Problem

With this thread I want to raise some awareness about the advanced technological methods being used by Facebook, Twitter and Google in order to addict and manipulate the sub conscience of their visitors in order to gain maximum profit from their customers (advertisers) and discuss possible solutions to this problem.

The combination of an infinite scroll wheel with the ability of providing visitors with an infinite amount of targeted content has proven to be a dangerous combination. [1]

The ability to provide targeted content, leading to the well-known tunnel effect, causing a disconnection from reality is already a threat in itself.

Combined with the infinite scroll wheel, causing a constant reaffirmation of what the platforms assumes your opinion is, it becomes an even bigger threat.

The constant reaffirmation, is a stimulus causing the viewers brain to constantly reward their behavior and reinforce existing brain patterns, like Pavlov’s dogs. [2]

As you are probably aware of, a rewarding stimulus is usually much less effective than a negative one. Poker players know this effect eventually, manifesting itself as selective memory, where the player only remembers bad beats and not the situation where they sucked out themselves. [3]

Therefore it is not in the interest of platforms using this combination of patterns, to provide their visitors with “things” they may not like, such as a posting of someone having an opposite opinion on a specific topic.

Furthermore, there have been massive data breaches in the past, for example the famous Cambridge Analytica scandal, where the data gathered by a platform, was abused by state actors to intentionally cause harm on society.

Another problem is, that once someone is aware of the mechanics at play, it can be easily abused, such as by foreign adversaries as the Russians, having a long history of psy-ops. One example of such abuse, is Russians successfully causing two opposing protests in the same city, all through Facebook and from thousands of miles away. [4]

What are the potential solutions to this problem?

The difficulty here is, that forcing the platforms to expose their algorithms and fix them accordingly to display topic-based results (such as the google search engine), would certainly render their product less addictive, causing less visitors and thus less revenue through advertising.

Currently the platforms have a very low incentive on policing their own platforms, for example to close down some of the many YouTube streams, usually posing as Fox News or CNN, usually in combination with a bot chat, where bots constantly repeat specific messages. [5]. YouTube artificially slows down the takedown process, by requiring the copyright owner to report such streams, offering a much slower process for users merely reporting a channel posing as another channel, in many cases not leading to a takedown at all.

One possible solution that comes to my mind, could be some sort of tax on it, maybe a digital tax for platforms using this specific combination of patterns (infinite scroll wheel and audience targeting). Most other addictive things, like tobacco or alcohol are taxed as well, in order to fight the negative effects of it. Another possibility would be to enforce topic-based algorithms instead of opinion-based algorithms and to fine platforms for non-compliance.

Any other ideas?

References
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/rants-an...-social-media/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reward_system
[4] https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11...ussian-page-l/
[5] https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...JAAQ%253D%253D

That’s the battlefield they want to fight upon, however according to that story the front lines are behind the eyes not on the screens of devices.

Nationalisation. A vital public utility where the only value is generated because of network effects. Sounds like a textbook case for public ownership.

I haven't had time to read it in detail, but this working paper on trends involving politics on Youtube is interesting: A Supply and Demand Framework for Youtube Politics.

Caveat: Their methodology looks a little questionable to me on at least one point: the comparison they make between Cable news viewership and Youtube views (Figure 1). Nevertheless, even taken as a very rough approximation the rising importance of Youtube to politics seems likely to be true?

Their typology of the "Alternative Influence Network" (AIN) seems useful, dividing the ~50 channels they studied into groups labeled Liberal, Skeptics, Conservatives, Alt-Lite, and Alt-Right. I suspect a lot of disagreement about their categorization of the "left" part of the network as "liberal" (cf. pp. 15-16) but the groupings still work I think.

Probably the most relevant finding in the paper is their argument against theories of algorithm-driven radicalization (p. 23-4):

However:

It’s uncanny, yet the title of this thread is representative of the threat which is suggested in the title, here on social media. Look a potential enemy to lead to people towards.

And gadzooks, psy-ops? Huh? Like folks know wtf to do when a psy-ops is waged on them. Adding nebulous fears to propaganda for propaganda’s sake is propaganda.

Threat-assessment thinking. Is it all hubris and propaganda?

What happens when the threat assessors are the threat and they assess the threat is elsewhere?

Hey now! What say you about psy-ops and propaganda? I was thinking I should let this thread run its course before I got involved.

Uh oh, sounds like you are using social media to unleash threat. They have data on you, what your data on them?

Well, we're still reeling from the impacts of the printing press. I wouldn't expect this one to be over and dealt with any time soon. In case the meaning wasn't clear, information technology comes with good and it comes with bad. It might spell change, but not necessarily disaster.

To reduce the impact on individuals, liberal states (liberal as in modern democracies with constitutions, not as progressive) should adopt privacy as a human right (directly, not indirectly with loopholes as is mostly the case today). No commercial sale or use of personal information without consent.

Isn't it virtually certain that social media will evolve too quickly to make this sort of solution practical?

The difference is social networks are not natural monopolies. Unlike water or gas lines, you can have an unlimited number of social networks plumbed into a house with zero extra infrastructure cost.

Once they happen to get as big as facebook they are. Network effects.

This study WN posted on 3g and confidence in government is relevant here.
The whole internet was a US military creation. Spank has the right ideas here about psy-ops and propaganda. People thought complete access to information was going to bring about freedom but that isn't what it's leading to.
Fun set of search results here

No, it most certainly was not. There is far more to the "whole internet" than the precursor technologies created by the ARPANET project. The World Wide Web-standard for example, was a civilian project developed at CERN. The ARPANET project mainly contributed the RFC protocols, packet switching and the TCP-IP protocols. It's true that these technologies exist still, but they have been developed as open standards. Anyone can inspect them from head to toe, nor is it frightfully complicated stuff. It's literally the most inspected pieces of software in the entire world.

Their development have been open and completely transparent, done mainly in academia and non-profit organizations. Pretty much all the documentation of both the standards and how they were developed is available for free if you want it.

I know you have a hard-on for conspiracies, but to just use a single one-liner to accuse the hundreds of thousands of people who have driven one of the largest technology achievements for mankind, and done so at low cost, in complete transparency and made their work free for everyone to use... that's just insulting.

If you want to take issue with "the whole internet" then fine. It's hyperbole. But the bolded shows that you don't understand what the argument is. I'm not arguing that there is something secret behind the internet. I'm saying that the idea that the internet is some force for freedom should be questioned in light of the fact that it grew out of DARPA.

What "argument"? You've levied an accusation without evidence and no knowledge about the subject matter. There is nothing to understand, because it's completely vapid.

Most of the standards used to make the internet a platform for mass information weren't even developed under the ARPANET umbrella. Is CERN somehow part of the US military? Duke University? MIT?

An idea that propaganda works always leads back to propagandists as without that idea, it’s futile to subvert any further ideas. The counter-propagandist doesn’t have to do anything like that. The business people in the middle are stuck claiming marketing doesn’t work while hinging their business model on the idea that marketing works. What exactly can they even do? Attempted psychometric behaviorism? If you see enough disapproving tweets about a person shall you behave a certain way rather than another on Election Day?

Constitutional right to privacy would fix most of the issues. EU has done some good legwork (and some mishaps), but they are getting there. Look to Germany for the best efforts.

It would of course topple big portions of a very big industry (big data), but that's probably just as well.

This is an interesting video that I watched a couple of days ago. The focus is communication of science but it talks a lot about "the algorithm" and the ways in which social media has changed how people find and consume content.



It doesn't talk much about solutions but is a very good overview of a lot of the issues that surround social media, particularly with respect the spread of disinformation vs factual/scientific information.

Probably unethical to accuse the us military of being up to no good without evidence.
Thread is still early on so give me some time. The argument though is something like how the information age is leading to less freedom not more. Let's call it a hypothesis as opposed to a fully developed thesis.
When you point out though that all of the tcp/ip standards are publicly available it's missing what I was trying to get at.

Indeed. There is a known axiom in computer engineering and information science, GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. It doesn't matter if an algorithm is sophisticated, the right analysis is used or if you toss neural networks at it. If the data is bad, the answers will be bad. To make matters even more complicated, people are even worse on average to ascertain facts.

What we have always needed, and will continue to need, are experts. Experts can fix your teeth, cure diseases, make planes that fly, build computers and understand the world through science. It doesn't matter what 5000 angry uncles rant about on Facebook, our world seems to operate by governing principles... and though we are very far from understanding them, we at least know that they seem very undisturbed by twitter feeds.

I would agree that the internet is showing some very problematic trends, like big data.

And for what it's worth, big data and the way it now operates pretty much qualifies as a big conspiracy. Perhaps not one steered by a singular group or motive, but there is enough momentum that anyone who champions privacy as a human right would face monumental opposition from that industry. And big data is very much hurting our freedoms.

Peppering kids with various types of logic problems when they are 7 to 12 years old would at least partially ameliorate the problem. Any attempt to prove a lie must have some illogic somewhere in that proof.

That sounds like an ultima ratio, but it would most likely solve it.

I think the chosen path, to provide an endless stream of highly targetted content, automatically leads to some sort of radicalization / conditioning / indoctrination.

I am not sure if I understand your point, but I would not mix up social media in general (like a forum for example) with the companies making use of the described two patterns (endless scroll wheel & targetted content). Here on this forum you find an almost endless stream of (interesting) threads as well, but it is not targetted content. You will find pros and cons. Freddom of speach.

Better privacy would have prevented things like the Cambridge Analytica scandal. I think it would only partially solve the problem. Or how far should that protection go? Shall it prevent a platform, from storing personal data at all, for example your political orientation? I could imagine that this would solve the problem in its entirety.


Yes, it is all open and you can query the RFC's here for example. This query is about the SMTP protocol used to send and receive emails, to make it work across different systems, from different vendors:
https://www.rfc-editor.org/search/rf..._date_type=any

Education is a very good point and how to raise kids to become self-critical thinkers. Seeing the impact those platforms can have on adults is already fatal, I can only imagine how bad it is if kids get exposed to this, especially at a young age. Back in the days, when I was a kid, we had computers, but they were not yet connected. Regarding the education of our kid, the thing we put special emphasis on was that freedom ends where the freedom of others begins. This lead her to belief she "raised herself". LOL

MySpace had network effects. There is nothing permanent about Facebook.

Do you mean, the problem will regulate itself? MySpace was around 2006, right? I mean it's peak time. I guess back then, no one was realizing the potential for meddling or abusing it for political motives. I remember it as a fun place, lots of music and things like that.