Comment by hx8
10 hours ago
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
That would require legacy reporters to get out on the streets and do some reporting.
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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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.
Google+ famously instituted real name policies before it was cool. You used to get banned on Facebook for using a nickname but I think drag queens pushed back, god bless.
(2014) https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/09/28/35...
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.
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
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.
I blame the Zuck algorithmic feed ruined it all he was my favorite out of all the feudal barons too :(