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Comment by busterarm | Hacker News Reader

Here's the guy telling everyone they're using heroin wrong and the fact that it destroys their life is their problem.

No, guy. The concensus is growing around social media being really fucking toxic.

Just don't follow toxic sources, that's all he's advocating. If someone's sharing memes from a crazy political page, either block that page or remove the friend.

People say social media like Facebook is toxic for the most part because they only deal with toxic people.

That’s not “not following toxic sources” that’s actively pruning them from your connections.

Why participate in that in the first place when toxicity grows there like a weed?

The problem is that many of these "toxic people" are one's relatives that you can't just easily cut out of your life. Before social media, when they started on a racist rant or something you could get them to change the topic to sports or something, but these days they get encouragement in their extreme views from lots of other people they would have never met in real life.

It doesn't work that way. I pruned both Twitter and Facebook intentionally in the way you suggest and it became pretty clear (or maybe it's my biases) that both run on outrage. Facebook would insist on bringing arguments to the top of my feed as best it could. As an example, I am friends with a regional sportswriter on FB and he had a post asking something sports/ politics related. It generated about 50 responses, so FB condenses that into 2-3 replies and then offers to let you click to see more. Amazingly, the part it decided to call out was the one argument in the 50 comment thread. Controversy and upset are what drives engagement in social media.

IDK about FB, I always avoided it like a toxic plague.

But on Twitter, there seem to still be work-arounds. I use lists set to Private, curated for specific experts on particular topics, and many top and/or obscure experts post regularly.

This provides a reasonably straightforward chronological feed, curated to my interest, with well-tuned news and links to key analysis. Just NEVER use the main Home feed (which they do push on you).

IDK how long that feature will stay unpolluted by toxic algorithms, but Jack does seem a bit less determined than Zuck to pollute society.

I don't know what to say to stuff like this. I spent a ton of time treating Twitter the same way and in no way do I want to suggest that I am now enlightened or something, but when you hear people (and I include my past self in this) talk about Twitter, it's like they're talking about a really effective chainsaw where there's no guard and the handle is on the wrong end. You can use it to cut down trees if you figure out how, but 99% of people harm themselves in the process.

Good point, and great chainsaw analogy

Constant curation and management is indeed everything. And I remember at my first encounter with real computers in college, when I had a choice of editors, I went for the one with the most powerful features, despite the stated hazards.

I do assume that the audience here tends to the more capable end, so most of them would not be in that 99%, but perhaps I'm mistaken?

Every community thinks it's Lake Wobegon. This place is no more above average than anywhere else AFAIK. That said, thanks for reminding me of this! http://www.team.net/mjb/hawg.html

Ah yes, perspective -- "...that's not a knife... That's a knife"

Agreed. My FB & TW timelines are 95% non-toxic b/c I muted those people out of my life. The same with news feeds.

It's sufficiently tranquil that my wife now asks to read my feeds. It just took some filter cycles to get there.

He has a point, partially.. I used to use twitter, but naturally curating it with only funny or smart thinkers and creators. My view was mostly impressive tech, art or coding (one dude made fluid simulation in gl shaders). It was peaceful.

Thing is, you're still close to the toxic web you regularly step into it .. and that's why i'm banned from twitter now.

These apps are still _by design_ trying to capture the maximum amount of your attention.

That deserves every ounce of hostility that we can muster. And then some.

They are parasites. It doesn't matter if you "made it work for you".

Please don't be crazy. I don't like the current web either but it's important to be objective and calm.

First of all, I am calm.

Second of all, there's nothing crazy about what I said. By their own admission they've designed the apps to be addictive.

Would you tell your friends "go ahead, shoot up. have a great time!"? Would you tell your family? What I think is crazy is that we tolerate companies that make products like this.

I guess greed is a powerful force.

Yes it's been shown that they're tricking people into addiction. I wasn't responding to the arguments more about the 'every ounce of hostility'. Their marketing strategies are sad[0], but you seemed to be all-in in a war against them which I think is misguided. Sorry if crazy was too strong of a word, I didn't meant it as a personal insult. I believe hostility and reaction is the wrong tool for this issue.. let's simply quit and invite others to do others to do so.

[0] we're still having deadly cigarettes sold everywhere you know..

Isn't it because of the effects we've seen from nicotine and alcohol that we should be so vigilant about mainstreaming new vices in society?

If I stepped out of 1980 and into 2021 and saw facebook and cell phones and people looking down the privacy nightmare. It is totally fucking batshit crazy.

We're all Slowly Boiled Frogs.

The poster may be impassioned, but characterizing a hot take as "crazy" looks like a bad faith argument.

I may have read it with the wrong tone.

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