
There’s Something Rotten in the State of Social Media - e15ctr0n
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/05/monetization-automation-enforcement/
======
ivraatiems
I've said it a lot on HN, but in my opinion, there's nothing rotten in the
state of social media. Social media itself is inherently rotten.

Twitter, Facebook, et al taking away users' rights, pushing crappy updates and
changes, while at the same time using creepy advertising tactics to make money
and addictive functionality to keep you involved is Twitter, Facebook et al
doing exactly what they were designed to do. Their job is to make their
shareholders money by exploiting the people who use their service, and they're
doing, I'd say, pretty well.

I think Facebook knows full well that nobody likes Facebook Messenger, the
newsfeed, the fact their data is never deleted, the obnoxious Zyngames, and so
on. They don't care. People will use their service anyway and they'll make
money. Twitter knows people probably wouldn't like curated lists, and they'll
still do it if they think it'll make them money (just like they know that
developers have no choice but to accept their draconian API terms).

I have a lot of objections to social media - on a philosophical basis and a
business one - but I don't feel it's reasonable to say it's "dying" or
"getting worse." From the perspective of the people running the companies (the
only perspective said companies care about), it's doing just fine.

~~~
vmarsy
>I think Facebook knows full well that nobody likes Facebook Messenger, the
newsfeed ...

That may be true for you and your social circle, but I think this doesn't
represent all people's opinion.

Facebook messenger is the replacement of MSN Messenger and the like for a lot
of people, and the fact that it's a seperate app made it so much better: Since
everybody is on Facebook, I can easily discuss with all my friends without the
burden of opening the classic Facebook app. The FB messenger app is much more
fluid than the full sized app.

The newsfeed app is giving more accurate content than ever in my opinion,
especially when I mark people I don't care so much about as "Acquaintance"
instead of "Friend"

And the primary reason I use facebook is for planning/joining events, and
follow news/annoucements from the associations I'm involved in using the
facebook Groups.

As for the Zynga games invite, most people who don't play just disable them,
last time I saw a stupid game invite was maybe in 2013

I can't speak for Twitter, I don't see how it is useful. To stay in touch with
my close friends I use FB messenger and snapchat.

~~~
ivraatiems
I'm not talking about my specific social circle, I'm talking about general
trends.

With regards to Facebook Messenger, take a look at its one-star rating on the
Apple Store, or the dozens and dozens of blog posts and tech articles
complaining about it, or the comments on any of those articles. It's not hard
data, but it's pretty clear there's significant negative buzz.

With the newsfeed, I'm just talking about Facebook's general behavior of only
showing you a small percentage of what people actually post, not the separate
app.

As for the Zynga thing, like you say, "most people just disable them" \- what
do you think that says about people's preferences for Zynga? To be fair, those
games may largely be a fad that has passed, but that doesn't change the fact
that for a while they were massively popular and fully exploited by numerous
companies.

As for Twitter and how it's useful: You got it in one. :P*

*unless you're a celebrity, a CEO, or a PR person

~~~
vmarsy
That's true for the 1-star ratings, but the angriest are always the loudest. I
don't use it on iPhone so I can't really comment on that, but my friends using
it on iPhone don't seem unhappy.

I agree about your view on Zynga, for the newsfeed I never realized it was
showing only a small percentage, although I don't go very often on the
newsfeed so if it's only the most important percentage, it's a good thing.

------
igravious
I quit Facebook years ago. I stay on Twitter because paradoxically it feels
like less of a commitment than Facebook. I stay on LinkedIn because...
actually I don't know why. I keep joining and leaving Google+. I keep joining,
sometimes by accident. I always leave deliberately.

I was at a conference recently and someone asked why Second Life didn't go
global. And I answered that it was because it wasn't open and federated. They
was a bit of bluster but that is the why.

Postal (snail mailing), PSTN (phone-calling), SMS (texting), email (uh,
emailing), IRC (chatting?) ... These are all open and federated and have
lasted and lasted. No corporation, no matter how massive is ever ever ever
going to become 'the social medium' which is what they all want.

Eventually we are going to have open federated online social communication. I
thought identi.ca had a chance then I thought Diaspora* was going to do it.
Maybe I need to invest in setting up some of these services, maybe all us
techies do. Maybe what we need is a movement, we probably already have the
tech stacks.

Also, we need single-sign-on, like yesterday :(

Every time these articles come up it's the same ol' same ol'. Actually you
know, I'd pay for a Twitter account at this point if only to say, "I trust
you, you can keep having my € while I trust you, but as soon as I don't
goodbye!"

~~~
GuiA
> Eventually we are going to have open federated online social communication

Is there a true need for it? Everyday people use Facebook and Twitter because
it's free, but I highly doubt they'd pay for it. The real "social networks"
are text messaging and email as far as most of my non techie friends are
concerned.

~~~
igravious
Ah. Thank you. You made me realise something.

The difference is, text messaging and email allow you to communicate
linguistically with people within your social network in a peer-to-peer (one-
to-one) fashion -- whereas a social network platform allows you to define
contacts and their relation to you and use a befriend/unfriend,
follow/unfollow model where once befriended or followed you automatically get
delivered (in theory, unless muted or an algo decides otherwise) broadcast
(one-to-many) messages

Did I get it right? I think so? Devil's in the details...

------
tootie
I don't get why he is more emotionally connected to Twitter than Facebook. I
find Facebook to be a lot more personal. I know this is a dumb thing to say in
2014, but I still have no idea what the value propostion of Twitter is.
Facebook was a 100% complete social network doing everything I ever needed
about 6 years ago. Everything FB and their competitors have done in the
interim is iterate on the same few ideas trying to squeeze out a few more
pennies of ad revenue. And some of them are successful for some reason.

~~~
scrollaway
> I still have no idea what the value propostion of Twitter is

I despise twitter, but let me take a shot at this.

Twitter offers users an audience. The short messages and the hashtags means
that in the ocean of input, there is a relatively high chance your message
will be seen. The retweeting and the framework for an actual fanbase means
that, with the right procedures, becoming "twitter-famous" is not
horrendeously hard (compare to "realworld-famous" which is often a whole
career investment).

The existing userbase and popularity of twitter guarantees that it isn't
awkward or obscure to say "Follow me on twitter here", which strengthens what
the platform offers.

 _How_ it became popular in the first place is a bit more obscure. Obviously
it has a lot to do with how it limits the user's input and forces everyone to
adopt a casual tone; this fits well with people who don't want to put a lot of
thought or effort into a single message, and likewise when _reading_ a user's
message (Which is understandable. In a time where there are massive, endless
amounts of information at your fingertips, you instinctively tend to wander
closer to clickbait headlines than to 3 page articles. Most of us here have
seen this a lot on Reddit and even HN).

My guess is that twitter will eventually die out when something more concrete
will come along; these days all it takes is the right recipe and the right
marketing so it's a decent bet that it could come out of Facebook or a
similarly popular platform. Hell, it could come out of Twitter itself. In the
mean time, what it offers is somewhere for people to rant and shout without
feeling like they are not being heard.

~~~
tootie
Can you name anyone that is Twitter-famous that isn't regular famous?

~~~
scrollaway
A hundred different indie video game developers for one thing.

Besides, we're not just talking about people having 500k followers. An
audience of 5-10k may not seem big on "internet scale", but think about how
massive it really is. Picture ten thousand people listening to you talk about
the weather for a second. And there are a _lot_ of people who have those
followers from just being active in such or such community.

------
PaulHoule
I dunno, I think media of all kinds can get rotten.

Take CNN.

The other day I was watching CNN after the events that went down in Fergurson.
For once they sent somebody out of the studio to go look around, but they
can't talk to the cops because the cops have PR people that won't let them to
talk to the media. They can't talk to ordinary black and white people because
they'll say nasty things.

Instead they end up having some geek argue with the dead guy's lawyer about
how hard his case is going to be for hours. And then they interrupt to say
that they have important news that the third and fourth cousins of somebody
famous just died in a car crash.

A week before that there was some woman who looked like Oprah Winfrey who was
aghast that a child that was kept in a basement was forced to EXERCISE. She
looked like she could do some sit up and push ups herself.

Then before that there was a bounce house accident out in wind gust country in
Colorado so they have to go on Youtube and find all the Youtube videos about
bounce houses blowing away.

Then they wonder why nobody watches CNN.

~~~
angersock
"They can't talk to ordinary black and white people because they'll say nasty
things."

Yeah, that'd be too much like actual journalism. :(

~~~
PaulHoule
Exactly

------
afro88
This trend of social networks turning to shit when investors run out of
patience for their returns really sucks. It was bound to happen with Facebook
and Twitter, and seeing it with Soundcloud (when they already had a revenue
stream as well) just depresses me.

I guess all "free" services that have investment from purely profit orientated
VC's/Angels are bound to turn to shit eventually. But maybe now the service
exists and is part of everyone's day to day world, a useful paid for social
network could pop up that reaches critical mass. I'd gladly pay a small
monthly fee for a non-creepy, no advertising, no privacy invasion Facebook...
If all my friends got on board too of course ;)

------
xnull
The article doesn't mention it but the latest trends in advertising has moved
beyond 'behavioral' targeted advertising, where a user is served specific
content because they may have browsed something similar in the past
(ironically I once searched over hundreds of shelving products to find one
that met some very strict weight/size/height/load requirements and was
rewarded with months of completely irrelevant shelving ads).

The new trend is to use social networking models to discover 'influencers' in
social groups and use those people's reputations to recommend products to
other people. Take for example object (a) versus (b) on page nine of the
following paper:
[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.4327v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.4327v1.pdf)

Lindex 'Enterprise SEO Software' has this to say: "Our latest innovation
Linkdex Networks enables you to visualise and analyse these groups of relevant
influencers. The objective is to enable digital marketers to gradually
identify the right personalities and build relationships with them, spreading
along those networks for maximum exposure.

If someone within your network has lots of relationships pointing to them you
know that they are perceived as trustworthy sources. The aim is to find
influencers who are passionate on a niche topic, have strong relationships
with the group and are receptive to new ideas with plenty of reach." [1]

It's on fire everywhere in marketing and advertising and there are lots of
variations being tried and tested at the moment, and also publicly funded
research at universities [2]. Marketers will drop prices online when they
detect influencers, in an attempt to encourage them to speak highly of their
product to their friends and family (who will need to buy at full price). The
Marketing Science Institute has a whole section dedicated to social networks
and influencing them [3][4].

Just searching for the term "social contagion advertising" or "advertising
influencers" reveals media research arms with nifty tables that map out ways
of influencing social groups by targeting information strategically at certain
members. For example you can get people to change their view of the
"legitimacy of an item" by "encourag[ing] influential targets to adopt the
item" or create the idea of a "status disadvantage of not adopting" by
"Emphasiz[ing] activities of close connections in a social network to
influence behavior". [5]

Perhaps a side note, but the DoD "MINERVA initiative" [6] studies social
contagion strategies to track, create or lessen political instability in other
countries (although the initiative studies a lot of other things too). The
USAID Cuban Twitter project sought to (and nearly succeeded in) creating mass
unrest by appearing to be a grassroots movement in Cuba to overthrow the
government. You can bet that other countries have these capabilities, or
analogues to them, as well (Snowden documents and leaked HB Gary memos show
that both the NSA and GCHQ engage in astroturfing and social media
manipulation) [7][8][9]. The giant meta-data graph created by the NSA is also
particularly valuable for 'influencer' and 'social contagion' analysis.

These sorts of forces are abound on social media websites, as can be seen in
the recent Wired article "I liked everything I saw on Facebook for two days"
[10]. What's more, the role that social media has begun to play in political
races is incredible. If you have the time and interest, look up the
capabilities of incumbent Obama's "The Cave" for social media evangelism and
tracking. Real time social estimates of support across dozens of major social
media platforms with the ability to influence and target any of them at will.
Interns scrambling to be "first to post" on online discussions in news media
articles.

To be a member of online social media is to be surveilled by both governments
and by corporations, to have your content curated for financial purposes, and
to have your information sold to the highest bidder. It is also to be
influenced not just by direct advertisement, but also indirectly through
information that gets carried word of mouth. On the internet nobody knows that
you are a dog. This is often an inconvenience and it allows trolls and other
unsavory social behavior. Unfortunately it is now also true that on social
media, those with the right perspective - those that can see social media at
the thousand foot view - not only know that you are a dog, but also know how
to make you drool when they ring a bell.

[1] [http://www.linkdex.com/blog/social-contagion-why-ideas-
and-p...](http://www.linkdex.com/blog/social-contagion-why-ideas-and-products-
become-popular/)

[2]
[http://icos.umich.edu/sites/icos6.cms.si.umich.edu/files/lec...](http://icos.umich.edu/sites/icos6.cms.si.umich.edu/files/lectures/VPDFinal1110.pdf)

[3] [http://www.msi.org/reports/distinguishing-among-
mechanisms-o...](http://www.msi.org/reports/distinguishing-among-mechanisms-
of-social-contagion-in-new-product-adoption/)

[4] [http://www.msi.org/articles/what-drives-social-contagion-
in-...](http://www.msi.org/articles/what-drives-social-contagion-in-new-
product-adoption-1/)

[5] [http://socialmediaandmobileresearch.com/2014/03/10/social-
co...](http://socialmediaandmobileresearch.com/2014/03/10/social-contagion/)

[6] [http://minerva.dtic.mil/](http://minerva.dtic.mil/)

[7] [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipula...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipulation/)

[8]
[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/22/hacking-
anonymous)

[9] [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED-
The...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED-The-HB-Gary-
Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All)

[10] [http://www.wired.com/2014/08/i-liked-everything-i-saw-on-
fac...](http://www.wired.com/2014/08/i-liked-everything-i-saw-on-facebook-for-
two-days-heres-what-it-did-to-me/)

~~~
igravious
Yes. All that makes sense. And we should have predicted it many years ago as
the logical outcome of social forces.

The fact that we did not predict this or see this coming is because we are
blind to the hidden forces at play in society and furthermore lack the
imagination to see how each of us will be used as a means to an end rather
than an end in ourselves.

From what you're saying Social Media has very little upside and a whole raft
of bad juju.

If rhetoric is the art of influencing people with language and communication
then in the 21st century our cyber-rhetoric would cause the Greeks and Romans
of old to bow down before us.

This will only get a hell of a lot worse before it gets better. Yes, that's my
own personal subjective viewpoint and a highly normative claim but, you know
what, that's not the world I want to be living in.

~~~
walterbell
Media is like any other virus - it can kill you or train your immune system.
It's no coincidence that social media contagion research & social network
analysis draw upon epidemiology.

In software security, we see the publication of both defensive and offensive
research. Where are the defensive researchers for brain security? Currently,
social media companies own the proprietary datasets of their customers'
behavior. If this was available to each customer, they could voluntarily
provide their data to researchers who represented their social values. This
would enable diverse research into defensive filters. The originating company
can still have an aggregate copy, but it would be non-exclusive.

Algorithmic disarmament is unlikely. We need open-source, defensive algorithms
for media consumption. A baby step would be to post social media on your own
site, then syndicate to social media companies, see
[http://indiewebcamp.com/Bridgy](http://indiewebcamp.com/Bridgy)

------
walterbell
I hope that Twitter does not algorithmically curate Lists. The proposed
changes are ostensibly for ease of use. Newbies who don't know how to follow
someone would never create lists. Please leave lists alone!

Is there any alternative that could handle a mass exodus within a few
quarters? Twister ([http://twister.net.co/](http://twister.net.co/)), Sublevel
([http://sublevel.net/explore/](http://sublevel.net/explore/)), federated HN
clones, ...?

~~~
radley
app.net is dying to take the reins.

~~~
ianlevesque
Actually app.net is just dying: "After carefully considering a few different
options, we are making the difficult decision to no longer employ any salaried
employees, including founders." [1]

1\. [http://blog.app.net/2014/05/06/app-net-state-of-the-
union/](http://blog.app.net/2014/05/06/app-net-state-of-the-union/)

~~~
idlewords
And its founder has failed upwards, to take a job at Y Combinator.

~~~
ianlevesque
Definitely a better use of time than another Twitter clone!

------
w1ntermute
There's absolutely nothing rotten with social media, at least as far as social
media's primary userbase is concerned. The small minority of people
complaining on TC or HN about the "decline" of social media don't understand
that the average Joe doesn't give two shits about FB requiring a separate app
for IMing, or Twitter adding advertising to your feed. They just accept it as
a fact of life.

~~~
walterbell
Twitter's user growth (or lack thereof), stock price and turnover in product
managers says otherwise.

~~~
w1ntermute
Twitter's problem isn't advertising, it's that the site/service is and has
always been hard to use and doesn't make sense to the average person. The most
common way the vast majority of people "access" Twitter is probably when they
see tweets shown on TV news, which means no advertising revenue for Twitter.
The learning curve for Twitter is extremely steep, and there's a lot of jargon
you have to learn.

You can see the difference by looking at Facebook. They are also instituting
lots of supposedly "user-unfriendly" policies, and yet their stock price keeps
going up, as do their user numbers and revenue.

~~~
walterbell
Let's hope Twitter finds a way to simplify onboarding without driving away the
users who generate their most valuable content.

------
samsolomon
I'd love to see a non-profit replace Twitter.

It's a long shot, but Wikipedia replaced Britannica. Perhaps, there's hope.

~~~
tim333
Some programming courses use Twitter clones as their 101 CRUD app lesson so
the tech can't be too hard. I guess it's getting users that would be tricky?

------
walterbell
Could Twitter afford to buy Flipboard? They have a better user experience,
better business model (premium ads), a user interface which already has
"channels" and they now own the excellent curation algorithms of Zite.

Flipboard UX would enable users to have the best of both algorithmic and
human/social curation.

~~~
radley
Ack! As a Twitter user, I don't seek such a conversion. I find the need to
turn a fake page for each 2-5 posts to be pedantic and antiquated.

I use Twitter as an news/interest stream and leave it open 24/7 on my desktop.
In contrast, Flipboard is literally shovelware for me (I can't remove it from
my Galaxy S4).

~~~
walterbell
Other ideas welcome. Twitter's new PM (ex-Google Maps) may be about to start
hiding items in your feed, and adding items you didn't request,
[http://gigaom.com/2014/09/04/twitter-cfo-says-a-facebook-
sty...](http://gigaom.com/2014/09/04/twitter-cfo-says-a-facebook-style-
filtered-feed-is-coming-whether-you-like-it-or-not/)

 _" Twitter’s timeline is organized in reverse chronological order… but this
“isn’t the most relevant experience for a user,” Noto said. Timely tweets can
get buried at the bottom of the feed if the user doesn’t have the app open,
for example. “Putting that content in front of the person at that moment in
time is a way to organize that content better.”_

------
mschuster91
What drove lots of people in my friend circle away from Facebook was the lack
of being able to entirely disable all those stupid game invites.

Every day there's a new fad for the kids and they flood their entire
friendlist with invites - and you can't unfriend them e.g. because they're
family or work colleagues.

~~~
dawson
This has now been resolved in v2.0 of the Graph API, whereby calling
/me/friends only returns the person's friends who are using the same app, i.e.
you can no longer access a list of non-app-using friends.

[https://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/upgrading#upgradin...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/upgrading#upgrading_v2_0_user_ids)

~~~
mschuster91
Looks like the inviting crap has its dedicated API now
([https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-
api/reference/v2....](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-
api/reference/v2.0/user/invitable_friends)).

Also, removing the ability for apps to see friend data basically makes 3rd-
party FB clients all but impossible.

~~~
dawson
It's worth noting that the API you referenced is only available to Facebook
games, and not other types of applications.

~~~
mschuster91
Yeah and basically 99% of the invite spam originates from games... if there'd
be a way for users to disable ALL fucking invites I'd be happy.

------
Houshalter
This is taking the "website made a minor change that I dislike, they are evil"
to the absurd extreme. Algorithmic filtering is amazing and necessary and A/B
type testing isn't "evil AI controlling your life for profit".

------
0x434D53
It's the users fault! App.net was a alternative to twitter, but a paid one.
Failed. So users are in no position that they are the product sold to
advertisers. They actively decided to be the product.

~~~
shurcooL
I was really excited about the idea of App.net being a developer-friendly
replacement for Twitter, but when I finally got to try it, I was appalled by
its complex and awful UI. One thing Twitter does relatively well is be simple.
You can write tweets and you can read them. App.net had poor focus and failed
to do a simple thing by trying to do a complex thing instead.

