Fuck Facebook and also this is clearly morphing into a moral panic about social media in a way that is extremely unproductive, dangerous and ultimately a distraction from the actual issues at hand.
Not sure if you’re trying to argue that modern social media is a good thing… Because it really isn’t. All of these platforms are actively detrimental to our mental health and destabilizing society. All of them have their billionaire owners manipulating the algorithms to maximize what they want you to see and minimize opposing views, if not outright removing them (like Meta is doing with the ICE List currently).
Massive corporate social media companies and rightwing billionaires are the problem, not social media.
Not sure if you’re trying to argue that modern social media is a good thing… Because it really isn’t.
What are you doing here then?
Lemmy might fit within the technical definition of social media, but don’t be so obtuse as to equate an anonymous community message board with the likes of Facebook and IG that are tied to your identity, and are designed algorithmically to keep you engaged as long as possible while pressuring you to share more and more of your personal life.
The “If social media bad, why on Lemmy?” Thing is the epitome of halfwit false equivalency.
Lemmy might fit within the technical definition of social media, but don’t be so obtuse as to equate an anonymous community message board with the likes of Facebook and IG that are tied to your identity,
Do you really think the state and its fascists care about this differentiation?
They will literally come after Lemmy the first chance that they get. Far more so than insiders like zuck, musk, etc.
And it will be at least partially a result of y’all libs calling for it based on this wacky pseudo-science.
Lemmy might fit within the technical definition of social media, but don’t be so obtuse as to equate an anonymous community message board with the likes of Facebook and IG that are tied to your identity, and are designed algorithmically to keep you engaged as long as possible while pressuring you to share more and more of your personal life.
then use your brain and analyze this deeper than social media = bad
Nobody is interested in seriously engaging with your sophomoric “you criticize society yet you participate in it” nonsense. We get it, you’re 14 and think you’re deep.
Y’all are literally calling for this website to be banned for the sake of pseudo-science.
Lots of people are interested in this. Y’all are actively helping the worst.
Naw. I didn’t say anything about banning anything nor about any pseudo-science. No clue what you’re talking about
Great and I am not interested in being subjected to a moral panic that feels like the logic was laid out by grifters trying to distract from their grift by manipulating gullible idiots to empower them even more.
100%. Haven’t these people been watching what happened to TikTok?
Or are they in denial because they were just as rabid about attacking TikTok?
Good, take your L and leave lol
Who is downvoting this? jfc…
People here are rabid about this “social media” but give a pass to literal fascism.
news networks have been doing this same pretty much since they’ve existed
Humans have been killing each other as long as we’ve existed isn’t an argument to avoid trying to make it happen less
just saying billionaires manipulating shit has been the norm for ages, which is why we used to have media-ownership limits…repealed under Clinton iirc
Agreed, but now they have tools that enable them to do it with unprecedented impact.
In my opinion, the difference is so huge, we might as well think they didn’t manipulate things at all before.
Agreed, but now they have tools that enable them to do it with unprecedented impact.
Yes tools like TikTok that libs lobbied to hand to fascists. Now they want more of the same.
Murder =/= social media.
It’s pretty sad that I have to say this. People are really losing their minds of this “social media” hype.
🤦♂️ Don’t put words in my mouth to try to make an argument
No, news networks are not algorithmically curating content specifically for each individual person, based on personal traits that they record based on usage.
Yes they are. That’s what Fox news does. It curates content specifically for their wacky users.
Whether they use an “algorithm” or not is a meaningless difference based on luddism.
Fox is curating content for their viewer base as a whole.
Corporate social media is targeting each individual user based on their identity and preferences.
While similar, they are not the same.
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All of these platforms are actively detrimental to our mental health and destabilizing society.
According to you? How do you feel about the TikTok takeover? Anxiously awaiting the same for Lemmy?
We have study after study showing various prominent social media platforms are bad for mental health, so that part feels pretty clear
Destabilizing society is a harder one to show, but I’d argue Cambridge Analytica, and similar programs are what got Trump elected in 2016. Social media played a very interesting part in elections in the Philippines as well, due to the inability for most to fact check any information shared on social media (Meta/Facebook provided cell service for free only to their platforms)
It’s undeniable that large numbers of bots are used to shape public perception of topics. Several talks at Black Hat and Defcon have investigated specific attack chains used, and how sock puppets are used to spread specific misinformation
Given those factors, I think it’s fair to say social media is destabilizing society. It’s far too easy for relatively small groups to affect public perception. That isn’t to say propaganda didn’t exist before, just that it’s a far more powerful tool than has ever existed in history
How do you feel about the TikTok takeover?
Obviously negatively, and I think it’s irrational for Americans to feel positively about it. For an average citizen, a foreign country controlling a platform like that should be a good thing. China can’t do anything to me. I don’t have to fear reprisal from China for speaking out against the government. I do have to worry about reprisal from the US
Further, China has far fewer incentives to shape the opinions and discourse of Americans. Obviously they want to push a pro-China message, but that’s a relatively small sub-sect of American politics compared to the issues the US government would like to shape public opinion on
Billionaires are running the most popular social media sites and utilizing the algorithm to attempt to influence their addicted userbase on a large scale, and succeeded on many demographics and even win elections.
I don’t think it is a stretch to call it a moral panic, because its not an unbiased and transparent system that is dictating what is seen and spread. It is a huge black box propganda tool.
Except the propaganda mostly isn’t what the “social media addiction” folks are worrying about.
Even people who don’t care about usage of propaganda are affected, since these social media addicted folks have brought up how they are getting more unrelated propaganda content exposed to them even if all they want to see is cats and food recipes as an example.
The “social media is a drug” people are interested in using this pseudo-science to promote more of their propaganda and eliminate counter-narratives.
TikTok? Anybody remember what happened there? Exactly this.
nah… mark is clearly an international drug dealer and needs to have all his property seized, and then destroyed while he rots in prison.
both things can be true!
moral panic about social media in a way that is extremely unproductive, dangerous and ultimately a distraction from the actual issues at hand.
100%. Yeah that’s the point. If there’s any alternative narrative, hegemony stirs up a panic then takes over control.
Just look at what happened with TikTok. A bunch of obvious fascists started up a campaign. A bunch of liberals and other obvious fascists took it over… Now we have fash tiktok.
The people foaming at the mouth in this comm want to do it all over again with every form of “social media”. It’s gonna be rich when they come for Lemmy.
Doom them to a modest fine where they will not admit wrongdoing, got it.
“Notice of class-action settlement: your cash payout has arrived, 83¢ has been deposited on a Meta giftcard in your name.”
Just send a written letter with your name, bday, ss no., mothers maiden name, address, and return a signed copy of the nda agreement barring you from speaking of the case, our company, lawyers, and holding us harmless. The gift card for .88 dollars will arrive within 6 to 8 weeks, visit www.fuckyouthatswhy.com to activate!
Our politicians are taking bribes. All over the world.
It’s okay though because Zuck greased the Trump admin’s palms with his Presidential Library bribe, so they’ll get a slap on the wrist at best.
“Let’s see, here is a fine of 7 million dollars, please pay to this account that tax payers will never see a dime from.”
I’ve been saying for a long time that IG is cigarettes
pondered letting “tweens” access a private mode inspired by the popularity of fake Instagram accounts teens know as “finstas.” That document included an “internal discussion on how to counter the narrative that Facebook is bad for youth and admission that internal data shows that Facebook use is correlated with lower well-being (although it says the effect reverses longitudinally).” Other allegedly damning documents showed Meta seemingly bragging that “teens can’t switch off from Instagram even if they want to” and an employee declaring, “oh my gosh yall IG is a drug,” likening all social media platforms to “pushers.” Similarly, a 2020 Google document detailed the company’s plan to keep kids engaged “for life,” despite internal research showing young YouTube users were more likely to “disproportionately” suffer from “habitual heavy use, late night use, and unintentional use” deteriorating their “digital well-being.” Shorts, YouTube’s feature that rivals TikTok, also is a concern for parents suing, and three years later, documents showed Google choosing to target teens with Shorts, despite research flagging that the “two biggest challenges for teen wellbeing on YouTube” were prominently linked to watching shorts. Those challenges included Shorts bombarding teens with “low quality content recommendations that can convey & normalize unhealthy beliefs or behaviors” and teens reporting that “prolonged unintentional use” was “displacing valuable activities like time with friends or sleep.”
i can get a little high from lemmy, but ig? feel nothing
Most of my feed winds up being world news so I just end up feeling sad
I can get high off of Amazon. It’s sad.
Fucking GOOD. We need these useless companies to fail out and be held responsible for their actions.
Hey wow its like I’ve been saying that for a decade, but because I’m poor and I say that, clearly I am some kind of antisocial insane person, not somebody who can read a bunch of existing studies and data and form a conclusion.
Corporation would never gaslight you!
… unless you deserved it.
You’ve been making pseudo-scientific statements with no evidence for a decade? Brave.
Zuck has kissed the ring. He will be fine. You can all stop worrying about him now. Barbecue sauce.
Get off that shit.
It really is! I was off for about three months, and I decided to go back to it just to be up-to-date with some friends and creators, right? Well, I was doom-scrolling for hours in about just a week of usage. Whenever that happens, I uninstall the app causing it, so I just deleted it again. The craziest part? After a couple of hours, I could feel the craving to open the app. Crazy shit.
I use instaDM. I am not able to see what other people post unless I go to their profile, but default won’t show it anyway most of the time as it will mainly give short content videos so I just removed the feed altogether
It really is!
No it’s not. That’s absolute pseudo-science. Not even close to reality.
Try actual drugs sometime. Very very different.
If only some country would bomb supposed drug smugglers.
Social media is a drug tho. Gotta bomb them too.
That lawsuit documents the case of a 19-year-old, K.G.M, who hopes the jury will agree that Meta and YouTube caused psychological harm by designing features like infinite scroll and autoplay to push her down a path that she alleged triggered depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidality.
What the hell is everyone watching? YT recommends me Red Letter Media, Veratasium, old movies, Blender tutorials and a bunch of other stuff that’s never going to drive me to self-harm. I don’t understand. May be this woman doesn’t have ad blocker installed and is forced to sit through a bunch of soul crushing PSAs? Why is my experience so drastically different from this?
Algorithms try to push body negativity if it thinks you’re a teen girl because they tend to scroll more and buy more when depressed.
If it thinks you’re a single man then it tries to push manosphere stuff.
On YouTube I find I my relevant suggestions last about a month before I have to mark a bunch of videos as not interested or block a bunch of channels.
Yeah there was a period where it noticed I watched a few trans youtubers and so it started promoting anti trans content, it was around the election (I forget if before or after), but either way it disgusted me that they’d do that
On a podcast I was listening to a researcher had made an account and subscribed to just like technology and sports and within a few months they had him on like manisphere stuff with tate and those types of assholes
I get some manosphere stuff for the same reason, but mostly ignore it. At the risk of getting beat up here, I like Joe Rogan. His celebrity interviews are entertaining and I like wacky subjects like UFOs and such which he covers. Plus I’m a gamer so I watch videos about guns frequently because I find that fascinating though I don’t want to own one. So that’s why I’ll get recommended manisphere stuff. And I’ll get curious and take a look at those videos, and get more recommendations. But when I stop watching them, they go away. My recommendations are based on whatever I’m interested in at the time.
Everybody talks about Andrew Tate but I have never ever seen any of his videos. Him or Mr. Beast. They never get recommended. I only know about Tate because everybody everywhere else is complaining about him. So I don’t what that researcher did to get that.
Truth is these people watch garbage and the algo delivers… garbage.
I’m not trying to victim blame but, i mean… not my YouTube either (but I’ve seen the front pages of some…stupid people too say it nicely).
Facebook helped to cause Arab Spring. These platforms are responsible for the destruction of civilization under the guise of “connecting everyone”.
These platforms are responsible for the destruction of civilization under the guise of “connecting everyone”.
CA discovered how to “hack” people’s minds, then maybe the Russians and Chinese figured it out, and the oligarchy and the lunatic fringe want all in to brainwash the world.
Makes me angry knowing that at anytime a bigger war could break out.
at anytime a bigger war could break out.
Welcome back to the late 1970s / early 1980s I grew up in.
We just learned to live with it- maybe move to a big city for a better chance at instant vaporization.
Meanwhile in 1984: When Doves Cry you might as well Jump, and when the 99 Red Balloons Float by you’ll be sitting pretty in this dust that was a city.
The 80s were anxiety inducing because the specter of war was then high until the Soviet Union collapsed on itself, so throughout the 90s and the naughts a nuke war wasn’t going to happen even with North Korea trying to rattle sabers.
Instead and beginning last year we now have madmen on hair triggers, and if it’s not a third world war, then a prospect of another American civil war where there’s a high potential of causing a global economic catastrophe.
As far as I can tell, advertisement/profit-driven social media that is directly tied to your real identity might actually be the worst thing humanity has ever invented.
Oops!
Turns out we’re mostly vain and stupid, in our default state.
Now amplify.
Oh and as a bonus:
It serves as a kind of self perpetuating auto-panopticon.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people just record thems committing, planning to commit, bragging about committing, or admitting to commiting crimes that can put you away for 5 years plus… on fucking TikTok.
Disable YT history. Make YT Subscriptions page your home page. Now all you see are the most recent videos from your subscribed channels. You can keep up with them without being distracted by garbage suggestions. It’s a much better experience.
I don’t know man… I found so many nice channels randomly… Kurzgesagt, science asylum so many great educational channels that just pop up
YouTube Unhook is great for this. Blocks suggested video sidebar, too - and can be customized.
I just block the side-bar using Ublock Origin. Makes more room on the page and im not sold shit. If I want random videos ill hit the home page the post-screen after a video.
Keeps my time down on the site by a lot.











