
Once considered a boon to democracy, social media looks like its nemesis - johnny313
https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21730870-economy-based-attention-easily-gamed-once-considered-boon-democracy-social-media
======
sien
When George W Bush won the election it was all the fault of Fox News and right
wing radio.

Now that HRC lost the fault now lies allegedly with social media and evil
foreigners.

It's like people blaming comic books, TV, rock music and video games for what
they see as the failings of youth.

Acknowledging that the Democrats chose poor candidates in Gore and Clinton and
that winning three Presidential terms in a row is hard is apparently harder
than blaming people for voting the 'wrong' way on some new media development.

Clinton spent 1.2Bn and had loads of young people working on media. They
probably weren't just telling truths about Trump. But apparently a few hackers
around the place were vastly better than them.

~~~
patientplatypus
I get that you don't seem to like Democrats - that's fine, I don't much care
for them myself (although Republicans probably even less). However, the
problem we are facing today is different than just spin. People are
fundamentally trying to alter the public's perception of truth, not just spin
or political opinion, and they have found that they can do this by saying a
lie loud enough and often enough.

And in case you think this is just opinion/spin itself, check this out:

[https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-
pag...](https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-page-
organized-protest-texas-different-russian-page-l/)

There are foreign powers _cough_ RUSSIA _cough_ actively trying to
disrupt/damage/destroy our democratic institutions. Considering the ongoing
investigations by Mueller we still do not know if POTUS is a puppet, through
threat of blackmail or evidence of dirty laundry, to Russian agents.

This a real thing. This is important.

~~~
zabana
The whole "let's blame it on Russia" thing is getting boring. At one point, my
dear American friends, you'll just have to face the mirror.

~~~
aaron-lebo
It's funny that we can't just meet at the obvious middle ground.

Russia didn't win the election for Trump, but you are kidding yourself if you
believe it didn't play a factor. US democracy has _a lot_ of work to do, but
Putin is an ex-KGB strongman who assassinates his opponents and annexes
neighbors. It's pretty obvious how he operates.

~~~
wallace_f
We do have a "trash heap"[1] of blatant lies about the Russia hacking from the
"Unelected Deep State" (CIA/NSA/FBI), which just adds to lies from them that
have been stacking up for decades. I don't trust agencies with histories of
trying to murder civil rights activists like MLK, lying to get us to go to war
in Iraq, lying about domestic surveillance, etc.

Then we have the DNC very literally and provably rigging the primaries in
favor of Clinton.

You know what? I hate Trump. But give me a break. This Russia trash is just
all a distraction. Trump blatantly supports unconstitutional programs like
domestic surveillance and gitmo--this should be enough to impeach him alone
for supporting an undermining of the US constitution and American's rights.

The fact that they need to rely on this Russia story which requires a number
of shifting standards and "just trust us's", rather than in-the-open
undemocratic authoritarianism here in the US, is probably a testament to
failures of the human mind's ability to think in terms of, and stand up for,
liberty.

I have been to Germany and Japan and the people are unbeleivably friendly and
wonderful. What on earth is wrong with people that they can be coaxed into the
evil dreams of tyrants--conflicts, authoritarianism--and is it happening
again? Are we so different or special that we really think tyranny cant happen
to us when we are going through the same patterns of history?

Probably, if we could just adjust the human factor of 'susceptability to sell
their liberties and fall in line behind authority figures for short-sighted
self-interest,' we would live in a much better world.

1 - [https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/yet-another-major-
russia...](https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/yet-another-major-russia-story-
falls-apart-is-skepticism-permissible-yet/)

~~~
gaius
_Trump blatantly supports unconstitutional programs like domestic surveillance
and gitmo--this should be enough to impeach him alone for supporting an
undermining of the US constitution and American 's rights._

See, statements like this are a part of the problem. Obama did these things
too and noone cared. Given that why should anyone believe anything anyone
says? And into that vacuum, a new kind of influence emerges, one that is not
about policies but just about "my team winning".

~~~
wallace_f
I was trying to also make that implicitly clear, but failed to do so. I think
if you read my comments below you will see this idea.

------
thisisit
Every time I read these stores on HN, I can't help but point out this:
[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509026/how-obamas-team-
us...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509026/how-obamas-team-used-big-
data-to-rally-voters/)

Obama was lauded for using "Big Data" and "Data Science" to _rally voters_.
It's not hard to guess where his team got the data from.

Now the same thing worked against, for better or worse, people are going out
of the way to chastise _social media_.

Where was this concern when the same companies try and collect as much
information as they can - user preferences, tastes, political bends - all in
the name of "enhancing" experience. There were tons of articles written on
praising the same companies on how clever they actually were.

Lastly, it is funny that economist etc are acting holier than thou when they
themselves would be collecting some form of data from their readers to
_enhance_ ad revenues etc.

IMHO, its not social media rather letting the collection of personal
information get out of hand which is at fault.

------
leggomylibro
It seems like it's so easy to manufacture majority opinions that don't
actually exist. And people tend to vote based on how they think their group
will vote. Take somewhere like reddit or even here, and look at the disparity
between political opinions on ordinary threads in random places, and the top
comments/voting patterns on explicitly political ones.

So yeah, I'll sign on to "gaming social media kills the democracy." The
question is, what are we going to do about it? As an individual you don't have
to participate in social media, sure, but that counts about as much as your
vote does.

~~~
paulsutter
If it’s so easy to manufacture majority opinions, why didn’t the candidate
with the biggest budget win? ($1.4B)

Social media over-amplifies outrage and pushes the most reactive stories to
the top of the feed. That’s a big problem, with or without foreign government
involvement. At the same time, news controlled through a handful of TV
networks wasn’t a good state of affairs either.

It will be interesting to see how the media evolves.

~~~
dogruck
Correct, it is _not_ easy to manufacture majority opinion.

In fact, we are seeing:

1\. HRC spent more

2\. HRC had total support from media (every major newspaper)

3\. HRC even had social media employees manipulating their algos and data to
her advantage

And now, after HRC lost, we are still using the same mechanism, and lenses, to
form conclusions about why she lost.

That’s the definition of insanity.

~~~
tomjen3
2 is only the case if you limit media to things 45-50+ year olds consume (ie
newspapers). And I don't even mean that there were blogs that disagreed with
her: talk radio (I assume) and Fox didn't like her - and it is really not
strange that newspapers supported the democratic candidate, especially in such
a polarized election.

As for 1), she clearly spent too much on old-media. You don't win the
presidential election by setting fire to 4 billion USD, even if you
technically "spend" the most.

------
curun1r
Anyone who wants to pin this on social media hasn't been paying attention to
the history of the past 25 years. They've ignored the downfall of the
newspaper business which used to take on the role of educating the American
public. They've ignored the trend towards 24/7 TV "news" stations that focus
more on inciting panic and fear than they do on educating the public. They've
ignored the rollback of regulations that have allowed media conglomerates to
homogenize what people are exposed to.

The reality is that if there were still journalists doing investigative
journalism on par with Woodward and Bernstein and if Americans were getting
their news from someone with the gravitas and ethical backbone of Edward R
Murrow or Walter Cronkite, these "fake news" stories would be laughed at. But
because our schools fail to teach critical thinking and our news either fails
to inform people or cannot even interest people enough to watch, social media
is the only way we have left for people to consume content and become
educated. But since it's an open channel that anyone can participate in, is it
any wonder that people would seek to co-opt it for their own purposes? It's
little more than a modern day soap box and people have been bloviating their
self-serving narratives that way for generations. What's changed isn't social
media, it's the lack of adults with professional ethics supplying a baseline
reality from which opinions must derive.

This is our generation's "yellow journalism" and it's a reminder of what
happens when there's no one who takes on and is recognized for playing the
role of establishing that baseline of accepted fact. Social media's reach is a
symptom of the problem, not the cause.

~~~
adamnemecek
> They've ignored the downfall of the newspaper business which used to take on
> the role of educating the American public.

Which American news paper can you point out that's unbiased and isn't pushing
some narrative. The truth is that printed press has been the megaphone of the
ruling class since the beginning.

~~~
curun1r
I can't name any today, but I think if you read my comment above, you'll find
the names of two reporters that I believe lived up to that standard.

------
nzmsv
Seems like the current narrative spread by all the mainstream media is
"censorship is good for you because... Russia". Ironic, especially considering
the commentary in the very same media outlets a couple years back when Russia
was trying to censor the Internet.

------
MrRadar
> When putting these media ecosystems to political purposes, various tools are
> useful. Humour is one. It spreads well; it also differentiates the in-group
> from the out-group; how you feel about the humour, especially if it is in
> questionable taste, binds you to one or the other. The best tool, though, is
> outrage. This is because it feeds on itself; the outrage of others with whom
> one feels fellowship encourages one’s own. This shared outrage reinforces
> the fellow feeling; a lack of appropriate outrage marks you out as not
> belonging. The reverse is also true. Going into the enemy camp and posting
> or tweeting things that cause them outrage—trolling, in other words—is a
> great way of getting attention.

This reminds me of this CGP Grey video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc)

~~~
TeMPOraL
See also: The Toxoplasma of Rage - [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-
toxoplasma-of-rage/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-
rage/) \- which is a great discussion on the topic.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
What is interesting is that this article paints the Euromaiden in a positive
light. However, it was likely a very flagrant example of a US/NATO backed coup
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-
ukraine-war-kiev-conflict)

When you use social media to influence elections in a neighbor of a
geopolitical rival, don't be surprised when the same geopolitical rival learns
how to use social media against you.

~~~
empath75
As much as I think the Russian interference in the US election was a
catastrophe for American democracy, the blame lies at least as much with
western intelligence services that continued to poke the Russian bear well
after it started showing its teeth, with no real plan for what to do when it
started biting.

~~~
PeachPlum
2011 Russian Election

Vladimir Putin accuses Hillary Clinton of encouraging Russian protests

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/08/vladimir-
putin...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/08/vladimir-putin-
hillary-clinton-russia)

------
deevolution
Didn't read the article, but i believe the threat to democracy is largely
because Facebook is a centralized platform. They have an enormous amount of
power because they can directly influence the type of information their users
consume. They essentially have control of a 1b+ herd....

~~~
untog
While that's true, I don't think it's the core of it.

As people, we like to be right. So we're drawn towards people who tell us we
are right. Social media lets that take over our lives entirely - we can now
live happily without ever hearing an opinion we disagree with. My neighbour
and I might live one door from each other yet occupy totally different echo
chambers.

I think you see this in the way people view Trump, Brexit and the like. No
one's preconceptions are challenged any more.

~~~
slavik81
I find that social media has the exact opposite problem. There's enough
politically incindiary material on there that reading Facebook or Twitter
frequently leaves me angry.

The friends and co-workers I spend time with in person have a much less
diverse set of views than the broader group in my Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Literally every person I spend real-world time with is wealthy, educated and
liberal. Nobody ever says anything truly upsetting.

~~~
cynusx
I actually don't get why facebook doesn't bury political posts in your feed.
People are not going to be more "connected" when arguing about politics
online.

From an AI point of view it's much simpler to detect if a post is political in
nature

~~~
krrrh
It seems like they are just optimizing for “engagement”, and that outraged
codes as egaged based on the metrics they collect.

------
benevol
Social media is not the root cause. It's merely one of many tools to achieve
the main goal which is society's root problem:

The root problem is this: America has slipped for a long time now. It has at
its core been corrupted systemically by a destructive value system. Its
culture is now based on the idea that to dominate those around oneself is the
right thing to do (on a personal, social, national, international and
worldwide level).

And those who feel the need to play this game _will_ dominate. They will
reinforce and perpetuate this vicious circle - until society collapses. So you
might want start counteracting now.

------
dest
Quote from the article (!): The population of America farts about 3m times a
minute. It likes things on Facebook about 4m times a minute.

------
nv-vn
There's many things I see wrong with this argument/sentiment in general and I
don't really know how to even address most of it.

Apart from what are mostly just biased judgements used to drive forward the
narrative, there are 2 basic misconceptions that the article is trying to
pedal as fact.

1: That democracy is supposed to inherently solve these issues; there's a
clear reason why America was not founded as a democratic country. The founders
of the US saw democracy in the same way they viewed autocracy. They called for
a careful balance of different political systems in order to minimize the harm
of each of these. Democracy was specifically avoided because pure democracy
quickly devolves (and is synonymous) to "mobocracy." The article tries to
place the blame for this on everything other than the system itself. However,
the reason why these issues exist even in a system that is partially
democratic (and obviously much more democratic than it was when the United
States (or any other country mentioned) was founded) is because they have not
taken over. Mob rule is slow to come to power, and this should be a warning to
people that we're nearing the edge of the cliff (rather than that some have
cheated the system into submission). It's also worth noting that democracy
should never imply a system in which everyone independently forms views, as
that is quite clearly impossible. Leading to the second point:

2: "Outside influences" are supposedly ruining political discourse. This idea
just makes no sense to me. The blame placed on Russia for influencing the 2016
election is effectively for generating discussion. It is not for changing
votes, because as far as we know that was never done. It's also not for lying
to people; to argue that Russia was in the wrong for lying to people is 100%
disingenuous because the authors of this article are just as happy lying to
people in order to drive forth their own narrative. It seemingly blames the
increased political division on right-wing politics by arguing how everything
from Gamergate to Wikipedia has caused people to become more right-leaning.
Ignoring the fact that they mischaracterize the entire movement of Gamergate
(equating it to alt-right politics by linking it to 4chan, when in fact
Gamergate was almost exclusively originating from 8chan, saying that it is
trolling rather than a legitimate opinion to hold, etc.) and lie about
Wikipedia's political agenda (it's quite easy to see that the major editors on
Wikipedia are heavily left-leaning based on the frequent bans given to right-
leaning editors), it's immediately clear from the graph showing party division
that Democrats have "radicalized" far more than their Republican counterparts.
In this scenario, they are using blatant lies and scare tactics to get across
their opinion. How is this different at all from what they blame Russia/right-
wing media/4chan for? Sure Russia might be using fake accounts to manipulate
the public, but if the only solutions you can propose are limiting freedom of
speech, you are doing much more to ruin democracy.

------
dingo_bat
Is this butthurt never going to end? Trump won, HRC lost. The reason? Maybe
people do not want to elect a person under FBI investigation. Maybe people do
not want to elect a person who does not know the meaning of "confidential".
Maybe people felt like their voice was not being heard by politicians and
media, and Trump would listen as an outsider.

Ah, who am I kidding. Let's blame Zuckerberg and the Russians!

~~~
thebokehwokeh2
> Maybe people do not want to elect a person under FBI investigation.

But Trump and his associates are also under investigation... And every single
one of Trump's people are currently using private servers as well...

> Ah, who am I kidding. Let's blame Zuckerberg and the Russians!

Ah who am I kidding. You're already too far gone if this is how you think.

~~~
dingo_bat
They are under investigation now. I'm talking about the reasons people voted
for Trump. At that time HRC was the only candidate under federal
investigation.

> You're already too far gone if this is how you think.

Please continue disregarding people who have a different viewpoint than
yourself. It has worked very well for me.

------
indubitable
I think one of the most fundamental problems is the highlighting of things
based on likes/dislikes/voting. It inherently drives people to polarization
and is a very soft target for gaming. If you look at boards that use old
chronologically ordered systems that are not threaded, there tends to be much
more diversity of thought. A comment is just a comment - just like real life.
People say smart things, people say stupid things. And the same people often
do plenty of both. When you read a thread some comments you might love, some
you might hate - but instead of focusing on one or the other you get a flow of
ideas and views of all sorts. Instead in ordered/threaded systems we obsess
over singular comments and the comments themselves become centers of
discussion.

One of the first effects is that the only thing that gets visibility when
there are 'opposed' groups _(in other words groups that do not upvote one
another -- this effect is even more exagerrated when we introduce downvotes)_
is the largest plurality. One view has 51% of the support, the other has 49%.
The 49%, even though it represents practically half of all views, would be
buried anytime it's mentioned. You'd expect there to be about a 49% chance of
any comment you read of being a 49% view. Instead you'll read each and every
single 51% comment until you get down to the bottom sorted 49% views.
Consequently we see groups begin to splinter off into their own little spaces
where they can discuss things separate from the 51%. And just like that you
have fermenting radicalism.

An analogy I quite like is to imagine we're trying to solve a math problem.
The correct answer to this problem is 0. However, one side believes the answer
is absolutely at least 50. And the other side believes the answer must be no
more than -50. When these two groups remain within contact, they counter
balance each other. But now let's isolate these groups. In the past when the
-50 side chose to go -60 there would be some push back against that and it
would help create a more of a central equilibrium. But in isolation without
opposition, -60 sounds awesome. Why not -70, or even lower? And on the other
side an equal but opposite push for 60, 70 and more is simultaneously
happening.

The more segregated we are, the more out of touch with reality we become.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _If you look at boards that use old chronologically ordered systems that are
> not threaded, there tends to be much more diversity of thought. A comment is
> just a comment - just like real life. People say smart things, people say
> stupid things. And the same people often do plenty of both. When you read a
> thread some comments you might love, some you might hate - but instead of
> focusing on one or the other you get a flow of ideas and views of all sorts.
> Instead in ordered /threaded systems we obsess over singular comments and
> the comments themselves become centers of discussion._

My experience is like this: flat, chronological comment systems have more
"diversity of thought", because they make it harder for people to actually
engage with each other - so you get more shallow comments. Tree commenting
encourages depth of discussion.

Interfaces are a problem, too. You can't have a meaningful discussion under a
popular post on Facebook, because UX discourages it. You can't easily browse
through hundreds of comments - you need to click a lot to show more comments,
and each such click degrades performance of the site itself. On top of that,
misclick somewhere, and your state is gone.

Upvotes are a solvable problem. In fact, both HN and Reddit solved it, by
_not_ doing strict score sorting. Also, with proper UX, you can skim all
comments quickly.

Ultimately, the problem with on-line discussion is the same as with lots of
real-world issues - there is just too many people, and each one has an
opinion.

~~~
indubitable
View a discussion as solving a math problem. No, that's not entirely accurate
but I do think the parallels are solid. Would you prefer threaded or
chronologically linear? Why? The answer is almost unarguably the
chronologically linear. Flat chronological systems don't really make it
difficult for people to engage. People certainly can and do quote one another.
And I think they also tend to progress the discussion much more rapidly than
threaded systems for at least a couple of big reasons:

Threaded systems result in people repeating themselves constantly. For
instance this topic currently has 16 top level threads and a total of 86
comments. However, I'd estimate 80% of the comments are saying the exact same
thing in a variety of different ways:

\- 'Trump won because media manipulation.'

\- 'Hillary more actively manipulated the media and did not win, therefore the
above is false.'

The 'personalization' of threaded systems leaves most participants oblivious
to most of everything else that's being said -- even when said at roughly the
same time. So instead of the direction moving forward it takes a sort of
logarithmic divide with numerous divides repeating other divides. This is a
very common theme in every topic.

Another major issue here is that as time elapses the number of people seeing
any given comment rapidly approaches 0. Chronologically ordered systems enable
lengthier discussion. Threaded systems all but ensure any discussion is dead
after < 24 hours and often much sooner. So you have a sort of double whammy of
not only a divide of progression, but less time spent 'progressing' as well.

And lastly, I think chronological systems also deter pointless nitpicks. For
instance I really want to get snarky about thinking Reddit's voting system has
solved anything, but what's the point? The only reason I'd discuss this is
because of this personalization, but it's unlikely to end with either of us
feeling any more well informed and it certainly has extremely little to do
with the topic at hand.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _View a discussion as solving a math problem. No, that 's not entirely
> accurate but I do think the parallels are solid. Would you prefer threaded
> or chronologically linear? Why? The answer is almost unarguably the
> chronologically linear._

No, I would prefer threaded, of course. That's because it is natural way I,
and I would imagine most people, think - by breaking down problems into parts,
recursively, and solving them in isolation. Note that, whenever you write
stuff like:

    
    
      1.
      1.1.
      1.2.
      2.
      2.1.
      2.1.a.
      2.1.b.
      2.2.
      3.
      3.1.
    

you're creating a threaded model, albeit with limitations of a static medium.

> _However, I 'd estimate 80% of the comments are saying the exact same thing
> in a variety of different ways_

You'd be wrong :).

> _Another major issue here is that as time elapses the number of people
> seeing any given comment rapidly approaches 0. Chronologically ordered
> systems enable lengthier discussion. Threaded systems all but ensure any
> discussion is dead after < 24 hours and often much sooner._

I disagree. My experience with boards using chronological ordering is even
better at ensuring "the number of people seeing any given comment rapidly
approaches 0". When you have 200 comments in a chronological system, most
people aren't going to bother reading anything but the last few. In threaded
systems like HN, it's much easier to handle, because you can skim the
structure and zoom in on the subdiscussion that interests you.

As for discussion being dead after < 24 hours, that's most likely caused by HN
stories being short-lived on the frontpage, and people being reluctant to
engage once the story falls off it.

> _And lastly, I think chronological systems also deter pointless nitpicks._

What you call pointless nitpicks I call interesting tangents, which are often
much more valuable that the original, primary topic, and they can grow on the
side pretty much _thanks to_ threading.

> _The only reason I 'd discuss this is because of this personalization_

I don't understand what you mean by "personalization" and why you keep
bringing it up. There is nothing personalized on HN itself, sans the top bard
color (and showing dead posts).

~~~
indubitable
Personalization is what happens in threaded systems. In threaded systems the
number of viewers and participants in any given thread extremely rapidly
approaches 2, then 1, then 0. Your analog of how problems are solved has
nothing to do with the reality of how threaded systems work. In reality it
would be:

    
    
      1. -> 1.1 -> 1.2 -> 1.1 -> Airplanes
      1.
      1. -> 1.1 -> 1 -> 1.1 -> 1
      1. -> 1.1
      7. Hotdog -> Apples -> Hotdogs -> Apples -> Hotdogs -> Apples -> Hotdogs
      1.
      1. -> 1.1
      Descartes -> Nietsche -> Russell
      1. -> 1.1
    

It's the key problem. When people isolate themselves from everybody else,
there's no real progression in the discussion. On HN I can't even find new
posts if I wanted to! When I last posted, 15 hours ago, I mentioned there were
86 posts made. That did not include mine. There are now a total of 89. So
including yours that means one solitary other individual has since posted in
this thread. I wished to locate his post to see where he fit in our little
discussion, but alas that's not really practical in this model of discussion.

The reason posts die rapidly is because there is no notion of chronology. When
you look at a post from 3 days ago you're mostly just going to find comments
from 3 days ago. Now go to literally any reasonable size chronologically
ordered forum and you'll find interesting topics that in many cases have been
actively going for years, and it's phenomenally interesting to be able to
clearly see and follow the changing views, discoveries, and so on over time.

Like you're inadvertently alluding to, I think this format is more popular in
large part because it's a minimal effort, rapid response game. It's certainly
fun and addicting, but I think it has a very negative effect on the overall
level of content.

------
patientplatypus
One more comment to stir the pot....

Anyone here want to take a guess at which of these posts are paid propaganda?
:P

~~~
dang
That's not "stirring the pot", that's breaking the site guidelines, which ask
HN users not to post insinuations of astroturfing or shillage without
evidence.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
narrator
Trump was not supposed to win the election. How do we fix that? Story #8000.

~~~
jjjensen90
That is a very narrow and lazy reading of a pretty important issue--that the
attention economy of social media is easily manipulated. It can go any
direction and in any country...as mentioned in the article.

I have been pondering what the reaction by commentors leaving comments like
yours would be to this kind of reporting if it had been Bernie or Hillary who
had massive coordinated online efforts to influence the election in their
favor executed by hostile foreign powers... It's an interesting thought
experiment.

~~~
narrator
I was fully expecting Hillary to win actually and was just as surprised as
everyone else when Trump won.

