients, antitrust scrutiny on all social media platforms, and legally mandated interoperability so that when a social media platform decides to turn into a slop trough, anyone so interested can just jump ship to another platform without losing access to their existing friends.
[0] Ignore the fact that this is not how newsstands work. You can't go to any newsstand, put your zine on it, and demand they sell it or face defamation risk.
Algorithmic feeds are wonderful, but unfortunately their goals as implemented today do not align with anyone's best interest except shareholders.
I don't have tiktok, but I used to watch a lot of YouTube suggestions. I finally took the app off my devices and used a suggestion-blocking browser extension. I could only find stuff that I actively searched for. After a few months, I took a peek at suggestions and it was actually great: pretty much only videos I was legitimately interested in, steering me towards useful tiny channels, etc. I still keep it blocked, but check it once daily just in case.
The problem is that algorithmic feeds want you to just keep watching and will absolutely probe all of your "weaknesses" to keep doing so. Instead of trying to support you, it says "how can we break this guy/girl down so s/he keeps watching...".
Until the feeds say "I'm sorry Dave, I can't serve you another video. You should go outside and enjoy the day", then it should be treated more as a weapon aimed at one's brain by a billion or trillion-dollar corporation than a tool.
> I feel like the actual big difference between social media when we were in high school (hello age cohort pal) and social media now is the algorithmic feed.
More than that too, my recollection is that those early social media sites were considered "separate" from the real world. It'd be seen as odd to take it "seriously" in the early days.
The big change I noticed was when my (our?) cohort started graduating college and started sanitizing their Facebooks and embracing "professionalism" on the then nascent LinkedIn. I distinctly remember being shocked at that, and the implicit possibility that employers would "care" about your Facebook posts.
How far we've fallen.