Social networks are no longer social(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Social networks are no longer social
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/23/the-year-social-networks-were-no-longer-social/
199 comments
The article mentions of days when you were anonymous
It's funny how in the early days of the internet, everyone was so open and honest about who they are that it was very common for their e-mail messages, Usenet posts, finger plans, etc... to have their real names, home and/or work addresses, and home and/or work phone numbers.
Then the scammers discovered the internet, and everyone had to dummy up about who they are.
Then the corporations got involved, and decided to use "AI" unmask everyone and sell that information back to the scammers.
I wonder what the next move is. Maybe we should all go back to blatantly stating who we are to make the corporations' information gathering worthless.
It's funny how in the early days of the internet, everyone was so open and honest about who they are that it was very common for their e-mail messages, Usenet posts, finger plans, etc... to have their real names, home and/or work addresses, and home and/or work phone numbers.
Then the scammers discovered the internet, and everyone had to dummy up about who they are.
Then the corporations got involved, and decided to use "AI" unmask everyone and sell that information back to the scammers.
I wonder what the next move is. Maybe we should all go back to blatantly stating who we are to make the corporations' information gathering worthless.
The next move already happened which was the massive Equifax leak. The government has effectively sheltered them from liability, there was no penalty for their actions. So the next development is really having your life forcibly exposed to scammers and potentially having your identity stolen but you have no means to protect the data. In the past it was like if you were careless you could be violated. Now you're at the mercy of large careless corporations who collect all your most vital information without your permission and carelessly store it almost as if they want it stolen, but ultimately the government shields them from liability such that ultimately the government is using the web as a tool to expose you to scammers even if you don't use the web at all.
Absolutely and horrifyingly true. Let’s continue to bring up Equifax’s failure as much as possible because it seems like it’s not a big issue anymore Which is crazy.
Threaten equifax and you disrupt the business model of an entire industry, the same one that's responsible for the economic collapse.
Credit ratings from the 3 major providers are used by banks to assess credit worthlessness of personal loans. Naturally, the more data these firms have on people the better they can rate (perceived) risk. These 'data controllers' serve banks and corporations who make their billions on loans.
Disruption is not welcome. Anyone remember occupie wallst ?
Credit ratings from the 3 major providers are used by banks to assess credit worthlessness of personal loans. Naturally, the more data these firms have on people the better they can rate (perceived) risk. These 'data controllers' serve banks and corporations who make their billions on loans.
Disruption is not welcome. Anyone remember occupie wallst ?
the same one that's responsible for the economic collapse.
Credit ratings of individuals (Equifax) are unrelated to credit ratings provided by companies such as Moody's for corporate and government bonds.
Credit ratings of individuals (Equifax) are unrelated to credit ratings provided by companies such as Moody's for corporate and government bonds.
> the same one that's responsible for the economic collapse.
> Credit ratings of individuals (Equifax) are unrelated to credit ratings provided by companies such as Moody's for corporate and government bonds.
It depends on how you look at it. They'll all part of the larger financial/banking industry.
> Credit ratings of individuals (Equifax) are unrelated to credit ratings provided by companies such as Moody's for corporate and government bonds.
It depends on how you look at it. They'll all part of the larger financial/banking industry.
my point exactly
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It's funny how in the early days of the internet, everyone was so open and honest about who they are that it was very common for their e-mail messages, Usenet posts, finger plans, etc... to have their real names, home and/or work addresses, and home and/or work phone numbers.
It was a mixed bag then and a mixed bag now. In usenet, some people were very open and some were already anonymous. On webboards, anonymity was more common but plenty of folks still put out their real name.
One of Facebook's selling point, how it got a significant fraction of the US population online at all, was presenting the (false) impression that you could safely use your real ID online.
And talking about this stuff, it's important to realize that until say 2008-2010, you had a process of more of the population getting online, so those online in the 90s were by definition outliers and didn't have "typical for everyone" experiences.
It was a mixed bag then and a mixed bag now. In usenet, some people were very open and some were already anonymous. On webboards, anonymity was more common but plenty of folks still put out their real name.
One of Facebook's selling point, how it got a significant fraction of the US population online at all, was presenting the (false) impression that you could safely use your real ID online.
And talking about this stuff, it's important to realize that until say 2008-2010, you had a process of more of the population getting online, so those online in the 90s were by definition outliers and didn't have "typical for everyone" experiences.
>Maybe we should all go back to blatantly stating who we are to make the corporations' information gathering worthless.
Google doesn't stop at your name and address, in fact that's not even what they are mainly interested in. Revealing your identifying information would just open yourself up to harassment, especially when a tech company leaks the top 10,000 list of the most-likely-to-buy customers of some embarrassing product.
Google doesn't stop at your name and address, in fact that's not even what they are mainly interested in. Revealing your identifying information would just open yourself up to harassment, especially when a tech company leaks the top 10,000 list of the most-likely-to-buy customers of some embarrassing product.
> Maybe we should all go back to blatantly stating who we are to make the corporations' information gathering worthless.
Well yes, that would devalue your name/address details, so they'd shift to more invasive approaches like reading your emails and messages, bugging your person and/or home, tracking your financial transactions, etc.
Well yes, that would devalue your name/address details, so they'd shift to more invasive approaches like reading your emails and messages, bugging your person and/or home, tracking your financial transactions, etc.
Not sure if that’s intended to be taken sarcastically or not but some of those things do already happen like reading your emails/instant messages and tracking your financial transactions.
I think it was sarcasm, since he described most free e-mail services, Facebook messenger, Google Home, and whatever the name is of Google's in-house org that thinks it's entitled to the records of 80% of the world's credit card transactions.
So... gmail/yahoo, google voice/fb messenger, google home/alexa/ portal, nest, services like Credit Karma and the like? Data mining is big business
Unless you're also going to disclose all your cookie ids, mobile device ids, connected tv ids, transaction history, income/demographics/consumer preferences, etc. etc., there will still be a lot of room for adtech companies to gather information about you. And even if you do, there is still attribution of purchases to impressions or clicks, audience segmentation, ad retargeting, and many other lucrative areas for companies to trade your data.
> It's funny how in the early days of the internet, everyone was so open and honest about who they are that it was very common for their e-mail messages, Usenet posts, finger plans, etc... to have their real names, home and/or work addresses, and home and/or work phone numbers.
Not really. I mean, yes, on one hand, yes. On the other hand, places for open-topic discussions explicitly allowed fake names and nicknames.
The best timeframe on the internet I can remember was when everything you needed was a nickname of your choice and an email account somewhere.
If anything went wrong, you could just drop everything, get a new pair of nickname/address and start anew.
Not really. I mean, yes, on one hand, yes. On the other hand, places for open-topic discussions explicitly allowed fake names and nicknames.
The best timeframe on the internet I can remember was when everything you needed was a nickname of your choice and an email account somewhere.
If anything went wrong, you could just drop everything, get a new pair of nickname/address and start anew.
Generally, people used "real" email addresses that bound them to their company or school (before the Hotmail etc. era).
Oh man, email. Fun story - I started using the internet around 2000, maybe 2001 and to me email was always a website. Like hotmail etc. The first time I installed Linux I was very confused why it wanted my email address and most importantly why the basic default configuration installed an email server. I'm not setting up a hotmail competitor, why is there an email server installed? It took me almost a decade before I found out that email used to be on your machine and it would simply accept email from anywhere. You used to be able to just connect to any email server and go "here, have some mail" and it would accept it - no questions asked, no authentication needed. Even knowing it was meant for university-to-university mail exchange originally, it still sounds completely insane. Then again, unsecured ftp used to also be a thing. To this day I have no idea what to do when I log into a Linux machine and see "You have mail in /var/spool/mail/<you>". It probably doesn't matter anymore.
Just run pine/mail/mutt or whatever you’d like! You can also just go fumbling around with your text editor of choice. The primary reason would be to figure out what program is attempting to send mail to your username, and go log it properly instead.
Lol. That is the best summary I’ve seen. A systematic escalation of scamming.
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The article mentions of days when you were anonymous, getting to know strangers through common interests and exchanging ideas. I do miss those early days.
I use Facebook for this 75-80% of the time. A few IRL friends communicate with my account but it's mostly about common interests with people spread across the world. I did this in various web boards before Facebook but Facebook is better, more people with my common interests are gathered in one place, better debate happens, discovery is easier and so-forth.
But that's how I've systematically worked to use Facebook. I run a group where I enforce civility ruthlessly, banning all trolls in an otherwise troll-heavy part of the site.
Facebook is a factor because it allows better interest-discovery than other sites and it's easier to compete with admins who allowing trolling just by creating a group and being better (where starting a competing web-board was hard).
This might not be how most people experience FB but remember, the board users were only a small fraction of the population also.
Edit: Hot tip, Facebook doesn't make much of an effort to enforce real names. A little, certainly but not much. Most people today don't get the value or need for anonymous accounts. That was true before Facebook too but then the majority simply hesitated to get online at all. I'm not sure if this is a matter of education or psychology, whether this will ever change or not.
I use Facebook for this 75-80% of the time. A few IRL friends communicate with my account but it's mostly about common interests with people spread across the world. I did this in various web boards before Facebook but Facebook is better, more people with my common interests are gathered in one place, better debate happens, discovery is easier and so-forth.
But that's how I've systematically worked to use Facebook. I run a group where I enforce civility ruthlessly, banning all trolls in an otherwise troll-heavy part of the site.
Facebook is a factor because it allows better interest-discovery than other sites and it's easier to compete with admins who allowing trolling just by creating a group and being better (where starting a competing web-board was hard).
This might not be how most people experience FB but remember, the board users were only a small fraction of the population also.
Edit: Hot tip, Facebook doesn't make much of an effort to enforce real names. A little, certainly but not much. Most people today don't get the value or need for anonymous accounts. That was true before Facebook too but then the majority simply hesitated to get online at all. I'm not sure if this is a matter of education or psychology, whether this will ever change or not.
> Hot tip, Facebook doesn't make much of an effort to enforce real names. A little, certainly but not much.
It's certainly easy to say that until you get requested for an ID, being locked out all your activities and friends until you compromise your privacy.
It's certainly easy to say that until you get requested for an ID, being locked out all your activities and friends until you compromise your privacy.
When everyone's anonymous, anyone can speak their mind without worrying about offending anyone.
When everyone's identified, only the crazies and extremists truly speak their mind - they don't care about offending anyone.
You might end up with a mix of crazies and extremist "thought leaders" with packs of quiet followers - a suppression of the moderates and deep thinkers.
When everyone's identified, only the crazies and extremists truly speak their mind - they don't care about offending anyone.
You might end up with a mix of crazies and extremist "thought leaders" with packs of quiet followers - a suppression of the moderates and deep thinkers.
The failed experiment that is 4chan was founded on this idea and its plainly clear that anonymity in a large community leads people to just spout the craziness constantly and loudly because well researched and thoughtful comments are simply lost in the sea of crap and there are literally no downsides to constantly lying. You can thoroughly debunk a persons claims and they'll resort to insults or usually will stop responding and then proceed to post the same garbage within a day or even an hour.
A minimum of pseudo anonymity that holds people accountable for what they say is an important part of enforcing a healthy community of people making good faith arguments.
A minimum of pseudo anonymity that holds people accountable for what they say is an important part of enforcing a healthy community of people making good faith arguments.
Total anonymity may lead to this anarchy, but having a persona that's not tied to your everyday life, your social status and appearance, but to your status in a specific web-based society or a sphere of your interests, this is what helped moving meaningful discussion forward.
What really devastated so much of the pre-social-network internet is erosion of this practice, in my opinion.
What really devastated so much of the pre-social-network internet is erosion of this practice, in my opinion.
4chan has better discussions that reddit and hackernews put together.
The point is that they aren't stored anywhere and disappeared once they were finished.
Over here I've been told that I can't have more than one account to post things I don't want associated with me in public. Give that I have a more than even chance I will work in some regime that takes offense to many things I might say, e.g. that I theoretically support LGBT rights, I just don't talk about anything remotely controversial.
The point is that they aren't stored anywhere and disappeared once they were finished.
Over here I've been told that I can't have more than one account to post things I don't want associated with me in public. Give that I have a more than even chance I will work in some regime that takes offense to many things I might say, e.g. that I theoretically support LGBT rights, I just don't talk about anything remotely controversial.
4chan only has better discussion when you are absolutely new to a topic, since the userbase tends to be on the younger side and they are happy to reshare the information they just learned. The basics are constantly presented over and over again.
But people with real knowledge eventually grow tired of sharing that information with a userbase that is happy to discuss which programming language has the best Hello World, whether Good Eats or Food Wishes is better for someone that has grown tired of ramen noodles, how to get into starting strength, which JR pass to buy on a first trip to Japan, etc.
The discussions don't seem shallow when the topics are new but they hardly ever get in depth because of the fact that the posts are fleeting outside of information contained in the sticky. There is very little point in having anything besides shallow discussion because it is ultimately a waste of time to constantly rehash the actual relevant and deep information you just posted a couple days.
This is when the users are in more or less well behaved forums. You go into some of the more trolly boards and the conversation just degrades even further.
Reddit has its own issues with people posting stuff just for likes and refusing to disagree for fear of losing internet points, but the actual content on the site is far superior to 4chan at this point, even though they started off by basically stealing all the interesting meme content from 4chan. There is actual useful information all throughout Reddit, even though I don't particularly like the community as a whole.
I would really like to hear why you think either site comes close to the discussion on hackernews however. This is easily the most civil and well moderated large site I've been on in a long while.
But people with real knowledge eventually grow tired of sharing that information with a userbase that is happy to discuss which programming language has the best Hello World, whether Good Eats or Food Wishes is better for someone that has grown tired of ramen noodles, how to get into starting strength, which JR pass to buy on a first trip to Japan, etc.
The discussions don't seem shallow when the topics are new but they hardly ever get in depth because of the fact that the posts are fleeting outside of information contained in the sticky. There is very little point in having anything besides shallow discussion because it is ultimately a waste of time to constantly rehash the actual relevant and deep information you just posted a couple days.
This is when the users are in more or less well behaved forums. You go into some of the more trolly boards and the conversation just degrades even further.
Reddit has its own issues with people posting stuff just for likes and refusing to disagree for fear of losing internet points, but the actual content on the site is far superior to 4chan at this point, even though they started off by basically stealing all the interesting meme content from 4chan. There is actual useful information all throughout Reddit, even though I don't particularly like the community as a whole.
I would really like to hear why you think either site comes close to the discussion on hackernews however. This is easily the most civil and well moderated large site I've been on in a long while.
Reddit and hn are both full of pseudo-intellectuals masticating on something some (frequently illegitimate) authority says. Meanwhile, skepticism or different perspective is frequently washed out by a bunch of tools who have effectively been trained to propagate a facile "consensus" as dictated by popular media.
So I'll go ahead and do my simple maintenance routine that can be communicated in a 5 x 4 table while redditors read high school tier essays about how calorie io is a flawed paradigm and long-term weight loss isn't possible.
So I'll go ahead and do my simple maintenance routine that can be communicated in a 5 x 4 table while redditors read high school tier essays about how calorie io is a flawed paradigm and long-term weight loss isn't possible.
Back in my MSc I had to code a ray tracer for a black hole. all the lovely GR tensors implemented in C and the like. Someone in sci pointed me to the gsl and how to install it on the local lab machine in Suse. Then they critiqued the way I was running the rays.
I ended up getting 100% on that coursework.
4 chan is like a piggie bank. You get out of it what you put in.
I ended up getting 100% on that coursework.
4 chan is like a piggie bank. You get out of it what you put in.
It doesn't seem to me that 4chan has failed.
https://www.rank2traffic.com/4chan.org
https://www.rank2traffic.com/4chan.org
Failed at discourse != Failed at traffic
The chans have a disproportionate impact on current online communication. The memetic use of macro images large stems from chans. As well as the propensity for trolling has been massively driven by chans
Let's not kid ourselves. 4chan was good for approximately 5 minutes one time in 2004.
While the general thrust of this comment is accurate, especially if we only consider relatively recent 4chan, it does miss some of the subtleties of variation in anonymous-imageboard discourse quality. There are two primary differentiators between absolute cesspool and actually fairly decent boards, one of which the parent hints at: size and quality of moderation.
First, size. Although I can't speak to "modern" (say, post-2012) 4chan due to lack of firsthand experience, prior to then many of the smaller boards were actually quite nice places for serious discussion of their subject matter. /out/ (outdoors), /m/ (mecha), /n/ (transportation), and even some of the text boards like /prog/ were all fairly high quality due to their strong, persistent board cultures that discouraged pointless shitposting and encouraged actual contribution and dialogue. In each case, the ratio of new contributors to old hands was low enough to allow these board cultures to perpetuate and maintain quality. For example, when a community is small enough that many participants will have personally witnessed the debunking of a set of claims, reposting the same crap will be minimally effective. This dynamic breaks down at size, and it's easy to see how increased traffic over the years leads to the erosion of communities that rely on their small size for their quality.
That's where the other factor comes into play: quality of moderation. Despite being much larger and faster than the aforementioned slow boards, /a/ was quite good for a long period of time, largely thanks to very aggressive moderation. Low tolerance for off-topic content (especially anything with the scent of /pol/ on it) enforced a strong culture of topical, relatively thoughtful discourse. As one of the handful of places where you could discuss anime way too seriously without being hampered by those troublesome Naruto-watching non-elitists, old-/a/ produced a mind-boggling amount of in-depth textual analysis, especially of popular and controversial works like the F/SN VN. This was in large part due to the differences between the predominant pseudoanonymous forum-based model and the anonymous discussion model that aimed to address the deficiencies of the former. For example, a blight of old forums was circlejerking around the opinions of established members. Some guy, possibly a mod, would have a pet theory or position and everyone else had damn well better fall in line because he's got 20k posts and/or will ban anyone who disagrees. Crap like that wasn't universal, but it was a major issue with a lot of forum communities. Minus the persistent egos, discussion was allowed to progress. I think we let nostalgia blind us to a lot of the problems that afflicted old forum communities - the reasons that led folks to anonymous imageboards in the first place. Eventually, though, the pattern of strong moderation that enabled high-quality anonymous discussion fell by the wayside.
What caused that, though? Having spoken with a variety of janitors over the years, the common thread is that the ability to trivially ban evade via mobile connection (especially ipv6) DHCP pools basically destroyed the mod team's ability to quash bad actors. Ban evasion was always a problem, but prior to the emergence of phoneposting it took a lot more effort and was easier to combat. Banning known proxies and tor exit nodes is a pain, but banning mobile carrier IP ranges is a non-starter. This led to a general sense of resignation, which in turn translated to less-aggressive moderation and a decline in quality.
What I'm really getting at is that discarding the lessons learned about what makes an anonymous discussion system good or not just because the overall experiment didn't pan out is unfortunate, and that all hope isn't necessarily lost. For instance, an anonymous community with a barrier to entry (say, a SA/metafilter-type entry fee, where your ability to post anonymously is contingent upon not getting your paid account banned) could address the issues of size and moderation while maintaining the freedom-of-expression benefits of the anonymous model. The hard part there is bootstrapping - nobody wants to pay to participate in a yet-unpopulated community whose moderation model/community culture isn't a guaranteed personal fit, but opening it up initially to develop a userbase exposes it to the Gab/Voat problem.
First, size. Although I can't speak to "modern" (say, post-2012) 4chan due to lack of firsthand experience, prior to then many of the smaller boards were actually quite nice places for serious discussion of their subject matter. /out/ (outdoors), /m/ (mecha), /n/ (transportation), and even some of the text boards like /prog/ were all fairly high quality due to their strong, persistent board cultures that discouraged pointless shitposting and encouraged actual contribution and dialogue. In each case, the ratio of new contributors to old hands was low enough to allow these board cultures to perpetuate and maintain quality. For example, when a community is small enough that many participants will have personally witnessed the debunking of a set of claims, reposting the same crap will be minimally effective. This dynamic breaks down at size, and it's easy to see how increased traffic over the years leads to the erosion of communities that rely on their small size for their quality.
That's where the other factor comes into play: quality of moderation. Despite being much larger and faster than the aforementioned slow boards, /a/ was quite good for a long period of time, largely thanks to very aggressive moderation. Low tolerance for off-topic content (especially anything with the scent of /pol/ on it) enforced a strong culture of topical, relatively thoughtful discourse. As one of the handful of places where you could discuss anime way too seriously without being hampered by those troublesome Naruto-watching non-elitists, old-/a/ produced a mind-boggling amount of in-depth textual analysis, especially of popular and controversial works like the F/SN VN. This was in large part due to the differences between the predominant pseudoanonymous forum-based model and the anonymous discussion model that aimed to address the deficiencies of the former. For example, a blight of old forums was circlejerking around the opinions of established members. Some guy, possibly a mod, would have a pet theory or position and everyone else had damn well better fall in line because he's got 20k posts and/or will ban anyone who disagrees. Crap like that wasn't universal, but it was a major issue with a lot of forum communities. Minus the persistent egos, discussion was allowed to progress. I think we let nostalgia blind us to a lot of the problems that afflicted old forum communities - the reasons that led folks to anonymous imageboards in the first place. Eventually, though, the pattern of strong moderation that enabled high-quality anonymous discussion fell by the wayside.
What caused that, though? Having spoken with a variety of janitors over the years, the common thread is that the ability to trivially ban evade via mobile connection (especially ipv6) DHCP pools basically destroyed the mod team's ability to quash bad actors. Ban evasion was always a problem, but prior to the emergence of phoneposting it took a lot more effort and was easier to combat. Banning known proxies and tor exit nodes is a pain, but banning mobile carrier IP ranges is a non-starter. This led to a general sense of resignation, which in turn translated to less-aggressive moderation and a decline in quality.
What I'm really getting at is that discarding the lessons learned about what makes an anonymous discussion system good or not just because the overall experiment didn't pan out is unfortunate, and that all hope isn't necessarily lost. For instance, an anonymous community with a barrier to entry (say, a SA/metafilter-type entry fee, where your ability to post anonymously is contingent upon not getting your paid account banned) could address the issues of size and moderation while maintaining the freedom-of-expression benefits of the anonymous model. The hard part there is bootstrapping - nobody wants to pay to participate in a yet-unpopulated community whose moderation model/community culture isn't a guaranteed personal fit, but opening it up initially to develop a userbase exposes it to the Gab/Voat problem.
Many years ago a lot site's comment sections give you a choice between using an anonymous account for the site or linking to your Facebook or Twitter accounts to post. I experimented with using my real name/ID on some of them under the assumption that I'd be more inclined to be polite, assume good faith, avoid unproductive engagements with people, etc. if I wasn't anonymous.
It didn't work. It just deterred me from commenting at all, and when I did comment I think I was more terse and condescending than usual. I'm not sure why, but I wonder if maybe in anonymous forums I kind of just assumed a lot of the stupid things being said were by edgy teenagers. I was inclined to be patient with them or write them off since I just sort of assumed they were too young to know better and would grow out of it. But once you see the profile pictures of the people posting, and they're grown ass men who really ought to know better, it's much harder to be nice because you know these peoples' horrible beliefs have consequences.
It didn't work. It just deterred me from commenting at all, and when I did comment I think I was more terse and condescending than usual. I'm not sure why, but I wonder if maybe in anonymous forums I kind of just assumed a lot of the stupid things being said were by edgy teenagers. I was inclined to be patient with them or write them off since I just sort of assumed they were too young to know better and would grow out of it. But once you see the profile pictures of the people posting, and they're grown ass men who really ought to know better, it's much harder to be nice because you know these peoples' horrible beliefs have consequences.
I never thought about it this way, but it makes a lot of sense.
Although to your last point, I don't think following thought leaders is such a bad thing. I mean, we have been following crazies for as long as humans have history.
Although to your last point, I don't think following thought leaders is such a bad thing. I mean, we have been following crazies for as long as humans have history.
This describes roughly my experience with small mastodon instances right now. It has been called "twitter like it was in the early days". Mostly pseudonyms, feeling of anonymity and being part of a small group. No algorithmic selection of content. Liking a post doesn't even affect its visibility. People are less afraid to post unpolished content, e.g. artists I follow report they feel less pressure when posting a rough sketch or personal stuff that doesn't fit into their portfolio. The flip side: there is no way to filter all the trivialities and show only the "best" posts.
>The flip side: there is no way to filter all the trivialities and show only the "best" posts.
Trivialities are fine. I just wish there was a language (as in, spoken language not profanity) and NSFW filter.
Trivialities are fine. I just wish there was a language (as in, spoken language not profanity) and NSFW filter.
I mean there's still Reddit, the chans, forums, etc, with a lot of activity, if you want to live those days again.
Reddit is quickly heading down the same path as Facebook. Especially with the new design.
Yep, just waiting for the day I can no longer opt out. Feels like it’s coming soon.
Boy those ad designs on the new layout sure are starting to look like regular posts. I’m sure it won’t get any worse, right?
Boy those ad designs on the new layout sure are starting to look like regular posts. I’m sure it won’t get any worse, right?
The ads say “PROMOTED” in capital blue letters and Adblockers still work. Is it really so bad?
>The ads say “PROMOTED” in capital blue letters and Adblockers still work. Is it really so bad?
That adage about boiling the frog by slowly upping the temperature so it doesn't notice probably applies here
That adage about boiling the frog by slowly upping the temperature so it doesn't notice probably applies here
The adage of people using up free things until the providers go bankrupt also applies.
>Adblockers still work
not on iOS
not on iOS
>Yep, just waiting for the day I can no longer opt out. Feels like it’s coming soon.
Agreed; it seems like I'm having to re-opt out every day, at least once a day. I haven't figured out if it is a setting in the subs' that I read (maybe something in their themes?) or something on my end.
Agreed; it seems like I'm having to re-opt out every day, at least once a day. I haven't figured out if it is a setting in the subs' that I read (maybe something in their themes?) or something on my end.
Maybe design-wise, but the principles such as pseudonymity haven’t changed and that’s far more important in the long run.
I do miss those early days.
I got my first modem in 1985. I racked up a $300 phone bill my first month calling bulletin boards exchanging messages and software with people all over the world. My parents took my modem from me until I paid off the debt.
I’ve been on dozens of forums with topics I’m interested in over the last 3.5 decades. I’ve used every kind of internet communication including Usenet, irc, web, etc.
There’s no reason to miss the early days. Those special interest forums are still out there with lots of activity. Just look for them! I’ll take today’s ease of communication any day over having to dial up with a 300 baud modem to a single-person-at-a-time BBS.
I got my first modem in 1985. I racked up a $300 phone bill my first month calling bulletin boards exchanging messages and software with people all over the world. My parents took my modem from me until I paid off the debt.
I’ve been on dozens of forums with topics I’m interested in over the last 3.5 decades. I’ve used every kind of internet communication including Usenet, irc, web, etc.
There’s no reason to miss the early days. Those special interest forums are still out there with lots of activity. Just look for them! I’ll take today’s ease of communication any day over having to dial up with a 300 baud modem to a single-person-at-a-time BBS.
> Just look for them!
That's an issue in itself. Google used to have a "discussion" search feature you could use to find a search term in forum posts. Now, that feature is gone. Social media content is highly prioritized and incentivized.
Forum discoverability was better in the past. Now, if you search for a community, you'll find a half-dozen Facebook groups, its Twitter feed, a subreddit, its G+ counterpart and YouTube videos.
That's an issue in itself. Google used to have a "discussion" search feature you could use to find a search term in forum posts. Now, that feature is gone. Social media content is highly prioritized and incentivized.
Forum discoverability was better in the past. Now, if you search for a community, you'll find a half-dozen Facebook groups, its Twitter feed, a subreddit, its G+ counterpart and YouTube videos.
Adding +forum to the query usually narrows it down as expected.
You can still be anonymous on Facebook if you use their onion service[1]. Although I think you can't register for an account under Tor, which is counter intuitive (I mean why would you offer a Tor hidden service if you can't register under it?). In that case I would register using a 3G/GSM IP which many people share (instead of a unique IP where few people share it); and then, once registered, proceed to browse Facebook with their hidden service.
Just be careful, because if you are using Facebook with Tor, you run the risk of outing your real identity from things like your social graph, search queries, likes, and other metadata.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebookcorewwwi.onion
Just be careful, because if you are using Facebook with Tor, you run the risk of outing your real identity from things like your social graph, search queries, likes, and other metadata.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebookcorewwwi.onion
What is the utility of Facebook if you're anonymous? I thought it was used to communicate with, schedule activities with, and share pictures and videos with your friends. If Tom, Mary, Jane and AnonymousTorUser68292 are all tagged in a photo at Mary's house...that just doesn't seem to have much of a purpose.
There are many groups where people don't necessarily want their real info known. Domestic violence, rape and some cancer groups come to mind. Even HN allows throwaway accounts to protect sensitive info. There are more legitimate uses for FB than just the ones you laid out.
> Just be careful, because if you are using Facebook with Tor, you run the risk of outing your real identity from things like your social graph, search queries, likes, and other metadata.
You can’t be anonymous from Facebook or from Facebook users (with or without Tor) without violating its ToS and worrying about being blocked and asked to prove your real/authentic identity if you piss off some random person online or get flagged by one of its bots that check accounts periodically.
You can’t be anonymous from Facebook or from Facebook users (with or without Tor) without violating its ToS and worrying about being blocked and asked to prove your real/authentic identity if you piss off some random person online or get flagged by one of its bots that check accounts periodically.
Who gives a crap about any tos? I have never read one in my life and will never. I'm simply going to do whatever the hell I want on any service.
In the case of Facebook you will probably not get flagged even when you are a complete jackass, anonymous or not. Twenty percent of the userbase would disappear
In the case of Facebook you will probably not get flagged even when you are a complete jackass, anonymous or not. Twenty percent of the userbase would disappear
Well if you setup an anonymous account with Facebook and use their Tor hidden service for the simple reason of harassing people, then of course you will get the ban-hammer. Some people just like being anonymous because they don't want their real name attached to their Facebook personal preferences. Such data is still precious to Facebook, but then the user runs the risk of outing themselves by what they 'like' and who they associate with, so I guess the trick is to keep activity on those sort of accounts to a minimum, which kind of sucks but it has to be done to maintain a reasonable anonymous presence on their platform.
> Facebook has been applauded for allowing such access, which makes it available in countries that actively try to block Facebook
I’m not sure how I feel about this…
I’m not sure how I feel about this…
> In that case I would register using a 3G/GSM IP which many people share
Be careful... some cell providers use IPv6 these days. T-Mobile US gives me an IPv6 address and a 192.0.0.x CGNAT address.
Be careful... some cell providers use IPv6 these days. T-Mobile US gives me an IPv6 address and a 192.0.0.x CGNAT address.
Noted. I guess as times goes on, it will be harder to find a cell provider that uses IPV4. They're really handy for anonymous accounts, especially with that sweet CGNAT which is dying out as more people tear existing infra apart to upgrade to IPV6
Those days still exist.
There are many great forums, and Reddit is still reasonable despite the trouble.
Some sites, Quora, Facebook, et al. are using real name policies with mixed results.
Facebook is mostly a negative for me, though I do enjoy a few private groups.
Quora, of the real names experiments, has actually been a reasonable experience. 8 was early to the platform and many of us early on made strong efforts to set good norms around real names. A lot of that worked well.
It is working a little less well at big scale, though like I said, not bad. Sometimes more authoritarian than I prefer. The new spaces feature is a big test. Could be real names Reddit. Hmmm...
Having tried all extremes, I frankly still prefer pseudonyms. Handling trolls and such is not too big of a deal, and minor league for me personally.
The number one thing one can do to innoculate a community against trolling is to educate members on agency in dialog and model strong norms as to how that can work.
(People have more options than the usual righteous indignation and when they use them, trolling becomes largely ineffective as does "bitings" of varioys kinds)
Avoiding the bigger venues leaves one with mostly the same basic experiences that have always had value.
Typed on mobile, plz forgive typos
There are many great forums, and Reddit is still reasonable despite the trouble.
Some sites, Quora, Facebook, et al. are using real name policies with mixed results.
Facebook is mostly a negative for me, though I do enjoy a few private groups.
Quora, of the real names experiments, has actually been a reasonable experience. 8 was early to the platform and many of us early on made strong efforts to set good norms around real names. A lot of that worked well.
It is working a little less well at big scale, though like I said, not bad. Sometimes more authoritarian than I prefer. The new spaces feature is a big test. Could be real names Reddit. Hmmm...
Having tried all extremes, I frankly still prefer pseudonyms. Handling trolls and such is not too big of a deal, and minor league for me personally.
The number one thing one can do to innoculate a community against trolling is to educate members on agency in dialog and model strong norms as to how that can work.
(People have more options than the usual righteous indignation and when they use them, trolling becomes largely ineffective as does "bitings" of varioys kinds)
Avoiding the bigger venues leaves one with mostly the same basic experiences that have always had value.
Typed on mobile, plz forgive typos
"days when you were anonymous, getting to know strangers through common interests and exchanging ideas. I do miss those early days"
That's what HN is to me right now. Yeah it's not truly anonymous but almost everyone here's a stranger to me and I have some wonderful discourse with like-minded perceptive folks any time I visit.
Also reddit to a lesser degree but more experienced redditors than myself this is diminishing I don't fully understand that point
That's what HN is to me right now. Yeah it's not truly anonymous but almost everyone here's a stranger to me and I have some wonderful discourse with like-minded perceptive folks any time I visit.
Also reddit to a lesser degree but more experienced redditors than myself this is diminishing I don't fully understand that point
Yes, I remember in the old days of AIM, at least among everyone I knew it acted as a sort of social network itself. (it was separate from the AOL ISP service, a stand alone application)
It was one of the default applications installed in all computer in the labs at University. And it was very common at the time to use its search function to seek out random people and chat.
I wouldn't get too rose colored glasses about that era of computing though, flame wars were nothing new (and there's still probably some Usenet flamewars that continue to rage uninterrupted for decades.)
It was one of the default applications installed in all computer in the labs at University. And it was very common at the time to use its search function to seek out random people and chat.
I wouldn't get too rose colored glasses about that era of computing though, flame wars were nothing new (and there's still probably some Usenet flamewars that continue to rage uninterrupted for decades.)
The article mentions of days when you were anonymous, getting to know strangers through common interests and exchanging ideas.
Heck, I wrote a Dutch online book about Slackware with a guy I didn't really know the name of until after a couple of years when he told me he just used a pseudonym.
For me, social network stopped being social as soon as reasonable assurance of anonymity when out the window
To me it is the introduction of likes (which are really a hack to make people more addicted through social confirmation) destroyed social networks. Shallower posts (party pictures, family announcements, memes) to get more likes, so people post them more and more. Genuinely interesting posts are buried by algorithms. Since comments can be liked as well, people write comments to conform with group biases (and are more likely to be upvoted) rather than to be useful.
tl;dr: to increase engagement, social networks have turned into popularity contests. As with other popularity contests, they are usually vain.
Heck, I wrote a Dutch online book about Slackware with a guy I didn't really know the name of until after a couple of years when he told me he just used a pseudonym.
For me, social network stopped being social as soon as reasonable assurance of anonymity when out the window
To me it is the introduction of likes (which are really a hack to make people more addicted through social confirmation) destroyed social networks. Shallower posts (party pictures, family announcements, memes) to get more likes, so people post them more and more. Genuinely interesting posts are buried by algorithms. Since comments can be liked as well, people write comments to conform with group biases (and are more likely to be upvoted) rather than to be useful.
tl;dr: to increase engagement, social networks have turned into popularity contests. As with other popularity contests, they are usually vain.
> tl;dr: to increase engagement, social networks have turned into popularity contests. As with other popularity contests, they are usually vain.
The idea of "engagement" as a key metric for some of these services is bizarre. When Netflix changed from 5-star ratings to like/dislike to "increase engagement", the usefulness of ratings on the site plummeted. I will take a single, considered review over thousands of mindless "+1" clicks any day of the week.
Emoji "reactions" are like that too. They're fun to click on, but are all noise and no signal if you actually want feedback.
The idea of "engagement" as a key metric for some of these services is bizarre. When Netflix changed from 5-star ratings to like/dislike to "increase engagement", the usefulness of ratings on the site plummeted. I will take a single, considered review over thousands of mindless "+1" clicks any day of the week.
Emoji "reactions" are like that too. They're fun to click on, but are all noise and no signal if you actually want feedback.
>The idea of "engagement" as a key metric for some of these services is bizarre.
If they were a social network, I would agree. But they are an ad display network. therefore engagement is a key metric to their business and customers.
But what is weird is Netflix is not an ad network (yet?). Why would they be interested in "engagement" ie, people watching lots of stuff? That costs them extra money. Their best customer would be someone who pays the $10/month and watches just a few movies/shows.
People that use the service a lot are less likely to cancel, and more likely to recommend it to others.
>People that use the service a lot are less likely to cancel, and more likely to recommend it to others.
I'm not sure how true this is with cheap(ish) subscription services. In many cases, the Planet Fitness model might be more apt. They rely on inertia and apathy to keep the subscription payments coming, but they actually rely on people not using the service very much and actively discourage "power-user" usage patterns.
I'm not sure how true this is with cheap(ish) subscription services. In many cases, the Planet Fitness model might be more apt. They rely on inertia and apathy to keep the subscription payments coming, but they actually rely on people not using the service very much and actively discourage "power-user" usage patterns.
why do they report every like individually.... why not round to the nearest power of 10?
Imagine going to a bar and having your name, relationship status, political orientation, and a list of your big mistakes floating above your head. Good times. Good times.
To be fair, that's what it is like to go anywhere in a small town you've lived in for a long time. :D
To be fair, that's what it is like to go anywhere in a small town you've lived in for a long time. :D
That's true, but it's also true that in the next town over, you can be anonymous again. The difference with social media is the profile follows you everywhere.
That's true, but it's also true that in the next town over, you can be anonymous again. The difference with social media is the profile follows you everywhere.
You cannot be anonymous in the next town over, because those townfolk, like your local townfolk, know everyone and everything that belongs in their town. Your unfamiliarity means you don't belong and aren't trustworthy.
You can be anonymous in a city.
You can be anonymous in a city.
To be fair, that's why some people leave small towns.
I've been reading this strange but fun sci-fi book by this Russian author Dan Sugralinov, about a man who's a loser/game addict who then wakes up with a mysterious implant in his brain that lets him see "stats" of people, and connects him to some mysterious network of information. "Restart" is the name of the first book. Not only does he see people's stats and standing in the world in the form of social level, but he becomes obsessed with upgrading his own stats, as if he were living an RPG game itself.
For a nondystopian (depending on your perspective, I suppose) version of this reality, see Daniel Suarez's daemon and freedom. Highly recommend.
Sorry, but Daemon is one of the worst sci-fi books I have ever read.
Can you elaborate? – A coworker is recommending that book to me. I don't want to waste my time reading it if it's really bad. I am mostly into hard science fiction.
The plot is far-fetched, but that's not the problem.
It's the writing style - it feels like a cheap thriller written for teens. Too many characters and cheap tricks to 'educate' the reader about technical mumbo-jumbo.
Of course, this is my very subjective opinion. But having read enough PKD and Gaiman, my expectations are different than may be majority of the readers.
It's the writing style - it feels like a cheap thriller written for teens. Too many characters and cheap tricks to 'educate' the reader about technical mumbo-jumbo.
Of course, this is my very subjective opinion. But having read enough PKD and Gaiman, my expectations are different than may be majority of the readers.
Yep, there's an entire fantasy genre called LitRPG, which is pretty much dominated by Russian authors.
Also check out the brilliant Black Mirror episode 'Nosedive' on a similar theme
There's a lot to say about before and after. The ~old guard of boards and simple messengers (icq, aim) were really low on issues. There was a subconscious push a bit before facebook to "leverage" web 2.0 dynamic and ubiquitous nature. And then the web became a new substrate for society (payment, shopping, identity). Not helped by the capitalistic side of things which means new / large => money => even weirder ideas.
Now we realize that real life social structures were 1) seasoned 2) nicer and social networks are reinventing all the problems, but amplified by speed and scale. And also weird companies interests and paradigms, that weren't meshing well with us.
I'm getting fuzzy ..
Now we realize that real life social structures were 1) seasoned 2) nicer and social networks are reinventing all the problems, but amplified by speed and scale. And also weird companies interests and paradigms, that weren't meshing well with us.
I'm getting fuzzy ..
This is not a temporal change, it is a venue change. Systems like Facebook and systems like HN may both be called "social networking" but they facilitate totally different kinds of communities. Each has its place.
I see people using Twitter for this all the time.
This was why I quit using twitter.
> Watching distant cousins fight about politics
I've long been cautious to step into the WhatsApp hysteria going on here in Brazil. But the last (disgraceful) election here was the last straw. The level of stupidity in the memes from both sides was far beyond repulsive.
A solution that is working so far: automatic regulation. I created a Telegram group with a bot that censors the most common names and expressions on Brazilian partisan politics, using regular expressions. It is surprisingly effective, in a "no broken windows way": if you block the small infractions people don't come close to big infractions.
Breaking rules is a second national pastime in Brazil. Therefore, at the beginning people found it amusing to try to cheat the censoring regular expressions (e.g.: B0150N4R0, etc) After a while the trick only sharpened these expressions and now they just don't mention politics in the most partisan terms. We do see postings about issues (e.g.: education, fiscal crisis, etc) but not the stupid partisan dogfight. Politics is mostly a tribal thing, not an ideological one.
EDIT: I'd like to stress the "automatic" aspect of it. When you make the regulation/moderation algorithmic you gain 2 big psychological benefits:
* A fast feedback loop: because the post is immediately removed the association between cause and effect is much stronger. People understand much more that they are breaking a rule when the consequences of it are certain and immediate.
* Algorithmic solutions are "rules based" for most people that don't understand them. They perceive it as "the way things are" instead of an arbitrary decision by the person that wrote the algorithm.
I've long been cautious to step into the WhatsApp hysteria going on here in Brazil. But the last (disgraceful) election here was the last straw. The level of stupidity in the memes from both sides was far beyond repulsive.
A solution that is working so far: automatic regulation. I created a Telegram group with a bot that censors the most common names and expressions on Brazilian partisan politics, using regular expressions. It is surprisingly effective, in a "no broken windows way": if you block the small infractions people don't come close to big infractions.
Breaking rules is a second national pastime in Brazil. Therefore, at the beginning people found it amusing to try to cheat the censoring regular expressions (e.g.: B0150N4R0, etc) After a while the trick only sharpened these expressions and now they just don't mention politics in the most partisan terms. We do see postings about issues (e.g.: education, fiscal crisis, etc) but not the stupid partisan dogfight. Politics is mostly a tribal thing, not an ideological one.
EDIT: I'd like to stress the "automatic" aspect of it. When you make the regulation/moderation algorithmic you gain 2 big psychological benefits:
* A fast feedback loop: because the post is immediately removed the association between cause and effect is much stronger. People understand much more that they are breaking a rule when the consequences of it are certain and immediate.
* Algorithmic solutions are "rules based" for most people that don't understand them. They perceive it as "the way things are" instead of an arbitrary decision by the person that wrote the algorithm.
Hmmm, this is an interesting take. I may apply it to one of my communities. I've been playing with the idea of banning politics entirely, but that's what most people want to talk about.
Did you notice any improvement on the level of discussion? Or do they just reacted different with each other posts?
Also, do you just censor the keyword or remove the post entirely?
Did you notice any improvement on the level of discussion? Or do they just reacted different with each other posts?
Also, do you just censor the keyword or remove the post entirely?
Beware: the devil is in the details. The trick is to choose the most provocative, trolling or insulting words. I let people discuss generic terms such as income distribution, fiscal crisis, education, etc. But I filter out terms such as "comunist", "fascist", "Bolsonaro" (the Brazilian version of Rodrigo Duterte) etc.
> Did you notice any improvement on the level of discussion?
So far, people are still on a "treading the waters"/"sensing the environment" period. But I sense that:
* The posts tangent to politics don't immediately trigger a knee jerk reaction. Surprisingly, when people discuss politics in a more abstract way, there is a lot more "I agree with you" between people that used to fight a lot. I count this as an improvement, although it is too early to see an increase of depth of understanding on the issues.
* In the beginning some people complained about my heavy-handed approach, calling it censorship and authoritarianism. I just didn't engage in their complaints. My standard response was "my house, my rules".
* There is a lot more of light-heart, especially among the younger ones. Childish jokes and memes are still around, but nothing offensive. In friends and family groups it is ok, these are habits I don't want to break.
> Also, do you just censor the keyword or remove the post entirely?
I remove the post and post a standard bot answer. Often, the bot gives some false positives, but people find it funny (e.g: "PT" is the acronym for both the main opposition political party and for "total loss" in Portuguese). Because I use regular expressions, people started a game of trying to outsmart the bot. Since it was for fun, it only helped sharpen up the expressions.
> Did you notice any improvement on the level of discussion?
So far, people are still on a "treading the waters"/"sensing the environment" period. But I sense that:
* The posts tangent to politics don't immediately trigger a knee jerk reaction. Surprisingly, when people discuss politics in a more abstract way, there is a lot more "I agree with you" between people that used to fight a lot. I count this as an improvement, although it is too early to see an increase of depth of understanding on the issues.
* In the beginning some people complained about my heavy-handed approach, calling it censorship and authoritarianism. I just didn't engage in their complaints. My standard response was "my house, my rules".
* There is a lot more of light-heart, especially among the younger ones. Childish jokes and memes are still around, but nothing offensive. In friends and family groups it is ok, these are habits I don't want to break.
> Also, do you just censor the keyword or remove the post entirely?
I remove the post and post a standard bot answer. Often, the bot gives some false positives, but people find it funny (e.g: "PT" is the acronym for both the main opposition political party and for "total loss" in Portuguese). Because I use regular expressions, people started a game of trying to outsmart the bot. Since it was for fun, it only helped sharpen up the expressions.
Thank you, i may use your approach.
"Politics" is a shaky, fluid concept. For example: Talking about a date I went on would be political to a sizable subset of most communities because of the genders involved. Drawing the line there while others are able to speak about their lives freely would alienate a large part of your community.
Politics is not an innocent team sport with few/no consequences for the losing side. Figuring out where to draw the line requires a deep understanding of what is politicized and why.
Politics is not an innocent team sport with few/no consequences for the losing side. Figuring out where to draw the line requires a deep understanding of what is politicized and why.
Politics by itself isn’t necessarily the problem, it’s the tribalism that brings out the worst. Politics is just one outlet that leads into tribalism, just like sports and religion.
> I created a Telegram group with a bot that censors the most common names and expressions on Brazilian partisan politics, using regular expressions.
How did you handle simple substitutions and noise like rethuglicans -> rethug1icans or rethuglicans -> re.thug.licans?
How did you handle simple substitutions and noise like rethuglicans -> rethug1icans or rethuglicans -> re.thug.licans?
Regular expressions do cover most of the basic cases.
It will not handle some of them. But I discovered that partisan politics follow a Pareto rule, of sorts: 80% of the talk is around a small set of words. If you remove the adequate 80%, what remains is very ineffective, grotesque and pathetic communication. It is not enough to get people excited or willing to fight.
The tricky parts is to keep changing the set of words and regular expressions. Particularly on the months before an election the terms to filter go through intense change. After that they remain very stable.
Edit: I am trying now to use the Levenshtein distance[1] algorithm to preemptively detect the tricks you describe, of people deliberately changing some word in order to fool the regular expressions.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance
It will not handle some of them. But I discovered that partisan politics follow a Pareto rule, of sorts: 80% of the talk is around a small set of words. If you remove the adequate 80%, what remains is very ineffective, grotesque and pathetic communication. It is not enough to get people excited or willing to fight.
The tricky parts is to keep changing the set of words and regular expressions. Particularly on the months before an election the terms to filter go through intense change. After that they remain very stable.
Edit: I am trying now to use the Levenshtein distance[1] algorithm to preemptively detect the tricks you describe, of people deliberately changing some word in order to fool the regular expressions.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance
I love this take. When we can get past the breathless danger of social networks (which, to some, spells "opportunity"), we can treat their failure modes for what they are: systems acting as boorish neighbors.
The most scalable defenses against exploitation of social networks will be distributed cultural notions of etiquette, self determination and even hygiene - not instantly-out-of-date regulation or even technological solutions (although a strong cultural take on owning your information landscape will inspire it's own technical opportunities)
I hope my kids will find it kind of gross and embarrassing to be caught up in somebody's disinformation, rather than lending it credibility as enemy action.
The most scalable defenses against exploitation of social networks will be distributed cultural notions of etiquette, self determination and even hygiene - not instantly-out-of-date regulation or even technological solutions (although a strong cultural take on owning your information landscape will inspire it's own technical opportunities)
I hope my kids will find it kind of gross and embarrassing to be caught up in somebody's disinformation, rather than lending it credibility as enemy action.
from http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/11/the_social_graph_is_neither/
> Right now the social networking sites occupy a similar position to CompuServe, Prodigy, or AOL in the mid 90's. At that time each company was trying to figure out how to become a mass-market gateway to the Internet. Looking back now, their early attempts look ridiculous and doomed to failure, for we have seen the Web, and we have tasted of the blogroll and the lolcat and found that they were good.
> But at the time no one knew what it would feel like to have a big global network. We were all waiting for the Information Superhighway to arrive in our TV set, and meanwhile these big sites were trying to design an online experience from the ground up. Thank God we left ourselves the freedom to blunder into the series of fortuitous decisions that gave us the Web.
> My hope is that whatever replaces Facebook and Google+ will look equally inevitable, and that our kids will think we were complete rubes for ever having thrown a sheep or clicked a +1 button. It's just a matter of waiting things out, and leaving ourselves enough freedom to find some interesting, organic, and human ways to bring our social lives online.
> Right now the social networking sites occupy a similar position to CompuServe, Prodigy, or AOL in the mid 90's. At that time each company was trying to figure out how to become a mass-market gateway to the Internet. Looking back now, their early attempts look ridiculous and doomed to failure, for we have seen the Web, and we have tasted of the blogroll and the lolcat and found that they were good.
> But at the time no one knew what it would feel like to have a big global network. We were all waiting for the Information Superhighway to arrive in our TV set, and meanwhile these big sites were trying to design an online experience from the ground up. Thank God we left ourselves the freedom to blunder into the series of fortuitous decisions that gave us the Web.
> My hope is that whatever replaces Facebook and Google+ will look equally inevitable, and that our kids will think we were complete rubes for ever having thrown a sheep or clicked a +1 button. It's just a matter of waiting things out, and leaving ourselves enough freedom to find some interesting, organic, and human ways to bring our social lives online.
> some interesting, organic, and human ways to bring our social lives online.
Let me introduce you to The Private Group Chat where 90% of online social activity happens between people under 30. It’s rrally quite fascinating.
It’s everything Google+ wanted to be, but totally organic, apread over dozens of chat apps and services, and without the big brother oversight.
Let me introduce you to The Private Group Chat where 90% of online social activity happens between people under 30. It’s rrally quite fascinating.
It’s everything Google+ wanted to be, but totally organic, apread over dozens of chat apps and services, and without the big brother oversight.
This is a really good point and something an over-30 like yours truly would have an easy time missing even as it happened around us (my most meaningful groups are now distributed over WhatsApp, Slack, and good 'ol email). Happen to know any sources quantifying this phenomenon?
> Happen to know any sources quantifying this phenomenon?
Perhaps the best answer you can get here is "no." That's exactly what the privacy advocates would want to hear, yet the phenomenon is very real.
I'm in my mid-30s but almost all of my social networking with younger colleagues/friends is done via ephemeral group chats (Snapchat) and Signal. I keep a business Twitter and personal Facebook like everyone else, but any substantial communication is moved offline to encrypted and less-trackable methods.
The younger crowd figured out how to use the encryption technologies we've been wondering how everyone will adopt all while we've been missing it. Are they perfect implementations? No. But a lot better than what standard communication looked like years ago.
Perhaps the best answer you can get here is "no." That's exactly what the privacy advocates would want to hear, yet the phenomenon is very real.
I'm in my mid-30s but almost all of my social networking with younger colleagues/friends is done via ephemeral group chats (Snapchat) and Signal. I keep a business Twitter and personal Facebook like everyone else, but any substantial communication is moved offline to encrypted and less-trackable methods.
The younger crowd figured out how to use the encryption technologies we've been wondering how everyone will adopt all while we've been missing it. Are they perfect implementations? No. But a lot better than what standard communication looked like years ago.
It has nothing on the free spirited forums "we" had 20 years ago. How would random people find out about and get into private, encrypted groups? Not at all. It's not the same thing in any shape or form.
If anything, a generation gave up even wanting to have a public space and a spirit of tolerance, and retreated into purely private rooms, moderated by private tyrants. Ancient Greeks had a word for people who restrict themselves to the private, and aren't interested in public offices and affairs, which today is an insult -- while what it used to describe is viewed as desirable, something people brag about.
Many people gave up, they aren't even part of the discussion anymore. They cannot fathom what is under discussion, because they never had it. It's not that I'm not aware, it's that I weighed it, and found it too light.
If anything, a generation gave up even wanting to have a public space and a spirit of tolerance, and retreated into purely private rooms, moderated by private tyrants. Ancient Greeks had a word for people who restrict themselves to the private, and aren't interested in public offices and affairs, which today is an insult -- while what it used to describe is viewed as desirable, something people brag about.
Many people gave up, they aren't even part of the discussion anymore. They cannot fathom what is under discussion, because they never had it. It's not that I'm not aware, it's that I weighed it, and found it too light.
> [...] notions of etiquette, self determination and even hygiene [...] will find it kind of gross and embarrassing to be caught up in somebody's disinformation.
This reminds me of the CGP Grey video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
This reminds me of the CGP Grey video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
Quality video! I hadn't heard the points about mutation of ideas and forming complementary controversies.
What’s quality about it? The title “This will make you angry” doesn’t instill confidence.
The parts I mentioned about why popular ideas discover more potent forms through mutation? Also the title is a self referential joke. Added my comment exactly because it doesn't look like quality at first glance.
Your last paragraph very well expresses the reality of (I’d say) social media - it’s mostly people talking in circles around propaganda someone else has created for profit. How will it look in 50 years if your grandhchild sees you arguing till you’re blue in the face and alienating half of your personal community because of some factoid that isn’t even accurate?
We’re going to look like primitive ape-men. I guess it’s similar to how we look back at drunk driving in 1500 pound steel death traps. Or oppressing blacks simply for being black. But then again those grandkids will probably in turn look dumb for falling into the trap that virtual reality was a valid replacement for actually living your life.
We’re going to look like primitive ape-men. I guess it’s similar to how we look back at drunk driving in 1500 pound steel death traps. Or oppressing blacks simply for being black. But then again those grandkids will probably in turn look dumb for falling into the trap that virtual reality was a valid replacement for actually living your life.
I'm not sure how to feel about this. From social media I've been able to connect with old friends, enjoy good memes and keep up with current affairs.
It's also been useful at times where I've found people willing to put in a good word for a job, mentor me and there are a few people who are really good at providing a fruitful environment for discussion (even controversial topics) that makes me sad to leave.
Unfortunately, it just got too extra for me. I mean, there is a lot of bullshit in the world, but at times it looks like people just want to get mad for the sake of it. While I'm not a big proponent of don't feed the trolls, I doubt quote tweeting some asshole to score a satisfying dunk does any favors. It just seems to import garbage into other people's timelines.
Also, they'll be done people going about their day, or writing something intended for their like-minded friends and it catches wind far beyond where it was supposed to go, setting you up for an unwanted roast.
Even though I deleted my social media, I'm hoping that it becomes less extra because there can be a lot of value in it.
Sadly, it's hard to see that happening, especially with how social media is becoming the whole internet and IRL for many people in the world. The Telecom operators in my home country insist on selling unlimited social media packages rather than just giving us cheaper internet even though they can somehow provide 2GB of data for $5 that has to be used in 24 hours.
It's also been useful at times where I've found people willing to put in a good word for a job, mentor me and there are a few people who are really good at providing a fruitful environment for discussion (even controversial topics) that makes me sad to leave.
Unfortunately, it just got too extra for me. I mean, there is a lot of bullshit in the world, but at times it looks like people just want to get mad for the sake of it. While I'm not a big proponent of don't feed the trolls, I doubt quote tweeting some asshole to score a satisfying dunk does any favors. It just seems to import garbage into other people's timelines.
Also, they'll be done people going about their day, or writing something intended for their like-minded friends and it catches wind far beyond where it was supposed to go, setting you up for an unwanted roast.
Even though I deleted my social media, I'm hoping that it becomes less extra because there can be a lot of value in it.
Sadly, it's hard to see that happening, especially with how social media is becoming the whole internet and IRL for many people in the world. The Telecom operators in my home country insist on selling unlimited social media packages rather than just giving us cheaper internet even though they can somehow provide 2GB of data for $5 that has to be used in 24 hours.
From my perspective the "extra" came about when commercial interests started targetting the web, using base emotional tactics to get clicks and likes. Social media outside of the big networks (and thus less targeted by commercial interests) largely still feels social to me (eg small forums or groups),
The world of Usenet, BBSs, forums, blogs, etc. Had their dramas and trolls and whatnot. What they had much less of was the clickbait, post order manipulation, and spammy notifications. Whether major social media can become less "extra" probably depends on whether an alternate commercial model can be found, I guess.
The world of Usenet, BBSs, forums, blogs, etc. Had their dramas and trolls and whatnot. What they had much less of was the clickbait, post order manipulation, and spammy notifications. Whether major social media can become less "extra" probably depends on whether an alternate commercial model can be found, I guess.
Can you explain ‘extra’ in this context? #oldfart
Extra means over the top, excessive or dramatic. Generally,
People on Twitter trend to be rather dramatic.
Too much to handle; over the top; not worth the effort.
Synonyms: ratchet, trifling.
Synonyms: ratchet, trifling.
I don't think extra is a synonym of ratchet. Ratchet is a mostly-sexist way of saying "trashy".
Facebook described in 50 years: a network where real world relationships were gamified and users competed for popularity. The network eventually died because the relationships it represented became meaningless in the eyes of its users, and the perceived value of the "game" fell to virtually zero.
[deleted]
Meaningless at best. For some users the relationships and one-upmanship is detrimental to their mental/emotional wellbeing.
Facebook in 50 years : People wanted World of Warcraft but got Star Wars Galaxies instead.
Star Wars Galaxies was great dammit
I'm ahead of my time!
I vote we return to the age of late Geocities, forums, and early blogs. Less conformity in design, less "social" by modern definition, but more people who just liked one topic enough to build something about it and communities forming around them.
When I was in high school, this was MySpace. I remember all my friends learning HTML, or at least enough to copy and paste sufficiently, to build out their custom profiles.
It was a constant process of landing on a friends profile, being amazed by some feature or design and then going back to work on your own.
It also felt more like people’s profiles expressed through design, or music, or gifs, or other media, rather than what they had to say or any form of posts. I don’t really remember “posting status updates” at all, but I’m sure it was a feature.
And then at some point Facebook wiped it all out.
I can’t see people wanting to manage their own homepage. But then again, I remember we all did in high school for MySpace... maybe we will again.
It was a constant process of landing on a friends profile, being amazed by some feature or design and then going back to work on your own.
It also felt more like people’s profiles expressed through design, or music, or gifs, or other media, rather than what they had to say or any form of posts. I don’t really remember “posting status updates” at all, but I’m sure it was a feature.
And then at some point Facebook wiped it all out.
I can’t see people wanting to manage their own homepage. But then again, I remember we all did in high school for MySpace... maybe we will again.
Only thing is I think MySpace was far too catered to youths. I really don’t imagine my parents customizing MySpace like they do Facebook. Facebook has evolved into an interface that can be ingested by pretty much anyone. No matter what you do, you’re not going to make html intuitive to everyone.
> I can’t see people wanting to manage their own homepage. But then again, I remember we all did in high school for MySpace... maybe we will again.
The keyboard was what allowed such interaction.. How are nowadays' teens to manage such designs if their main device is a touchscreen?
The keyboard was what allowed such interaction.. How are nowadays' teens to manage such designs if their main device is a touchscreen?
The thing is, there's plenty of room on the web for both, and always has been, but people seem to only want one or the other.
It's more of an internet culture change. People used to be more into making and curating their own little corner of the web and that's how the early internet felt. Now everyone gathers at the garden between the walls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
Oh! that just reminded me of webrings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring) I liked those.
this is why I keep my old-style blog, and read rss from others. that's the real internet for me, where the real content and people are
My group of real-world friends did an overnight migration (well not quite but once it started it was very fast) from Livejournal to Facebook; in retrospect that was a mistake and we all should have stayed on LJ.
The killer feature? Being able to tag people in photos, such an obvious thing, but LJ was unable to do it. Add events and it was game over for LJ.
Incidentally, I said at the time, it was a massive strategic blunder for Google+ to launch without full integration with the Google Calendar. People want a one-stop shop and FB was it for photos and events.
The killer feature? Being able to tag people in photos, such an obvious thing, but LJ was unable to do it. Add events and it was game over for LJ.
Incidentally, I said at the time, it was a massive strategic blunder for Google+ to launch without full integration with the Google Calendar. People want a one-stop shop and FB was it for photos and events.
Has anyone else noticed that Facebook notifications seem intentionally broken? So many times I've noticed that the number of new notifications go out of sync between FB on my desktop browser, mobile browser and messenger app. Even viewing the notifications on the desktop and navigating somewhere else seems to make some notifications new again. Anything to make that red dot appear again to get you clicking and engaged.
I've noticed a larger trend where notifications used to be notifications of something a human sent, but now it means "$SOCIALNETWORK wants your attention"
For example if I don't tweet for a few days Twitter will give me a "notification" that several high follower count accounts I follow have tweeted.
That's not a "notification". I'm well aware frequent posters post frequently.
For example if I don't tweet for a few days Twitter will give me a "notification" that several high follower count accounts I follow have tweeted.
That's not a "notification". I'm well aware frequent posters post frequently.
Totally. I wasn’t on Facebook for the last month or two. Get on and I had around 75 notifications. Literally 3 of them were non repeats or something that I was interested in receiving from someone. But it’s cool - it reminds me how pointless Facebook really is.
Facebook's slogan, "Bringing the world closer together", reminds me of cigarette companies purporting health benefits.
Surprised that he doesn't mention Reddit, where the lost communities he described certainly do exist and thrive.
Reddit's a bit different than forums as far as I can tell. There was a forum I used to frequent, even years later I can recognize someone's avatar, crack inside jokes with them.
Reddit's a little too open to have that kind of connection.
Reddit's a little too open to have that kind of connection.
That depends on the sub. If you join some massive sub sure but in /r/silverbugs for example we have a Monday thread where we talk about what's going on in our lives as well as similar, newer, Friday thread and several people have even met up offline. We've got a lot of shared jokes and stuff in /r/mysteriousuniverse too related to the podcast by the same name and are pretty tight-knit.
I've noticed this in a lot of smaller subs and I agree that there is a much better sense of community, and in general, a much better experience. With the smaller community tends to be higher quality content and less of a propensity for small, minute details to launch a vitriolic argument.
However, being attached to the larger reddit "network" can easily ruin those communities. All it takes is a single front page r/AskReddit thread where a top comment says "check out r/[small_community_here], it's great!" and that pretty much spells the end of that small, tight-knit community.
It's the age old problem that's not at all unique to online communities: everyone wants to be part of the cool, fun communities/bars/neighborhoods. But if everyone crowds in, that community/bar/neighborhood isn't as cool or fun anymore.
However, being attached to the larger reddit "network" can easily ruin those communities. All it takes is a single front page r/AskReddit thread where a top comment says "check out r/[small_community_here], it's great!" and that pretty much spells the end of that small, tight-knit community.
It's the age old problem that's not at all unique to online communities: everyone wants to be part of the cool, fun communities/bars/neighborhoods. But if everyone crowds in, that community/bar/neighborhood isn't as cool or fun anymore.
It seems really to boil down to: can you spin off a server and run on your own place or not ? If not you get a free for-all place with bouncers (privacy policy, rules, modes, etc.) coming up at some point or not.
I can see "the next messenger app" plus "total privacy à la signal" capturing that feeling back.
I can see "the next messenger app" plus "total privacy à la signal" capturing that feeling back.
I really get what this article is talking about. Most of the friends I've had the longest I met on the internet. I went to a small private high school far from my home and had interests that none of my classmates had, plus it was difficult to socialize after school because I lived far away.
I was into Punk & Hardcore and found a local Punk & Hardcore music messageboard (powered by PostNuke!). I definitely remember being at a show (probably in 2003 or 2004) and someone saying, "Wow, most of the people I hang out with, I met on the internet."
When I went to college I met a bunch of friends on a bike focused messageboard I'm still active on. I met people who went to the same school as me, but what was probably the most odd is that I met them online, not at school.
I was into Punk & Hardcore and found a local Punk & Hardcore music messageboard (powered by PostNuke!). I definitely remember being at a show (probably in 2003 or 2004) and someone saying, "Wow, most of the people I hang out with, I met on the internet."
When I went to college I met a bunch of friends on a bike focused messageboard I'm still active on. I met people who went to the same school as me, but what was probably the most odd is that I met them online, not at school.
But what does it mean to be "social"? I've been thinking about this alot lately and it's not easy to define. But social media's version of social is making me more and more uncomfortable. I have so many unfinished thoughts around this but here goes..
I can say that a good social experience is usually in a very small group, dynamic, immersive, thrilling, you can feel it in your entire body, you loose your sense of time. On some social media the interactions are relatively slow, shallow, fragmented, in some sense performative because you know potentially alot of people can read what you're posting. It's like a totally different kind of social, which of course can have it's value but it becomes a problem when most of our social interactions are like this.
Take the experience of sharing your vacation pictures. On social media it is like you are packaging your memory to present for a broader audience. Imagine, in contrast, how you would invite your friend over and share your (printed) pictures over a coffee. Depending on what your relationship looks like you will present your trip differently. This shared memory will be woven into your relationship in a unique way, giving it yet another layer.
It's like the word social has been hijacked. It was never about making a "social media". It was about changing our idea about what social means..
I can say that a good social experience is usually in a very small group, dynamic, immersive, thrilling, you can feel it in your entire body, you loose your sense of time. On some social media the interactions are relatively slow, shallow, fragmented, in some sense performative because you know potentially alot of people can read what you're posting. It's like a totally different kind of social, which of course can have it's value but it becomes a problem when most of our social interactions are like this.
Take the experience of sharing your vacation pictures. On social media it is like you are packaging your memory to present for a broader audience. Imagine, in contrast, how you would invite your friend over and share your (printed) pictures over a coffee. Depending on what your relationship looks like you will present your trip differently. This shared memory will be woven into your relationship in a unique way, giving it yet another layer.
It's like the word social has been hijacked. It was never about making a "social media". It was about changing our idea about what social means..
> what does it mean to be "social"
It sounds like you're making a distinction between 'public' and 'private', a distinction with a very long history in the West with sharply differing sets of norms.
Early social networks were intensely private, even though you were dealing with individual members of the public.
As networks grow and try to vacuum up connections, the actual connections weaken and social networking becomes either quasi-public (the circle of friends' friends could be hundreds to thousands of people), or if something goes viral then it's just public.
Our norms for public discourse are sharply different from private conversation—you can say lots of things in the privacy of actual friends and family that presumably you wouldn't say in the middle of a town square.
But social media today means that every interaction you have targeted just to friends has a low, but non-zero probability of being judged also by all your neighbors and faraway strangers who have less context. Of course that's uncomfortable—you don't know ahead of time which set of rules are going to get applied to you.
It sounds like you're making a distinction between 'public' and 'private', a distinction with a very long history in the West with sharply differing sets of norms.
Early social networks were intensely private, even though you were dealing with individual members of the public.
As networks grow and try to vacuum up connections, the actual connections weaken and social networking becomes either quasi-public (the circle of friends' friends could be hundreds to thousands of people), or if something goes viral then it's just public.
Our norms for public discourse are sharply different from private conversation—you can say lots of things in the privacy of actual friends and family that presumably you wouldn't say in the middle of a town square.
But social media today means that every interaction you have targeted just to friends has a low, but non-zero probability of being judged also by all your neighbors and faraway strangers who have less context. Of course that's uncomfortable—you don't know ahead of time which set of rules are going to get applied to you.
yeah, the public/private thing is a biggie for me I think. But maybe it's also the speed / "dynamic-ness"? I imagine an open panel discussion can be quite an intense, immersive and interesting social experience :)
I have moved off of social media to find myself in these kind of channels much more and other semi-private communities to find and grow social connections. It is so much more fulfilling and refreshing to not be all about capturing my attention to keep me hooked and make ad revenue. Thank you all for being there and spending your most valuable resource - your attention - on this smaller and more connected community.
Reddit is almost perfect in avoiding these issues.
The only thing missing: allow assigning exclusive psuedonames per group. Users shouldn't be allowed to associate one name to another across group.
It currently allows multiple accounts, but this still makes users worry about accidentally responding from the wrong account.
The only thing missing: allow assigning exclusive psuedonames per group. Users shouldn't be allowed to associate one name to another across group.
It currently allows multiple accounts, but this still makes users worry about accidentally responding from the wrong account.
OK - so now everybody feels that there is something wrong with Facebook and maybe other big social networking sites. There is the widespread feeling that there were better online times. This article did nothing to further my understanding of this subject - it is just repeating stuff we already know.
It's all about advertising.
Social network is about advertising in the end.
To CEOs: top using "social network" vocabulary for your business, when in the end, it's about advertising.
Or you're liars.
Okay, lets say I am developing a "social network" for a specific group of people, its a pretty closed one so not for everyone. The main revenue is not coming from advertisement, because there is nothing we can advertise to the users. So am I a liar? Or what? I can use social network for marketing without implying that we use and/or sell user data
If you build an app for advertisement purpose, call it an Advertising App, not Social Network.
That's what advertising is though. It's lying just enough to sell the product but not enough to get in trouble.
Naming is hard ? Not sure in this case. Naming an advertising framework as "social network" is false.
Usenet newsgroups use to have moderated lists to stop the offtopic and flame wars. When perl moved to the web, that was the last time I used newsgroups as a daily discussion. (mostly...)
I can't even enjoy tech without the invasion of politics, use to like a bunch of sites that I found out are gawker writer staffed like jalopnik. Every 10 or so car articles is an anti-trump article. They can't even leave politics out, social media is 100x worse.
I remember the days, I could read linux news and not once would politics be mentioned, that is no more.
I can't even enjoy tech without the invasion of politics, use to like a bunch of sites that I found out are gawker writer staffed like jalopnik. Every 10 or so car articles is an anti-trump article. They can't even leave politics out, social media is 100x worse.
I remember the days, I could read linux news and not once would politics be mentioned, that is no more.
I don’t think this is the endgame and another paradigm shift needs to and will occur. Fb is going to be around and relevant about as much as Microsoft is around and relevant.
The year media were no longer media.
Found this article very insightful -- the universe when it is working well is like a giant pattern matcher operating at every level of abstraction, bringing together those things which make a good match. The converse is exemplified by what we call "spam" in our email inbox -- signals which have an extremely high false positive rate. Facebook by its nature seems to tend towards a high false positive rate, which diminishes its utility.
there have been pundits and intellectuals all along that predicted the current state of affairs (to a greater or lesser extent). When Facebook arose in the beginning, it caused (and still causes) quite a bit of anguish in those circles. Some of the less-stable people had actual despair and negative life-outcomes, seeing what was basically their "worst-case scenario" come true, and the wealth that went with it.
Zuckerberg, in his hearing about the election thing, said "you control your feed on Facebook", or something.
I find that hard to believe. I find that VERY hard to believe. Either he is completely ignorant, or he has no problem lying to the general public. Because between forcing Top Stories and broadcasting things you never meant to broadcast... well, it's a bald faced lie.
Why can't these companies either listen to their customers directly or if they absolutely must make user hostile decisions, say that they must do that because the venture capitalists demand it? I'm getting very tired of the "feedback matters to us" when it clearly doesn't.
I find that hard to believe. I find that VERY hard to believe. Either he is completely ignorant, or he has no problem lying to the general public. Because between forcing Top Stories and broadcasting things you never meant to broadcast... well, it's a bald faced lie.
Why can't these companies either listen to their customers directly or if they absolutely must make user hostile decisions, say that they must do that because the venture capitalists demand it? I'm getting very tired of the "feedback matters to us" when it clearly doesn't.
> Why can't these companies either listen to their customers directly
They do listen to their customers. We just aren't their customers.
They do listen to their customers. We just aren't their customers.
I ran a simple experiment in 2016. Facebook lets you mark posts you don’t want to see, so I did that for any post with the string “Trump” in it, for about two weeks.
Didn’t work. Haven’t been back since.
Didn’t work. Haven’t been back since.
The one thing that jumps out at me when thinking about those older network is friends-of-friends... I have cool friends, and my cool friends have cool friends. So I'd wind up friending people on whatever network because I liked how they interacted with my friends.
But yeah, common-interest groups are way better than the de-anonymized social graph of Facebook.
But yeah, common-interest groups are way better than the de-anonymized social graph of Facebook.
I'm still convinced that I want something for a social network, but I don't know what that is..
I think there is a balance to be struk but I don't know what it is. As someone who frequented gaming forums in the late 2000s I've seen the dark side of 100% anonymous forums: there is definitely a lack of humanity that comes across in communities where anyone could be a dog. There is no repercussion to speech and there is very little context to conversations.
When humans interact we not only process the words that are communicated but the context: what is our social history, what facial expressions and micro-expressions are being displayed, what is the race and/or social standing of the people involved. All of this is lost in anonymous conversation.
Now, this definitely has it's perks, it allows for communication on a neutral platform, where racial and sexual discrimination is less likely to occur and individuals can choose which parts of themselves to reveal, but humans are not really built to communicate this way, and it shows if you've ever been on an online forum or in a chatroom of an online FPS.
When humans interact we not only process the words that are communicated but the context: what is our social history, what facial expressions and micro-expressions are being displayed, what is the race and/or social standing of the people involved. All of this is lost in anonymous conversation.
Now, this definitely has it's perks, it allows for communication on a neutral platform, where racial and sexual discrimination is less likely to occur and individuals can choose which parts of themselves to reveal, but humans are not really built to communicate this way, and it shows if you've ever been on an online forum or in a chatroom of an online FPS.
Except participation on anonymous forums is wholly voluntary and you have no immutable paper trail to stalk you across the whole Internet. You can at whim make a new account and be a new person, and avoid the parts you didn't like on your last romp around.
Widespred persistent harassment only grew in popularity as real identities were plastered all over the popular sites.
Widespred persistent harassment only grew in popularity as real identities were plastered all over the popular sites.
I think that developers can safely migrate to communities such as Hashnode instead of wasting their time scrolling through numerous groups on Facebook. All the features are already there without the tracking system in place.
Any idea what software hashnode is running on? I like the features.
I'm looking to setup a private community and I'm not totally stoked on the features of mastodon and diaspora and I'm not exactly looking for a forum.
I suppose this could be an AskHN...
I'm looking to setup a private community and I'm not totally stoked on the features of mastodon and diaspora and I'm not exactly looking for a forum.
I suppose this could be an AskHN...
These are expected when people run behind instant gratification instead of creative happiness.
For me, it's like chain smoking, everyone says to quitting smoking, you know it's not making any good for you, you know it's you paying cigar industry to make yourself sick. Still you can't give up. But once you give up, you will start seeing the world differently. I Uninstalled Facebook and insta from my cellphone. I am counting that as a small step.
Nice analogy.
This article brought to you by the Oath network, a faceless media conglomerate that slaps a hostile privacy policy in your face when you dare click on such links and asks you to agree to their dubious handling of personal information and preferences.
The social aspect of the Internet used to be about people communicating with people. Today it's about large corporations deciding how you interact, who gets to know about it and what consequences it'll have for your life in the following decades. Disgusting.
The social aspect of the Internet used to be about people communicating with people. Today it's about large corporations deciding how you interact, who gets to know about it and what consequences it'll have for your life in the following decades. Disgusting.
Rejoice, Verizon's content acquisitions have turned into complete and utter disasters and Verizon announced that it will exit the content business (A Reuters article I can't seem to find now said so):
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/verizon-signals-its-y...
The funny thing is Marissa Mayer made more from the deal than Yahoo is now worth for Verizon:
https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/13/investing/yahoo-marissa-may...
And she got a severance paycheck that's also worth 10% of Verizon's content business now.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/verizon-signals-its-y...
The funny thing is Marissa Mayer made more from the deal than Yahoo is now worth for Verizon:
https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/13/investing/yahoo-marissa-may...
And she got a severance paycheck that's also worth 10% of Verizon's content business now.
The money she made was due to the Alibaba investment, not the content business.
Outline to the rescue: https://outline.com/2XKLG2
Outline's ToS and privacy policy are collectively almost 2000 words.
To be fair, even on small sites I have written, Privacy Policies can get truly huge due to the boilerplate.
Most of my sites have Google Analytics that gets disabled when DNT is turned on. That plus server logs for fail2ban and DoS protection easily bumps the policy to 500 words.
Do you use cookies for storing basic session data? That's more. Run ads or use affiliate links? That's even more.
There's limit to a sane Privacy Policy, but all of this is rudimentary, common stuff.
Most of my sites have Google Analytics that gets disabled when DNT is turned on. That plus server logs for fail2ban and DoS protection easily bumps the policy to 500 words.
Do you use cookies for storing basic session data? That's more. Run ads or use affiliate links? That's even more.
There's limit to a sane Privacy Policy, but all of this is rudimentary, common stuff.
Yeah. That privacy policy really put me off any of their sites.
The EU should really swing its GDPR stick around. Can someone shed some light on why the e.g Oath Family has not been hit with a serious fine yet? The violation is clear as a day.
Could you elaborate? Aren't those ToS/Privacy Policy displays there in order to satisfy GDPR requirements? I thought the idea was that you could either agree to accept them and continue or decline. I don't claim to be that well-versed in GDPR law however but genuinely curious.
Ianal but I don't think so. Without nitpicking all the finer details how Oath/Techcrunch fails (probably very much willingly) to comply, their wall of text is a bad excuse for informed consent.
Eg I still have no idea what data they collect and who they share it with or how can I opt-out (itself is non compliant btw, but I'm assuming industry best practices here)
I thought the idea was that you could either agree to accept them and continue or decline.
IIRC forced/umbrella consent like that is explicitly forbidden.
Eg I still have no idea what data they collect and who they share it with or how can I opt-out (itself is non compliant btw, but I'm assuming industry best practices here)
I thought the idea was that you could either agree to accept them and continue or decline.
IIRC forced/umbrella consent like that is explicitly forbidden.
yeah, i use adblocker so i have never supported them (except in viewer counts) but as of a few months ago i stopped reading them altogether. thanks for the reminder why.
What is anyone going to do about it?
File this under design anti-patterns: scroll to the bottom of the article and Techcrunch sends you to their front page.
"Increasing engagement" is probably a KPI in nearly every consumer-facing product these days. And as time goes on, it becomes more obvious, desperate, and frankly, annoying. Like when I receive FB notifications since I haven't posted in awhile. Really de-values the functionality of what a notification is, and now I don't care about them much since receiving a notification doesn't mean I've had an interaction with a FB Friend.
What's new?
Err, the tone is way too personal. This kind of editorial rants reminds me of articles on medium.
Thoughts alone aren't relevant, feelings have a valid place too.
I believe we should start calling them as antisocial networks from now on
The biggest benefit of social media over forums or email lists is ML-based ranking. You save a ton of time reading the most crucial, while skipping the rest.
The platforms are addictive not because they're designed to be, but because they pick out the best and most interesting content!
FB, YouTube etc represent a revolution about how content is created and consumed. You no longer need to browse through 10s of posts or emails (or videos) to find something you really like. Algorithms do the curation for you.
I learned so much by hanging out in FB forums (much more so than any other old-style forum). And my favorite pastime these days is YouTube Red.
Don't believe in the scare or the negative hype. Social media and AI curated content aren't going anywhere. They might evolve as required.
The platforms are addictive not because they're designed to be, but because they pick out the best and most interesting content!
FB, YouTube etc represent a revolution about how content is created and consumed. You no longer need to browse through 10s of posts or emails (or videos) to find something you really like. Algorithms do the curation for you.
I learned so much by hanging out in FB forums (much more so than any other old-style forum). And my favorite pastime these days is YouTube Red.
Don't believe in the scare or the negative hype. Social media and AI curated content aren't going anywhere. They might evolve as required.
Wow.
>The biggest benefit of social media over forums or email lists is ML-based ranking.
That's what Jaron Lanier calls 'behavior modification networks' and control of that stuff is intensely valuable to whoever wants to behavior modify, valuable in myriad VERY practical ways. Machine learning? My ass. The machines can learn all they want; application is going to be controlled by management, when it's that profitable.
>The platforms are addictive not because they're designed to be
Not designed to be, my ass. Next you'll tell me mobile games aren't designed to be addictive? This is a science by now, and we're seeing the results. Like hell they aren't designed to be. You could say (from a certain viewpoint) that it's a breach of fiduciary duty if they are NOT designed to be addictive.
>Algorithms do the curation for you
Control of that is more valuable than any previous form of advertising or marketing. The social media revolution as you describe it has meant you can define people's experiential bubbles, orthogonally to what their wishes might be. You can expose 'em to whatever you need them to believe in. They don't even experience what you want to exclude. All for a price.
This ain't the Singularity. Algorithms give big data to the people who really make decisions on who gets to influence, and you know neither the influencers nor the decision makers. Something like youtube 'Elsa videos' for kids are not an AI deciding kids need more creepy in their lives, there are people trying to manipulate the system and other people who see it happening and go 'heh' and probably make notes and study what happens. The algorithms are just not sophisticated enough to be directive in the way you allude to.
It's not going away, which is WHY to attend to the negative side. If you're cynical, you don't have to see it as 'scare' so much as yet another banality of evil. Which we don't casually accept, even though it has been with us since the days of cavemen.
>The biggest benefit of social media over forums or email lists is ML-based ranking.
That's what Jaron Lanier calls 'behavior modification networks' and control of that stuff is intensely valuable to whoever wants to behavior modify, valuable in myriad VERY practical ways. Machine learning? My ass. The machines can learn all they want; application is going to be controlled by management, when it's that profitable.
>The platforms are addictive not because they're designed to be
Not designed to be, my ass. Next you'll tell me mobile games aren't designed to be addictive? This is a science by now, and we're seeing the results. Like hell they aren't designed to be. You could say (from a certain viewpoint) that it's a breach of fiduciary duty if they are NOT designed to be addictive.
>Algorithms do the curation for you
Control of that is more valuable than any previous form of advertising or marketing. The social media revolution as you describe it has meant you can define people's experiential bubbles, orthogonally to what their wishes might be. You can expose 'em to whatever you need them to believe in. They don't even experience what you want to exclude. All for a price.
This ain't the Singularity. Algorithms give big data to the people who really make decisions on who gets to influence, and you know neither the influencers nor the decision makers. Something like youtube 'Elsa videos' for kids are not an AI deciding kids need more creepy in their lives, there are people trying to manipulate the system and other people who see it happening and go 'heh' and probably make notes and study what happens. The algorithms are just not sophisticated enough to be directive in the way you allude to.
It's not going away, which is WHY to attend to the negative side. If you're cynical, you don't have to see it as 'scare' so much as yet another banality of evil. Which we don't casually accept, even though it has been with us since the days of cavemen.
> The platforms are addictive not because they're designed to be, but because they pick out the best and most interesting content!
The best by the users interests or the best for the advertisers? I think ignoring the personal and societal effects of social media is something you do at your own peril.
The best by the users interests or the best for the advertisers? I think ignoring the personal and societal effects of social media is something you do at your own peril.
As a broad response, let's just say not everything is perfect. These systems can be and are abused (by publishers, malicious actors). Yes, let's fix those.
But let's not overlook why these things have become popular in the first place (from a utility point of view). Google made the whole web searchable and digestable. Facebook made social & forum content much higher utility than before. YT did the same with billions of mostly-uninteresting videos.
Going back to an old style forum & email-list experience is a step backwards. Well, be my guest, do it if you like :) I won't.
See Reddit, Hackernews etc regarding how social cues can be used for ranking/curation. Yet, those platforms do a bare minimum (imo not quite enough). E.g. Google Feed is more engaging, interesting, and informative (in my experience).
But let's not overlook why these things have become popular in the first place (from a utility point of view). Google made the whole web searchable and digestable. Facebook made social & forum content much higher utility than before. YT did the same with billions of mostly-uninteresting videos.
Going back to an old style forum & email-list experience is a step backwards. Well, be my guest, do it if you like :) I won't.
See Reddit, Hackernews etc regarding how social cues can be used for ranking/curation. Yet, those platforms do a bare minimum (imo not quite enough). E.g. Google Feed is more engaging, interesting, and informative (in my experience).
https://twitter.com/romaindillet/status/1067418103452192768
Of all the things to complain... What a lousy article.
Of all the things to complain... What a lousy article.
For me, social network stopped being social as soon as reasonable assurance of anonymity when out the window once companies started pressuring people use their real identity, and that became the norm.