I have found if you have nothing constructive to do, then twitter sucks you in and is very addictive.
But after a few years or so of constant nonsense, you become adapted to the addiction and just ignore everything on it. Atleast thats what happened to me.
I went from constantly checking twitter to deleting my account and just going to the feed of one or two people once a day to keep informed.
I now laugh at how worked up everyone gets, and all the play acting and rival factions involved. Its almost like an iq test, where you pass if you dont play the game.
The problem is a lot of people are staying indoors right now with nothing to do and are discovering twitter/reddit for the first time.
Imagine a person not only new to social media, but new to the internet as a whole with no bs filters built in. He/she would be such a mark.
The real herd immunity is people understanding over time how emotionally manipulative social media is and learning to ignore it like we do 99% of advertisements.
I've mostly avoided the really bad platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but I caved and started going on some of them for the past week.
They are so awful. It feels like they were built from the ground up to discourage thoughtful conversation and to just create outrage. On all of these (and with youtube comments as I recently realized, although they have a placebo downvote) there is no way to downvote trolls (or bad/misinformed/useless opinions) and there is no real moderation. The only way to deal with it is to create your own angry response and then it shows up on peoples feeds as so-and-so vs so-and-so... pick your side. It is terrible.
Like in the article, one of the people tweets "stop retweeting #dcblackout" which promotes it further. These platforms feel like they are designed to profit off of humanities worst impulses and I wish there was something I could do to stop them.
> It feels like they were built from the ground up to discourage thoughtful conversation and to just create outrage.
Indeed, they’re built from the ground up to promote engagement with no regard for positive or negative impact. It so happens that humanity’s worst impulses drive a feedback cycle that’s wonderful for engagement but terrible for humanity.
It’s a classic case of amoral objectives leading to immoral outcomes.
I think one of the ways to stop them is to create a platform that the influencers/posters find more attractive so they jump ship. Apparently only like 1% of users post the majority of content.
What are the main features you'd like to see on a new platform?
I don't think it's fair to lump Twitter in with Facebook. Sure, if your feed isn't curated or you're looking at the replies to a Trump tweet, it's going to be a dumpster fire. But otherwise it can be a tool for keeping people informed without having to rely on the news.
It does require a critical eye, which the majority of people don't have, but I'm not sure what the best way to solve that problem is. Moderation at that scale doesn't seem feasible, and a downvote system to silence people, as you suggested, would be easily abused.
> I now laugh at how worked up everyone gets, and all the play acting and rival factions involved. Its almost like an iq test, where you pass if you dont play the game.
Isn't that social media in general? I admit I got sucked in this weekend (I don't have an account) and it was... alarming to say the least as it coincided with an amazing successful mission and milestone by SpaceX and subsequently one of the more darker sides of what people flagrantly toss around as 'Anarchy:' to be clear, wanton violence and looting have nothing to do with the ideals and principals upheld by Anarchism that has spanned millennia.
Instead what we've seen is the failure of all Nation State's to respond adequately to it's populace demands after having been violently disenfranchised, marginalized and subjugated to such a degree that protests rapidly turn to riots when the Police use the violent tactics that have been upheld as the norm to maintain order.
Personally, I thought this weekend was a vastly missed opportunity for the entire Human Species to get some much needed Perspective and come together and realize what we can accomplish when we collaborate. I'm still pretty down because of it, if I'm honest.
I spent the better have of my life studying cultures and how people interact within those cultures. Twitter has been a very interesting petri dish for me to see how people interact with each other when they feel like they can say and behave any way they want.
Its interesting to see how Twitter (and social media in general) transformed from something positive where you could find community within a large subset of people and then all patted each other on the back and it was really cool place to hang out but then it slowly became this cesspool of negativity. Twitter just let it happen and now we're at at a tipping point where you have to decide if you want the government to intervene and regulate, or simply let it slide into oblivion.
The even more interesting thing is all of the people I know and worked with in those early days fled Twitter for Mastondon. Now they're saying the same thing is already happening on that platform as well.
> Twitter has been a very interesting petri dish for me to see how people interact with each other when they feel like they can say and behave any way they want
It is very self selecting though, isn't it? You even acknowledged that mentioning people fleeing Twitter for Mastodon. It seems Twitter (etc.) attracts the people who want to make a lot of noise without repercussions, who then proceed to make the most noise. And studying behavior on Twitter just studying this small subset of Twitter users, who are a even smaller subset of the general population. Or are you able to adjust for all this?
> The problem is a lot of people are staying indoors right now with nothing to do and are discovering twitter/reddit for the first time.
Don't forget YouTube. My mother in law started with YouTube videos on Bible studies in her native language and somehow got spun into some kind of conspiracy theory black hole. We worked to talk her down from the more crazy stuff (apocalypse predictions, Qanon, etc) but it's been years and she still watches her YouTube "news" on the daily so she can keep "informed"
But after a few years or so of constant nonsense, you become adapted to the addiction and just ignore everything on it. Atleast thats what happened to me.
I went from constantly checking twitter to deleting my account and just going to the feed of one or two people once a day to keep informed.
I now laugh at how worked up everyone gets, and all the play acting and rival factions involved. Its almost like an iq test, where you pass if you dont play the game.
The problem is a lot of people are staying indoors right now with nothing to do and are discovering twitter/reddit for the first time.
Imagine a person not only new to social media, but new to the internet as a whole with no bs filters built in. He/she would be such a mark.
The real herd immunity is people understanding over time how emotionally manipulative social media is and learning to ignore it like we do 99% of advertisements.