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Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

This may be a "don't hate the player hate the game" type situation. Influencers or aspiring influencers are doing what they do because they are working inside a construct that's set up to reward them for it. They are not blameless, but they are not conspiring to create that damage that social media had done to society, they are in s sense being put up to it by the platforms and users (who by the way I don't think should get a free pass either - PSA: delete twitter)

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I guess I put more of the blame on the influencers because they are the ones making editorial decisions. Sure the platforms are optimizing for engagement too, but it's all content-agnostic. The influencers choose their words carefully, and they choose harmful words because it makes them more money.

I don't think it's quite fair to label it content-agnostic. I mean it sort of technically is, but practically it isn't.

By pushing 'engagement' at all costs, it's essentially inevitable that all the terrible behaviors we see from 'content creators' happen. I agree that they are far from blameless, but when your entire platform is practically globally available to anybody and you only reward unsavory behavior... you're going to get unsavory behavior.

There could be many, many people behaving ethically, and most people may never even see any of them due to the way the platforms are set up.

It's technically content-agnostic in the most technical sense, but practically it's one big system designed to incentivize and surface unethical behavior.

> and you only reward unsavory behavior... you're going to get unsavory behavior

They don't only reward that. They reward any engagement, and some content creators have raced to the bottom in terms of creating divisive content.

Setting up an incentives structure for racing to the bottom is still more blameworthy than reacting to the incentives by racing to the bottom. It's a question of relative power: being in a position to even be able to set up incentives for others is inherently a position of power.

It's not about power. Making cars doesn't mean you're responsible for people murdering other people with those cars, even though you're in a position to supply cars and they aren't. There is no power involved - no one is being coerced into behaving badly.

> they are the ones making editorial decisions

...

> they choose harmful words because it makes them more money

OK but who is responsible for the fact that choosing harmful words is more profitable?

The audience of the stuff that content creators create and the platforms distribute collectively decides what is more profitable. It's a positive feedback system and ignoring any of the parts will result in a failed "solution".

Both are absolutely to blame. Both the social media companies and the content creators.

Both are choosing to ignore the damage which is a direct result of their actions and they both ignore long term damage in the name of an immediate profit return.

There no reason we have to choose one or the other when both are clearly willing to destroy.

I agree, and they both refuse to change (moderate the platforms, make good faith efforts to reduce or disclose bias, etc.) because money trumps ethics.

I’m not sure what solutions exist though, I’m in favor of regulatory action but it’s often just moving the goalposts as there are always loopholes to be found.

And the reason that it makes them more money is because that is exactly what the algorithm is designed to encourage and what it pays out the most for.

If we were still in the era where feeds were just a chronological list of posts by people you're subscribed to, that might be a little different.

But the feed is manipulated by algorithms that dump any non-toxic things away into obscurity while upranking and featuring the most controversial things in order to get more engagement. That's by design.

It's a false notion that these influencers are the ones making these editorial decisions. Imagine you are in charge of ad spend for a large corporation. You majored literally in advertising with a minor in psychology, you don't give a damn about the morality beyond whether or not you leave profit on the table. You simply aren't going to hire influencers who don't play this game how you want it to be played and take advantage of these dark patterns. As a result, the market looks how it is because people who don't play the game aren't landing jobs.

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