Social media hasn't changed behavior, it has revealed it.
The best way of reining in social media is not to rein in what people are allowed to write. It's to give users the ability to decide what they're going to see. The default setting should be something along the lines of "I only want to see civil conversations, please."
Most of the stories about the horrible effects of social media are wildly exaggerated. Recent example here.
China has relentlessly refused to allow access to American social media apps. This means either (a) we should refuse access to Chinese social media apps, or (b) we should view this as a Chinese weakness and not emulate it. I'd vote for (b) but reasonable people can differ about this.
It's worth remembering that politics is only a tiny, tiny percentage of social media. Most of it is gossip, animal videos, TV, food, parenting, fashion, crafting, etc. Serious politics makes up only about 3-4% of social media.
Twitter conversations are almost universally bad thanks to its fundamental design. You should engage with other Twitter users sparingly.
The real cesspool in social media isn't Facebook or Twitter. It's YouTube.
The internet in general makes smart people smarter and dumb people dumber. This is easily explicable: the internet has a tremendous amount of useful information, but it's not easy to access. Smart people can figure out how to do it, and they have the background to figure out which information is reliable and which isn't. Dumb people can do neither, and often end up gathering information that ranges from merely flawed to flat-out conspiracy nonsense.
Social media is a good source of political disinformation, but it's small potatoes compared to Fox News. Keep your eyes on the brass ring, folks.
Or the Chinese are right and it's time to destroy social media as a threat to America. Time to cull the herd.
KD: "The real cesspool in social media isn't Facebook or Twitter. It's YouTube."
If that's true, it's a surprise to me. When I'm on the internet I prefer to read, not spend time watching a video. Video's give you the information slowly and it's difficult to go back and forth to re-view pertinent sections.
A few years ago, there was a "pivot to video" that was heralded as the Next Big Thing for the Internet. Over at Talking Points Memo, owner/editor Josh Marshall - who concluded, correctly, that the only way to get revenue is with a subscriber-based model - was scathing in his assessment of the PTV. He was right, at least for news sites. Those that drank the PTV ended up wasting money. Lost some readers. Didn't get enough revenue from video.
I'd like to know what the cesspool of YouTube is all about. Are these 30 minute videos where someone pontificates? Or 60 second Yowzah! material?
Youtube's algorithm promotes videos that are about 20 minutes because that most effectively allows for start ads and middle ads. Content producers who target that length get rewarded with more views. Almost none of the cesspool will be less than 10-15 minutes and some go on for hours on the conspiracy theory rat hole stuff.
As for watching versus reading they both have their place. For news I prefer about 90% text with some video for flavor. For DIY repairs I prefer about 70% video with 30% text for steps or materials. There is no question that a video of a natural disaster for example can communicate things that in prose would likely be impossible. Or if you want to learn how to fold a fitted sheet watching a video is the way to go. On the other hand building a reasoned argument for something with proper context within a larger body of knowledge is very difficult in that medium. Put another way video is good at showing the who/what/where/when of an event and bad at explaining the why/how.
Much of the reason for the pivot to video was much simpler though. A poorly produced video has more appeal than a poorly produced essay. If your goal is to maximize aggregate time spent on a site as Facebook's was, then more mediocre video is better than more essays.
Youtube barely polices their comments, has no moderation tools that come from this century, and their algorithm doesn't care positive or negative feedback, despite having thumbs up and down buttons.
I hate to use a YouTube link to explain, but...
https://youtu.be/pnmRYRRDbuw
The PewDiePie pipeline. Parasocial interactions which only connect by strong emotions then trivialize and reward the most shocking and abusive behavior.
YouTube algorithms steer you toward videos like the one you just watched. Watch a bat shit crazy conspiracy theory video from the right-wing fever swamp and you are deluged with more bat shit crazy conspiracy theory videos. Many people (particularly dumb people) don't realize they are being steered, but just assume they a getting a random sampling from a world where everyone agrees Trump was chosen by God and had the election stolen from him by Satanic baby eating Democrats.
YouTube is utterly fantastic. An endless supply of often extremely high-quality documentaries and videos covering my particular intellectual obsessions: quantum mechanics, paleontology, natural history, World War II, linguistics. Plus NBA highlights, news, DIY videos, classic TV episodes…
All free. It’s THE original cord-cutting killer app.
Is there also plenty of shit on YouTube? No doubt there is! But why would I waste time on that?
Well, in that YouTube doesn't moderate the worst, and allows deadly misinformation and threats to spread.
I think Kevin's fundamentally right about this. It doesn't turn people into skinheads. Skinheads find the content they want on the platform.
I personally find it an endlessly valuable and rich source of entertainment, learning and relaxation. And again, all free of charge.
YouTube's algorithms are seriously screwed up.
Once, for kicks, I clicked on one of those conspiracy videos on YouTube. The recommended list on the right side of the screen instantly filled up with similar conspiracy videos. Some of those videos stalked me for weeks. I can see how someone could easily fall down a rabbit hole.
I go to YouTube for music videos and occasionally for home repair how-to videos. I never go to YouTube while logged into a Google account and I always clear my cookies and cache when I leave.
You do have a choice of what you read or view, but the platforms seem to have found the same formula that created crack cocaine. Many people seem to be unable to use discrimination as to what they consume. I don't see or engage with the toxic stuff on social media. I know many people that only use Facebook to chat with their families and share photos of their grandkids. I fail to see why YouTube is considered the most toxic--I just watch videos on subjects I am interested in. YT is invaluable if you are trying to fix a washing machine or repair your car. I mainly use Twitter to keep on top of breaking news and weather. Social media is what you make it.
If you want to be pissed off on social media you can be. If you want to learn about gardening, cooking, carpentry, or any number of topics you can do that as well.
The problems of misinformation are not the only evil associated with social media. I teach in a public high school. Many of my students -- most, I'd say -- have difficulty limiting their social media consumption throughout the school day. They whip out their phones to consult various media and messages whenever they can. Woe betide the teacher that decides to come between a student and their cell phone at the wrong moment!
For adolescents, the main problem isn't that social media are bad sources of information. It is that their cell phones + Internet are a constant diversion from more important things they need to develop, primarily their talents, skills and the knowledge base needed to function in society.
Wait- there are dump people? I was called an elitist the other day for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, some people should not go to college because they are not smart enough....
I was thus informed that America really IS Lake Woebegone, where everyone is above average.
All the things that get lumped in with "social media" aren't the same, and don't have to be used in a social and potentially toxic manner. For example, the way I use Instagram there is almost no "social" in it. I share beautiful photos with my friends and I look at their beautiful photos, with only an occasional comment asking where the photo was taken or maybe what camera was used. I only use Facebook essentially like Craigslist, which doesn't exist where I live. I look for things to buy and sell things on it. So-called social media is like anything: can be used in many different ways. Some are bad and some are good. Same with any communication tool. There were always terrible magazines, newspapers, and books too, and maybe the worst of all was the toxic crowd hanging out in the restroom at school.
You share with others, that's literally social.
I don't forget that there have been a lot of opinion columns that go on at length about "the danger of living in a bubble" but this in conflict with the idea of being able to ignore viewpoints. Long experience on the Internet has convinced me that it is better to risk the bubble than to subject yourself to insanity on a daily basis.
Or to quote as a truism, "on social media there is no argue, there is only block".
Citation needed on the YouTube thing. All sources of user generated content are going to have awfulness, but compared to Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook, YouTube seems to be the lesser evil.
Nope, it's the core one. They don't moderate for violence or threats or misinformation - just copyright, and only from major media.
It's consumed by people who often don't have the resources to know better - and the way YouTube rewards and promotes makes sure that misinformation floats to the top and even if you downvoted a video, it will continue promoting that channel to you. (Especially if you reported it for a content violation!).
YouTube used to have a worse algorithm, which caused it to push ever more extreme content at users. It's less likely to do that now. TikTok now has the worst recommendation algorithm among the popular American social media platforms.
YouTube in its current form certainly has some pretty awful content, but it also has some of the most useful content. The instructional videos on YouTube just don't have an equivalent on other platforms.
I would be curious to know how KD determined YT is the worst. Do the misinformation documentaries seem more effective on that platform vs others? Is there some data to suggest YT is particularly bad?
For those of us who inhabit a benign world of YouTube recommendations of craft videos and SNL sketches, it can be hard to see the dark side.
Having positive things doesn't alleviate the worst.
Do the people who use social media apps view the same type of material on YouTube? If they do, I can buy into Kevin's 'A picture is worth a thousand words' argumet. To some extent. But as someone else as already pointed out, there's 'entertainment' and then there's entertainment. Me, I watch documentaries, science, and how-to videos, which I find to be of high quality. Plus, dinosours!
There is no way that Line is not a top Social Media app.
This is another area where Kevin is wrong, although saying some reasonable things.
He is right that facebook makes dumb people dumber. But the difference is that dumb people can now talk easily to other dumb people and reinforce their ignorance.
He is right that facebook is a smaller problem than Fox news, but he ignores the synergy between to two. On facebook, dumb people can talk to other dumb people about the latest "news" from Fox.
And without the organized Russian disinformation campaign on social media, Donald Trump would likely have been a failed presidential candidate. But I digress . The main culprit here is the false-equivalence, profit-loving mainstream media.
I mostly use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends and my community, and it works reasonably well for that. (Although I do miss Everyblock.) Most of it is pretty benign (except for FB's business practices) but it does also support and host some disturbing groups. If you want to get yourself sucked into a vortex of crazy, you can.
Twitter seems to promote conflict as much as possible. Not even conflict, but just pure dunking and harassment. There's some good stuff on Twitter but you do have to fight the impulse to join in being horrible to people. I've also heard it's a pretty lousy experience for people with sizable follower counts, unless they're very good about banning/muting or they enjoy that kind of mudslinging.
YouTube also has all kinds of stuff, some of it cool, some of it brilliant, some of it nuts. Shares some of the problems of the FB private groups.
The real problem I see is that if you go looking for someone to validate your crazy idea (the pandemic was started by Fauci and the Illuminati) you can find someone on any of these platforms spreading those lies. Unfortunately the people who want to believe don't look critically. They don't even care. They're just happy to have someone on their "side". And so a lot of people believe a lot of crazy things. (Fox News provides this, too.) I don't know what's going to get people to start rejecting these baseless claims and conspiracies, but until they do in larger numbers than they are now, we can't have any kind of reasonable discourse.
"The real problem I see is that if you go looking for someone to validate your crazy idea (the pandemic was started by Fauci and the Illuminati) you can find someone on any of these platforms spreading those lies."
I think that's close to it, but that the reality is a bit worse. You don't have to go looking for someone to validate your crazy idea--you can go social media looking to validate your relatively normal ideas (examples: wellness, movie commentary, intriguing history), and the algorithm system will respond by supplying you with more and more emotionally eye-catching content, which slides down into more and more extreme content. So the person looking for health tips or takes on pop culture starts getting more and more stuff about eliminating "toxins" and/or how Hollywood is changing representation in movies, and if they aren't careful ends up getting a feed full of anti-vax and/or racist conspiracy theory nonsense.
And because none of it is presented as being extreme or suspect or with any real contextualization, relatively normal people can start holding some pretty abnormal ideas about what to believe and what other people believe.
This is a big part of how we get to a place where a supermajority of republicans think that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election--social media algorithms nudge people towards extreme content, and the relationship between what a person thinks and the content a person consumes is a bit of a two-way street.
Yes! Well put.
Local news broadcasts and national programs like GMA1, 2, and 3 may reach a greater audience than the corporate national news, whether national network or cable. These programs are broadcast on multiple channels several times a day everyday. They are almost identical in content; crime, car accidents, weather, human interest pap. Now they lede with war porn from Ukraine, to great affect among all political affiliations. In my state a popular newscaster is the favored Republican candidate for governor and she has received Trump's endorsement. Her politics is based on arousing the same emotions local demagogues developed and which were adopted by Trump, i.e., fear of immigrants. Regardless of the medium used, appeals to base emotions drives popular opinion and that is not a new development.
I'm running an experiment. I'm trying to train Facebook to only show me animal videos and football videos. I flag anything political as hate speech. The political content (mostly rightwing) has lessened but nevertheless political videos inevitably leak into my feed. It's relentless.
I just don't.
I'm a technical person who actively manages my network. Google, FB and several other "social" "media" outfits are blocked at my gateway, they simply don't exist on my internet. Lots of other advertising/surveillance outfits are as well.
Life is much better if you don't spend it in a sewer.
> The real cesspool in social media isn't Facebook or Twitter. It's YouTube.
wtf? We have totally different experiences of Youtube. On the one hand, I watch Kimmel, Noah, Bee, Meyers, Oliver ... which is basically like watching time shifted TV. On the other hand I watch things like "how to fix your sprinkler". Maybe if I get bored I'll watch a TED talk. I'm a bit confused about where this cesspool is.
And my TikTok feed is pretty much 50% political.
And yet, YouTube is absolutely wonderful! If you need to know how to change the bulb in your taillight, there's a guy on YouTube that will show you. If you want to watch concert videos by your favorite band of the '90s, it's on YouTube. If you want to understand string theory, YouTube.
"The real cesspool in social media isn't Facebook or Twitter. It's YouTube."
Nonsense. The real cesspool is Facebook. YouTube may be an outlet for disinfo or false info, but it's not a cesspool. Facebook is where cesspools form, with communities of shit.