nicholfd

docno42 said:

AppleZulu said:

No, I don't want social media platforms choosing between opinionated preferences for Ludwig von Mises or Karl Marx. I also don't want social media algorithms promoting opinion-based hokum that contradicts science-based facts because the hokum generates more clicks. 

Why do we tolerate social media platforms inserting bias of any kind?  However noble or ignoble that bias may be?  Give me the tools to pick and filter the content I want and stay the hell out of everything else.  It's time for the FCC to grow a pair and enforce Section 230 as written - selective enforcement is just another fancy word salad to obfuscate for editorial control.  Section 230 was only meant to apply to carriers of others content, not those who exercise editorial control of content.  As soon as any service starts picking and choosing the content on their service, especially when done with vague policies that are enforced in secret, that's editorial control - it's no longer strictly the authors or 3rd party, unaffiliated content - the site is now also claiming ownership of that content.  As soon as sites do that, IMNSHO, 230 should no longer apply - just as it doesn't apply to the New York Times or other sites that publish their own content.  

If a service wants to hide behind 230 protection and still edit what flows through their platform, then at a minimum all their content policies should be required to be made public, and the rational behind all content moderation decisions (as well as showing how the rational ties to those public content rules) to prove they are applying their own rules consistently and not selectively.  Right now you have RAMPANT selective moderation.   And I'm not even talking political/conservative/liberal; just look at Twitch and how sexual content is basically unmoderated for women but if a male gets even vaguely near something sexual.  Anyone who advocates that there isn't rampant selective moderation is either grossly uniformed or a gasslighter of the highest magnitude.  

As for the overall usefulness of social media - I used to use Twitter all the time - but with a third party client (tweetbot) that was free of all the Twitter massaging of the timeline.  I could mute topics and keywords that weren't interesting - and in that capacity Twitter actually wasn't awful.  I have no idea how anyone uses any of these service through their default interfaces; they are utter garbage.  But unfiltered and with the tools to slice and dice the content you are interested in they can be quite useful.

The core problem is we have turned over all of our content and interactions to a handful of very large sites all in the name of convenience.  It's time to get back to the decentralized web.  If you are dumb enough to ditch your own web site and move all your business to Facebook or one of these other tech giants than sucks to be you when their automation or political biases cut you off.

docno42 said:

nicholfd said:

It's become obvious that a lot of the general population is incapable of deciding what is real and what is fake... 

And you'll be our savior to rescue the general population from ourselves?

Ha!  No thanks.  The first thing tyrants do is seek to become the sole source of "truth".  Thanks for outing yourself.

rattlhed said:

AppleZulu said:

I'm more interested in Parag Agrawal and Bret Taylor. Are there any chances that either of them will give a corporate damn as to whether their company's product is used to facilitate the spread of misinformation that kills people or undermines democracy? Time will tell.

One person's misinformation is another person's fight against the mainstream media and the slander and filtering of real news it provides.  There's a dangerous step when these social media companies 'filter' what they perceive as misinformation.  Remember when Youtube and Twitter were banning posts regarding the origin of Covid19?  Well, that didn't age well.  We need these platforms to be free of the bias of the operator and let the users decide what is real and what is fake.  

lkrupp said:

sdw2001 said:

maciekskontakt said:

I am touched. Wait a moment.I have never been on Twitter and left Facebook one year ago. Maybe changes to Meta and Dorsey leaving Twitter were result of that 

I quit both earlier this year.  Both are evil companies.  I don't suspect this will improve Twitter at all.  At Least Hipster Rasputin won't have his mug everywhere.  

Apple is not exactly a saint either. Maybe not ‘evil’ per se but tiptoeing around it sometimes.

pmh said:

Looks like I will be picking up one of these when they become available, mostly so I can add some TBolt connected storage as a backup for a flakey Drobo on my 2019 Intel MacMini. I'd also like to get the TBolt connector to the Drobo off of the MacMini as the MacMini runs hot and the Tbolt connectors are all above it's exhaust.