You just want to censor the right. Also that has been found flawed. Open discourse actually makes people more centrist. Also what about ppl being channeled far left? If that claim of yours is true, then that would be the case. Censorship is what creates problems. The truth is the new left cannot survive without censoring alternative viewpoints; including libertarians and independents.
You don't like pictures of friends' pets? Reminder of a great recent Atlantic article: Facebook as Doomsday device. Compelling read. Matches evidence. I don't agree with the OP that social media is a top cause, but they share some blame, for sure. They profit from a platform that helps solidify tribes, accelerate untruths, and organize bad actors, (from various parts of the spectrum, both domestic and international).
We need social media rules where owners are held responsible for policing their own content - people are just not smart enough to research on their own....and the fact that it is just talking on the internet is lost on a generation. So, we need rules to hold FB, Twitter, Insta, YouTube and other large media platforms accountable for their content. Also, we need the fairness act back for TV, where you can not call yourself a NEWS program or CHANNEL if you are mainly propaganda - you need to be held accountable for telling the truth or face hefty fines... EVERY OTHER COUNTRY around the world does the 2nd one, which is why Fox is limited to mostly the USA. Time to clean up the airwaves. DD
Have you watched the social dilemma? It convinced me to shut my FB down. I really haven't used it in years and only kept it to keep up with old friends. Over the past couple years I have found most people use it for political rantings. Very few people use it for its original intent. I use twitter sparingly because its like FB x100. Its completely toxic. If something controversial is posted, then a means of discussion should be had. How can you have a serious conversation with 128 characters? I can't take anyone who uses Twitter too seriously. That said, my biggest take away from the Social Dilemma is to not follow the algorithms. If you're on Youtube, search for your content. Don't click a video 'recommended' for you. I think this is how many people get sucked into the BS.
I'm, of course, talking about both sides. I think social media helps divert people to the outer lanes of their respective party. It's the same way muslims get radicalized online before heading off to fight for ISIS (years ago). Except now, it's being done, sometimes by foreign agents, sometimes by domestic agents (and our presidents), to our own people. Of course there are great aspects to social media. Tons of them. But when people continually abuse it, these companies need to be a little more responsible towards booting them, Trump included. He should have been banned a while ago. His legacy would have thanked him for it. How you do that, I just don't know. Obviously, it will never go away. Other companies would fill the vacuum and it's too good a government spy tool to ever go away. We need to figure out how to harness it's power to something acceptable. Do we just delete anything politically charged? No idea how you do this...
Social Media is just a platform that is the same as newspapers or TV news. The only difference is the the size of the audience. We have been manipulated by these platforms for centuries now and we have nobody to blame but ourselves for being suckered by propaganda.
It’s not social media that’s dumb It’s people like the tiktok challenge when all those kids were popping 100 Benadryl and going to the ER
Social Media create the biggest echo chamber for people to spread misinformation. We have always had crazy conspiracy theorists. But they have also been hidden in their hole somewhere away from the masses. There has always been conspiracy forums online, but those are very much closed off to the general public. Now with facebook groups, it's so easy to create these groups and have eachother's opinions validated by other crazies. I mean could you imagine 20 years ago, people trying to take down cell phone towers because they think it's spreading SARS. The public is gullible, and social media's algorithms pushes people into these echo chambers so they spend more time on it and therefore consume more ads. I would say Clutchfans is a echo chamber of Rockets fans, but at least it's just sports.
I tend to side with that side in the "guns don't kill people" debate. I don't mean to say social media is solely to blame here, but it's definitely the gasoline. Remember what Carlin said. "Think about how dumb the average person is. Now think about how half the population is dumber than that."
I think Congress needs to step in an reign in algorithms. I just have no idea how to do that in a lawful way.
Its simple. The algorithms are based on gambling addiction. Regulate Facebook/social media like gambling. Btw, I’m a firm believer in sleeping in the bed you made and not regulating much. Social media is a new medium that will probably be self regulated by society as we see it downsides (like now).
Baby steps... Twitter bans Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell in QAnon account purge Flynn and Powell both counseled with Trump at the White House in recent weeks as part of efforts to overturn election results. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-n...nn-sidney-powell-qanon-account-purge-n1253550