
72% of Americans say social media companies have too much political influence - bezmenov
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/22/most-americans-say-social-media-companies-have-too-much-power-influence-in-politics/
======
netcan
Twitter set out to be the public square, _the_ place where matters of
importance are discussed by the people. I think JD was serious about that,
still is.

The problem is that Twitter is a _private_ public square. That contradiction
is not something JD can accept, because " _his salary depends on his not
understanding it_.” It isn't reconcilable.

We don't have many examples, in modern times, of of non-companies filling
roles like Twitter of FB fill. But, that doesn't mean they can't exist.

The WWW itself is a platform for speech and is a "public square." Wikipedia is
another example. A really good example, if you think about it. If wikipedia
_was_ a commercial company, imagine the issues they'd be facing... all that
authority as an information source.

Meanwhile, we really need to consider the economics of companies like twitter
& facebook. Does FB really need 50k employees and a $70bn budget to provide
the world with facebook? This isn't a question you could ask about Toyota.

If Facebook fell off the edge of the disc, we would very quickly have a
replacement. People wouldn't lack for social media. If Toyota fell off the
disc, we would have fewer cars. Rebuilding that capacity would require real
resources.. Until then, we'd lack for cars.

This last part is key. Commercial viability is nearly a non-issue. Social
media can be viable on a tiny fraction of its current revenue. This explodes
the number of possible actions.

I really hope we're not heading for a regulatory shitshow... I hope, but I
can't say I'm optimistic.

~~~
dexen
Excellent post, one nitpick:

 _> Wikipedia is another example [of the public square]_

Quite the opposite; Wikipedia is _explicitly_ based on published reliable
sources. They have a specific rule[1] _excluding_ information that was not
published in such way.

There are certain advantages to this rule, and its utility has been validated
through Wikipedia's long, and ongoing, run. Nonetheless this _cathedral_
mindset cannot be compared to a _public square_ in any way other than being a
very opposite.

In particular the published reliable sources rule excludes general blogs and
public forums and the likes, thus excluding the majority of discourse & voices
on the internet. Even expert sources, if self-published, can only be used in
limited way and with caution.

\--

[1] "If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have
an article on it",
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources)

~~~
jfk13
Naturally, there's a relevant XKCD:

[https://xkcd.com/978/](https://xkcd.com/978/)

~~~
dexen
The _citogenesis xkcd_ is right, but could & should take one more step and say
openly:

Wikipedia has became part of the media ecosystem, not much different from any
other part of the media ecosystem.

Journalists at typical outlets are also engaged in re-publishing -edited or
verbatim- content from other outlets. Among those practices, _churnalism_ [1].

\--

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism)

~~~
jan_Inkepa
Why do you say that? Wikipedia is vastly different from anything I’d normally
recognise as news media(I guess that’s what you mean?). It puts content up
front (except when asking for donations). It shows how the sausage is made
(you can look at talk pages if you really want to). It sources claims. I guess
at some point it’ll take a turn for the worse, but it’s nowhere close to there
yet from what I can see. Am I missing something? I guess you could say that
it’s part of the ecosystem in that it trusts it and news sources are an
integral part of its fact-checking process, but I don’t see that that makes it
resemble too closely the sources it uses for fact-checking. And companies use
it for PR\allow-washing, which isn’t great. And subject-experts express
frustration in getting their edits reverted by idiots. But, it’s still
recognisably wikipedia from the old days. I don’t see how you get to “not much
different from any other part of the media ecosystem”.

~~~
dexen
_> Wikipedia is vastly different from anything I’d normally recognise as news
media_

Agreed - Wikipedia is not _news media_.

Instead it's media fact & opinion aggregator and editor. It does function as
_media platform_ , with content provided by the media and only by the media.
The editors' opinions are a secondary consideration; they are obliged by the
rules to only ever derive content from the published reliable sources.

My _" not much different from any other part of the media ecosystem"_
statement is connected with how the ideas & opinions flowing back and forth
between Wikipedia and other medias (as shown in the _citogenesis xkcd_ ) - a
process that's typical, even _characteristic_ , of media.

------
apatheticonion
It blows my mind. The US has an international reputation for being pro-
corporate so from the outside, it makes sense that social networks get away
with the lack of accountability they have.

However, a large portion of humanity use social networking tools so US
legislation has a direct affect on everyone and potentially (inadvertently) it
has an effect on the democratic processes of other nations.

At what point does it become an international issue?

~~~
raxxorrax
As someone not from the US, I am so glad that the networks are located there.

The US also has a pro-freedom reputation and that is currently really
valuable. I never held back with criticism towards the US and won't do so in
the future, but on this issue I would staunchly run with the worst hillbilly
rednecks you can imagine firing freedom bullets in every direction without an
ounce of shame.

Democracy has nothing to do with content restrictions.

~~~
kypro
I kind of agree. If these social media sites were located in Europe I expect
it would be much worse.

I live in the UK and here we have thought police units who will knock on your
door to "check your thinking" if you post jokes that are too controversial.
While it's obviously a problem that billion dollar foreign internet companies
are regulating what we can say online they are at least, for the time being,
more aligned to the values of free-speech than many European governments.

~~~
bzb3
Thanks for posting this. Every time I hear of someone saying that there should
me more Internet services based in Europe, I cringe. And I say this as a
European.

------
aspenmayer
I guess I’m one of the 28%. Politicians, the government, megacorporations
other than social media, and the police as well as entire associated
bureaucratic law enforcement organizations have too much influence, period.
The protests on all sides are a reaction to and expression of that rejection
of unwanted, nonconsensual influence over free people. Social media is the
megaphone of this protest movement. This is the establishment trying to chop
the heads off the hydra, while counterprotesting heads stir up trouble and
confuse the narrative on all sides. Will it work? For whom?

~~~
read_if_gay_
Pfizer and Exxon don’t get to decide which hashtags are allowed to be on
trending or what stories people should see in their feed.

~~~
wwright
You think that Pfizer doesn’t have a whole team dedicated to managing what
gets reported on them by TV news and major papers?

~~~
marcusverus
Marketing/PR isn't power. The ability to market isn't concentrated in the
hands of a few companies.

Meanwhile Twitter can block a trend on a whim. That's very different. That is
direct, intentional manipulation of the conversation in the new (private)
public square.

~~~
wwright
Do you think PR teams don't have the ability to block topics on a whim?

~~~
read_if_gay_
Do you think they do? That's quite a novel conspiracy theory to me. But even
if it's true, they obviously don't have as much direct influence as Twitter,
Reddit, or newspapers themselves.

------
87tau
While social media seem to be the problem, I find myself internally
conflicted. On the one hand I see myself as a supporter of democracy, freedom
of speech and liberty of expression, but I'm dismayed by the self harm these
ideals are causing at the moment. It's the feeling of being unable to defend
against painfully obvious (to me) propaganda but also the worry that I don't
close doors to the freedom these platforms allow.

Why do information campaigns seem to be failing against the propoganda mills?

Living in underdeveloped part of the world I believed for the most of my life
that it was lack of education but having in the US for the past few years I
had to firmly discard that notion. I currently believe that it is the
inherited values that society imparts on us, and that serves as a lens to view
facts that is being manipulated.

The last company I worked for our executives, all highly educated and good
natured, for most parts, held political opinions that I thought were only held
by the 'idiots' captured by someone on cell phone videos. They had built a
successful company on highly educated immigrant workforce, with major
workforce still outside the US, headquarter located in a deep 'blue' state
with the founder and chairman of the company an immigrant and PhD holder a
first generation immigrant but everyone still a vehement, vocal supporter of
current anti-immigrants, anti-science, anti-obama/hillary, anti-medicine
propaganda.

I don't think it's simply dismissable as biased by financial profit. Is it
because everyone near them believes in such and these opinions are
manifestation of values they grew up with? Is social media just giving it a
loud-speaker. We need to address that somehow I feel.

~~~
koheripbal
Think of Democracy as a system that embodies the wishes & will of the
_average_ voter (not the average citizen).

Now imagine that you invented a system that would get tens of millions more
people emotionally engaged to vote, but they happened to also be the least
educated, least nuanced, least mature voters - people who seldom voted before.

Then imagine your surprise when intelligent debate disappears, and politics
devolves into reality television.

That is what we've done.

Imagine if we allowed the _average_ person dictact Climate Change policy,
rather than the scientists? ...oh wait, we've done that as well...

~~~
bzb3
Since the effects of regulations put in place around climate change are
enjoyed/suffered by all citizens, and not only scientists, it's appropriate
that everybody gets to dictate what those regulations are.

~~~
koheripbal
The problem is when the masses completely disregard what the scientists
recommend.

It's like having a random group of people do your heart surgery.

Expert opinions matter - more. ...and we need a mechanism to ensure that
specialists in a field have more say than the uneducated rabble.

------
lazyjones
It's not the social media, it's mainstream mass media who decide to report on
"hashtags", memes and viral videos and bring them to the wider public. Lazy
journalists who don't investigate facts anymore and only care about trends and
outrages and whose "ultimate editor" is now Twitter, as Bari Weiss alleged.

~~~
throw_m239339
Exactly. Like Bari Weiss said, "Twitter has become the editor". US journalists
now write articles to satisfy their twitter following.

------
negamax
Gluttony cannot be solved by making a better dish, only way to solve it is to
moderate eating.

What does a world without social networks look like? I don't think we want
that anymore. Because social networks do serve a required function.

For Twitter, I love the fact that I can follow some people that I look upto
and get their real time musings.

For Facebook, it's about connecting to friends and people I know and being
able to reach out without phone numbers etc.

We are trying to solve this problem the wrong way. So again, gluttony cannot
be solved by making a better dish, only way to solve it is to moderate eating

~~~
andreareina
Food can be (and there are those that are) designed to optimize for the desire
to eat more. Slot machines payouts are designed to encourage people to play
one more time. There are games that are famous for eliciting "one more turn...
oh my god it's 5 a.m. already".

When a stimulus reliably elicits a particular response on a large enough
population, you can reasonably say that it's the stimulus and not the
individual's failure to apply moderation/critical thinking/what-have-you.

~~~
negamax
No it's definitely individual failure. If I get fat by eating burgers and
sweets everyday. It's my fault.

------
Nasrudith
The whole question is frankly deeply stupid on so many levels. First off it is
push pollingly worded to get directly contradictory groups (those conplaining
about too much and too moderation) while pushing a clear agenda. Second the
very concept is meaningless. What is a proper level of influence for social
media? It can't even be defined. It only leads to intellectual abominations
like obscenity and know it when I see it which leads to "Whatever the fuck the
person in power wants narcicistically imposed upon all."

------
laser
Kind of interesting that the intro for the wikipedia on Conservatism in the
United States [1] says "Conservative philosophy is also derived in part from
... laissez-faire economics (i.e. economic freedom and deregulation)" but that
in this circumstance [2] the self-identified "conservative" group members were
the most likely to support more regulation.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States)

[2] [https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/07/ft_20...](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/07/ft_2020.07.22_techcompanies_02.png)

~~~
poilcn
All these terms are too wide to describe one person's position on certain
topic. They could be anti-regulation in terms of "government influences who,
how, when, where operates in some economy sector" as it leads to market
capture and control of the regulatory organizations by the companies they were
supposed to regulate, but pro-regulation in terms of trust-busting companies
having above-government power, like it happened to Rockefeller's "Standard
Oil".

------
d--b
It's interesting though. The networks really were created to increase
connection/communication between people, and it did in many ways.

What was unexpected is the effect. One had expected that people would feel
less concerned by the state of the world, cause they would talk to their
friends and family rather than bingeing on the global news.

But instead, this increase in connections created a sort of phase transition
in society. It's kind of similar to the article that was posted here the other
day, where scientists realized that atoms in a solid glass were more connected
to each other than in liquid glass. In a way, social media literally
"cristallized" polarization.

------
rvz
Meanwhile, the major social networks (if not all of them) are still very good
at creating echo-chambers and filter bubbles. So nothing has changed since
2016.

~~~
raxxorrax
To be honest, I like some of those bubbles. I have much more trouble of
finding value in engaging in some sanitized, corporate, mainstream, pop
culture that looks like the abused child of advertisers, special interest and
propaganda.

Yes, some are insular and don't really develop if that is your thing, but you
can always have multiple bubbles.

~~~
Nasrudith
I tried logged out youtube without initalization and the value just plain
wasn't there. Even a bad day for it was far superior to the generic mass
market lowest common denominator schlock. Which I suppose demonstrates why old
media lost.

Their approach was rather one size fits most with many lowest common
denominator. Discovery is a damn useful service which is kind of obvious in
retrospect with reviewers and guides being something people pay for.

~~~
whywhywhywhy
I can't stand algorithmic timelines, obsessively keep Twitter on latest mode
even when it automatically tries to trick you back with the "You're back home"
nonsense.

Never thought I'd be one of those people but I'm ashamed to say YouTube had
got me now, think it's a combination that it just seems to really know what
you'd enjoy watching and the fact the default logged out versions content is
so painfully bad that I'd never want to engage with that version of YouTube
anyway.

------
torresjrjr
I've recently written a pair of explanatory articles regarding the Fediverse,
the decentralised social media network.

[https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-19-guide-to-the-
fediv...](https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-19-guide-to-the-fediverse)

[https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-20-what-is-the-
fedive...](https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-20-what-is-the-fediverse)

The solution to centralised power and control already exists and is thriving,
with approximately 2 million users strong. Take a moment to learn about the
Fediverse and you'll be asking yourself why you didn't know about this before.
Don't complain, act for Internet freedom.

------
mensetmanusman
I just realized how social can fix this issue.

Every account has a default setting that is ultra-curated content, works
nicely, politically correct, etc.

Deep in the options, you can ‘unlock’ all (requires 18+ notification,
verification, or whatever depending on laws), then it will be an absolutely
uncurated FILO sort of absolutely everything going a mile a minute.

The unlocked settings would let you upload code-snippets to do curating, so
people could share things and invent new ways to curate.

This solves the issue with the risk of censorship.

~~~
everdrive
The issue is the speed and magnification of ideas, not necessarily the "adult"
content.

~~~
mensetmanusman
Then in the uncurated version, they could disable the like button, which is
what makes things go viral...

------
noisy_boy
Only if they had the will power to stop contributing to it.

------
torgian
I recently finished playing Watch Dogs 2, and the missions go over this very
problem. Social media’s impact on politics and how data is used to influence
the masses.

Quite scary actually, that the real thing is happening.

------
darkerside
Funny that this didn't pop up on my Google News feed

------
qbaqbaqba
What about NGOs?

------
blue52
Yes, they do because they can get away with everything that the other
non-"social" companies cannot.

------
smitty1e
Articles whining about ProblemX are tedious in a capitalist system.

Convert all of that whining energy into improving the situation, so as to do
more than perpetuate it.

Now, if there is _substantial_ ReasonY that ProblemX cannot be addressed,
there is genuine basis for complaint.

~~~
lm28469
> you should spend time fixing the problems

also

> don't talk about the problems

How does that work ? No one is going to solve these multi faceted issues alone
in their garage. Creating a discussion around them is part of the solution

~~~
Nasrudith
And what to do thet do when solving it? Talk about possible solutions. Instead
whining is constantly "someone else should do it"! Which is neither helpful
nor wise.

~~~
lm28469
What if someone who never thought about the issue and doesn't talk about it in
his circles find this article, start thinking about it and end up finding your
"solutions" ?

If you don't want to read it you don't have to, I really don't see the issue
here. Doing something, even as small as that, is still better than doing
nothing or actively trying to shut down people talking about it...

~~~
smitty1e
My point here is that:

word != deed

If we hate Twitter, but aren't using, for example, Mastadon, then what are we
doing to inject competition?

------
fuzzy2
Even after reading the article, I’m not sure how to understand the question.
Is it: "Social media companies are censoring me and must be regulated" or are
they perhaps mixing the platform with the content? Because if Trump writes on
Twitter, that’s not Twitter. It’s Trump.

IMHO, social media companies don’t have a lot of political influence. It’s the
reach they create for platform users that’s "the problem".

~~~
jojobas
It's not about Trump posting on Twitter, it's about Twitter choosing what to
show you "trending" based on their management's political beliefs.

~~~
C1sc0cat
That's what I though "how very dare they show me a tweet from that ultra left
politician tony blair"

------
LockAndLol
They really should've added the question "Which social media accounts do you
have" and then just summed that up.

Do you think those companies would have that much power without its users?

------
preordained
When, I don't know, +90% of public discourse is flowing through a handful of
platforms, and they are cutting out what they don't like, teasing out what
they do like a gardener sculpting shrubbery to present some customized, skewed
version of the public consciousness...yah, it's a problem.

I think the publisher vs platform provisions do need to be revisited. I think
small niche sites and forums could be allowed more latitude in how they
curate, but at a certain scale a higher expectation of neutrality should be
enforced. Really, just limited to taking down obscenity, porn, gore, etc. If
any more grey curating is applied (i.e. these platforms attempting to deem for
themselves what is "hate speech") there should significant penalties for not
applying it generally; for instance, taking down a Trump tweet addressing BLM
for being deemed racist in some way, and yet giving a pass to others saying
"white loves don't matter" or the like.

A few giant platforms can't be allowed to be the grand arbiters of what is
acceptable public speech and what isn't. The influence they have _is_ scary.

~~~
johnny22
and you can define obscenity? or is it "I know it when i see it" again. There
is no neutral.

~~~
preordained
Fine, porn or gore or profanity, list of slurs. If you want to begin curating
other nebulous concepts like "hate speech" at scale, it should be explicitly
defined and you should held to being clear when you are acting upon violations
for it, and responsible for applying your policy broadly and not cherry
picking. "There is no neutral" so we'll just make it up as we go is just a
ridiculous pass that big platforms are exploiting to the ill of society.

~~~
johnny22
that's what we've always done, make it up as we go along, since societies and
language change.

I doubt you'll find it easy to really split what's porn and what is art. or
even what gore vs art is.

