I feel like this is general knowledge for the past 5 or so years, but the real question is "What do we do about it?". Personally, I put real effort into not spending time being outraged online, but this is a societal ill that's bigger then I am...

"Harmful content" translation: What the government do not like. What ISRAEL does not like. Another call for more censorship from a force financed state propaganda outlet nobody with a brain takes seriously. How original.

I can't say I'm surprised and I think most people wouldn't be surprised either. But it's always good to have evidence.

Is this unavoidable? I mean it does generate clicks and views and user engagement so if one platform is doing it, doesn't that automatically mean that the other has to do it? Otherwise they will continuously lose market share.

Of course they did. As long as they're legally allowed to do so and profit from doing so they will continue.

Does anyone know of watchdog agencies that do the research to document and litigate harmful algorithmic trends?.

I know https://www.reset.tech/ does really good work in this space, but are there others, and who is funding them?

It's the same story since at least 2012. It is well documented in the book "The chaos machine" by Max Fisher.

Facebook employees, journalists and psychologists have studied the phenomenon and Facebook's (as well as Youtube's) response is always the typical "We have done something" to calm the protest, but it's never really the case. It's a constant game of deflecting, delaying, diminishing, denying.

As long as the general public respond to sensationalism, what’s stopping the social media platforms from exploiting.

Most of them are click baits anyways.

If you make 20 billion and the fine is 0.2 billion…. I don’t think they care about their users mental health.

The idea that there is a certain category of content that is harmful and there are certain people who have the authority to declare what is harmful is extremely dangerous, practically how every single censorship system has ever been built.

Given how TikTok "trends" seem to consist mostly of "get teenagers to do stuff that causes huge expenses for US society":

* "eat tide pods" * "stick a fork in electrical sockets in your school" * "destroy your school's shit" aka "Devious Licks" - bathrooms, chromebooks (jamming stuff into the charging ports to start fires...) * "drink a shitload of Benadryl to see what happens" * "steal a kia/hyundai and drive 80mph, run from the cops, etc"

...convince me that this is not a purposeful attack on US society by the CCP?

Feels like this is more of an incentive problem than a moderation problem. If engagement is the primary metric, then anything that drives strong reactions will naturally get amplified.

The feedback loop for this moral hazard is slow but implacable. You can treat the zeitgeist as a dumping ground for so long, until you get so big, that you can no longer treat it like an idealized infinite substance.

As someone who uses IG a lot. I have found this to be overwhelmingly true. Very often when i stumble upon a controversial video the very top comment is a ratioed hot take on the topic, as if meta purposely put the comment at the top to ruffle feathers. On top of that, when i find controversial topics(like the moon landing), a large majority of comments are leaning to one, extreme opinion with all the other differing opinions pushed to the very very far bottom of the comment section

Sadly, nothing new. Why do they do it? Because they can. That regulators let companies operate this way is a massive failure.

I remember The Social Dilemma’s entire premise was basically this headline minus TikTok, and that came out what? 7 or 8 years ago?

Not saying “well duh” I just think at this point I have to ask “are we going to do anything about it?”

We’ve known about the financial incentives to promote anger and outrage online for at least a decade now. So what are we going to do about it?

British people complaining about free speech and trying to censor the internet. America needs to keep standing up to British censorship interests.

Since a long time whistleblowers aren't needed to say the obvious and self-evident about online media. A thoughtful user can realize it instantly. From the era of b/w TV programs until now the content has the same goal. I believe after enough iterations of user control the delivery will become regulated like drugs. Now it's starting for kids.

Someone changed the title and added a typo

Throw away your 'smartphone' and stop using anti-social media. It is killing society, and only making the Billionaires more powerful. They are evil and will do anything to stay in power.

In my experience there’s a strong “banality of evil” that happens.

Some poor schlub ML Eng has shipped a feature that wins an A/B test. They’re pushing to get promoted. Their management wants to show they’re hitting their KPIs.

An engine of destruction filled with well meaning people just hoping to advance in their careers.

You might say, it’s ultimately the designers of the incentives that matter. Even there, the leadership will change. Inevitably the needs of the capitalist machine take over.

Dupe? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47403929

When I hear "Meta" and "Facebook" the top 10 things I think:

1. "Surveillance"

2. "Advertising"

3. "Scams"

4. "AI slop"

5. "Manipulated experience"

6. "Child harms"

7. Misinformation campaigns.

8. Disinformation campaigns.

9. "Doom scroll regret"

10. "Zuckavatarphilia"

But I don't claim to have the "right" opinion and am curious how other people respond to the brands. If each of you could reply, and re-list those associations in the order you experience them, I will collate the results and post them everywhere I can think of. It would go a long ways to satisfying my curiosity, and the curiosity of reporters that like to repeat things they read on the internet.

If you like better content look for kagi's small web or better yet find a better algorithm that optimizes for your preferences rather than engagement.

I have my instagram, x on a locked down browser in a container with a fake profile that an LLM drives and finds the posts for specific users and compiles a gist of all the important things in my locality(or what u care about) every evening, without me ever going near that FOMO driven dumpster fire of tiktok/insta/x.

Best LLM RoI I made.

* to drive

I look at people who use fb or tiktok, or x, the same way I look at smokers or alcoholics. With sadness and pity. The fact that we let children use this is hard to accept. The fact that fellow hackers and engineers, some of the brightest minds, have contributed to this is extremely disappointing. Shame on you.

This has been known forever… they shouldn’t exist. Anyone shocked to know Zuckerberg’s company does it? The guy started by stalking and ranking girls at college FFS.

The fact that they are still allowed to operate this way is extremely frustrating. The damage that is done by these "social media" platforms has been know for over a decade now, yet nothing ever happens... FB and TikTok should be treated as what they are: dangerous digital drugs engineered by sociopaths.

Imagine my shock. Ad companies chose profit over people's best interest??

What!? I’m shocked! Shocked I say!

Is it really whistleblowing when everyone already knows it?

What? Conspiracy theories are not harmful!

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Drugs.

Why are social media platforms picked on?

Did we forget Gresham's Law applies to content and has done so since humans could communicate?

Bad or wrong ideas are the ones that get talked about. Do we discuss the 10 issues politicians get correct, or the 1 they screw up?

Platform is irrelevant here; the exact same phenomena occurs/ed on radio and TV decades before it did on social media platforms, and in news papers centuries prior.