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> that a social media site can have such enormous influence on one's perception of "reality" is staggering and it should die and die quickly.

You say this as if humanity has not been fighting over the long-distance communication of information for literally the entire history of human civilization since the invention of language. Even before written language, storytellers decided what oral traditions they would or would not pass on, changing it each time they told it. Replace "social media" with "broadcast networks" or "newspapers" or "scientific journals" and it is the same issue.

You don't have a world in which 8 billion people are connected (or even 1 billion, or even 1 million, or even 1000) without a few intermediaries whose purpose is to distribute some but not all descriptions of reality to a public audience, and who gain immense power through that.

On this note, the invention of the printing press led to The Reformation with the first printing of the Bible, which up until that point had been duplicated by monks by hand, and The Word controlled and interpreted by the Church, who wielded their power like modern governments and institutions deciding what is or is not mis- or disinformation.

Yep and the solution then is the same as it is now - democratizing the means of production and communication, insulating it from the influences of capital and profit. Socialism is the boring age-old answer to every one of these.

What are the successes of this age-old solution?

Many fewer people dying alone in gutters.

Agreed that the social democratic solution of redistribution and welfare programs does great on this front, and I think all Western countries have some form of it. But I think here we are talking about other socialist prescriptions, which have a much worse track record.

China is doing pretty well on that front, yeah...

> Even before written language, storytellers decided what oral traditions they would or would not pass on, changing it each time they told it. Replace "social media" with "broadcast networks" or "newspapers" or "scientific journals" and it is the same issue.

This is not the same thing. Pre-social media/pre-Internet I was not clueless about whether my communications with my "friends" were being received because almost every channel I had available to me was synchronous and there was much less noise.

Now, social media presents a broadcast interface and many people assume that their posts are being displayed to their friends. This is not actually the case. When your friends don't respond, you don't know if it's because your friends have stopped caring about you, they're just not interested in what you said, or some algorithm decided to hide you from them---and most people probably do not seriously consider the latter most of the time.

Whether we need intermediaries or not is one question, but whether we need feedback in our communication is settled: we do, and we leave it to the whims of algorithms optimized for engagement to our peril.

Akhenaten was 99.9% memory holed.

Socrates was canceled for wrongthink.

Even today, books teaching witchcraft and other pagan lore are banned from children's libraries.

I'm coming around to just ignoring the Atlantic. Their opinions have a rambling and stream of consciousness flow because they attempt to make something big out of something very small. Amplification of problems can be important, however when it's done in this style, you still have lots of disconnected problems and overall garbage as output.

I don't know. I think it's a really good article. The most watched Netflix show that nobody's heard of is such an thought-provoking thing to bring up.

>The most watched Netflix show that nobody's heard of

The oxymoronic style of this sentence reflects why I now ignore reading the Atlantic. Clearly it cannot be true, yet they claim it is to continue their narrative. Their next sentence, a citation of "one person posted" is also unpalatable.

> The oxymoronic style of this sentence reflects why I now ignore reading the Atlantic. Clearly it cannot be true, yet they claim it is to continue their narrative.

Not going to try to convince you to read The Atlantic, but the issue here is entirely on your end. They are not literally claiming that nobody has heard of the show. They are employing hyperbole.

> They are employing hyperbole.

So its not an issue entirely on one end, its a deliberate action designed to make people feel one way, but falls apart under analysis.

No. Apologies if you aren't familiar with hyperbole, but it's very common. I might even say everyone does it all the time.

That's not an oxymoron.

If before the top show was seen by 90% of all customers, and now each of 20 shows is watched by 5%, it will be comparatively very hard to find someone who has watched the most-viewed show of today despite it being the most watched.

You panned someone for understanding basic math.

The most live viewers of a TV episode was the season finale of MASH in 1983[0] with 106 million.

Unless the population rises to a trillion, it seems hard to imagine there will ever again be so much cultural consciousness directed towards a single show. I do not even know what is on broadcast TV any more.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_televisio...

Less than half the population. So you could pick a random person and say they probably didn’t watch the most popular TV episode.

Remove toddlers, homeless and old people that believe watching TV is a pastime for kids. How many shows today are watched by half the 18-50 population?

I reckon a thing that happens to 50% of the population is as culturally widespread as if it had happened to 100% of it. Because it means one talking to another about it means you hear about it everywhere, since a conversation requires 2 people.

If the author hasn't heard of it surely nobody else has right, this from a paper that still writes breathlessly about the latest SNL episode that probably gets less views than the average semi-popular youtube channel get on a good day.

> It'd look like their friends were ignoring them, weren't interested in them, etc., possibly leading to depression

If my friends seemed to be ignoring my tweets, I'd certainly ask them what's up with that through a different mechanism (in person, through texting, whatever). If the only interaction I have with a person is through Twitter, then it's a real stretch to call them "friends" in the first place.

Ok, sure, but the parent comment doesn't really mention twitter at all. It's entirely normal for friends to communicate mostly via IG/FB, especially when separated by distance.

You would really ask your friends why they are ignoring your tweets? I would feel a little ridiculous doing that.

I absolutely would, if it were a thing that was bothering me. They're my friends, after all. Why would someone feel ridiculous for checking in with their friends about something strange?

To each his own. If my friend asked why I was ignoring his tweet, I'd tell him to please stop obsessing over Twitter for his own health.

That's... desperate. I mean good friends will be honest with you, but you will look really desperate for validation, and actually behave like it.

I'd say most folks who are not actually earning cash from being an 'influencer' seek some form of validation, but most will deny it, and most of those will actually believe their words. We humans are sometimes a bit weird, aren't we.

They should be teaching about algorithmic social media feeds in health class.

I taught a Middle School class on digital citizenship and found Common Sense's lesson plans helpful: https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship

The kids engaged most with lessons about privacy and least with lessons about social media addiction and influence.

The trick is to auto-tune the algorithm just short of total depression, and give them a glimmer of hope and interaction with friends. Then it's back to the ads for a new cycle. What's great about AI is that the we don't even need anyone to code this explicitly, it will just happen automatically.

This way it's not malicious at all! /s