Which is why we should either ban them or force them to make their algorithm public. Being a Chinese company, you have to be very naive not to assume close ties to the Chinese state. As a system rival, China is more opponent than partner and allowing them to operate such a network of influence, while they tightly prohibit any unwanted information themselves is foolish.
It’s time to tighten the grip.
YouTube does the same as TikTok and is arguably controlled by the US state too, why not ban all social media owned by corpos?
I mean, I know this won’t be a popular opinion, but it’s a huge security risk to allow any non-european social network.
I don’t think the origin is the site really matters as long as there is good oversight.
We are at a very uneasy point:
- platforms are private
- platforms are trying to increase the amount of anger generated because that happens to increase their potential to show ads
- platforms are gradually learning that too much anger destabilizes society which may eventually cut into their earnings (but some don’t care)
- regulators are completely out of their depth, both at the breadth and the ever-changing nature of platforms
You are right on those points, but it’s always easier to police/regulate local corporations than foreign ones since you have more tools at your disposal.
With foreign networks, you can only really levy fines and ultimately threaten to ban them from the country.
Thing is, it mostly amplifies what u interact with. If youre an eastern german diesel head with racist friends, then thats what you get. More afd bullshit to Spam blue hearts under.
My feed is very leftist, afd-critical and pol-sci focused.
it mostly amplifies what u interact with.
Thus it cultivates whatever memes prove themselves most infectious. Whether the content is overtly political or not, algorithm-driven social media like that is a weapon of mass delusion.
It can be for sure. I’m just adding to the convo, it’s not as black and white a “weapon” as these tyor of articles make it out to be. Its a lot more nuanced and has a lot of good coming from it as well.
Half of all 16-24 year olds only get their political information from TikTok
Presumably the other half get it from Instagram. Democracy — what little of it the world has — seems unlikely to survive such a situation for long. Would we be better off if were somehow arranged that they got all their political info from the fediverse instead? I don’t know, couldn’t be much worse.
The fediverse would be an improvement for now. But if it gets popular, bots will take over.
And corporate owned media hasn’t really brought us much good, either.
It got us into wars in Vietnam and Iraq and it also got us the destruction of the middle class.
I don’t think there really is a silver bullet. Best I can think of is, media owned by the people and for the people.
I was thinking exactly this.
I don’t blame 16 to 24 year olds mind you - lord knows I wasn’t much of a thinker at that age.
I do wonder whether social media might actually be fermi’s great filter though. It’s getting worse and there are no good solutions.
In the end skynet won’t need a single bot to conquer is. We will destroy each other with LLM chat bots just in time for AGI to emerge and snatch a economic control.
So… do something about it?
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