Why social media is hostile to the user curated feed

[minuspace]

It's probably just me, but I feel like "The Truth", in terms of its correspondence to "The Real", that is now being confused by weaponized distraction in a way that is not directly proportional to any point in history. Again, I'm sure it's just me, but most members of my human family find more relevance in this "virtual life" than they do with each other. I think I am starting to understand what was meant by "the revolution will not be televised."

[tyrannosaurus vex]

What is "real" has always been perceived through the prism of the "truth" you have been fed. Bombs could fall on your house, and no matter who dropped them, the "real enemy" will be whoever you already hated. Splitting people from their "truths" is harder than splitting atoms. Weaponizing this phenomenon is nothing new. What is new is how readily that weaponization can be subverted by direct communication between people who have been trained their entire lives to hate each other. Of course, the existence of those channels has almost no bearing on whether or not people use them. But the channels are still there, and they haven't always been.

[Pergamos]

diaspora is a nice social media site that actively resists this trend. it's also open source, so the profit motive doesn't enter into it the way it does with FB.  It gained a lot of users after the CA scandal, although it is definitely not a finished product yet.

I'm not really looking for an alternative, the only way I can see these services surviving long term and not getting crushed or selling out as the costs go up is to go decentralised, maybe even peer to peer but best of luck getting the average Joe Soap to figure that one out.

yeah, diaspora is decentralized, there's a couple sorta competing federations and diaspora is the core of one.  I am curious to see if that takes off.

[Doktor Howl]

The moment it takes off, it will centralize in one way or another, and then it's FB again.

[minuspace]

How'd that foot end up in here

 I get what you are saying and have wanted to believe it since before the Point to Point Protocol.

[minuspace]

Green White Yoeller

[Faust]

Green White Yoeller

Green White and Orange Ya bollox

[Faust]

Reuters and AP are still in business.  Another fun game is reading Reuters and then reading the people that carry their stories.

Those are some of the last remaining strong news media in a dying industry. The danger is as the others fall at the way side they become a more lucrative target, if they don't succumb to the same money chasing / Free model that has messed up all the others.

[Faust]

It's worth mentioning that this dystopian Ministry of Truth shit is nothing new. For just about all of human history, information was entirely controlled by the Church or the State. Facebook owning all the news and allowing anyone who pays for advertizing to twist it to their own ends is the same thing, if a little less organized. But the technology that allows it also prevents it from being truly monopolized. Yes, biased "news" with an agenda will be the easiest and fastest information to get, but the Internet is still decentralised at its core and it isn't hard to smuggle bytes. As the vice tightens on "official media", new platforms and messageng formats will offer more options. If people are serious about finding The truth, it will be available. If they aren't serious about it, then it doesn't matter how hard or how easy it is to find.

It's probably just me, but I feel like "The Truth", in terms of its correspondence to "The Real", that is now being confused by weaponized distraction in a way that is not directly proportional to any point in history. Again, I'm sure it's just me, but most members of my human family find more relevance in this "virtual life" than they do with each other. I think I am starting to understand what was meant by "the revolution will not be televised."

This issue goes beyond bias filters and objective truth shades of grey.

When an article can be generated on the fly, just for you, based on your characteristics, that's not well intention journalism with falsehoods within, or manipulative propaganda that accidentally exposes truths like we have:
It is a straight jacket tailored just for you, based on who you are, to achieve the specific goals of your manipulator, its an echo of yourself telling you an absolute falsehood wrapped up in comfortable familiar language.

[Faust]

yeah, diaspora is decentralized, there's a couple sorta competing federations and diaspora is the core of one.  I am curious to see if that takes off.

The Tor project has managed to work with decentralised nodes but it is weak and under constant threat. The only way to accomplish it properly would be full decentralization per user, best of luck getting the average home user to figure out how to use that.

I think finding an alternative is not an option that is why I am more inclined towards: attack the advertisers or poisoning the well and generating white noise information for everyone. The last would even be achievable but I don't think people would want to muck up their like lists location checkins etc even as an act of protest.

[minuspace]

yeah, diaspora is decentralized, there's a couple sorta competing federations and diaspora is the core of one.  I am curious to see if that takes off.

The Tor project has managed to work with decentralised nodes but it is weak and under constant threat. The only way to accomplish it properly would be full decentralization per user, best of luck getting the average home user to figure out how to use that.

I think finding an alternative is not an option that is why I am more inclined towards: attack the advertisers or poisoning the well and generating white noise information for everyone. The last would even be achievable but I don't think people would want to muck up their like lists location checkins etc even as an act of protest.

Assuming strong encryption, location masking, address spoofing, and generally non-persistent user accounts... Anonymity could could still be defeated by correlation attacks or a poorly configured system.

[Faust]

I'm not talking about anonymity for full decentralization of social media, merely that each person controls their account and that no one group can monatise the system. Anonymity is not in a good place either but that is a separate concern.

[Doktor Howl]

Reuters and AP are still in business.  Another fun game is reading Reuters and then reading the people that carry their stories.

Those are some of the last remaining strong news media in a dying industry. The danger is as the others fall at the way side they become a more lucrative target, if they don't succumb to the same money chasing / Free model that has messed up all the others.

What really happened to all the others - the big names - is that they are all owned by 5 holding companies.

[minuspace]

I'm not talking about anonymity for full decentralization of social media, merely that each person controls their account and that no one group can monatise the system. Anonymity is not in a good place either but that is a separate concern.

My bad. The inference I made was that if personal data could be aggregated by a third party, identifying particular user patterns, then that could be exploited. Otherwise, yeah, the whole idea of anonymous social media accounts is not something I would even think about touching with a ten foot barge pole.

[minuspace]

This issue goes beyond bias filters and objective truth shades of grey.

When an article can be generated on the fly, just for you, based on your characteristics, that's not well intention journalism with falsehoods within, or manipulative propaganda that accidentally exposes truths like we have:
It is a straight jacket tailored just for you, based on who you are, to achieve the specific goals of your manipulator, its an echo of yourself telling you an absolute falsehood wrapped up in comfortable familiar language.

This reminds me of the interface between my conscious and sub-conscious mind. I suppose that's why the manipulation can still be compelling even if one is made aware of how it works. (no need to respond, don't want to derail thread, just had a Shave and a Haircut moment)