Get rid of the dumb counts (views,clicks,upvotes,likes etc etc) next to every thought/comment/image/video.
These are highly arbitration/inaccurate signals of quality. They influence thought and behavior. And then we waste our time reacting to those thoughts and behaviours.
Algorithms that need these metrics for ranking, advertising etc can still function. They just don't have be carelessly, blindly, robotically displayed to users.
Misguided people are usually surrounded by misguided people. The counts just make things worse.
Everybody is currently conditioned to think they have to stand up on a stage and give a TED talk/I Have a Dream speech -> drum up enough support and you are on your way right?
Wrong. Because everyone else is playing the same game.
It's an arms race for peoples attention. And mass attention is highly scattered and diffused over all kinds of things in the spectrum of useful to bullshit.
Our journalist class has somehow got into this ELI5 routine, where they feel obligated to turn every complex subject into something a fifth grader can debate about.
I kind of miss the articles that span 10 pages and really dive into a subject matter. Modern long form articles seem unnecessarily padded with personal stories to me. The actual information content is not that much in the end.
For a good example of long form journalism done right, I heartily recommend The Guardian's article about what will happen when the Queen of England dies [1]. I never thought there would be that much protocol to it, but clearly I was wrong.
You can probably blame readability tests, SEO and other related stuff for that. There's a lot of advice online saying that simply written, clearly broken up articles divided into small sections/lists and aimed at a fifth grader's reading level are the way to attract more traffic/readers.
Well maybe that and lowest common denominator marketing. Or the need to pander to social media users, most of whom have at best about five minutes to read an article and not much knowledge of its background.
People like to keep saying the elite will reach godhood thanks to the increasing pace of biological/technical progress (that they will reap the most). But the opposite might well happen. The more data that pours in the more obvious it may become they are all, like you say, just replaceable cogs.
Do you think FB users want to have their like counts hidden or delayed? If yes - what evidence? And if no, are you saying that you want legislation that changes FB to work in a way that neither FB nor its users want? How do you justify that?
Do you think noprocrast would change anything about Facebook? Would anyone use it? Can't you just make a chrome extension that does that and see if anyone is interested? For that matter, do you have evidence that a statistically significant part of the HN audience uses noprocrast?
You asked for suggestions that didn't involve outrage and I gave you some.
These are suggestion that have been around for a long time and even Jack Dorsey from Twitter and Tim Cook from Apple have bought it up recently.
Facebook's creates hundreds of unintended consequences. The suggestions I mentioned just addressed two specific issues - addiction and the spread of ignorance/fakenews/bad info (nuclear chain reactions require control rods same with viral info). Especially dangerous in countries where most of the population is too illeterate to counter it.
Look up Tristan Harris former Googler humanetech website and you will find many more human thought and behaviour effecting dark patterns that social media sites use that need to be addressed.
Ideally we need a bug tracker for social issues being generated in the same way we track software issues.
One example of a big problem without a fix that would be at the top of the list is having 14 year olds exposed to the most viral and extreme problems of 35 year olds day in and day out is leading to higher anxiety/depression in kids. The EU, Canada and UK have data out on this.
The suggestion for these kind of issues is, mandating such a "bug tracker" increases awareness. The regulations are being worked on.
There are lots of cases where a significant portion of the populace wants something that is bad or is opposed to something that is good. Government is supposed to look out for the greater good. We can't just say that people want X so we ought to allow it. Similarly we can't just let government ban/endorse whatever it wants.
I think it's clear that Facebook on the whole has detrimental effects on society. It does have benefits for people but it has very bad negative consequences for society. Therein is the conundrum. I have no solutions to the problem but also won't discount regulations on Facebook simply because people like certain features.
We can't just say that people want X so we ought to allow it.
Who's "we"?
At least here in the US, >60% of the voting public are Facebook users. So we're not talking about "a significant portion" - we're talking about the majority. You sound an awful lot like someone trying to claim that "you know what's best for us".
I think it's clear that Facebook on the whole has detrimental effects on society.
I don't think this is clear at all. Rigorous evidence please! And not "oh look this bad thing happened" - because if that's the standard of evidence then we should ban cellphones, airplanes, riding lawn mowers, and chewing gum.
I sound like someone who recognizes that there are circumstances in which the majority ought not get their will satisfied and that there are circumstances in which the majority will ought to be satisfied. I’m someone who recognizes that merely stating that the majority wills it so is not sufficient reasoning.
My post was pointing out a flaw in your stated reasoning. Specifically your over reliance on the fact that the majority wants it without any supporting arguments that this is a case in which the majority will ought to prevail. I was not taking a position on any issue. I’m certain that if you were sufficiently interested in the topic you could find studies showing detrimental effects of Facebook. A search engine will provide you with links.
Well this is Facebook. How much political content moves through their platform everyday?
Your comment makes sense if it is McDonalds or Nike or Wallmart. Their CEO's aren't being asked everyday by every govt on the planet what they are doing about disagreeable info.
The consumption data doesn't seem to be clear. Maybe I am mistaken but I would think ISP's should easily be able to provide a trend line of what the consumption rates look like.
I am also sure the study will show Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg run orgs with highly competent managers. But it is not competence in my book.
While I'm not sure how well managed any of those firms are, I think you can distinguish someone's business acumen from their personal failings, and admire one while denouncing the other. We already do the same for composers like Wagner or writers like Roald Dahl.
Wagner and Dahl don't have as much influence on society as corporations do. So I don't really agree with that comparison.
My issue is mindless ambition/win at all costs/do whatever it takes produces "competence" too.
The more data that pours in, the more we will realizes that stuff needs to be filtered out from our definitions of competence. The costs are too great imho.
Get rid of the dumb counts (views,clicks,upvotes,likes etc etc) next to every thought/comment/image/video.
These are highly arbitration/inaccurate signals of quality. They influence thought and behavior. And then we waste our time reacting to those thoughts and behaviours.
Algorithms that need these metrics for ranking, advertising etc can still function. They just don't have be carelessly, blindly, robotically displayed to users.
Misguided people are usually surrounded by misguided people. The counts just make things worse.