Social Media and Current Events

[ska invita]

As an aside people seem to have got rose tinted and what Twitter was like before Musk.... For example left wing accounts regularly shut down for absolutely nothing, just maliscious reporting, and with no recourse to challenge.... Yes it's clearly worse under Musk but for me personally it's actually improved as at least that has stopped!!

Ultimately this is about government legislation and actually implementing fines and the threat of blocking being real

 

[tommers]

BTW, we're on social media right now. You know, just the mediaeval version.

 

[ska invita]

I still love the internet, including parts of social media, it just needs moderating. They make billions they can afford to do it

 

[NoXion]

BTW, we're on social media right now. You know, just the mediaeval version.

Sure. But there's no algorithmic bullshit going on, and the place as a whole is tightly moderated by human beings who actually give a shit. If the massive corporate social networks were run like here, then this thread either wouldn't exist or would have a much different tone.

While I'm sure something would come along to replace Facebook and Xhitter if they were to deservedly disappear tomorrow, I'm convinced that it would do some good simply by virtue of millions of people no longer being led down algorithmic rabbit holes and having to endure effectively unmoderated online spaces populated by the loudest dregs of the internet.

 

[stethoscope]

BTW, we're on social media right now. You know, just the mediaeval version.

Never been entirely convinced of the argument that trad internet forums are 'social media' though, I think theres a different dynamic around them at least historically although that has changed over time with a barrage of content-free postings of twitter, likes, discussions never really being as deep and detailed as they once were, etc.

Posted from a real computer at home on my day off, its grey outside, and during my self-imposed internet time

 

[YouSir]

BTW, we're on social media right now. You know, just the mediaeval version.

As I said elsewhere I view forums, blogs, webrings etc as contemporary competators to what we think of as social media more than ancestors of it. You mentioned being 'fed' stuff in your other post and I think that's a big part of the issue with what we have now. Centralisation has put the feeding in the hand of very specific corporate actors who tend to amplify very moderated versions of engagement. The algorithmic approach means that you can choose a limited engagement with one far right figure and it'll just rack up another dozen to follow it. Previously you'd have had to choose to go to Stormfront or wherever and then, if you wanted more, go back, it wouldn't have just kept amplifying similar content in your daily stream. I think those practical requirements to engage with deciding what you wanted to look at were positive ones. Still could be even under the larger social media models. BlueSky isn't particularly good (too small at the moment) but it doesn't seem to be as active in pushing 'you looked at x so here's x times a million' stuff.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I still love the internet, including parts of social media, it just needs moderating. They make billions they can afford to do it

And, that isn't going to happen on Twitter under Musk's ownership.

 

[YouSir]

Sure. But there's no algorithmic bullshit going on, and the place as a whole is tightly moderated by human beings who actually give a shit. If the massive corporate social networks were run like here, then this thread either wouldn't exist or would have a much different tone.

While I'm sure something would come along to replace Facebook and Xhitter if they were to deservedly disappear tomorrow, I'm convinced that it would do some good simply by virtue of millions of people no longer being led down algorithmic rabbit holes and having to endure effectively unmoderated online spaces populated by the loudest dregs of the internet.

That'd be Reddit, wouldn't it? Which can be a hellscape in itself but I'd say it was generally better than Twitter.

 

[ska invita]

And, that isn't going to happen on Twitter under Musk's ownership.

As I posted there's new laws kick in next year, it'll be in the governments hands then, and they will be to blame if Musk gets away with it

 

[BigMoaner]

The reigning economic system is founded on isolation; at the same time it is a circular process designed to produce isolation. Isolation underpins technology, and technology isolates in its turn; all goods proposed by the spectacular system, from cars to televisions, also serve as weapons for that system as it strives to reinforce the isolation of "the lonely crowd."

Amazing to me that anyone would take anything other than a Luddite approach to this stuff, it's not 2009 anymore.

Great post.

there is little "social" in social media. you can connect with people online to a degree but you don't really know what they are like until you are sat wtih them, talk to them, interact. that;s where connection happens or doesn't.

there's that great analogy for tech from Society of The Spectacle by Debord, and he doesn't just mean social media (was written in the 60s) where he would say the village would gather at the end of the day. You would gather round something, a fire, a pub perhaps, and, amongst other things, your days labour would be talked about. What went well, what didn't. What animals you caught, what the boss was like. The "Spectacle" in this sense is that then what breaks that apart - you go home and watch sky sports, you go home and watch instagram for hours, your attention is focused everywhere but a dialogue between those in your immediate environment. Think one group all looking and talking at each other, teh second group all together but looking at screens, devices, distractions, sports, films, shows, etc - anything but at each other, anything but being with each other.

Capitalism is served by isolation because it keeps you buying things that fills that yearn for the social (once I have all these things i will feel better), and it also keeps you from talking about work wtih other workers by commodifying entertainment, leisure, sport and now even where your attention rests. Who doesn't want to be distracted and entertained and titilated now and then, of course. but when it becomes persuasive and saturates and you have whole childhoods consumed by it then yes questions have to be at least somewhat asked. I give the analogy of my son often: if i gave him his tablet at 7am, he would no doubt still be on it at 8pm, when he's got it, he can't put it down. His whole day in the hands of capital. When we played in our garden as kids no one was making money off of us. Capitalism take over of the human has never been so complete. Everything you do online is monitised and if most of your day is spent online then most of your day is monitised. And no matter what people say about stuffiness or men shouting at clouds or luddites etc, it truly wasn't always like that. The tech revolution is so profound and powerful.

and the answer on an individual level is quite simple, philosophy as practice if you like - question your relationship with it, waht's truly valuable, how your time is being spent.

 

[Cid]

I see the biggest problem is Musk's ownership of twitter, I refuse to call it 'X', the government can get the other SM platforms to take more responsibility for the content published on their sites, Musk is not interested in doing that.

Tommy Robinson is clearly the biggest gobshite out there, that's fueling these far-right mobs, Musk not only allowed him back on twitter, where his followers have been sky rocketing over recent days, currently at around 900k, but Musk is also liking, sharing and commenting his posts, and making standalone posts in support of Robinson, extending Robinson vile content to Musk's massive 192.9 million followers.

He is an incredibly dangerous man, because of his ownership of twitter and the power he has over it, and he not going to change, so Twitter needs to change, and the only way that is going to happen is by change of ownership.

As I said on the other thread, personally I would be happy to see twitter banned in the UK, until this whole situation is resolved.

It's not about banning SM in general, it's just this one man and one platform that is a very special case.

I don't think that's true... Twitter is obviously a huge part of the problem. But google and meta also thrive when they get this veneer of respectability when compared to it. Both are, arguably, equally complicit - just in a slightly less direct way. Facebook tbf has made some progress on group moderation, or at least that's the impression I get from how careful some (left-oriented) groups need to be. But I believe it's not that hard to get around this, and still encounter a fair amount of shite even on my relatively curated fb feed.

Google (via youtube) is just as bad in that their algorithm still promotes far right stuff. Before I went premium (free trial which I think I may have forgotten to cancel) I'd get ads for the Daily Wire, and plenty of supremely weird grifty shit. But the daily wire is probably the most important one there as they seemed to have a fairly well thought out promo strategy. Even with premium if I go down a gaming rabbit hole or similar I will get videos recommended from content creators who I know at least echo far right viewpoints. And my home page does throw up some weird shit:

e.g

Spoiler

Men of Vigor and History - with Fr John Strickland​

Maniphesto - Conversations on Masculinity 136 views 2 days ago​

Just some weird tiny channel the alg has thrown up. Seems to be about Catholic masculinity. To be clear my recommendations page isn't bad generally, and the weird ones are often these tiny view count things. But I also curate my feed there actively. And the sidebar is worse.

I know also that for the conspiracist movements in the UK (which I think are linked to but somewhat different from this wave of far right violence) use facebook more simply as a recruiting platform for Telegram etc.

And we shouldn't forget how complicit traditional media can be in this. If the both sidesing in the BBC is bad, try the output of the Telegraph etc... I mean they're probably on good behaviour now, but yeah. The backdrop to this is year after year of constantly rattling on about stopping the boats.

 

[NoXion]

That'd be Reddit, wouldn't it? Which can be a hellscape in itself but I'd say it was generally better than Twitter.

Reddit is the last of the big corporate social media platforms I bother with. It's also being enshittified, albeit at a slower rate. If the bot situation gets worse or the CEO who likes sniffing Musk's farts gets any more bright ideas to try and monetise the users and the content they create, I can foresee a time when I will have to knock that place on the head like I did with Facebook and pre-Musk Twitter.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Reddit is the last of the big corporate social media platforms I bother with. It's also being enshittified, albeit at a slower rate. If the bot situation gets worse or the CEO who likes sniffing Musk's farts gets any more bright ideas to try and monetise the users and the content they create, I can foresee a time when I will have to knock that place on the head like I did with Facebook and pre-Musk Twitter.

Once old.reddit gets disabled I’m out I think.

It’s already much header to copy the images or click on a thread to get to the comments sometimes

 

[YouSir]

Reddit is the last of the big corporate social media platforms I bother with. It's also being enshittified, albeit at a slower rate. If the bot situation gets worse or the CEO who likes sniffing Musk's farts gets any more bright ideas to try and monetise the users and the content they create, I can foresee a time when I will have to knock that place on the head like I did with Facebook and pre-Musk Twitter.

Aye, didn't they sign up to sell all their user content to AI companies too? Not that they weren't already stealing it all anyway but still. It's a shame though because structurally I think (kind of) decentralised communities is a healthier model in general, even if it's obviously all under one company umbrella. Those sort of interest groups that require some minimal investment (even if it's just in finding it and choosing to join) are also better to limit dehumanisation imo. Consistent engagement comes with a sense of ongoing relationships, other SM really doesn't, most engagements are one off and there's no notion of the other person having a wider or ongoing existence.

 

[ska invita]

Remains the case that Twitter users alone have been able to give a clear picture of what is happening in Gaza and now racist England. Would be half blind without it as a wikified source.

Yes would be nice to use a different platform but whatever has the critical mass will suffer the same fate.... Unless it's vigorously moderated. And at international scale that needs money.

 

[BigMoaner]

I still love the internet, including parts of social media, it just needs moderating. They make billions they can afford to do it

agree, moderation - it also would be great to move their business models away from "how can we addict this person as much as possible" too. Things will change, it has too i feel - there's a level of enshittification and toxicity at the moment that i think is unsustainable.

 

[stethoscope]

Remains the case that Twitter users alone have been able to give a clear picture of what is happening in Gaza and now racist England. Would be half blind without it as a wikified source.

Which is also a very pertinent point in counter to my ranting about social media! And with the huge decline in print media and well researched journalism, there would be a big void of reportage without it.

 

[YouSir]

Remains the case that Twitter users alone have been able to give a clear picture of what is happening in Gaza and now racist England. Would be half blind without it as a wikified source.

Yes would be nice to use a different platform but whatever has the critical mass will suffer the same fate.... Unless it's vigorously moderated. And at international scale that needs money.

That's one thing that strikes me about the alternatives really, a lot of the most useful people on Twitter (imo anyway) are still exclusively there. And for my interests (which sound the same as yours) these are people broadly on the Left trying to share important info. They know how precarious it can be for them and how negative so much of it is but they don't even mirror their content elsewhere. Which is understandable really, it's more work to share to platforms that are far less popular, but I'd love to see more of them establish their own backup plans as Twitter gets worse. If the networks they've built get lost at the moment then they're just gone. Which is what's happened with a lot of the local stuff I used to follow, people quit Twitter but never migrated elsewhere and now that local news is just gone for most people.

 

[stethoscope]

Anyway, I'm off out to my local record shop, see if I can pick up a flyer or two

 

[BigMoaner]

This mark fisher lecture is excellent where he talks about twitter and social media:

RIP mark.

 

[steeplejack]

I found this twitter thread (yes, I know) really useful in understanding the real, and very scary, tech-authoritarianist / feudalist agenda driving a group of Silicon Valley billionaires looking to destroy democracy, establish Randian type corporate dictatorship, in cities initially but with much grander aims beyond that. Thiel's dismissive "democracy, whatever that is" sneering from the other day on a widely circulated clip is a rare public slipping of the mask. It's no coincidence that this demographic is chucking unprecedented money at Trump (whose numbers thankfully seems to be in steep decline) and is sympathetic to / adjacent to Putin.



I agree that just banning access to twitter won't solve anything, and who knows what deranged right wing loon shite is being posted on the likes of Gab and Truth social which also need dealt with. But there needs to be a discussion about the unfettered power these silicon valley billionaires have and how to check it to avoid freely circulated disinformation causing the type of trouble we've seen in the last ten days.

Personally I'd declare Musk persona non grata here, ban his products and companies, nationalise any revenue he holds here without compensation, and arrest him the minute he sets foot in the UK on charges related to the riots his platform fuelled, if not caused. But of course, as a slightly overweight middle aged man, I'm much more likely to be unvelied as Arsenal's new no. 1 goalkeeper on a ten year contract, than Musk is to challenged in this way. But the less these people are challenged the more they grow into their vainglorious self-perception as untouchable geniuses with a god-like ability to re-shape the world in their own dystopian image. These are people not used to being stood up to, and it shows.

Big tech needs much more tightly regulated and the wannabe feudal digi-lords need exposed pitlessly for the right wing authoritarian mediocrities they are, and taken down wherever possible.

For many however this is complicated stuff- there is a staggering level of ignorance generally about how the internet works and the influence these platforms have, and who pays for them and why. There has been journalism about Dark Money but it hasn't really cut through beyond the sort of academic / metropolitan liberal audience who read things like New Dark Age by James Bridle, Democracy for Sale by Peter Geoghan, and The Chaos Machine by Max Fisher. Getting this stuff out there beyond niche audiences is I think a critical task.

 

[philosophical]

I have never had Facebook, beebow, Twitter, x, what’s app, tick tick, eBay, pay pal, an iCloud, Apple Pay, or any of that.
I will subscribe to a site such as this and type things out, and use text messages on my mobile telephone.
Sometimes there will be something you can’t join or view because there is an assumption by somebody somewhere that everybody uses a particular platform, but that doesn’t apply to me so I assume I miss out but I don’t feel deprived, simply annoyed sometimes. Indeed a move to a cashless society and so much online stresses me out, like you can’t use cash for parking. Goodness knows how so many people can remember so many passwords, I can never remember mine.
On the upside I have not been the victim of an online scam, and I use my landline a lot, and my credit card.
Being a vegetarian I am used to a menu being all about meat and fish and my diet as an irritated afterthought, the internet can feel like that, everybody knows all about these sites and sort of expects everybody else to know about them too.
I know Elon Musk is the owner of one of those platforms, but I don’t feel like enriching him.
I am old that is true to say.

 

[BigMoaner]

I found this twitter thread (yes, I know) really useful in understanding the real, and very scary, tech-authoritarianist / feudalist agenda driving a group of Silicon Valley billionaires looking to destroy democracy, establish Randian type ciorporate dictatorship, in cities initially but with much grander aims beyond that. Thiel's dismissive "democracy, whatever that is" sneering from the other day on a widely circulated clip is a rare public slipping of the mask. It's no coincidence that this demogrpahic is chucking unprecedented money at Trump (whose numbers thankfully seems to be in steep decline) and is sympathetic to / adjacent to Putin.

View attachment 436814

I agree that just banning access to twitter won't solve anything, and who knows what deranged right wing loon shite is being posted on the likes of Gab and Truth social which also need dealt with. But there needs to be a discussion about the unfettered power these silicon valley billionaires have and how to check it to avoid freely circulated disinformation causing the type of trouble we've seen in the last ten days.

Personally I'd declare Musk persona non grata here, ban his products and companies, nationalise any revenue he holds here without compensation, and arrest him the minute he sets foot in the UK on charges related to the riots his platform fuelled, if not caused. But of course, as a slightly overweight middle aged man, I'm much more likely to be unvelied as Arsenal's new no. 1 goalkeeper on a ten year contract, than Musk is to challenged in this way. But the less these people are challenged the more they grow into their vainglorious self-perception as untouchable geniuses with a god-like ability to re-shape the world in their own dystopian image. These are people not used to being stood up to, and it shows.

Big tech needs much more tightly regulated and the wannabe feudal digi-lords need exposed pitlessly for the right wing authoritarian mediocrities they are, and taken down wherever possible.

For many however this is complicated stuff- there is a staggering level of ignorance generally about how the internet works and the influence these platforms have, and who pays for them and why. There has been journalism about Dark Money but it hasn't really cut through beyond the sort of academic / metropolitan liberal audience who read things like New Dark Age by James Bridle, Democracy for Sale by Peter Geoghan, and The Chaos Machine by MaxtheFisher. Getting this stuff out there beyond niche audiences is I think a critical task.

The masters of the universe - backed by lots of men with mics (rogan and all his croonies), "Sponsered by Huel", tech bros, crypto wankers. They are not fascists- they probably wouldn't dream of treating any minority with disrespect. They are liberal. But they believe in a very insideous kind of progress - that nothing should be obstructed, everything is game to be disrupted. The human barely features at all. Everything can endlessly be "improved", you just need the code to do so. That is the ideology of Silicon Valley, and the wider ideology of neoliberalism - that we are all individuals who are masters of our own fate, have to manage our own psyches, our dispairs, depressions, worries. all on you...you just need to find the right therapist or self help book. Never question the wider social structures that might be making your feel tired and burnt out. Out with the old, in with the new, over and over in exhausting cycles. Some of them grapple around for other weird types of meaning too, hyper masculinity, minimalism, "spirituality" - mainly because the ideology they propogate is so empty of anything really significant other than "improvement". they treat the personality as a project - endless hours in teh gym, drinking weird vit shakes, montivation, winning! "Instead of revolutionaries we have motivational speakers. "I tiredness" is distinguised from "We tiredness" - because "we tiredness" is the product of a community. The depressed subject is tired of becoming himself" Buyung Chul Han. The nuts and bolts of twitter usage is good for discussion, but the ideology of neoliberal capitalism, which has it's most vocal and weird representatives in Silicon Valley, is the field in which all of it plays out.

 

[Cloo]

BTW, we're on social media right now. You know, just the mediaeval version.

The big difference is that info here is not driven by an algorithm. I think one reason The Kids are using things like Discord, which seem to me to function more like a forum, is they aren't algorithm led.

Fundamentally algorithms are an absolute double edged sword. They can spread useful information but they are also responsible for all the negative bullshit because they thrive on outrage and thus are quite capable of radicalising individuals without even trying.

 

[Pickman's model]

It's a generic starting point, that's all.

an op sets the tone for the posts that follow. it's where the reason for the thread will be laid out, and the topics it's anticipated the thread will cover. yours was lamentable.

 

[Pickman's model]

The big difference is that info here is not driven by an algorithm. I think one reason The Kids are using things like Discord, which seem to me to function more like a forum, is they aren't algorithm led.

Fundamentally algorithms are an absolute double edged sword. They can spread useful information but they are also responsible for all the negative bullshit because they thrive on outrage and thus are quite capable of radicalising individuals without even trying.

i don't agree they're responsible for all the negative bullshit. but there's a clear relationship between the algorithm and what people post, and between the algorithm and what people read - people will game the algorithm to give their posts greater reach. but there's so much other negative bullshit, some of it true and some of it lies, which aren't the fault of the algorithm

 

[Fez909]

I looked at SYL's Twitter account yesterday and saw a woman called Amy Mek who was posting lots of things that he retweeted. I Googled her and she's an anti-Muslim 'campaigner' from America.

Her Twitter account has apparently been banned in Germany and France. I didn't know this was possible.

Anyone know how that works? Who enforces it? The ISPs? Twitter in those countries? The last option seems unlikely.

 

[BigMoaner]

I have watched nearly every la cosa nostra ex gangster on YouTube cos of the algorithm. Think the literal real sopranos in three hour interview format. Not sure if I should be happy with that or sad

 

[BigMoaner]

The rabbit hole is real. I sometimes dream in American-Italian.

 

[krtek a houby]

The rabbit hole is real. I sometimes dream in American-Italian.

Not all Italian Americans sound like Tony Soprano, as am sure you realise