Twitter set out to be the public square, the place where matters of importance are discussed by the people. I think JD was serious about that, still is.
The problem is that Twitter is a private public square. That contradiction is not something JD can accept, because "his salary depends on his not understanding it.” It isn't reconcilable.
We don't have many examples, in modern times, of of non-companies filling roles like Twitter of FB fill. But, that doesn't mean they can't exist.
The WWW itself is a platform for speech and is a "public square." Wikipedia is another example. A really good example, if you think about it. If wikipedia was a commercial company, imagine the issues they'd be facing... all that authority as an information source.
Meanwhile, we really need to consider the economics of companies like twitter & facebook. Does FB really need 50k employees and a $70bn budget to provide the world with facebook? This isn't a question you could ask about Toyota.
If Facebook fell off the edge of the disc, we would very quickly have a replacement. People wouldn't lack for social media. If Toyota fell off the disc, we would have fewer cars. Rebuilding that capacity would require real resources.. Until then, we'd lack for cars.
This last part is key. Commercial viability is nearly a non-issue. Social media can be viable on a tiny fraction of its current revenue. This explodes the number of possible actions.
I really hope we're not heading for a regulatory shitshow... I hope, but I can't say I'm optimistic.
>Wikipedia is another example [of the public square]
Quite the opposite; Wikipedia is explicitly based on published reliable sources. They have a specific rule[1] excluding information that was not published in such way.
There are certain advantages to this rule, and its utility has been validated through Wikipedia's long, and ongoing, run. Nonetheless this cathedral mindset cannot be compared to a public square in any way other than being a very opposite.
In particular the published reliable sources rule excludes general blogs and public forums and the likes, thus excluding the majority of discourse & voices on the internet. Even expert sources, if self-published, can only be used in limited way and with caution.
I don't get why people are so quick to replace private authoritarianism with government authoritarianism. At least with the first version you have the theoretical option of escaping.
Twitter and FB could be replaced quickly, because their technology is not their primary asset. Their primary asset is their hundreds of millions of users who are there mainly because of the other hundreds of millions of users.
Not surprisingly, network effects are pervasive on the network, and with everything moving to the network, network effects will dominate almost everything unless something is done to deal explicitly with network-effect-based monopolies. Just imagine email if you couldn't email anyone who didn't have an email address at the same company you have yours. Almost all email would begin to consolidate in the winning company, which would then begin telling people what could and couldn't be said in email. They could cut you off from email and destroy businesses for violating whatever "terms of service" they felt like imposing or even accidentally. Too bad for you.
I think the answer to network-effects monopolies is to force them to switch to an open protocol once they crossed a threshold of a certain number of users. They could then continue to offer services, but other companies and agencies could also put you on "the network". Companies could stay small and retain full control or grow and be forced to open so their competitors and users couldn't be locked out (or in).
I don't fully understand what you're trying to argue here.
> Meanwhile, we really need to consider the economics of companies like twitter & facebook. Does FB really need 50k employees and a $70bn budget to provide the world with facebook?
Are you saying that if FB had a smaller headcount or budget, they'd be less influential? A company's headcount and budget are largely a function of the market, and the market highly values FB. If you have a problem with the economics of FB, you have a problem with the market forces that created it. But you end with:
> I hope we're not heading for a regulatory shitshow
If you're not happy that the market created conditions for companies like FB to grow to the size that they are, and you're also not happy that regulation is possibly in the future of these companies, then how would you like to see this scenario play out?
It blows my mind. The US has an international reputation for being pro-corporate so from the outside, it makes sense that social networks get away with the lack of accountability they have.
However, a large portion of humanity use social networking tools so US legislation has a direct affect on everyone and potentially (inadvertently) it has an effect on the democratic processes of other nations.
At what point does it become an international issue?
As someone not from the US, I am so glad that the networks are located there.
The US also has a pro-freedom reputation and that is currently really valuable. I never held back with criticism towards the US and won't do so in the future, but on this issue I would staunchly run with the worst hillbilly rednecks you can imagine firing freedom bullets in every direction without an ounce of shame.
Democracy has nothing to do with content restrictions.
Cold war CIA wouldn't have dreamt with the power that social networks, streaming sites and tech companies have over electoral processes in other countries.
I live in a small city in the ass end of the world, but my local politicians, who live a few miles from my home, fork money (a lot of money) over to FB and Google so I can see their ads. They have a huge impact on who gets elected.
I guess I’m one of the 28%. Politicians, the government, megacorporations other than social media, and the police as well as entire associated bureaucratic law enforcement organizations have too much influence, period. The protests on all sides are a reaction to and expression of that rejection of unwanted, nonconsensual influence over free people. Social media is the megaphone of this protest movement. This is the establishment trying to chop the heads off the hydra, while counterprotesting heads stir up trouble and confuse the narrative on all sides. Will it work? For whom?
While social media seem to be the problem, I find myself internally conflicted. On the one hand I see myself as a supporter of democracy, freedom of speech and liberty of expression, but I'm dismayed by the self harm these ideals are causing at the moment. It's the feeling of being unable to defend against painfully obvious (to me) propaganda but also the worry that I don't close doors to the freedom these platforms allow.
Why do information campaigns seem to be failing against the propoganda mills?
Living in underdeveloped part of the world I believed for the most of my life that it was lack of education but having in the US for the past few years I had to firmly discard that notion. I currently believe that it is the inherited values that society imparts on us, and that serves as a lens to view facts that is being manipulated.
The last company I worked for our executives, all highly educated and good natured, for most parts, held political opinions that I thought were only held by the 'idiots' captured by someone on cell phone videos. They had built a successful company on highly educated immigrant workforce, with major workforce still outside the US, headquarter located in a deep 'blue' state with the founder and chairman of the company an immigrant and PhD holder a first generation immigrant but everyone still a vehement, vocal supporter of current anti-immigrants, anti-science, anti-obama/hillary, anti-medicine propaganda.
I don't think it's simply dismissable as biased by financial profit. Is it because everyone near them believes in such and these opinions are manifestation of values they grew up with? Is social media just giving it a loud-speaker. We need to address that somehow I feel.
It's not the social media, it's mainstream mass media who decide to report on "hashtags", memes and viral videos and bring them to the wider public. Lazy journalists who don't investigate facts anymore and only care about trends and outrages and whose "ultimate editor" is now Twitter, as Bari Weiss alleged.
There's more money and opportunity for journalists to use tools like Twitter because that's where the public's attention is.
With media outlets incentivizing things like CTR, journalists are going to use whatever gets more eyeballs. And since people aren't directly paying for their news anymore, reporting using tools like Twitter is what makes them the most money.
If you're going to criticize "lazy journalists", you also have to acknowledge the system that makes it impossible to generate serious revenue without sites like Twitter and FB, because that's effectively what those companies have done.
This is closer to the truth. The internet’s main currency is attention. It is a sea of information and the only places that get noticed are the ones given attention to.
Mainstream media is in a feedback loop with the internet.
Gluttony cannot be solved by making a better dish, only way to solve it is to moderate eating.
What does a world without social networks look like? I don't think we want that anymore. Because social networks do serve a required function.
For Twitter, I love the fact that I can follow some people that I look upto and get their real time musings.
For Facebook, it's about connecting to friends and people I know and being able to reach out without phone numbers etc.
We are trying to solve this problem the wrong way. So again, gluttony cannot be solved by making a better dish, only way to solve it is to moderate eating
Food can be (and there are those that are) designed to optimize for the desire to eat more. Slot machines payouts are designed to encourage people to play one more time. There are games that are famous for eliciting "one more turn... oh my god it's 5 a.m. already".
When a stimulus reliably elicits a particular response on a large enough population, you can reasonably say that it's the stimulus and not the individual's failure to apply moderation/critical thinking/what-have-you.
What required function do social networks fill? Your wording implies objective requirements exist in the general sense which can only be fulfilled by social networks.
The two things you've said are access to "real time musings" which is absolutely not a requirement in the objective sense, and connecting to friends and people, which is a requirement that can be easily fulfilled by other applications.
Phones and email are still completely viable methods for communicating with anyone. Chat programs such as Signal or Apple Messenger or WhatsApp really only add the additional functionality of group SMS. Otherwise standard SMS is fine.
I think your point about moderating your eating is a good and valid point though.
Let's take the metaphor further. Let's say social networks as they exist today are like restaurants that serve 3500 calorie meals. Sure, a person could choose to pay $30 for a 3500 meal and then moderate their consumption and take the rest home in a doggy bag, but that clearly is not what is happening. Instead what is happening is people are eating the whole dish. And on top of that, the restaurant is adding a ton of stuff that makes the food taste more addictive, and other stuff that makes you not feel full so that you'll want to order that dessert too.
And to beat the metaphor to death, I just don't go to restaurants anymore, I make my meals at home.
Your analogy assumes the problem is overconsumption of social media. But what about concentration? 3-4 companies control ~90% of global social media. I don't think people would be as worried if that control was spread more evenly across hundreds of smaller companies.
The whole question is frankly deeply stupid on so many levels. First off it is push pollingly worded to get directly contradictory groups (those conplaining about too much and too moderation) while pushing a clear agenda. Second the very concept is meaningless. What is a proper level of influence for social media? It can't even be defined. It only leads to intellectual abominations like obscenity and know it when I see it which leads to "Whatever the fuck the person in power wants narcicistically imposed upon all."
Kind of interesting that the intro for the wikipedia on Conservatism in the United States [1] says "Conservative philosophy is also derived in part from ... laissez-faire economics (i.e. economic freedom and deregulation)" but that in this circumstance [2] the self-identified "conservative" group members were the most likely to support more regulation.
All these terms are too wide to describe one person's position on certain topic.
They could be anti-regulation in terms of "government influences who, how, when, where operates in some economy sector" as it leads to market capture and control of the regulatory organizations by the companies they were supposed to regulate, but pro-regulation in terms of trust-busting companies having above-government power, like it happened to Rockefeller's "Standard Oil".
This is a rather lazy strawman. Monopolies and cartels have always been the primary threat to efficiency in all free market models. All serious proponents of free market economics have always identified the importance of regulating monopolistic and cartel-like behaviour (aside from the anarchists, which is mostly an extremist form of libertarianism).
It's interesting though. The networks really were created to increase connection/communication between people, and it did in many ways.
What was unexpected is the effect. One had expected that people would feel less concerned by the state of the world, cause they would talk to their friends and family rather than bingeing on the global news.
But instead, this increase in connections created a sort of phase transition in society. It's kind of similar to the article that was posted here the other day, where scientists realized that atoms in a solid glass were more connected to each other than in liquid glass. In a way, social media literally "cristallized" polarization.
Meanwhile, the major social networks (if not all of them) are still very good at creating echo-chambers and filter bubbles. So nothing has changed since 2016.
To be honest, I like some of those bubbles. I have much more trouble of finding value in engaging in some sanitized, corporate, mainstream, pop culture that looks like the abused child of advertisers, special interest and propaganda.
Yes, some are insular and don't really develop if that is your thing, but you can always have multiple bubbles.
> Filter bubbles are seen as critical enablers of Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, and other populist political phenomena, and search and social media companies have been criticised for failing to prevent their development. Yet, there is scant empirical evidence for their existence, or for the related concept of ‘echo chambers’: indeed, search and social media users generally appear to encounter a highly centrist media diet that is, if anything, more diverse than that of non-users.
The solution to centralised power and control already exists and is thriving, with approximately 2 million users strong. Take a moment to learn about the Fediverse and you'll be asking yourself why you didn't know about this before. Don't complain, act for Internet freedom.
Every account has a default setting that is ultra-curated content, works nicely, politically correct, etc.
Deep in the options, you can ‘unlock’ all (requires 18+ notification, verification, or whatever depending on laws), then it will be an absolutely uncurated FILO sort of absolutely everything going a mile a minute.
The unlocked settings would let you upload code-snippets to do curating, so people could share things and invent new ways to curate.
This solves the issue with the risk of censorship.
I recently finished playing Watch Dogs 2, and the missions go over this very problem. Social media’s impact on politics and how data is used to influence the masses.
Quite scary actually, that the real thing is happening.
How does that work ? No one is going to solve these multi faceted issues alone in their garage. Creating a discussion around them is part of the solution
[+] [-] netcan|5 years ago|reply
The problem is that Twitter is a private public square. That contradiction is not something JD can accept, because "his salary depends on his not understanding it.” It isn't reconcilable.
We don't have many examples, in modern times, of of non-companies filling roles like Twitter of FB fill. But, that doesn't mean they can't exist.
The WWW itself is a platform for speech and is a "public square." Wikipedia is another example. A really good example, if you think about it. If wikipedia was a commercial company, imagine the issues they'd be facing... all that authority as an information source.
Meanwhile, we really need to consider the economics of companies like twitter & facebook. Does FB really need 50k employees and a $70bn budget to provide the world with facebook? This isn't a question you could ask about Toyota.
If Facebook fell off the edge of the disc, we would very quickly have a replacement. People wouldn't lack for social media. If Toyota fell off the disc, we would have fewer cars. Rebuilding that capacity would require real resources.. Until then, we'd lack for cars.
This last part is key. Commercial viability is nearly a non-issue. Social media can be viable on a tiny fraction of its current revenue. This explodes the number of possible actions.
I really hope we're not heading for a regulatory shitshow... I hope, but I can't say I'm optimistic.
[+] [-] dexen|5 years ago|reply
>Wikipedia is another example [of the public square]
Quite the opposite; Wikipedia is explicitly based on published reliable sources. They have a specific rule[1] excluding information that was not published in such way.
There are certain advantages to this rule, and its utility has been validated through Wikipedia's long, and ongoing, run. Nonetheless this cathedral mindset cannot be compared to a public square in any way other than being a very opposite.
In particular the published reliable sources rule excludes general blogs and public forums and the likes, thus excluding the majority of discourse & voices on the internet. Even expert sources, if self-published, can only be used in limited way and with caution.
--
[1] "If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
[+] [-] xxpor|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SiVal|5 years ago|reply
Not surprisingly, network effects are pervasive on the network, and with everything moving to the network, network effects will dominate almost everything unless something is done to deal explicitly with network-effect-based monopolies. Just imagine email if you couldn't email anyone who didn't have an email address at the same company you have yours. Almost all email would begin to consolidate in the winning company, which would then begin telling people what could and couldn't be said in email. They could cut you off from email and destroy businesses for violating whatever "terms of service" they felt like imposing or even accidentally. Too bad for you.
I think the answer to network-effects monopolies is to force them to switch to an open protocol once they crossed a threshold of a certain number of users. They could then continue to offer services, but other companies and agencies could also put you on "the network". Companies could stay small and retain full control or grow and be forced to open so their competitors and users couldn't be locked out (or in).
[+] [-] tmaly|5 years ago|reply
So ABC, NBC, CBS are all private companies and they are much older than Twitter. How is it that they can be regulated by the FCC?
[+] [-] save_ferris|5 years ago|reply
> Meanwhile, we really need to consider the economics of companies like twitter & facebook. Does FB really need 50k employees and a $70bn budget to provide the world with facebook?
Are you saying that if FB had a smaller headcount or budget, they'd be less influential? A company's headcount and budget are largely a function of the market, and the market highly values FB. If you have a problem with the economics of FB, you have a problem with the market forces that created it. But you end with:
> I hope we're not heading for a regulatory shitshow
If you're not happy that the market created conditions for companies like FB to grow to the size that they are, and you're also not happy that regulation is possibly in the future of these companies, then how would you like to see this scenario play out?
[+] [-] dgellow|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thephyber|5 years ago|reply
What were the public public squares and the private public squares before Twitter was developed?
Understanding the historic context of these forums is pretty important.
I would argue there have only been remarkably few public public squares since property became privatized.
[+] [-] threatofrain|5 years ago|reply
Do we not want a public square?
[+] [-] thephyber|5 years ago|reply
What in the flat world... ? /s
[+] [-] engineer_22|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] apatheticonion|5 years ago|reply
However, a large portion of humanity use social networking tools so US legislation has a direct affect on everyone and potentially (inadvertently) it has an effect on the democratic processes of other nations.
At what point does it become an international issue?
[+] [-] raxxorrax|5 years ago|reply
The US also has a pro-freedom reputation and that is currently really valuable. I never held back with criticism towards the US and won't do so in the future, but on this issue I would staunchly run with the worst hillbilly rednecks you can imagine firing freedom bullets in every direction without an ounce of shame.
Democracy has nothing to do with content restrictions.
[+] [-] kobalsky|5 years ago|reply
I live in a small city in the ass end of the world, but my local politicians, who live a few miles from my home, fork money (a lot of money) over to FB and Google so I can see their ads. They have a huge impact on who gets elected.
[+] [-] fit2rule|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] aspenmayer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] read_if_gay_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 87tau|5 years ago|reply
Why do information campaigns seem to be failing against the propoganda mills?
Living in underdeveloped part of the world I believed for the most of my life that it was lack of education but having in the US for the past few years I had to firmly discard that notion. I currently believe that it is the inherited values that society imparts on us, and that serves as a lens to view facts that is being manipulated.
The last company I worked for our executives, all highly educated and good natured, for most parts, held political opinions that I thought were only held by the 'idiots' captured by someone on cell phone videos. They had built a successful company on highly educated immigrant workforce, with major workforce still outside the US, headquarter located in a deep 'blue' state with the founder and chairman of the company an immigrant and PhD holder a first generation immigrant but everyone still a vehement, vocal supporter of current anti-immigrants, anti-science, anti-obama/hillary, anti-medicine propaganda.
I don't think it's simply dismissable as biased by financial profit. Is it because everyone near them believes in such and these opinions are manifestation of values they grew up with? Is social media just giving it a loud-speaker. We need to address that somehow I feel.
[+] [-] lazyjones|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw_m239339|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] save_ferris|5 years ago|reply
With media outlets incentivizing things like CTR, journalists are going to use whatever gets more eyeballs. And since people aren't directly paying for their news anymore, reporting using tools like Twitter is what makes them the most money.
If you're going to criticize "lazy journalists", you also have to acknowledge the system that makes it impossible to generate serious revenue without sites like Twitter and FB, because that's effectively what those companies have done.
[+] [-] originalvichy|5 years ago|reply
Mainstream media is in a feedback loop with the internet.
[+] [-] negamax|5 years ago|reply
What does a world without social networks look like? I don't think we want that anymore. Because social networks do serve a required function.
For Twitter, I love the fact that I can follow some people that I look upto and get their real time musings.
For Facebook, it's about connecting to friends and people I know and being able to reach out without phone numbers etc.
We are trying to solve this problem the wrong way. So again, gluttony cannot be solved by making a better dish, only way to solve it is to moderate eating
[+] [-] andreareina|5 years ago|reply
When a stimulus reliably elicits a particular response on a large enough population, you can reasonably say that it's the stimulus and not the individual's failure to apply moderation/critical thinking/what-have-you.
[+] [-] cheschire|5 years ago|reply
The two things you've said are access to "real time musings" which is absolutely not a requirement in the objective sense, and connecting to friends and people, which is a requirement that can be easily fulfilled by other applications.
Phones and email are still completely viable methods for communicating with anyone. Chat programs such as Signal or Apple Messenger or WhatsApp really only add the additional functionality of group SMS. Otherwise standard SMS is fine.
I think your point about moderating your eating is a good and valid point though.
Let's take the metaphor further. Let's say social networks as they exist today are like restaurants that serve 3500 calorie meals. Sure, a person could choose to pay $30 for a 3500 meal and then moderate their consumption and take the rest home in a doggy bag, but that clearly is not what is happening. Instead what is happening is people are eating the whole dish. And on top of that, the restaurant is adding a ton of stuff that makes the food taste more addictive, and other stuff that makes you not feel full so that you'll want to order that dessert too.
And to beat the metaphor to death, I just don't go to restaurants anymore, I make my meals at home.
[+] [-] rbecker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tacocataco|5 years ago|reply
You invite certain people, people can share things, text or even voice chat. You can curate, you have more control of what comes down stream.
[+] [-] Nasrudith|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laser|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_Sta...
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ft_20...
[+] [-] poilcn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AmericanChopper|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d--b|5 years ago|reply
What was unexpected is the effect. One had expected that people would feel less concerned by the state of the world, cause they would talk to their friends and family rather than bingeing on the global news.
But instead, this increase in connections created a sort of phase transition in society. It's kind of similar to the article that was posted here the other day, where scientists realized that atoms in a solid glass were more connected to each other than in liquid glass. In a way, social media literally "cristallized" polarization.
[+] [-] rvz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raxxorrax|5 years ago|reply
Yes, some are insular and don't really develop if that is your thing, but you can always have multiple bubbles.
[+] [-] oprah|5 years ago|reply
https://www.doi.org/10.14763/2019.4.1426
[+] [-] torresjrjr|5 years ago|reply
https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-19-guide-to-the-fediv...
https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-20-what-is-the-fedive...
The solution to centralised power and control already exists and is thriving, with approximately 2 million users strong. Take a moment to learn about the Fediverse and you'll be asking yourself why you didn't know about this before. Don't complain, act for Internet freedom.
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|5 years ago|reply
Every account has a default setting that is ultra-curated content, works nicely, politically correct, etc.
Deep in the options, you can ‘unlock’ all (requires 18+ notification, verification, or whatever depending on laws), then it will be an absolutely uncurated FILO sort of absolutely everything going a mile a minute.
The unlocked settings would let you upload code-snippets to do curating, so people could share things and invent new ways to curate.
This solves the issue with the risk of censorship.
[+] [-] everdrive|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noisy_boy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] torgian|5 years ago|reply
Quite scary actually, that the real thing is happening.
[+] [-] darkerside|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qbaqbaqba|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] draw_down|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] blue52|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charliebrownau|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] smitty1e|5 years ago|reply
Convert all of that whining energy into improving the situation, so as to do more than perpetuate it.
Now, if there is substantial ReasonY that ProblemX cannot be addressed, there is genuine basis for complaint.
[+] [-] lm28469|5 years ago|reply
also
> don't talk about the problems
How does that work ? No one is going to solve these multi faceted issues alone in their garage. Creating a discussion around them is part of the solution
[+] [-] mkmk2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ClumsyPilot|5 years ago|reply
Secondly, if you are going to make that argument, you should highlight our system is democratic. Slaves in enjoyed capitalist system too, you know.