But "everyone just needs to cut out that bad stuff!" doesn't really work on a societal scale. Not to sound hyperbolic but I do feel as though the social media era has caused widespread addiction to the dopamine hits these apps provide and I don't think everyone is going to stop doing it just because someone tells them it would be good for them to do it. IMO society is far better off for the concerted campaigns that were fought against smoking. Maybe something similar is needed here.

People can’t be trusted to make decisions for themselves because cigarettes / alcohol / social media / sugar / pornography is addictive. And since their bad choices have negative consequences on third parties because of health care costs / bad politics / family breakdown, we should get to tell them what to do.

I consider social media to be largely harmful, but so is beer and soda. Life is too short to be angry about what others chose to do.

Where it falls short is that individual choices cannot fix systemic issues larger than the individual. That requires a systemic fix pushed for by collective action. And sure, collective action is built on individual choices to join that collective action but there's more to it than that.

Moving away from Facebook is good, but it does not protect you from the next predatory practice unless collective preventative measures are taken.

For many it would be very easy to just cut down on social media or stop altogether and find alternatives for the few things that are good about fb. I did it and I surely don't have any more willpower than the average person. For the rest, let's help them make the right choice to break the circle of addiction, talk to your friends, talk to your family, maybe reconsider what's important for you and whether you need that job at a company that makes many people's lives miserable even if it pays well. On top of that, let's try to convince lawmakers to introduce legislation and regulation. You need to do all the things, and everybody needs to, otherwise nothing will change.

- requirement of social media companies to correct the record and show people where they were the target of misinformation

- childhood development informed minimum age requirement for social media use

- banning of ultra-specific targeting the way it is done right now

- banning of political advertising

The list goes on and, again, obviously I'm not an expert in all the externalities, I just see a problem and would like to see it addressed. I have suggestions but am open to other suggestions. Anything that's not "the market will fix it".

Ah perfect, let Dorsey and Zuck be the arbiters of truth.

That definitely has not backfired during covid right? As I recall both platforms suppressed any mention of a lab leak theory as “conspiracy”.

That's not what I said. It could very well come from an independent organization. Fb and others would just be responsible for putting it in front of the people's eyes that they have shown disinformation to. Is that a perfect solution? Probably not but what the hell else are we gonna do?

What do you suggest we do instead?

If those reposts get no, 1, or 2 likes - which is what I see a lot when occasionally browsing people on my friends list manually from time to time (as they've been unfollowed) - then no one's even reading your reposts or opinions. Why are you doing this? Is this even fun to you?

People might not think of what they are doing because they are bored, or trying to avoid situations, but maybe if explained to them exactly what they are doing and how pointless it is--maybe they will change.

The message of the current Web is the death of local journalism, deep moats of pillaged user-data protecting monopolists, internationally "democratized" propaganda, and no privacy anywhere.

If you want to change the message, the medium will have to change.

"Hide all from" is necessary, but not sufficient. Facebook still uses their algorithm to chose what to show you. It's harder to choose what I want to see when that's going on.

I also wish there was a way to filter out specific topics that people post about, such as sports and politics, and block categories of things like "attempts to promote multi-level marketing products", but unfortunately it's either block the person wholesale or let all their posts show. There's an option to "See less from" a friend, but I have no idea what that does. Once again, I have to hope that the algorithm does the right thing.

I did notice that there was a way to block just a person's stories, which saved me from blocking a family member. She posts incessantly about the makeup she's selling via an MLM, but fortunately she does it only through stories.

I know that I have trouble fighting that riptide. My family doesn't stand a chance. Too many friends and family members who are too old to fight that effect have been slowly polarized politically because they're helpless against Facebook's engagement metrics.

I mean I guess Facebook could mod memes and political content out of existence but the backlash against such an action would probably be worse.

I'd pay $5/month for that 2009 Facebook back. And honestly I'd pay $20/month to get that for my parents and a couple of other family members who've experienced serious brainrot as a result of years of feed addiction. They wouldn't know where to find garbage 24/h news articles without FB.

There's always someone in these threads who is like "hey, I have a healthy use of facebook, why don't you ?". This conversation has been done to death.

If it were simply a place to keep in touch with family and friends, and to find local business, etc, I think it’d be a fantastic resource and a net positive.

Unfortunately it has instead contributed to the devolution of a common understanding of truth, a common set of values, in favor of the outrage machine, mostly pushed by Facebook’s algorithms.

So not only is it destructive, Facebook has actively encouraged that destruction.

So, many people feel it’s not actually okay to like Facebook, any more than it’s ok to like the proliferation of drug dealers on street corners.

I still talk to the same people I was talking to before and eliminated a bunch of B.S.

Literally zero loss to my life.

I grew frustrated enough to entirely stop using Facebook around 2016. I would unfollow, block, hide posts and indicate lack of interest in anything political, and then the next items on the next refresh would be the same sort of political topics from people I didn’t even know were on my friends list. Meanwhile, the content I actually wanted to see such as conversation and events in the life of my friends hardly ever came up.

I assume that Facebook’s system is sophisticated enough to conclude that if I have hidden, removed friends, and blocked people repeatedly as actions related to certain political posts that I don’t wish to see more of the same.

One realizes after a while that most of these platforms, while seemingly benevolent and innocuous, actually thrive on turmoil and strife.

You are not the customer; you are the product. Turn these things off and starve the beast. There's a place for social media and online discussion, but it has to be used judiciously. Don't let it take over your life.

It is. With how much Facebook makes and spends on "consultants" and lobbyists, do you think the company cares?

I spent more time on private Discord/Slack channels of hobby groups, clubs, and a non-profit as a volunteer. I felt better spending time and energy with people I've grown to care about, versus worrying about the attention of strangers via online dating optimization (nice photos that tell a story, worrying about the wording of the biography, and being overly clever with the chat messages) or, frankly, semi-strangers with loose connections on social media.

Dating a co-volunteer is almost like dating a coworker, but without the potential harm to your career. Just like a workplace, you tend to share similar interests and similar/complementary skillsets. It's also natural to approach another person, and ask to hang out or work on something independently of the organization. These relationships also seem more stable than people I'd meet through online connections.

These people are amazing to me, though it's more precise to say that I enjoy interactions with these people more than people I meet through online dating. I'm less likely to run into people who play games, e.g. who optimize response times and lengths to messages. It feels human, versus my experiences with online dating.

The main caveat is to avoid dating fellow volunteers/contributors when either of you are in a position of power (relatively less impact as no pay is at stake, but poor communication can still cause a negative organizational environment). I also avoid getting to know anyone with the intention to date them when I first meet them; though I don't hesitate to show interest in them as a person, and have created valued friends along the way. I moved to make it romantic, if I think we can work out long term (similar age, medium-term plans, and compatible personalities).

Journalism adapted to being disrupted by the Internet, by serving one sided audience with one sided outrage articles. The market selects for those. If FOX news admitted liberals weren’t that bad, they would lose much of their audience.

And social network algorithms select for “engagement” which once again prioritizes ones sided outrage clickbait.

The root cause is that humans have a powerful negativity bias. I once heard someone who'd been an editor at a major paper say that negative articles get as many as thousands of times more clicks than positive articles. It would be very hard for any media business not to prioritize negativity and conflict. They would not survive.

I've seen it myself. I once penned a very combative blog post about the usability flaws in IPv6. It got hundreds of times more hits than anything else I have ever written combined. The big difference seemed to be the negative, combative, snarky tone. If you write like a snarky narcissistic asshole, you get 10-100X the attention. (I ended up taking it down because I didn't like the tone after thinking about it for a while.)

This bias likely has an evolutionary root. "If you mistake a bush for a lion, you're fine. If you mistake a lion for a bush, you're dead." We came of age in an environment of scarcity, predation, and conflict, and are hard-wired to pay close attention to anything that even remotely smells like a threat or induces negative emotions.

I would even say the number of comments shows how controversial something is while the amount of likes shows how uncontroversial it is.

Comments take more effort than hitting a like. You want to add your 2c and before you know it, others want to address what you said, too. And you get endless repetitions of the same arguments buried deep in chats and threads.

Finally, there is nothing more addictive and compelling than the notification “Someone just replied to your comment”

Take away that and the tendency of people to want to show off how "verysmart" they are and you'd have to shut down HN.

This is the result of people wanting something for free. Which normally is like the opposite of capitalism.

Under capitalism, news agencies are privately owned, and have to pay employees. They compete for advertising and subscription revenue.

Thus, they are subject to market discipline and the market selects for clickbat outrage articles that are widely shared. When it comes to subscriptions, the for-profit news organizations cannot afford to tell both sides of the story. If FOX News hosts regularly admitted that progressives are decent people and single payer systems may have some good sides , they’d lose their audience. If Daily Kos said that conservatives have a point in this or the other thing, their readers would be frustrated/triggered and move elsewhere.

Facebook selects for more engagement and sends notifications because if they didn’t, then another network would become #1.

The point is... capitalism drives us into echo chambers and distracts/interrupts us at dinner. It is a tragedy of the commons where the commins is human attention and decency.

On the other hand, science, wikipedia and open source software do not have a profit motive. There is competition, yes — to be the first to contribute to the snowball of free information. This is actually collaboration. Our news can be done this way.

Look at https://rational.app to see what I’m talking about.