I sometimes think the Internet is like the Mirror of Erised from Harry Potter. It can show us what we want: if what we want is knowledge it will show us that, if what we want is proof that we are right it will show us that and if we want to see how horrible other people are, that is what we will see.
It was just that people turned out to value less truth less, than being told they were right. You can fault the engineers who built this for it, but then you are faulting them for thinking too highly of people.
I think the problem is also that we also are shown what other people want to see. I genuinely don’t want to see political positions of my relatives, or my neighbors getting into heated internet fights. But I do want to see my relatives small joys, and I do want to know important neighborhood news and activities. That I can’t filter appropriately makes social media toxic, as I can feel my social animal brain see heightened emotions and want to participate in social heightened emotions online, even though it doesn’t do anything for anybody. Even fighting the urge to post and participate just makes my day just that little bit less fulfilling.
Not only can you not filter, the stream is purposefully toxic to increase 'engagement'. I have a lot of friends on my feed that post constantly. Memes, cat pictures, etc, a few posts are about 'libtards'. Guess which posts show up on my feed.
My filter list consist basically of football and religious proselytism, two topics I never want to read about.
During the last world cup, or last euro cup or some event like that I had to filter about 10 groups, and the thing is, it works. I never get any football content in my feed any more.
I wonder if there's a single Product owner in social media organizations advocating for these points, but they're being drowned out by optimizing for profits. I could easily imagine, at the top of the timeline, a dropdown toggle that lets me toggle politics, neighborhood news, etc. But of course, I can't, so I've left FB altogether. At least with Reddit I can browse by topic, which somewhat puts me back in the driver seat. I can go to r/MyCity or r/cooking, but what I don't have then is those small, non-political joys posted by family/friends. Texting and phone calls for small life updates it is.
I think it's a combo of physical distance and ease of commenting. Remember the old Penny Arcade comic that frequently made the rounds years ago (about the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory)?
Not a terribly subtle bit of commentary itself, but it was a humorous reference to something most of us had experienced. In person, there are reactions to see. The other person/people's humanity is on direct display and most of us have at least some degree of innate empathy that keeps us from being a complete asshole all the time. And even those who don't mind (or relish) being an asshole have to worry about repercussions.
In contrast, if I read something I disagree with, it's a lot easier for me to just fire off a smartass reply without the effect that socialization has on me to consider how appropriate the comment is or what effects it might have. I'm just countering some words that I don't like with some other words I do like.
Large-scale social media just turns into the comment section for the entire internet.
> You can fault the engineers who built this for it, but then you are faulting them for thinking too highly of people.
Well, that's my argument against a communist society. It was designed only for perfectly altruistic people, and that's a kind of people I have never found anywhere. If we want something that actually works, we need something designed for the people that actually exist.
It's the same with the Internet. Once the spammers got the gist of it, it has been a constant struggle between spammers and anti-spam people. We have reached some form of equilibrium, but anytime a new person connects, it's a brand-new learning about avoiding potentially bad stuff. It can be very expensive learning.
It was just that people turned out to value less truth less, than being told they were right. You can fault the engineers who built this for it, but then you are faulting them for thinking too highly of people.