The issue is not necessarily social media as a concept its how social media interacts with the profit motive to encourage addiction and hate. It is silly to blame the tool which why I blame the capitalists who have nearly monopolized ownership of the tool and use it to divide us.

Social media is probably the most powerful propaganda tool of all times.

In the 1960s you would say the same thing about TV, and you’d be right. Before that it was the cinema. It’s not because the mediums as such are inherently evil, but they carry an inherent power that can be used for evil.

Currently, social media is very much being used for evil.

There is, however, another element to it, and one that is completely new for social media. That’s the illusion that we can actually contribute in a meaningful way by participating.

Nobody believes they are actively fighting fascism by watching TV all day. Yet, on social media, well-meaning people are wasting their time shouting at clouds rather than going out in the real world and and actually achieve anything. They collectively tread in water as democracy dies, all the while they feel like they are “doing their part”. In other words, social media is pacifying as fuck.

I participate in the Fediverse because I have hope that we are building something different here; something that can derail the platforms that are currently used for evil, and something where the organization of actual opposition can be possible. I think it might be. But I am also afraid I am just wasting my time.

It’s not social media, it’s the algorithms that drives engagement for … profit. “Number must go up.” “The more users the more we can sell ourselves to VCs for.”

That’s why Fediverse is so important. We keep the social, but leave the negative effects behind. Feel free to click on a ragebait title here without your whole feed suddenly being steered in that direction.

Social media as a concept is not evil or whatever, but a platform with millions and millions of users under corporate control puts a lot of power and influence in the hands of a very small elite. This is the problem. Not the technology itself. With regulation or decentralisation the problem can be fixed. Imo.

I read a book once - i know, crazy right? - looking at Facebook’s policies, strategies, and actions and reactions in relation to driving engagement and its algorithms. They know well what they are doing in regards to hate groups and driving opinions that veer into human rights abuses. If the profit motive is removed, as is the need for ‘hours on platform’ and engagement and feeding people the worst aspects of themselves back to themselves, then much of the malignancy is dampened if not removed. Even so, if we had nothing but benign platforms, I think that a) being always in contact with people is not necessarily a good thing as is claimed, and b) being in contact is not (necessarily) being connected, and fudging or confusing that is a problem in itself.

In the context of engineering and technology: it’s a broader issue. It’s a matter of engineers either refusing to accept responsibility and accountability around the systems they build and the societal effects they have, or failing that, the companies that said engineers work for preventing them from doing so because profitability.

I say this as an engineer who has come to care a whole fucking lot about engineering ethics.

Just finished reading Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. No, social media isn’t the problem. We as people have had social media is some form of another for a long time.

The problem is the people running the social media. It’s always the people in charge taking advantage for money.

It’s just a catalyst. Or rather a mirror

If you had moderate political views, social media algorithms will try to feed you more and more extremist views based on what you are actually reading or have an interest on. This is just capitalism at work because the more time you spend on those websites, the more ad renevue for the platform. As a result those radicalization algorithms will probably push your moderate views to extremist views… So yes… Social networking are one of the main problems.

The internet is a firehose pumped from the septic tank of the human psyche.

If it is a general feature of enough human minds, it ends up there.

So, be better, I guess?

You’ll find this in many places that people would rather blame the world en lieu of looking inward. It’s a sad thing, as the latter is where one has most effect.

Social media, like most things in life, has its good and bad sides. Places like twitter and Facebook have definitely been moved to the “bad” side of things through the use of an algorithm to curate the user’s experience and steer them towards socially harmful content. It’s much more difficult to do this on federated SM because anti social messaging doesn’t get amplified.

It’s not a panacea, and there will be attempts to corrupt it, but federated SM does give me hope that we can escape the rabbit hole of billionaire bro psychopaths.

the ones who own the social media are the source of so many problems.

Social media is not just a tool; every single major social network has an algorithm with an agenda

Tools for connecting people cannot make editorial decisions. Tools for connecting people don’t try to manipulate those people into thinking certain ways.

If social networks were purely tools for connecting people who want to communicate, then we’d be having a different conversation.

If you ask me, we should recategorize Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc from “Social Networks” to “Content Distributors” because that’s what they are. They take content from the users and advertisers and prioritize what they want to promote in front of the users.

Signal, Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, etc don’t have algorithms with agendas so their purpose is purely social networking. They are the actual social networks.

Social Media can be a valuable tool. I find that certain platforms attract different groups of people. I stay away from twitter because, well, we know how to find the nazis. Facebook is for people who like to argue and scam people. And instagram is for the utterly shallow and vapid people who think they are famous. Big ego central. There are nice people on any platform, but you do have to put up with a ton of shit depending on the platform. Watching TV does not rot your brain. Playing video games does not make you violent. Smoking pot does not make you a junkie. Kissing does not lead to sex & pregnancy.

Any activity/tool can do harm, but it’s the individual who is responsible for the action.