I have never really used Twitter until very recently. It was shocking to me how much the algorithmic content insertion drives the conversation. E.g. I click on a link to read an individual thread: right in the middle of it, with almost no visual indication Twitter is inserting completely unrelated but "high engagement" content. It's brutal.
Edit: imagine group chats sorted by engagement... a pile of responses in a disconnected sequence. Someone said something funny that got 10 likes? Push it to the top for the next 2 hours! (I am tempted to build this as an experiment just to see how awful—or effective?—this would be like.)
It's just a feedback loop optimized for "engagement" which is the metric these companies are using to make more money from the companies buying ad-space. Occam's razor and all that. It's just about money.
I think there are still lots of people that are on-boarding. And over time they simmer down. Much is poor etiquette unwittingly forced, as we have finger fumbling interfaces.
So social networks have devised a way to profit from public the discord you instigate.
HN is far more simple in approach, but you only really stand a chance if you monitor your own thread. Kind of. So you just end up glancing this and that. Or trying to read something and then give up. Threads only get traction for about a day and people fall off reading them precisely because engagement requires a silly cognitive leap.
Natural conversations are a bit all over the place, but the brain is quite good at forming some kind of narrative. Despite participants sometimes have wildly differing interpretations. These aren't even apparent in the moment. Ruminating delays, and going back to conversations from yesterday doesn't much happen, unless you have quite an intimate relationship with someone, or you are very topic focused.
Throw many disjointed feeds into the mix, and how on earth do you navigate them, let alone participate in them.
About the only thing that kind of works for me when thinking back is something like newsnet, with basic topic threading. With well considered posts.
Apologies for adding to the noise.
You won’t troll in group chats because you’ll be removed and it’s difficult or impossible to get back. Unlike public platforms where you can sign up for 300 new accounts behind vpns. The groups are small and everyone knows everyone so you’ll have a reputation beyond just being banned.
There’s also no global admins / thought police. Each group gets to decide on their own what kind of discourse is allowed (illegal content excepted). In a group chat your friends can discuss things which would have you banned from Facebook/etc. The platform won't push your content on others so independent group chats don't ruin the experience for other users.
We aren't doomed to terrible social media. But tech companies, with their particular incentives to drive engagement writ large rather than healthy engagement, may be structurally unable to deliver a good social media app.
I strongly believe that in a few decades (probably sooner), the traditional social media platforms will be seen as cigarettes. Some people will still partake, but no one has any misconception about the harm they cause.
Healthier alternatives will be important in the long run, even if there is no perfect technical solution.
I do like your theories about why certain networks have fared as they have, and hopefully Mozilla comes away with some insights that might lead to something that highlights the good parts.
Even just a return to the basics would go a long way: Show me my friends' stuff, in order, and don't show me anything else. Let me stay up to date without getting roped into bullshit promoted on my feed.
Highly manipulative algorithmic content promotion is not necessary to stay in touch.
At worst, a less toxic iteration of a social media platform is the equivalent of e-cigarettes. Still addictive and not super healthy, still unknown how this mode of consumption will impact humans long term, but less likely to kill you from the obvious kinds of cancer.
If there was a social media network that could exclude these things, then smaller would be fine.
I remember Google Reader as a brief, well-balanced example of healthy social media platform. It was mostly text, the selection bias was in favor of users who were savvy enough to understand RSS, generally interested in an array of different things, no engagement algorithms. The blogosphere that drove much of the content at the time was wonkish, (more) independent, often irreverent but also sincere about what a better future for human civilization and politics could be like. Haven't seen another thing like it since.
Its limitations were part of what made it thrive.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1092217/bullying-in-euro...
https://www.pacer.org/bullying/info/stats.asp
Which suggests the rates are comparable between the US and Denmark.
Netherlands is 12% far to the right on the top link you just used, and it shows a huge range between countries.
The second link you used had 20.2% for the US.
PS: Did you think Netherlands and Denmark was the same country or something?
Given how many people were very deeply and very personally affected by it, it's amazing that nobody's discovered how and why it spreads.
"You as a student have to spend most of your time with these strangers that we chose arbitrarily. If a conflict arises, you gotta figure it out on your own. Your parents won't be there to help you. Your friends may or may not be there to help you depending on how we choose (arbitrarily) to split you all up. If someone attacks you and you defend yourself, you'll be punished the same as them. If you refuse to participate in this arrangement, you're a criminal"
If I had to design an environment that was optimized to encourage and allow bullying to happen, it would look a lot like a school. Writing the phenomenon off as human nature seems super naive to me.
I just know that, personally, most of the times I experienced bullying in school happened when I was separated from my friends. I think that the natural tendency people have to look out for each other is stronger than any tendency towards bullying, but that schools disrupt the balance.
The reputation of a school trumps anything else, it would seem?
If books had a comment section they would be toxic.
Even this site gets toxic in the comments, there isn't any brand building, no real reason to collect likes.
Github can get toxic in pr comments.
Toxic behavior gets encouraged by likes and stuff. Ime the worst message boards were the ones with reputation that could be awarded or taken away.
Group chats have a social repercussions for being an ass. The internet doesn't for the most part.
This is a person who has never seen what WhatsApp groups look like in Brazil or India.
Seems a bit like saying "there will always be demand for cigarettes". Social norms and "nudges" like no-smoking areas can go a long way.
People don't set out to have toxic experiences on social media -- they get sucked in and succumb to bad incentives.
Hacker News seems pretty good. Youtube comments have gotten better.
We're in the early stages here. Only a narrow range of platforms have been tried, and they've mostly been optimized for engagement rather than human wellbeing.
I've found several group chats to be deeply problematic (though of course I accept the possibility I could be the problem).
By definition they encourage group-think, and that, coupled with the lack of requirements for being a moderator (and the attraction of the role to narcissists and control-types) can be a pretty toxic mix.
That doesn’t mean that healthy places cannot exist or thrive, but it means that there will always be demand for the unhealthy. Tech impacts society, but we’re mistaken if we think we can change human nature.
I’d expect the outcome of the research to reach a different conclusion than people expect. For instance, I don’t think the typical system of likes and followers will ever be healthy. Beware of early results though, because it always takes a while for a platform to mature enough to see if it withstands the test of millions of users, socially speaking.
My WIP theory is: people-oriented public broadcast mediums always deteriorate towards the unhealthy with massive scale. You can have one or the other, but not both. (People oriented means that there is a strong focus on the people, usually with real name and face, or emphasizing the user/display name)
Anecdotally, to illustrate the point:
- LinkedIn became a cesspool despite having a professional boring focus. My theory: because it’s people-oriented and public.
- Group chats have thrived and are very rarely problematic, despite likes and reacts everywhere. My theory: private groups with implicit trust. No need to build your personal brand.
- GitHub has not deteriorated (a bit perhaps, but very much usable still), despite having likes, being a public broadcast medium. My take: it’s because it is mostly content oriented.