We need to talk about social media.

[acri1]

The irony of me being on a message board doesn't escape me, but I think most people would agree that this is a problem.

And not just recently, but for years now. It's been proven that you can make large groups of people believe pretty much anything if you put in enough resources. You have millions of people who are flat earthers and anti vaxxers because of Youtube videos, and this a lot of the reason we're electing the people we are. "They're eating the cats and dogs" helped get the president elected even while being completely false. Unfortunately the people in charge have terrible intentions so it'll get even worse now.


I think it's fair to say that a large part of the world has been radicalized purely because of the Internet. So what the HL take on social media? What do we do about misinformation and bigotry spreading over the Internet?

 

[mc_brew]

when napster first came around i often wondered why record companies didn't flood the platform with fake copies of their songs... imagine if you tried to download hypnotize by biggie 20 times and each time you got some garbage.... you might give up trying and just go buy the record....

likewise, i wonder why democrats don't play the same game repukes play.... flood social media with lies about repukes... make their brand embarrassing.... i mean they started to at the beginning of jd vance's nomination with the whole couch fūcking thing.... flood social media with so many lies, half truths, and truthful things about trump that the average trumptard is overloaded with negative things about him.... it works, it's how the repukes keep destroying dems at the ballot box... we've got to in the mud with these reprehensible slimeballs.....

 

[StatUS]

I remember saying "fukk Facebook" way back in the day and all my friends looking at me like I was crazy

I've never been for the type of experience where you use your real life identity to interact with strangers (except maybe dating apps). It easily spreads misinformation and propaganda when someone you choose to follow on your own will is speaking to you. And with out the integrity necessary for journalism you can see how the right-wing spreads their message. They've been building this since 2014 at least when the tea party took over and you saw a change on how people reacted on the internet. Once Elon bought Twitter it was a wrap. You'd go on there and every comment is filled with Trump ads or explaining how Trump is so misunderstood. MSNBC bytch ass or left wing Youtube/Podcasting which the Dems stifled can't make up for that.

This election also proved the bubble the left was in especially on Reddit and Youtube. The vibes were high but they were only high for the bubble.

I just wish the Dems would have stayed on the Rethugs being weird, and taking them to the cleaners on the issues, and got some popular online presences to back them. They took a 180 after the Kamala destroyed Trump in the debate with the kicker being Walz treating JD like a colleague at a debate club smh.

 

[XannyWarbucks]

I remember saying "fukk Facebook" way back in the day and all my friends looking at me like I was crazy

I've never been for the type of experience where you use your real life identity to interact with strangers (except maybe dating apps). It easily spreads misinformation and propaganda when someone you choose to follow on your own will is speaking to you. And with out the integrity necessary for journalism you can see how the right-wing spreads their message. They've been building this since 2014 at least when the tea party took over and you saw a change on how people reacted on the internet. Once Elon bought Twitter it was a wrap. You'd go on there and every comment is filled with Trump ads or explaining how Trump is so misunderstood. MSNBC bytch ass or left wing Youtube/Podcasting which the Dems stifled can't make up for that.

This election also proved the bubble the left was in especially on Reddit and Youtube. The vibes were high but they were only high for the bubble.

I just wish the Dems would have stayed on the Rethugs being weird, and taking them to the cleaners on the issues, and got some popular online presences to back them. They took a 180 after the Kamala destroyed Trump in the debate with the kicker being Walz treating JD like a colleague at a debate club smh.

They’re retarded. They legit benched Walz for no fukking reason to go to the right, even though his message was clearly hitting. Like DeSantis’ entire campaign failed for this shyt and Walz hammered them and brought back that sentiment. In a campaign that Kamala barely brought that shyt up, Republicans wanted to spend like thirty minutes talking about trans people that they apparently hate. The fact that during the debate he didn’t say it once (and was seemingly fukking subdued) is nuts. Walz was an amazing VP pick and still has the highest favorability of all four candidates and DNC pissed it away.

 

[BK The Great]

Social media is about 80-90% propaganda and it's frying the brains of everyone. Nobody watches news no more, it's now being consumed thru those apps. Plus now you have ''verified'' accounts lying thru their teeth with posts.

 

[re'up]

Never had any social media, and no apps besides Lyft. I was about 21 when Facebook became widely popular and accepted around 2007, and was not in college, I was in jail, was in a half way house, and for those reasons and others, did not feel like that was what I wanted to do.

Not only because my own life was not exactly aligned with what I wanted, but mostly why. By 2012 it became more and more popular, I read about it, looked at my friends profiles, and still, just didn't see it. Until I realized it was about giving everyone a sense of meaning and identity. That's what was behind all of it. I saw the dumb comments and the sort of circular congratulatory conversations, saw my friends post something like a date night, and a flood of positive but shallow comments. Saw more and more celebrities and higher profile people make fools of themselves.

It was around 2014/2015, when I noticed my friends and the FB news feed, were starting to read fake articles. My boy straight up said Johnny Depp was in a bar fight last night, at a bar in a San Diego suburb. And I instantly said, that's fake. Let me see that. And I said you can't tell the difference? That was when the other part clicked. Why people were suddenly so into fringe beliefs. Why everyone started using the same slang. Why people were so obsessed with likes. One of my other friends said "I don't know why it feels good to get those likes".

by 2016- 2017, I could see it was just like a cesspool.

here are some books I read in last few years that really helped me understand social media, as a concept, and from the perspective of a user. This explains the pyschology and the mechanics, and the real risk of our social media fixation.

The Chaos Machine 2022

Outrage Machine 2023

Meganets 2023

 

[CrimsonTider]

How is this different from Fox news

 

[CrimsonTider]

Never had any social media, and no apps besides Lyft. I was about 21 when Facebook became widely popular and accepted around 2007, and was not in college, was in jail, was in a half way house, and for those reasons and others, did not feel like that was what I wanted to do.

Not only because my own life was not exactly aligned with what I wanted, but mostly why. By 2012 it became more and more popular, I read about it, looked at my friends profiles, and still, just didn't see it. Until I realized it was about giving everyone a sense of meaning and identity. That's what was behind all of it. I saw the dumb comments and the sort of circular congratulatory conversations, saw my friends post something like a date night, and a flood of positive but shallow comments. Saw more and more celebrities and higher profile people make fools of themselves.

It was around 2014/2015, when I noticed my friends and the FB news feed, were starting to read fake articles. My boy straight up said Johnny Depp was in a bar fight last night, at a bar in a San Diego suburb. And I instantly said, that's fake. Let me see that. And I said you can't tell the difference? That was when the other part clicked. Why people were suddenly so into fringe beliefs. Why everyone started using the same slang. Why people were so obsessed with likes. One of my other friends said "I don't know why it feels good to get those likes".

by 2016- 2017, I could see it was just like a cesspool.

here are some books I read in last few years that really helped me understand social media, as a concept, and from the perspective of a user. This explains the pyschology and the mechanics, and the real risk of our social media fixation.

The Chaos Machine 2022

Outrage Machine 2023

Meganets 2023

It ain’t thst deep

 

[acri1]

How is this different from Fox news

Because it reaches a much, much, much wider demographic than the usual older white FOX News audience and has even fewer checks.

Zoomers are literally getting redpilled into becoming Neo Nazis because of algorithms and they may be that way for their whole lives. At this point think it's absolutely foolish to think this is anything less than a major societal issue.

 

[mastermind]

social media is here because we don’t have community in-person anymore like Robert Putnam documented.

 

[CrimsonTider]

Because it reaches a much, much, much wider demographic than the usual older white FOX News audience and has even fewer checks.

Zoomers are literally getting redpilled into becoming Neo Nazis because of algorithms and they may be that way for their whole lives. At this point think it's absolutely foolish to think this is anything less than a major societal issue.

You’re describing Fox News and conservative talk radio

 

[CrimsonTider]

social media is here because we don’t have community in-person anymore like Robert Putnam documented.

We do have it, takes effort tho

I use to shyt on self proclaim introverts for this very reason

 

[The Bilingual Gringo]

Social media is a failed experiment, especially since older generations have began to use it. As a society, all we have to do is look back to Obama’s first presidency when there was spam emails about him being the anti-Christ and having the mark of the beast. And these people believe it.

You can track the degradation and division of society, it goes almost at the exact trend as social media use.

 

[Hawaiian Punch]

Honestly a day of retribution should come where social media giants are tried for crimes against humanity. You might be a billionaire but you destroyed the entire world in the process. They conjured up a golem with just a few strokes of a keyboard. Truly modern day witchcraft.

 

[re'up]

Social media is a failed experiment, especially since older generations have began to use it. As a society, all we have to do is look back to Obama’s first presidency when there was spam emails about him being the anti-Christ and having the mark of the beast. And these people believe it.

You can track the degradation and division of society, it goes almost at the exact trend as social media use.

Right. Social media was harnessed by Democrats in 2008 and 2012 to win the elections, by Obama's aides, and staffers. It was seen at the time as revolutionary and catching the Republicans off guard, who relied on the old ways. But it wasn't that the technology was FOR Democrats or liberals, or could only be used by them, because they were smarter, part of that was who were the first people on social media? Mostly millennial liberal highly educated from Ivy League and then on down.

When more and more people came onto the platforms, that demo radically shifted, and was used to help elect Trump in 2016.

but to your last point, you can track a lot of trends that start around 2012 when the rise of Facebook and Instagram, and Snap Chat. I can look it up later, but you start seeing anxiety, lonliness, and a continuation of social interactions and community go downward. People lived more and more online, in increasingly insular spaces.