Studies into the effects of social media are being manipulated by big tech | Hacker News Reader

Studies into the effects of social media are being manipulated by big tech

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34 pointsrntn10 comments

I don't see why we need "research" when we're already running the experiment globally.

It's not just algorithmic curation, it's the simplistic models of communication themselves - the medium. Reading this comment, you have no idea who I am, what my life experience is, what my competencies are, whether I'm a reasonable person coming from a reasonable place or just someone blowing off steam by repeating partisan propaganda. You might be able to discern some of that if you read my comment history or recognize my nick, but for the sheer majority of comments you're not going to do that.

So what you're left with is whether you find yourself agreeing with what I'm saying (In which case I'm a reasonable person you can trust!) or whether you disagree with it (in which case I'm one of those nonsensical "other" people that are part of the problem!). Voila, bubbles and polarization without even needing a malevolent intermediary.

Real name social media does fill in some of those details, but then its curation/editoralization also abuses those those details when it intermediates itself in the middle of your personal relationships and drives engagement using artificial social proof and whatnot.

That environment might even stand a chance if people had to type their full thoughts out as paragraphs, but instead people share links to well-written articles that satiate their desire for substantive analysis (although ultimately being chock full of groupthink that make their points inaccessible to the other tribe). And having had their desire for intellectual analysis fulfilled, people are then free to pump their own personal reactions full of vitriol.

I suspect that in the not too distant future, the majority of comments are going to be from AI bots driving an agenda of their own under the guise of public discord. Maybe this will drive people back towards more in person forums for discussion and community?

Or the future of the last 4-6 years already.

Something like this? https://i.imgur.com/4Jiop1q.jpeg

Amazing.

We need research because we’re not running an experiment globally. An experiment would involve a randomly selected treatment and control group. I’m guessing it seems obvious to you that social media is responsible for a wide array of ills. But, as a researcher, I can’t trust what is “obvious”. Because a lot of things that have seemed obvious have ended up being wrong such as leeches as a treatment for illness, or that the earth is flat. And there certainly have been quite a few confounds over the past twenty years: the financial crisis, the pandemic, deindustrialization brought about by China’s rise, the fracturing of the news media in general, and on and on. Which is to say that I don’t care what your identity is; I care what evidence you have. Because without evidence all we have is our gut, and history has shown that the gut isn’t a very good indication of truth.

You're right. That was a poor lead in on my part, a moment of weakness making me contribute to the same trend I'm bemoaning. Subjective perspectives of how things are (no matter how obvious or thoughtfully analyzed), is not a substitute for diligently trying to tease out effects in formal contexts.

The source of my dismissiveness was looking at the larger context - it feels like "social media" and its "algorithms" is actually one small part of the memetic problems we're facing. They may have helped prime the pump, and if centralized infokontrol had been nipped in the bud fifteen years ago then perhaps things wouldn't have devolved this much. But where we are now the polarization and anti-intellectualism seems pretty self-sustaining regardless.

I'm not sure why you don't think there's not a place for research. Personally, I think social media, and just the internet itself, is most likely harming society as it's by and large run by corporations. I would love to see research validate or invalidate this in multiple ways.

My thesis is anything too big or too large is usually bad for society. Forums, social media, corporations, etc. lose their humanity and good once they reach a certain size.

> Studies into the effects of social media are being manipulated by big tech

Good morning. Why woulnd't they be ? The big tech buys the biggest world's governments (USA, EU). They want to maintain their revenue.

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