Social networks neither ‘social’ nor ‘networks’ – what should we call them? | Hacker News Reader

Social networks neither ‘social’ nor ‘networks’ – what should we call them?

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36 pointsRocketSyntax49 comments

Reminds me of this article that had been submitted a couple times in recent months, "User Engagement" is code for "Addiction" https://medium.com/swlh/user-engagement-is-code-for-addictio...

I hope we can come up with a new phrase that sticks for these. Some good ones have been posted here in the comments. Ideally, an altruistic entity will trademark them.

"User Engagement Networks" Sounds perfectly fine to me. At least there would be an idea of what these apps are trying to accomplish at the expense of the user.

"User Engagement and Data Collection Networks"

"Spy networks"

This might sound like a nit, but I'd call it habit-forming, not addictive. I watched friends go from obsessed with Facebook when it launched to mostly using it for sharing family photos, and this is at a time when there was a focus on user engagement. It just seems like people lost interest too easily for it to be actual addiction.

"Scrolling media" is pretty good. It sounds enough like the existing term to catch on.

"Corpo networks"

ML-curated distraction-entertainment feeds and surveillance services

With their algorithmic feeds designed to maximize engagement, they're just Skinner Boxes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

I just learnt this term. And also saw that this example is already in the Wikipedia article ;)

I don't want Facebook to show me anything that isn't posted by one of my friends... are there any settings that allows that? Sure it's kind of interesting to look at a bear being washed by a human, but who cares.

https://socialfixer.com/ has a lot of helpful settings to that effect.

I tried it and it kept bugging me about unread messages that I already read so I removed it, but thanks

Is there now a gap for a new social platform that goes back to chronologically ordered content from those you choose to follow/friend rather than algorithmically curated content from other sources designed to lure you in?

There is, but anyone who would fund it would require it to be monetized in the same way. This situation will continue to persist until people are willing to pay for such a service, and subvert the advertising motive. And, even then, we have the example of cable to show us that ads will probably creep back in, and come to dominate it all over again. When people are willing to drive dump trucks full of money to your loading dock, what else can you do? </s>

Very true. I have to confess to a very leading question there, as I am building exactly this and thinking long and hard about monetisation. I do like the cable analogy and think it's very true.

I think ads can be done better/more ethically than currently as well though - whether that be less of them, less "native" so they don't appear exactly like posts from your family/friends and with less granular targeting - whether advertisers would go for it is another matter entirely though...

Unless the application is decentralized enough so there is no central server to pay for ...

EDIT: but I probably wouldn't use it either.

You just described the Fediverse.

https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse

Cancer. They are cancer. Pure and simple.

I think they are not social anymore, having been overrun with politics and ads. However they are still a network. There is a network effect (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect) that makes it valuable to the participants and advertisers alike, which is the large number of users. It’s just that the network’s value went from being driven by positive actions (sharing photos with friends) to something negative - which is preventing others’ political views or business competitors from winning by influencing the network. All sides feel like they have to participate because others participate and they’ll be irrelevant otherwise. In that sense it’s more like a war zone.

A thing I've noticed, and I could be wrong about this, is that social networks have not done much to increase avenues for interaction between 2nd degree connections of two people (say a and b) without needing the active participation of the a and b themselves.

For instance, if we have the following undirected connections: {(a,b), (b,c), (a,d)}. There could be a mechanism to make the graph more dense by the way of increasing interactions between (c,d) without needing, for example, a to like c's content for it to then appear on d's feed. Done naively, this could result in a lot of unwanted content on someone's feed, but I wonder if there are ways around it.

Scrollbait?

I like it =)

Skinner boxes is my favorite euphemism

Certainly sums up most games that involve any form of XP or grinding mechanic.

Thaaat's not actually a euphemism.

Accurate. Though if that's a euphemism, what's the harsher term you're masking? lol

Not my invention, but: "hive mine".

That's a good one, as it illustrates that users are the product.

And, the value of the cumulative attention on any platform that is "mined" in this way is finite, not renewable, etc.

"Reality Internet" similar to "Reality TV". It is all trash and a waste of time.

Tabloid internet.

According to the theory of the author, I've found that Twitter can be used like an actual social network and I do use it like this with a group of friends. It is kind of a cluster and anyone can join only by answering our tweets and hanging out.

I think twitter has a lot of potential, more than just a social network

https://theportal.wiki/wiki?title=Algorithmic_Fun_House&mobi...

Opinion amplifiers.

Derangement loci

Propagandapps

Unimatrix One?

"We are Borg. You will be red pilled. Resistance is futile. Where we go one we go all!"

I'm proposing the Hegemonet, which has emerged as distinct from the internet.

“engagement media”

Human neural networks

Toxic waste dumps?

Clique Clusters

fratnets = cult fisheries

soul traps

Cigarnettes

I'm preferential to "Echo Chamber"

Brownian venter

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