It’s not the technology, it’s the businesses interests behind such technology.
We live in a time of robber barons and these are just their tools
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Profiteering off of outrage? Say it ain't so!
I thought this was pretty mega fucken clear at this point.
albert einstein quote about human stupidity
Pretty maga clear
“Digital media” is a hell of a weird way of saying “capitalism”
I'm glad this is finally being looked at because I've been saying this for years and I feel like the vast majority doesn't realize how bad this is.
If you look at social media use and the rise of the far right over the last 15 years, they pretty much go hand in hand. Sure, that isn't proof for anything, but it's alarming and needs to be studied further.
In Germany, we have safeguards that prevent a single media outlet to gain too much power over controlling the public opinion. We have this for TV stations, news papers etc. Just not social media. Because social media wasn't even on the horizon when this law was put in place.
I think it's insane that we just let foreign profit driven companies steer the public opinion and discourse in our society and we finally have to start to heavily regulate them.
I think where social media is particularly insidious is the use of algorithms.
No normal person wakes up and thinks "I think we should bring back the Nazis", but like a post on Facebook about Remembrance Sunday or patriotism or even just catapults, and suddenly you're on a fast track to white supremacist groups.
I've seen people go from chewing out a stranger in the supermarket for whining about foreigners, to spreading made up rumours about immigrants killing white girls.
In the past you'd hear about hate groups when they're marching through London in Union Jack T-shirts, smashing curry shop windows. Social media lets people in on the bottom rung and ride it to that point.
Well put, this is exactly the problem. I remember the early days of facebook, twitter and instagram when there were no algorithms and your feed was just posts by people you follow in chronological order. Discourse was much more tame back then. We urgently need stricter laws that regulate these algorithms.
I'm not defending social media or its algorithms, but you've also got to look at what predated it. People used to get their news and information from news anchors and newspapers that were mouthpieces for capitalists and conservatives. So maybe not as extremist or even as effective at influence as a social media algorithm, but still not great. Personally, I don't want to go back to relying on corporate news outlets either.
Stop with the dumb questions already. The answer is any social media platform with inherent interests in selling user data or selling ads are willing to trade anything for more money now. If democratic processes get in the way then so be it to these wastes of oxygen. Now let’s start asking some meaningful questions please.
This is like looking at roadkill and declaring "cars are a threat to road crossing critters".
Where have you been since 2016
Without digital media, we wouldn't see genocide in Gaza.
Yeah that's what these libs are missing. As members of the ultra-privileged classes, they assume that everything is great. People should trust "institutions", right?!?
But as people are exposed more to actual reality via digital media and other sources, they don't want to destroy the planet, genocide people, etc. Nor should they. But this is a direct threat to liberal privilege. Chuck and Nancy want their profits booming until the planet is burning.