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Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

It's frustrating that the discussion around technology's effects on society is still stuck between the extremes of:

- "tech has a causal effect on society"

- "society has a causal effect on tech, tech is a mirror"

At this point it seems pretty patently obvious that the reality is both? Technology is subject to pre-existing flaws in society, but also has the capability to amplify and worsen it.

> the popularity of these posters demonstrates that their userbase is increasingly low rent

It's worth considering if exposure to FB is what is causing the userbase increasingly "low rent". Yeah, FB didn't invent partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I think likely it is worsening it.

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> Yeah, FB didn't invent partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I think likely it is worsening it.

Absolutely, Zuckerberg is basically a younger, less human version of Rupert Murdoch. He's going where the money takes him, and he's happy to exploit a profitable niche. My point though is that it's increasingly clear that Facebook's audience is becoming just that, an aging niche, and that's not a great place to be for a social media platform. We know what happens to those.

Just like Rupert Murdoch's various tabloids, exposure does indeed affect the consumers of that media, and it becomes an ouroboros of tabloid-type hysteria. I don't think that's what bothers facebook though, just the fact that this type of niche audience is a loser in the long run.

"My point though is that it's increasingly clear that Facebook's audience is becoming just that, an aging niche, and that's not a great place to be for a social media platform"

A few counter points can be made here.

Yours is a very US centric view. As one example, in several Central and South American countries, Facebook is everything. It's where everybody is, and this weird western idea that mingling with old people is "not cool" isn't a thing there.

Facebook is nearing 3 billion ACTIVE users. Astonishing to call that a niche. It isn't shrinking or stagnating, it keeps growing.

Last, the obsession with non-teenage users somehow being the death of a social network is ridiculous. Most people in this world are not teenagers. Adults have all the money, and all the political money.

Who cares what teenagers think is cool? Teenagers are idiots and they don't have any money. They aren't going to grow up in your service, they'll dump it within 2 years.

Facebook has largely the same dominance in Philippines. However, this situation indicts the nations in question more than it credits Facebook. Facebook is like cigarettes or sugared soda. Yes lots of people like it; no it isn't good for them.

There is no reason that social networks have to be run by firms as unethical as Facebook (i.e., there is no reason for social networks to be run as unethically as Facebook's is run). Please don't bore us with any "the market is always right" arguments. The people in "Western" nations who have decided to use Facebook less (and perhaps, other social networks more) have better taste and more agency than the people you're talking about. Those people should also acquire better taste and more agency.

That's once again a US perspective. Here in the Netherlands, Facebook is used to look at pictures of your friend whom visited a zoo. It's not used as a public debate platform, and there's very little political activity at all.

> and there's very little political activity at all

How do you know?

In Myanmar, Facebook is used to facilitate genocide. [0] One suspects that your representation of your impression of Facebook use in Netherlands is not accurate either.

[0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/facebook-myanma...

It's not an impression. I'm a dutch native and have used Facebook in the Netherlands since it exists. I don't see how Myanmar has anything to do with what I said. If anything it only demonstrates the point that Facebook is used in wildly different ways.

At least we've moved from USA being the special snowflake where Facebook is harmful to the more rational position in which Holland is the special snowflake where Facebook isn't harmful. A yet more rational, informed position is still available...

>It's frustrating that the discussion around technology's effects on society is still stuck between the extremes of:

It is not just tech. It is pretty much everything else on the internet and media. No one is telling me the pros and cons anymore. After I read the pros I have to go and dig up my own list of cons or vice versa. No one is finishing the sentence with "having said that" and round off with some counter argument. Most are so consumed by their own ideology they fail to see anything else.

>It's worth considering if exposure to FB is what is causing the userbase increasingly "low rent". Yeah, FB didn't invent partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I think likely it is worsening it.

I would argue had any other Social Network raised instead of Facebook during the Web 2.0 era the effect would had been the same. I once try to make a smaller social network to force an opposite view on their feeds to try and balance things. Holly mother of god the backlash were insane. My conclusion was that this sort of extremism is a function of human nature. Before social media people would buy news paper they prefer or fit their own ideology.

"The only way to understand the Press is to remember that they pander to their readers' prejudices."

- Sir Humphrey Appleby

Internet "press" is no different to press in the 80s. Only at a much greater scale and fully automatic.

| "The only way to understand the Press is to remember that they pander to their readers' prejudices."

Its mind boggling how much of that show is still relevant today.

I see it as a Documentary on Government and Politics, it just happens to be very funny.

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