Ex-Facebook honcho Tim Kendall says Big Tech is a ‘threat to democracy,’ calls for social media refo

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Adfundum, Oct 14, 2020.

  1. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    https://www.foxnews.com/media/ex-fa...sion-calls-for-social-media-reform-to-save-de

    "In an interview with Fox News' Media Angle, Kendall explained why tech companies encourage “online tribalism that exacerbates the societal division,” why social media reform is vital and why “content laced with misleading information” could undermine elections. "​

    It's become quite obvious that social media, MSM, and all media are using strategies that manipulate the public using some well-known and highly effective tactics of sales and propaganda.

    Social and other media learn what words and issues trigger our reactions and tailor information to us based on data collected from what we click on. Couple that with the fact that misinformation travels 6 times faster than accurate information and we see how easy it is to bait people.

    This is leading to the largest sense of political division since the Civil War, and most of it's based on intentional manipulation of our biases.
     
  2. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    Another thing leading to the sense of political division, is the role of absolutism in our nation's politics. For the first time in American history, politics as it relates to social power is wielded on a mass scale, the consequence of the internet activism and the increased 'participation' in democracy. When it's a contest of power, not a 'contest of ideas', then one side yielding means that side must abide by the rule of the other, for at least four years.

    Conservatives, tend to fair better to this than Liberals, as Liberals have used social attachment programs to capture a segment of the voting populace, without which programs of reliance, these people will of course unfortunately suffer the consequence of the ineffective program to begin with.

    Rather than fix the inefficiencies of the programs, or admit that some of these ideas didn't work beyond conceptional theory and in fact were damaging, they've doubled down on them while somehow, amazingly avoiding accountability for the flaws of the flawed programs(as Kimberly Stressel eloquently wrote.).

    For those who suffered the inefficiencies or even unintended consequences, they know full well the danger and do not wish to return to the programs that have so harmed them, even as there might be others who for a time benefit. This conflict has resulted in our absolutism, and our sheer size and scope of a country(330 million) makes that conflict all the more potent.
     
  3. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    Good points. I would also add that we don't see the idea of power in the government in the same way it was intended. More and more, we seem to think of the Executive as being the top of a pyramid. With our focus on that idea, we tend to see the Legislative as less important and as subservient to the Executive.

    As far as the Right-Left, good guys-bad guys, I really don't see either side as being any better, nor do I see it as part of the problem of manipulation. One the most important issues here is that social media/all media are furthering the divisions by using our biases to bait us into clicking. There may be some political intentions, but for the most part it's all about the money. Having said that, we do know that foreign troll farms exist and that their sole purpose is to promote political division via social media.

    I'm not sure people realize how big a business data mining is, or how effective their strategies are. I really doubt people would admit they are being targeted by very carefully worded comments and images. There is a lot of science behind all this, and it's been around for a lot longer than the internet and computers.

    So, I guess the question is, will we continue to assume there is a good and bad media? Will we continue to take the bait and split ourselves into a globally powerless and fragmented nation made up of warring tribes, or will we see that we're all being manipulated?
     
  4. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    As far as the social business aspect of this goes, I can talk economically on the issue. Advertisements, messages, trying to convert sales is as old as dirt(as you pointed out.) One of the big differences however, is that a company or a store has its banner, its name, it advertises its products, etc. What "shadow money" really means, is that these adverts are effectively hidden. We don't know their name, we don't know what they stand for. They get to anonymously shout, meanwhile we don't know fully what they want or even if it's to our benefit. It's like having hidden taxes within a sale.

    An easy fix for this, is to demand that all adverts follow the model of the ones by the candidates. Or simpler put, just ban all of the PACS.
     
  5. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    I don't mean just simple advertising, I mean things--for example--carefully worded "sponsored articles" with intentionally provocative images. It's not that they're advertising, it's that they're using psychology to bait us into clicking. The sales of advertised products pales in comparison to the sale of the data collected by data miners. Not so many years ago, the collection of data was a hot topic and experts were saying data is the new oil. In other words, psychology is one part of an intentional effort to get clicks and data.

    But in the same way, that knowledge that comes from the data collected about us is used to target our biases with political stuff. The language and the narratives used are the result of analysis of data about what triggers us to go to media sources and what will get our vote. Banning PACs really wouldn't change things much because there are plenty of businesses willing to do the data analysis to tell candidates what words and images will get their vote.

    The thing is that the science and technology being used to bait us allows us to create our own artificial reality based on our well-know biases. How do we fix that problem?
     
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  6. nobodyspecific

    nobodyspecific Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I do not know if there is any real solution to these kinds of problems. Humans are tribal in nature - we have family ties, religions, sports teams, fraternities, and so on. Political tribes are not really different, and people will gravitate toward that which they already believe and reinforces their perceived tribe. If you take away one social media site, or one news site, or one Youtube channel, another will replace it. You would have to build a Great Firewall like China's if you really wanted to go the censorship route. That I fear would lead us somewhere even worse.

    For the social media algorithm bubbles specifically, it is not necessarily designed to pitch a specific narrative, but it does happen blindly. When you go on Youtube for instance and watch a few videos from the same creator, your home page will be updated to reflect recommendations for similar content. It is not technically nefarious. If you watch several TYT videos, your home page will be updated with more recommendations for liberal content. If you watch a bunch of movie reviews, your homepage will recommend other movie reviewers. The goal is to just get you to watch as much stuff as possible. Just as we are hotwired to look for a movie review that confirms our belief that Rise of Skywalker was the worst, so too are we wired to look up political content affirming our existing positions.

    One possible means of breaking down tribal animosity is through cross-partisan events to try and get members of each tribe to hang out with each other. Ex: Make America Dinner Again, With Honor, etc. I think the ultimate goal needs to incorporate including those with radically different views from your own within your social circle. It would be very difficult to spend a lot of time with someone you viewed as "the enemy", which would have an impact on the way you view others from their group.
     
    Adfundum and Have at it like this.
  7. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I saw the documentary on Netflix a few days ago..... It was very well done.

     
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  8. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    I recall a Summer Camp that was set up for the specific purpose of bringing together Israeli and Palestinian children together for a period.

    The end result was them all seeing each other as people with differing views as opposed to sworn enemies.

    The hard part is figuring out how to do this with adults.
     
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  9. PPark66

    PPark66 Well-Known Member

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    This all comes down privacy, do we have a right to privacy?

    How do we benefit from being tracked (in whatever form)?
     
  10. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    Great comments! I like what you said about the human tendency towards tribalism. That does seem to be hardwired into us, so we have to consider that. But does that mean we can't have certain ideals common to all the tribes?

    As far as taking down media sites, I don't really think that's a good idea for the most part. As you said, one goes down, another pops up. The Great Wall is an awesome metaphor, but I'm very opposed to censorship.

    While the algorithms may or may not be designed to pitch specific narratives, they are used to promote information or products the data suggests we might like. If we tend to click on that stuff that, it gets added to our data. But your are right to suggest that it's nor necessarily nefarious, but I'd add that there is a whole industry using psychology along with those algorithms. They create bait for us, and we can take it or leave it--as long as we're aware of how it's being done. Social engineering is just a descriptive term, it's the intentional use of science to trigger us to do something. Understanding what it is and how it's used is, to me, better than censorship, but most of us will not believe we can be manipulated.

    I like the idea of Dinner Again. We do have so much in common, and it's so sad to see how our differences are being promoted and exploited for political gains.
     
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  11. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    Exactly, Dennis. This goes into how we're exploited. When we're bombarded with information that combines images of fire with the word "protest," then we make the associations automatically--almost no thinking is involved. That's our primal nature.
     
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  12. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    When we go online, we have to accept that the internet is paid for by collecting our data. Do you often get those requests to accept the terms of service for websites? That's where we give away a kind of privacy, though as far as I know, we're just numbers in databases at this point.
     
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  13. nobodyspecific

    nobodyspecific Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Oh, we definitely have ideals common across tribes. At the very minimum a sense of camaraderie among group members. But beyond that, pretty much universally the internal strive for the well being of ones self and those that are close to you, and general rules of morality (murder / theft / slavery = bad).

    Speaking to Republican and Democratic political groups, I see a lot of similarities. Both are for a strong national defense with military bases around the world, massive federal government that spends trillions every year, continuation of government programs like Social Security / Medicare / Medicaid, tariffs, Keynesian economic philosophy including stimulus and bailouts, multi-party election systems, preservation of current IP / patent laws, state sanctioned monopolies (utilities), general promotion of democratic systems around the world, and so on.

    There is very much an over-focus on that which makes us different, which is expected for both candidates and partisans who are interested in winning elections. Saying "things are going pretty well, but it's time to make a change in certain areas" doesn't have the same emotional attachment as "they're going to destroy the country". Regrettably this sort of dialogue, while useful for winning elections, is destructive towards discourse across party lines.

    On the subject of the role social media metadata has played, I am not certain what role it has played. It certainly feels like it should be contributing to media bubbles and radicalization. I've seen only one study so far about it, which could not establish that recommendations lead toward radicalization. But partisan hatred (which would insinuate partisan radicalization) has been going on for a long time. FiveThirtyEight had a recent article about hatred in politics:

    538_polarization.png

    It is pretty close to what I'd expect from the graph in Prius or Pickup:

    prius_pickup.png

    On the subject of bias and what influences us, I should note that I came across the info from Prius or Pickup, and Network Propaganda before looking into anything on the subject of social media recommendation influence. I am sure my reticence is influenced by a primacy bias. I will have to make sure to give it fair time as well for investigation.
     
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  14. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    [​IMG]


    The chart above shows that while there has always been some degree of partisan animosity the current low level began around the same time as the politics of personal destruction was introduced.

    But before jumping to that conclusion there are other factors to consider.

    The introduction of highly partisan news sources and the internet have probably amplified the partisan animosity way above levels that would have occurred had there not been the means to spread the divisiveness so easily IMO.
     

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