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should we ban social media?

- YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuZgTAW1QvA

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.

While watching the video I couldn't stop thinking about the fediverse. It's basically self-organized social-media. While it is far from perfect it is so much better than the corporate alternative in terms of relevant content. I'm just sad that basically nobody I know personally actually uses the fediverse...

https://piped.video/watch?v=AuZgTAW1QvA

44 comments

Nougat

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I'm just sad that basically nobody I know personally actually uses the fediverse

oooOOOooooo look at this one, they know people personally.

thisfro

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lmao

But don't confuse this with me having friends tho ;)

metaStatic

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wouldn't dream of it

Deceptichum

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Eh I knew one person who used Reddit before.

These sites just aren’t the same as social media like fb, insta, etc. in terms of mass appeal.

boredsquirrel

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Yeah but same here, I know many people on the fediverse, but from the like 0,0001% of people that use it.

And having no algorithm sucks completely.

Platforms like Mastodon make nearly no sense without one, as everyone is just throwing garbage into the void.

Alk

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I prefer having no algorithm. I find what and who I want, and I organize it myself. It feels like the old internet.

Nougat

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And you might even - wait for it - come across things that you weren't expecting to, or don't fully agree with. Being exposed to ideas like that is much healthier than being fed what an algorithm decides will elicit engagement from you.

Thorny_Insight

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That's not at all obvious to me. I think recommendation algorithms are much more likely to provide you content you dont agree with than you're to search for it yourself.

thisfro

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Kind of true, but for me it's often just stupid stuff, not things that actually challenge my ideas

Gradually_Adjusting

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I might be in favor of banning for-profit social media, or at least regulating it more firmly and protecting consumers, and keeping people like Zuckerberg from using it to influence elections... Somehow. If that's not practical, I'll revert to supporting a ban.

thisfro

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Yeah that is also I thought I have, but usually more with encryption. If the government (or any other entity really) wants to mandate a backdoor to private messages, I'll just host my own service for that. They can't control every private person (at least as long encryption isn't broken). The same idea would could be applied to social-media. Even if there's a total ban, they won't be able to prosecute anyone hosting their own little server.

Gradually_Adjusting

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It's a moot point. There's no political appetite for such a ban, and those vested interests are fully entrenched in our way of life. They have to be done away with by other means, if at all

Landsharkgun

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Ban advertisements.

Gradually_Adjusting

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The global advertising industry is fast approaching 1 trillion dollars annually.
I would love that.

Jilanico

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I feel like an algorithm that sucks you in is what makes a social media platform popular. But an algorithm is part of what makes social media so toxic.

I love that the fediverse doesn't have ulterior motives, but that might be why it never becomes mainstream. I'd choose smaller crowd over toxic tho.

Alk

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Same thing the nerds collectively used before your average schmoe started using the internet. That internet never went mainstream, and a model similar to it never will. Just how I like it.

Jilanico

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Are you talking about IRC or Usenet?

paraphrand

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Ban algorithmic social media.

Chasing the algorithm is toxic as fuck.

sharkfucker420

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I am in favor of banning the profit based mode of production. This includes social media in its current popular forms

Kolanaki

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Banning means for people to communicate?

Yeah that can't possibly backfire.

Alk

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Yeah. The small egotistical nerd in me wants it, bring the old internet back! But the overwhelming majority of my better sense is quite aware of how shitty banning a medium is, and how slippery of a slope it creates.

Skua

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A substantial part of the video is about exactly this

ex_06

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"if i have a message to share, i go where people are."

really good reminder for all the people who want to push fedi to strangers on the internet :)

work with communities and content creators!

PlutoniumAcid

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Yeah, but the reality is that the people aren't on fedi, are they? Most people are lemmings on Facebook.

lone_faerie

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If you want to get people to join the fediverse, I think the best way is to point out where it shines, not necessarily in relation to other social media. I've gotten a couple of friends to sign up for Lemmy because of how trans-friendly it is, especially on Blåhaj Zone. It's such a breath of fresh air from the rampant transphobia on mainstream social media platforms.

thisfro

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The people that I know who would be interested in the concept are also the people who don't have any social-media at all...

metaStatic

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right? Reddit was my only social media for over a decade, and I still refuse to call it that because it wasn't directly connected to my real identity.

xnx

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The ui/ux also needs a lot of improvement but trying telling a FOSS/Linux advocate that and they’ll call you stupid and say if you cant install arch you shouldnt be using computers or something of that sort.

FatLegTed

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Not all of us!

I use Endeavour by the way :-)

GenderNeutralBro

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I think it's important to distinguish between social media in general and specific platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Don't say things like "social media is designed to <blank>" when you really mean "Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit are designed to <blank>".

The first step to fixing a problem is to identify it clearly and accurately.

The problems with social media in practice have little to do with the general concept of social media. There are ways we could regulate our way to a better internet, by heavily disincentivizing dark patterns, and still have thriving social media platforms.

IMHO, there are a couple things to focus on:

Restrict or outright ban data collection, sale, and sharing. Targeted advertising is not necessary for a healthy internet. It's gotten completely out of control. Fuck you and your 872 closest partners.
Mandate transparency in algorithms. Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. have all manipulated their users by gaming their algorithms to maximize engagement, promote political ideas, or even outright conduct psychological experiments on unwitting users. There's no need for a sorting algorithm to be opaque to the user. It's feasible for it to be user-customizable to one degree or another.

thisfro

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Very true and I think the 2 points could already come a long way. They could also be applied to the fediverse or similar networks without issue.

Tiresia

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Alice says that the fear response is dangerous because it can get people to get drawn in by reactionaries, but fear is often legitimate. It's a visceral signal to remove yourself from the dangerous situation (such as social media), into a position where you can evaluate your options safely.

Fear becomes dangerous if you are unable to escape it for a long time, if you hold on to it, or if it is misdirected so you end up trying to remove the wrong things. If you are posting about social media about how bad social media is, fear is detrimental, but if you find yourself unable to cut down on social media even though you want to, fear is valid and proportional.

... yeah, it is horrifying how I'm on here spending limited introverted energy speaking with strangers through text, and then don't have the energy to organize stuff with friends offline. I'm gonna go now.

BurritoBoi

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I think the brand of social media that is designed solely for as much engagement as possible should be gone forever. Forum based social sites where moderation can be more tailored to the groups involved and community owned social media needs to come back. People act as if they can't live without the social media we have today but that is just bullshit... we literally did fine with that a decade ago.

aniki

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I dunno where the revisionists took over but bulletin boards were never considered social media

thisfro

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I tried commenting on Youtube to bring up the idea of the fediverse. However, my comments are not shown. Does anyone know how Youtube blocks comments?

lone_faerie

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I see your comment. I think Youtube hides them until they pass moderation. The creator could also have comments require their approval before being made public.

thisfro

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Yeah I see it now too, but this was like the 3rd attempt that got published

Also it's a way shittier version of what I tried to post but it was all gone and didn't want to write everything again...

_sideffect

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I went through this recently.

They monitor you if you've been to certain videos and check your comment history. If they feel you're commenting too much towards a side (I'm guessing right wing), they delete your posts right away.

It could also be the video creator themselves, or the mods they hire to filter comments.

Key words also trigger their system and put you on their watch list.

thisfro

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I basically never comment on Youtube, so not sure about the first ones.

Key words also trigger their system and put you on their watch list.

But probably this... Maybe "federated" or "non-profit" is too spicy for Youtube haha

_sideffect

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Lol, who knows, google is fucking weird as shit

YourPrivatHater

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We should ban social media that is heavily profit driven, some ads ok, but the algorithm to keep you there at all costs with the most polarizing posts and videos is just shit.

ssm

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Should we ban social media?

Sure, let's start with this youtube video.

yum

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She does mention the reason of her usage of this captalist platform, around the end of the video.

Tiresia

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5 years later: "Why did nobody warn us social media consumers that social media was bad?"