By "social media" we mean any large computer network that allows people to interact in shared communities. The big ones of course are Facebook, Twitter (X), and Instagram, but we can't forget newer platforms like Discord and Slack.
Dedicated video sites are off-topic here and YouTube has its own separate thread
.
What we should discuss in this OTC topic are news items, business operations, and activities by the networks themselves, not specific things posted by users. Those should go into threads appropriate to the subjects of those posts. For example, if an actor tweets about a film, we'd discuss that in the Media forum topic for the film, not here. If Facebook changes its policies, that could be discussed here.
The politics, motives, competency and wider business activities of the owners and leaders of social media companies (e.g. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg) are also off-topic — except in situations where they are directly making specific policy for the platform.
Talking about a particular Instagram policy change (or a high-profile ban on a specific user) directly announced by Mark Zuckerberg would be acceptable in this thread, speculating about Zuckerberg's wider motivations wouldn't be.
The thread's also not about "dumb thing [public figure] said on [social media platform]". If there isn't a specific thread related to the subject of the statement (e.g. US Politics), then it's probably gossip and not worth talking about.
created back in 2020 that we never opened. Unfortunately, it's a little stale, so bumping it isn't going to work very well, but I would like to restart it. The reason I'm doing so is that the Computer Thread seems to have become the de facto place for this sort of talk, and it's a big tonal clash with talking about computer tech.
The hot topic of the day is Elon Musk's bid to acquire Twitter. We first discussed it in the Computer Thread, starting roughly here, and I am not going to rehash the entire discussion. Instead, I am going to resume from the last post:
CNBC: Twitter is reportedly taking another look at Musk takeover bid
Twitter's board is reportedly meeting with Elon Musk and may seek to negotiate on his buyout offer. Musk claims to have secured $46 billion in funding to buy the company at a valuation of $43 billion and is preparing to make a tender offer to its shareholders.
While the board has passed a poison pill, it could be facing resistance to that from groups of shareholders and will want to talk things out rather than face a hostile takeover. It's also possible that Twitter's stock could crash if the offer fails to go through.
Another possible topic was originally posted here.
Ars Technica: EU to unveil landmark law to force Big Tech to police illegal content
Following on from the recently passed Digital Markets Act, which requires large tech companies to unbundle first-party software from hardware platforms, the proposed Digital Services Act will require medium and large social media platforms and search engines to police hate speech and disinformation while adding additional protections for children against targeted marketing.
It also bans "dark patterns", which manipulate or trick people into clicking on ads or other content. The article doesn't explicitly say what that means, but I assume it includes things like disguising ads to look like parts of a site's user interface, hiding "close" buttons, and such.
For large companies, the requirements would go into effect immediately. For medium companies, they would have a grace period to implement the changes.
Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, has warned that Big Tech has become “too big to care.”
This phrase, "too big to care", intrigues me. It's an indictment of the idea that these companies have decided that growth and engagement metrics overwhelm any sense of social responsibility.
In my opinion, a law like this would be impossible in the United States, since it would be challenged (likely successfully) on First Amendment grounds.
Edited by Mrph1 on Dec 12th 2023 at 11:24:56 AM
Literally, this happened with Lindsay Ellis and Natalie Wynn.
I don't know Keffals as a person, I don't watch her streams, I don't follow her on Twitter, but it is BEYOND frustrating that when I make a point about how the harassment campaign against her weaponized that fifth columnist bullshit I was referring to, the same thing I was criticizing plays out.
A trans woman was literally harassed into fleeing her home country by a website that has doxxed, harassed, and contributed to the suicide of other trans people, and the response is "Well, she's done X Y Z bad things, she's not a good person", like that changes fucking anything?
"It's usually not that deep though. It's bullies who get off on attacking and harassing people and who can leverage a disability or identity into an excuse to dogpile on them and they don't give even the slightest shit about what they need to do or think to justify it. "
Meh, it they can also be superficial lefties, they are people who have a political affiliation only for very vague and superficial reasons that range from "everyone do it"(most christian often fall into this), to "I share a political stuff or two"(I feel this is pretty much Elon position, who fall into right wing mostly because he dosent like to be told what to do and that it) and other because they want to persive themselves as correct and do what they want that way.
"I forget if I already pointed it out here, but I believe a lot of self-proclaimed leftists on Twitter learn the rhetoric from rightwingers, but instead of learning to push away the thought process, only shift the ideas. Thus, they attack anyone not progressive in whatever "correct" way they believe, just like what a fundy would do with anyone not the "correct" Christian brand. "
Dunno, I feel is less rightwinger and they just get caught in the social media death spiral of sorts were if you can find enough stuff you are entitled to mock and bully everyone because at some level, we kinda sorta enjoy the idea of shitting on awfull people.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Redmess
It's not so much surveillance as stalking and old-fashioned nosyness. Every village has a handful of old folks (all too often old ladies with nothing better to do) who seem to keep a running record of everything that ever happens around there. The internet has just made it easier.
I don't think an anarchist society would solve that, either. If anything, it might make it worse.
Optimism is a duty.
A procrastination in of itself
Anarchist principles don’t so much stop it as make it part of your civic duty. Because there’s no ”the man” to report people to the monitoring of others goes from nosiness looking to get people in trouble, to being part of community self-governance.
But it does change the culture of how that self-surveillance occurs. It’s no longer a small group keeping tabs on everyone to force their morals onto them, it’s the entire community monitoring itself to locally agreed standards.
Edited by Silasw on Nov 23rd 2022 at 11:13:59 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
I feel this is best reserved for the General Politics Thread.
Goddess of Nature
I honestly hate how some people think that if a person has done a bad thing then they should be harassed.
I personally hate how people on social media get toxic really fast for stupid reasons.
You know, I have to wonder why Pit is obsessed with this site. It’s gonna ruin his life!
Someone can indeed be a verifiable huge asshole but it wouldn't be fair for them to get murdered.
It would feel like karma though.
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
Goddess of Nature
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yeah!
I don’t get why this is hard for people to understand.
You know, I have to wonder why Pit is obsessed with this site. It’s gonna ruin his life!
It's especially bad that this somehow merged with shipping wars, which now have to be moralistic battles instead of dumb arguments.
@Alley Oop: Would you still say that if the asshole's behavior drove someone to suicide or got someone murdered?
I'm talking about people with shitty manners, not outright criminals. At that point it's no longer just being an asshole, and I'm pretty sure nothing Keffals or other such targets did ever went into that territory.
How did it go from "Right-wingers on social media use a tactic of pretending to be leftists or appropriating leftist rhetoric to encourage harassment" to "Okay but what if they really sucked and karma got them?"
Agent JC(Just Collateral)
If someone in social media caused harm to others, that should be reported to authority, not trying to dog pile them. This is not only ineffective, but time and time again, there has been cases when said person was innocent.
Does that mean I don't get the job?
Goddess of Nature
Yeah that was a giant logic leap.
I’ve seen people fall for ops by the right and start engaging in bad faith arguments.
-taps the sign-
Just because someone is rude, does not mean that you should stalk, harass, or try to kill them.
Edited by powerpuffbats on Nov 23rd 2022 at 7:20:52 AM
You know, I have to wonder why Pit is obsessed with this site. It’s gonna ruin his life!
Formerly Hail Muffins (He/Him)
x3 'Cause when you bring out harassment online, this sort of deflection is what always follows.
Some people really want to play the online Punisher and will go through all manner of twists in logic to justify it.
"But what if they're a jerk" "But what if they're a murderer" "But what if they're a sex pest", just moving the goalposts, over and over again.
Some sorts just really want an excuse to act like assholes while still claiming the high moral ground, it seems
Edited by OrangeBun on Nov 23rd 2022 at 10:29:34 AM
El sexo es temporal. LA PENITENCIA ES ETERNA!
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
The actually really terrible people don't give a shit. They'll just laugh at it and ignore it or use it to justify their position. As a weapon, the dogpiling thing is only effective at hurting people and the result is usually either a terrible person doubling down or an innocent person being traumatized.
It's unjustifiable. It doesn't matter if the person being traumatized is kind of an asshole or not. It's an awful fucking tactic and responding to it being used with "well, this person does kind of suck means you're condoning traumatizing people.
Edited by Zendervai on Nov 23rd 2022 at 8:52:07 AM
Not Three Laws compliant.
Changing topics a bit:
I know advertisers generally don't like their advertisements to go on things that they deem unwholesome, such as porn or hate speech...or at least they don't seem to.
Is there an actual financial incentive for them to care about the content that their ads end up next to, or is it just ideological in nature?
If I had to guess it's for the following reasons:
- It attracts bad clientele (I mean, let's say you run a store. Do you want the KKK to walk into your store?)
- It might be seen as endorsement, which to be fair, it probably is at least to some degree.
- Creating unwanted brand association.
Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they)
At least online the main reasons are perceived endorsement and brand association, but both of those ultimately are ideological reasons.
(I understand it's unclear how much those actually have an effect on profitability - advertising statistics often aren't substantiated by independent research. It seems to me that it would be much worse for a website to host the wrong ad than it is for an advertiser to be hosted on the wrong website, but typically, the leverage is in the other direction.)
Edited by Noaqiyeum on Nov 23rd 2022 at 2:39:53 PM
The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
For some of them, especially those owned by fundamentalist christian groups, it is ideological.
Perpetually Confused
So Musk is running another poll asking if twitter should offer a general amnesty and unban everyone who didn't do something actually illegal.
Of course "Yes" is winning...
Elon Musk: "Twitter is full of bots"
Also Elon Musk: "Let's do a Twitter poll and treat the result as binding"
Flawless logic right there. 
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Nov 23rd 2022 at 7:26:57 PM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
Perpetually Confused
he claims the bots are voting for the losing option on top of that. The bot problem is really bad... But they can't overturn a vote according to him.
The They who said it
To be fair, that is the standard authoritarian playbook. Claim fraud if you lost, and if you won, claim fraud but only against you.
So it's not surprising that he'd claim the bots are doing fraud in favor of the woke communists who will steal your gender and trans your children or whatever.
If someone with any level of clout or fame gets accused of basically anything, there's always at least one person who's apparently been stockpiling data on them and just waiting for the day they can show up and destroy their target. kf is a major enabler of this behaviour.
It is extremely dismaying to my anarchist sympathies that the modern web has so many tools available for sousveillance and community support, and their primary use is by the neighbourhood cringewatch.
Edited by Noaqiyeum on Nov 23rd 2022 at 10:29:28 AM
The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable