Not like meta has a long history of ignoring obvious, enormous problems theyre causing that experts keep pleading with them to take seriously. Like in Myanmar. Where it has killed an enormous number of people and the death toll keeps rising.
It was horrific, what hapened there with Facebook. Viral rumors would spread, the Rohingya were putting sterilization pills into the food supply. People would believe it. Then they would torture or kill those the rumors were about. They would burn down their businesses and homes. There were mass scale murder and rape, whole viliages burned. Because Facebook had displaced local news. What was on Facebook became the reality for so many people. It became an anti-Rohingya echo chamber, the hate would feed on itself.
I think this effect is playing out in western democracies today. Slower, because the US, Canada, or Europe altogether, are much larger than Myanmar. The big ship turns slower than the small. But the same dynamics are here. Viral social media posts make their own twisted “reality”. It’s not just Facebook, neither. It’s lots of others too.
Yes, and telling people that are addicted to things engineered to be especially addictive to just stop and telling them why they should is an actually effective strategy…
Sure… but the hard part is convincing 2 or 3 billion of my closest friends. Esp when faced with systems designed by teams of psychologits, to be highly addictive.
Well your reach is actually a lot greater than you think. I can’t find it right now but a recent study suggested your IRL influence is roughly 1-3 million people, friend of a friend of a friend of a friend type stuff. Behaviours course through networks of people you don’t even know. A The most powerful thing you can do as a single human being is to log off.
Not like meta has a long history of ignoring obvious, enormous problems theyre causing that experts keep pleading with them to take seriously. Like in Myanmar. Where it has killed an enormous number of people and the death toll keeps rising.
I’m sure they’ll do something this time
It was horrific, what hapened there with Facebook. Viral rumors would spread, the Rohingya were putting sterilization pills into the food supply. People would believe it. Then they would torture or kill those the rumors were about. They would burn down their businesses and homes. There were mass scale murder and rape, whole viliages burned. Because Facebook had displaced local news. What was on Facebook became the reality for so many people. It became an anti-Rohingya echo chamber, the hate would feed on itself.
I think this effect is playing out in western democracies today. Slower, because the US, Canada, or Europe altogether, are much larger than Myanmar. The big ship turns slower than the small. But the same dynamics are here. Viral social media posts make their own twisted “reality”. It’s not just Facebook, neither. It’s lots of others too.
I don’t know how to stop it.
Yes, and telling people that are addicted to things engineered to be especially addictive to just stop and telling them why they should is an actually effective strategy…
Sure… but the hard part is convincing 2 or 3 billion of my closest friends. Esp when faced with systems designed by teams of psychologits, to be highly addictive.
Well your reach is actually a lot greater than you think. I can’t find it right now but a recent study suggested your IRL influence is roughly 1-3 million people, friend of a friend of a friend of a friend type stuff. Behaviours course through networks of people you don’t even know. A The most powerful thing you can do as a single human being is to log off.