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“An ABC NEWS Verify investigation into several controversial Australian pages on Facebook has found that some are benefiting directly from social media monetisation programs run by Meta.”
They are paying him for his content. Funding him, if you will.
Virtually every company pays people to do stuff and then profits off of the stuff those people do.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
The difference is far more nuanced and borders on inconsequential when it comes to mass media influence on society.
Just because something is presented as fiction or for entertainment doesn’t mean it doesn’t impact your psyche or your perception of the world and others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_influence_on_public_opinio...
This isn’t dismissing what Meta is doing, but Cinema in the West has been just as complicit and involved.
Gangster rap has inspired a lot of murders and other violent crime world wide, I don't think anybody would deny that anymore. So if we treat it as harmless entertainment, then we should apply the same standard to content published on social media. Publishing genocidal content would be beyond that, nobody would disagree. Still, what music do you think that African child soldiers listen to when they go on a raid to burn a village and kill everybody they find?
As for violent movies or torture horror movies which are so celebrated in mainstream culture, their impact on viewers minds and souls are probably worse than a lot of what people here don't like on Facebook.
What's your evidence for this? You seem to be making the claim that without gangster rap there's a bunch of violent crime that wouldn't have happened. But it seems more plausible to me that the bulk of that crime is due to the drug trade and other social and economic factors, and that gangster rap is just the musical expression of what's already going on.
And I'd expect the same to be true of, say, country music. Are you also going to claim that people who listened to a lot of Johnny Cash were more inclined to shoot people, possibly in Reno, just to watch them die? Did many Merle Haggard fans turn to crime because of him?
Personally, I listened to plenty of Ice T, NWA, and Snoop. Sometimes I still do. I have yet to become a stick-up kid or pack a 9 mil. Should I be worried? If there's some sort of threshold dosage, I might go over it at any time.
Citation needed here. I haven’t known anyone to do that despite it being pretty mainstream and U.S. crime rates have been going down for ages so there doesn’t appear to be a general correlation (repeat for the video games which have been so railed against).
I think most people understand the difference between entertainment and reality in that context. What makes social media different is that it’s portrayed as real: people get constant reinforcement that “people like me” think horrible things about Muslims, LGBTQ, liberals, etc. and use that to justify “strike first” messaging. We’ve seen that same playbook in the past (Bosnia, Rwanda, etc.) but those required more money and state control of media whereas social media is far more accessible to even a small minority of extremists looking to spread their messages.
> Still, what music do you think that African child soldiers listen to when they go on a raid to burn a village and kill everybody they find?
I note that you conspicuously omit the white-coded heavy metal used by other war criminals, but more importantly you’d need to again submit show some data supporting causation rather than simple popularity and answer the big question about whether it’s the case that the music has that effect or simply that people trying to indoctrinate use music which is already popular because it’s familiar and had the mood they wanted. For example, I don’t think anyone would say Metallica inspires torture despite it being used in the American torture program in Guantanamo — almost all of the millions of people who listen to their albums have never engaged in serious violence and the people who committed war crimes would’ve picked something else if they were in a different cultural context.
When a drill rapper makes a song threatening to murder specific people, and also posts these threats on social media, and finally commits to it and murders somebody. Is that not reality? Because it happens all the time. But maybe the social media post is the only problem in this situation?
If political terrorists are listening to music all day about bombing cafés, kidnapping people, smuggling drugs and assassinating their enemies and they actually do so at thousands per year - would you say this music is just entertainment for people living in that world. Because that is exactly the situation with gangster rap, and has been for a long time. And you might listen to it just for entertainment so it's nothing to be concerned about. To you it's entertainment because you're comfortably distant from the effects. How do you think somebody who's had their sibling murdered by a gang feels hearing that gangs music being blasted where they rap about murdering and mutilating people?
> the white-coded heavy metal used by other war criminals
Whatever this is, it is not played on the radio all day and Sony and Warner aren't making millions from it and they're not performing at the half time show. Maybe their songs are catchy and they should be played in cafés and in your Uber. I've heard that some ISIS songs are supposed to be quite catchy.
I’m not denying anything, I’m asking you to support your claim. In particular, if an entire genre loved by millions of people causes this problem, why do we not see it very commonly or with such variability across countries? How can we say the problem is the music rather than other things going on in those people’s lives which are more unique to their experience than a musical genre?
If you don't see it, it is because you have closed your eyes. It is across countries and reported in main stream media all the time. Rap music is a core part of ongoing gang conflicts in many countries, apart from the general violence and sexual crime it inspires and glorifies.
> How can we say the problem is the music rather than other things going on in those people’s lives which are more unique to their experience than a musical genre?
Then how can we say that the problem is anything that somebody has posted on social media or broadcasted? If I make rap music about dealing drugs and killing people and I also deal drugs and kill people, and many of my listeners deal drugs and kill people. What is the difference if I make a social media post about killing people and then me and my audience kill people? The difference is that one behaviour is celebrated - and romanticized extensively by certain types of persons who feel no empathy at all for the victims.
I never said that rap music is the only thing causing people to commit crime.
It’s weird how this is simultaneously a “core part of ongoing gang conflicts” and something you can’t support in the slightest.
But I suppose that you first will go and find "citations" and evidence that social media content can have any effect at all on people. Because that is just as unproven, if you want to play that kind of game.
But I'm interested in real conversation with real people, who aren't pretending to not see, think or hear.
Actually, the article makes it pretty clear that they fund some of the really bad stuff.
Also, Meta does fund these initiatives. They choose who to give money to in these programs. You'd think that money being paid would also mean a higher level of scrutiny. I'm really curious how these conversations play out internal to Meta. Does everyone just pretend this isn't an issue? Seems like there's a lot of great book material that will be dropped in the coming decades as these efforts wear on and break people.
In their records they rap about murdering people and raping women, and also threatening to murder specific individuals or bragging about having done such. Among other things.
They are also active on social media, where they also threaten people with violence and death, or brag about such feats.
And finally they also murder people in real life, or get murdered likewise by their peers.
Now for the same person, expressing themselves the same way but on different platforms. For their record company funded content we say "that's art and free speech", and for their social media posts we say "what have you done, Zuckerberg!?".
> Also, Meta does fund these initiatives. They choose who to give money to in these programs.
You are right. I misunderstood the program to be general payments to all creators of size á la Spotify, but it's an invite-only program.
Ahhh, yes this trope. You do understand their target market, right? There are people that grow up in unfortunate circumstances that live through those lyrics regardless of these music-led influencers you speak of. People relate to those lyrics, it's part of their world view and so, yes, they're being marketed to, quite simply.
Also, why stop here? Let's ban all books that encroach on this topic! Because we all know games, books and music yield nothing but the 80% of all the lyrics you consume. /s (<--- because who knows given the absurdity here)
> There are people that grow up in unfortunate circumstances that live through those lyrics regardless of these music-led influencers you speak of.
Yes, do you think they enjoy hearing rap music from the gang that murdered or raped one of their family members being blasted, where the rappers brag about murdering and raping people? Then a bunch of people who are comfortably isolated from that kind of violence praise these rappers to the skies, give them industry awards, and so on.
> Also, why stop here? Let's ban all books that encroach on this topic!
Some countries ban music which glorifies violence, but I haven't called out for the ban of anything. I'm making comparisons.
How come people and governments and courts are blasting Instagram for giving young girls eating disorders because models are uploading bikini photos, but at the same time everybody turns a blind eye to music where the artist raps and brags about drugging, raping, beating and murdering women? Or men. When these artists are often guilty of these crimes or strongly affiliated with gangs doing these things.