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Comment by bhupy | Hacker News Reader

Any form of media that earns its profit from viewership and selling advertising, including broadcast and cable news and news radio, is optimized for outrage. That's what attracts the eyeballs.

The "algorithmic" part is irrelevant.

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Ironically, this very article is a perfect example.

I agree with you, but the “algorithmic” just takes it to another level: instead of having a few channels targeted toward a bunch of groups, the targeting is at the individual level.

And it's a black box sometimes, people who tuned neural networks won't even understand what the NN is optimizing it for.

But on the other hand human brains are basically just black box neural networks as well.

You can just ask a human brain what it's optimizing for.

"Senator, is the safety and prosperity of the American people your highest priority?"

"Senator, why did you vote for that bill?"

But the answer you get isn't necessarily the truth, because humans don't make decisions based on reason. 90% of the time, decision-making is based on emotion, and the reasoning comes afterwards to try and justify why the decision was made. Thus, when you ask the person for justification, you're getting post-hoc reasons.

There's a great book written on this - "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion"

The algorithmic part has no shame. If you're a newspaper editor and you put you put a false or misleading or unseemly story on the front page, you're responsible for it.

When the algorithm does it, it's just maximizing revenue, and there is no one to blame except the programmer that made the algorithm, who after all, just told the computer to do what the stockholders would want.

Ultimately optimizing anything solely to maximize profit is inhuman. We all have standards and values that we carry with us to work that go beyond just maximizing profit. Those are more difficult to encode in an algorithm. Without them though, the relationship of the user to the platform is exploitative. The platform does not care about the user except in a purely instrumental way. You are doing business with a psychopath.

The algorithmic part enhances the amplification. It further optimizes the outrage in a calculated way that was previously more heuristically applied. In my opinion in adds a degree of psychological manipulation that goes beyond persuasive advertising but uses personal information to tailor messages that evoke what is often detrimental to the viewer.

Facebook’s free speech is akin to aversion therapy in A Clockwork Orange.

Sex attracts eyeballs too though it's a bit more difficult to sell Kraft Cheese Singles using sex.

Thinks of European orange juice commercials

Orange soft drink, albeit made with real fruit, rather than orange juice.

Yeah we have several levels of regulated claims around juice in the states too. Orange juice != orange drink != orange flavored beverage

I think they're just called 'Kraft Singles' - they aren't cheese, even by American definitions!

That's interesting - FDA forced Kraft the name change due to the ingredients.

> https://web.archive.org/web/20110110185442/http://www.fda.go...

That actually makes a surprisingly interesting read.

"Your firm's "Kraft Velveeta Pasteurized Process Cheese Spread" product is misbranded within the meaning of Section 403(g)( 1) of the Act in that it purports to be or is represented as a food, namely pasteurized process cheese spread..."

So it's official: Velveeta is not food!

No, velveeta is not a specific named food--it's not the food which is named cheese.

Yes, I get it. But the way it's phrased is still pretty funny.

"Kraft: for singles you'll always swipe right on"

I'm having flashbacks to my honeymoon.

Tell me you covered the bed in processed cheese product, rather than rose petals...

Engagement is more important than eyeballs, since the more engagements you have, the more eyeballs you'll reach.

Kraft singles in your area!

I agree completely with you and would like to include fear. Fear and outrage.

Except it isn't the same at all.

Seeing a story that outrages me probably rubs you up the wrong way as you think it is a silly, manipulative and idiotic story and this lowers your estimation of the mass media source - eg tv news or New York Times. On facebrick they hide it from you. On the tv news we all see the same thing. There's blowback for lies. There's blowback for naked manipulation.

That pressure release valve of pissing everybody else of when the media manipuates you, or a particular section of society found with clustering analysis and other statistical techniques is absent when we don't all see the same thing. Facebook wouldn't even bother showing you the lies that others find convincing because they don't know something you do. TV news can't segragate us like that. The new york times can't segregate us. Both have to stand by what they publish and broadcast. Facebook? "Not us, we didn't say it, we just monetised the lies - no we're not even telling you what lies they were, you don't even get to know what vile propaganda is out there!" That's the facebook position.

They can troll you that X is going to happen, me that X is not going to happen and Jill that everybody is talking about an irrelevant X all at the same time without blowback claiming they have nothing to do with it while getting paid for it in full.

Facebook is a vile company.

Facebook as a service also sucks. Hard.

Delete your account, it's amazing how much better you'll feel about it. You won't miss out on anything worthwhile either. Send an email to 2 or 3 of your contacts a month just chatting. Ring someone among your friends occasionally to ask how they're going - you'll get all the gossip that matters to you. Just do it.

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