Re:Addiction to Outrage (2020)
by asjldkfin on Sunday March 28, 2021 @04:13PM
(#26614019)
I don't think its fair to completely blame Social Media and relieve people of all responsibilities. After all, human beings aren't lemmings, if they are being manipulated, then they should bear responsibility for being manipulated.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
My theme is basically: no, statistically, they are lemmings, and they can't. An individual human can resist propagandization, can resist bad faith, can take responsibility for their perspectives.
Get access to a large enough population and humanity, viewed as an aggregate, can't. The capacity for individual choice is real and it's not enough.
It's great to be one of the exceptions: I totally endorse it, as an individual. It won't matter, which is why we gotta find collective solutions for collective problems that absolutely will not be fixed by personal responsibility.
Re:Addiction to Outrage (2020)
by wbillingsley on Sunday March 28, 2021 @07:55PM
(#26616088)
Social media does bear responsibility for how it is designed. From AI algorithms that detect what you react to (actively learning to show you your triggers) to upvote/downvote mechanisms that promote the most reactionary content.
Before social media, the aphorism was that an angry customer will tell 10 people. The modern version is that an angry person will broadcast to the world and may also be picked up by groups that exist to amplify anger.