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The Internet is Biased

Cognisant

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On the internet content is prioritized by how people interact with it and I think people are far more likely to interact with content that is affirmative rather than dissenting, unless they're a contentious asshole like myself, but the consequence of this is that it creates an affirmation feedback loop.

I think SJW culture is simply a consequence of this, these people are disengaging with reality in favor of their safe spaces and carefully curated gated online communities where they compete among themselves to see who can take their ideology to its most ridiculous extreme.

Now I'd be inclined to think this an online only phenomena and these are just a few particularly outspoken idiots, y'know that's not really a problem, however it has entered the realms of governmental policy (the ever broadening definition of hate speech and sexism) and pop culture (hollywood, games and comics in particular).

What should we do about this, indeed should anything be done?
Does the internet need to undergo a structural change or have the contentious netizens been slacking in their duties?
 

Black Rose

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Does the internet need to undergo a structural change

What would that be? I personally like recommendation engines. The suggestions I get on youtube are adequate. The real problem is censorship ad-pocalypse. If it is not illegal it should be allowed. and people should be allowed to see what they want to see. The problem with fake news is that a.i. is stupid. and it is the only solution long term. so I say make a.i. better. nothing else can be done that encompasses billions of people.
 

ZenRaiden

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Its not the internet that is biased.

It is the information from the internet that is processed by people that is inherently biased.

Sometimes you need a node outside of the internet you could call it a supernode that connects things and consequently if someone is so superstitios and dogmatic about bias there is one way to do it.

Show people the bias, and then shatter the illusion of bias.

Then you will see there is indeed no bias.

Or consequently you show the bias in machine not in the individual per se.
 

Hadoblado

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How is a carefully curated SJW fail compilation not an example of your own internet bubble?

Why do you need a voice you agree with to explain the positions of people you don't agree with for you?

Don't get me wrong people definitely have bubbles. I'm deeply confused as to why you think you're the exception.
 

Cognisant

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How is a carefully curated SJW fail compilation not an example of your own internet bubble?
Indeed it is and by posting it here I'm inviting dissenting opinions that will help me see outside of my bubble, or perhaps I'll help you see outside of yours. Isn't that what we're all here for, to benefit from the exchange of opinions?

Why do you need a voice you agree with to explain the positions of people you don't agree with for you?
I'm not hiding behind anyone or making an appeal to the authority of some random youtuber (as if he had any) I posted that video as an example of what I'm talking about rather than assuming people already know or expecting them to accept the validity of my point at face value, I'm making a case and that video is the evidence to support my case.

Don't get me wrong people definitely have bubbles. I'm deeply confused as to why you think you're the exception.
I don't know why you think, that I think, that I'm the exception.

Indeed the impression I get from all of this is that you're not making your own case against mine you're just going after me directly, to invalidate my points based solely on the fact that I made them, trying to call me out as biased to essentially shut me up.

So I'm calling you out, how about you stop talking about me and start talking about the topic or maybe have a good long look at yourself and consider why you keep trying to cancel me rather than engage in an honest debate.
 

Hadoblado

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I'm not hiding behind anyone or making an appeal to the authority of some random youtuber (as if he had any) I posted that video as an example of what I'm talking about rather than assuming people already know or expecting them to accept the validity of my point at face value, I'm making a case and that video is the evidence to support my case.

This was not an accusation of appeal to authority or hiding. It was rhetorical in support of the point about you posting from within a bubble.

So for you, the SJWs are dissenting, and the media you provided is affirming. Instead of addressing the SJWs directly, you have an affirming voice cherry-pick a caricature homunculus that over-emphasises the fringe. But if you aren't assuming that you're an exception, I won't try to change your mind about it because we agree that we are all in bubbles.

I don't know why you think, that I think, that I'm the exception.
The reason I thought this is because you said this:

"I think people are far more likely to interact with content that is affirmative rather than dissenting, unless they're a contentious asshole like myself"
So you think that pushing against an idea is going to open up your mind to it? Is that what you mean?

Indeed the impression I get from all of this is that you're not making your own case against mine you're just going after me directly, to invalidate my points based solely on the fact that I made them, trying to call me out as biased to essentially shut me up.

So I'm calling you out, how about you stop talking about me and start talking about the topic or maybe have a good long look at yourself and consider why you keep trying to cancel me rather than engage in an honest debate.

Beyond assuming you agree with the media you posted, I only responded to your post as written. I'm sorry if my contentious open-minded interpretation made you feel canceled, but that was not my intent.
 

Cognisant

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So you think that pushing against an idea is going to open up your mind to it? Is that what you mean?
Exactly I want you to tell me why I'm wrong and I've given you a range of angles to go about this.

I evidently think SJW culture is harmful, I've already made my case against social justice and here I'm making a case against the SJW movement in general. I'm even go so far to suggest that something ought to be done about it, either by reviewing how the internet works and/rallying proverbial troops for a counter social movement.

Instead of addressing the SJWs directly, you have an affirming voice cherry-pick a caricature homunculus that over-emphasises the fringe.
You're almost giving me what I want, tell me why this "fringe" as you call it doesn't matter because as I see it they're at the core of the cancerous growth. As I see it these people can only be so extreme in their views because they're insulated from society and reality, it’s another case of the moderates enabling the extremists.

The is why I think the SJW movement needs to be treated like an infection or a tumor, we need to counteract its spread and excise the core of it then disinfect the wound (deprogram the moderates) so it can't continue to fester.

This is the topic of the thread, this is what I came here for, I want you to oppose me in a debate about what if anything should be done about the SJW problem, I want to test my thoughts, I want to see if they can hold up to your scrutiny.

C'mon stop fucking about and fight me!
 

Black Rose

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to fight the SJW left we need the alt-right.

 

Hadoblado

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If you want to talk about social justice, I think you need to be explicit about your terms. I think it'd be more productive to talk about specific issues than gesturing vaguely at the bad tribe. We probably agree on a lot of stuff, but because this is framed in tribes we're pushed to talking about dumb shit.

My understanding of social justice is that of wealth, opportunity, and privilege. Welfare programs are social justice. Gay marriage is social justice. Universal healthcare is social justice. Accessible education is social justice. Give an example you think we'll disagree on.
 

Daddy

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I don't know how to articulate it, but I think it comes down to

ideas & beliefs & identity

and how they intertwine. I don't think you can isolate one from the other and that's actually a huge problem to dealing with bias. It's like Sisyphus.
Sisyphus-e1557869810488.jpg
 

EndogenousRebel

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Any attempts to make a culture will make a counterculture.

While technology has definitely increased the "immunity" of any one subculture I see this really more of a human issue. I read somewhere that it takes like 3 straight hours of constant conversation and conjecture to "de radicalize" right wingers in the United States. I dont know why it would be different for any other extremist besides how dialectically advanced their extremist theories are which isn't really an issue.

There is no perceived ROI from deradicalizing, and I'm pretty sure it's an evolutionary thing. If there was an incentive or automation put in place, people would just be more obstinate and cry some mischaracterisation of 1984.

Being tribal and pack animals it's pretty conclusive that there is no real incentive to see reality for what it actually is but instead what your tribe prescribes. Is this good or bad?
 

Puffy

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Obviously the internet is a dominant channel of information for social movements. We could argue similarly that the anti-vax movement is a product of the internet. In a way it is, as it's a medium through which certain messages are enabled to go viral. But I'm unsure if we can blame the channel for the message; a lot of people only know about SJW culture as a recent internet phenomenon, but the reality is that it's much older than the internet.

I studied the humanities at university through to doctoral level from 2009 - 2013. The faculty were predominantly left-wing neo-Marxist type liberals so naturally the curriculum reflected that. Conservative ideas were pretty much frowned on. It was common in every module (I studied history, film, and literature) to have an aspect of examining the subject from a gender or race theory based angle. I recognise a lot of SJW ideas in these theories. There were students in every class who would openly critique these ideas, but you'd have to have your head in the sand to avoid having to digest them in some form. These ideas weren't new in 2009, they'd been developed since the 1960s, which obviously predates the internet. It's just that these ideas had become the cultural paradigm of humanities academic culture by then.

So, what happens when students leave university? They go onto the workplace, taking this cultural paradigm they've been educated on with them, and begin to critique it and their surrounding society from this angle and expect it to change in alignment. In turn the culture spreads through them to others who haven't been to university or exposed to this culture before. More and more young people come through the universities as the older generation moves on and so it increasingly becomes "the norm."

I don't really take much issues with these ideas or being exposed to them as I'm in favour of supporting the rights & opportunities of the people SJWs often advocate for. You'll find extremists in every camp, including the anti-SJW camp, not all SJWs are extremists. To me, I found SJW culture at university unhealthy only as it was taken to an extent that it formed a hegemony on the idea space, which I felt sometimes choked out space for other ideas to flourish. I've cut contact with academia since 2013 so I have no idea how it's changed, but I hear on the grapevine that it's continued in the same direction.
 

Cognisant

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If you want to talk about social justice, I think you need to be explicit about your terms. I think it'd be more productive to talk about specific issues than gesturing vaguely at the bad tribe. We probably agree on a lot of stuff, but because this is framed in tribes we're pushed to talking about dumb shit.

My understanding of social justice is that of wealth, opportunity, and privilege. Welfare programs are social justice. Gay marriage is social justice. Universal healthcare is social justice. Accessible education is social justice. Give an example you think we'll disagree on.
I was a bit confused, I tried to draw a distinction between SJW culture and social justice while somehow forgetting what the acronym stands for :auburn:

But I'm not going to pick an issue, it's not the issues themselves I have a problem with but rather how they're used within a framework of virtue/vice to shut down constructive debate. For example anyone can just make up a gender identity based on anything and anyone that says anything that isn't in the affirmative is automatically labelled a bigot. Once identified as a bigot any points raised by the bigot are disregarded regardless of their validity, there's no counter-argument, no examination of the matter at hand, just "we're right and you're wrong so STFU".

Hilariously some SJW types started pushing the idea that straight people ought to find trans people attractive and sometimes they are (honestly my reaction to cosplayers these days is often "that's way too pretty to be a girl") but this was being pushed as a moral obligation. Then some smartass came up with the idea of the super straight gender identity, someone who's gender identity is that they're exclusively attracted to people who are biologically of the opposite sex.
Apparently it caused quite the social media shitstorm.

Basically it's sophism, it's a form of disingenuous debate and its becoming endemic to academia and politics because most people don't have the debate skills to tackle it head on or the cleverness to subvert it.

I don't really mind if someone wants to have an alternative gender identity, so long as they're not attacking mine or putting unfair expectations on me (I'll use your pronouns when they're in the dictionary) then it's really none of my business. But I will take exception to people trying to frame their personal bullshit as a matter of virtue and justice, it's just like my attitude towards religion:

"My beliefs say I can't do that"
No problem

"My beliefs say you can't do that"
Go fuck yourself
 

BurnedOut

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On the internet content is prioritized by how people interact with it and I think people are far more likely to interact with content that is affirmative rather than dissenting, unless they're a contentious asshole like myself, but the consequence of this is that it creates an affirmation feedback loop.

I think SJW culture is simply a consequence of this, these people are disengaging with reality in favor of their safe spaces and carefully curated gated online communities where they compete among themselves to see who can take their ideology to its most ridiculous extreme.
You are kinda wrong. Empirical research of 'content' based off Facebook, Twitter, YouTube suggest otherwise. Actually it is not really related to affirmative or dissenting opinion at all. It is more about which content grabs you by the balls tightly. The shock factor is what reigns the internet. Sadly, the internet has commodified the 'shock factor'.

Your second statement is in reality unrelated. Internet is no different than a physical clique of people smoking weed and talking about communist revolutions. The only difference is that they are doing it online and with more anonymity and more resources at their hand.

One important lesson that I learned from studying politics and history is that people take a lot of time to change vis-a-vis technology. You are probably reading into the internet's effects on behaviour a little too much.
 

Hadoblado

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But I'm not going to pick an issue, it's not the issues themselves I have a problem with but rather how they're used within a framework of virtue/vice to shut down constructive debate. For example anyone can just make up a gender identity based on anything and anyone that says anything that isn't in the affirmative is automatically labelled a bigot. Once identified as a bigot any points raised by the bigot are disregarded regardless of their validity, there's no counter-argument, no examination of the matter at hand, just "we're right and you're wrong so STFU".
Is this something that has happened to you? What was their gender identity and what did you want to say that you weren't allowed to?

Hilariously some SJW types started pushing the idea that straight people ought to find trans people attractive and sometimes they are (honestly my reaction to cosplayers these days is often "that's way too pretty to be a girl") but this was being pushed as a moral obligation. Then some smartass came up with the idea of the super straight gender identity, someone who's gender identity is that they're exclusively attracted to people who are biologically of the opposite sex.
Apparently it caused quite the social media shitstorm.

Were you criticised for not finding someone trans attractive? Your sexuality is valid.

Basically it's sophism, it's a form of disingenuous debate and its becoming endemic to academia and politics because most people don't have the debate skills to tackle it head on or the cleverness to subvert it.

Are the SJW positions sophistic or just the wokescolding stuff?

How do you reconcile the belief that this is taking place on a political (see: hyper polarised) and academic (see: peer review) stages, with your belief that this only occurs in an echo chamber. How is this an example of an echo chamber if helpless folks are falling victim to its debate tactics (assuming debate is antithetical to bubbling)?

I don't really mind if someone wants to have an alternative gender identity, so long as they're not attacking mine or putting unfair expectations on me (I'll use your pronouns when they're in the dictionary) then it's really none of my business. But I will take exception to people trying to frame their personal bullshit as a matter of virtue and justice, it's just like my attitude towards religion:

"My beliefs say I can't do that"
No problem

"My beliefs say you can't do that"
Go fuck yourself

In this case you're more progressive than I am. I stick to they/them. I wouldn't use new pronouns just because they were in the dictionary, they would have to naturally become part of my vocabulary. Languages are not engineered, they are organic.
 

Cognisant

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Is this something that has happened to you? What was their gender identity and what did you want to say that you weren't allowed to?
You're completely missing my point, in a way which proves my point, why does it matter if this has happened to me personally or what if any opinions I might have on gender identities? We're talking about how the virtue/vice framework is used to dish out labels like "bigot" which are used to dismiss people's arguments without actually addressing them, to shut down constructive debate.

Why are you so insistent on trying to change the subject? What does it matter what my opinions on any given social issue are when we're talking about the use and abuse of rhetoric? This isn't about me.

Why do you keep trying to make it about me?

I'm not going to label you, I've got no interest in playing that game and I don't want to shut you up, I want you to understand what you're doing and either stop or explain to me why you won't. I want a constructive debate.
 

Hadoblado

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I'm asking you whether this is something you've experienced because if you haven't experienced it then it seems like it's only an issue because your internet bubble is telling you it is.

I said that the video you linked conflates fringe elements for the core of progressive politics, and whether or not you've even experienced the issues you're keyboard warrioring on the internet for is a valid question to raise when establishing the contours of these bubbles.

I'm tired of the monumentally biased framing and constant accusations of ad hom. I think I'm going to stop engaging with you because there's no way I can expect you to listen if you feel attacked like this.
 

Black Rose

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It interests me that self-interest is the political core of SJW religion. And any political religion. Postmodernists in the 60's developed this philosophy that all is power relations. The ones with the most power win. Not logic not Rhetoric but appeal to morals and shutting down speech. Now, this has actually happened on the Kurzweil forum I visited for 8 years until it was shut down. A particular postmodernist gave instructions on how to shut down speach. Speach against Fascists or so-called. Anything politically right. Only left speech would be allowed.

Now if one is only motivated by self-interest and you don't believe in playing fair you will cheat to get what you want. You will be a radical.

what you are fighting cog is radicalism. but so far the altright is just as radical as the SJWs. they freak'n turned the frogs gay.
 

scorpiomover

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On the internet content is prioritized by how people interact with it and I think people are far more likely to interact with content that is affirmative rather than dissenting, unless they're a contentious asshole like myself,
That's kind of the point. Some people seek dissenting viewpoints. Some people seek dissenting viewpoints, so they can criticise them, in order to affirm their POV.

Some people seek dissenting viewpoints to learn from them.

There's no clear rules that everyone follows.

but the consequence of this is that it creates an affirmation feedback loop.
True. There are different ways of handling your emotions and concerns. Some are more functional than others.

People could benefit from everyone being taught better ways of handling their emotions and relationships with others, and encouraged to use them on a regular basis.

I think SJW culture is simply a consequence of this, these people are disengaging with reality in favor of their safe spaces and carefully curated gated online communities where they compete among themselves to see who can take their ideology to its most ridiculous extreme.
Consider: the kid who usually gets 99% right in his exams, is usually not afraid of admitting that he got 1% wrong. The kid who usually gets 99% wrong in his exams, is usually keen to hear that he got 1% right.

If we're seeing a lot of this sort of thing, then we can expect that people on the internet are regularly criticised for this sort of thing. They're escaping to these online communities, because they are now afraid of engaging in real life.

They have NOT been taught how to socialise and get on with others. So they don't know how to handle it.

Classes on how to get on with others and express yourself, your opinions and your needs in ways that will make others more keen to accept you and help you achieve your aims, used to be called "etiquette classes". They were standard until the 1960s, for this reason.

Now I'd be inclined to think this an online only phenomena and these are just a few particularly outspoken idiots, y'know that's not really a problem, however it has entered the realms of governmental policy (the ever broadening definition of hate speech and sexism) and pop culture (hollywood, games and comics in particular).
The internet went from being a backwater to the premier form of communication, and that includes the marketplace of ideas that affect how people vote. The politicians were being swept into power by the internet, whether they liked it or not.

The first American and British rulers to structure their campaign to primarily focus on the internet, were Barack Obama and David Cameron respectively.

What should we do about this, indeed should anything be done?
Teach people the consequences of their behaviour, and a proper psycho-education about other ways to communicate, that will allow them to achieve their aims in ways that other people would accept.

Because they're already on the internet, this becomes easy. Get them to play Game of Life. It's like real life. Whenever anyone talks to them, they get one of 4 different responses. If they choose the "f**k you, motherf**ker" option, their avatar gets stabbed.

After a while of playing the game, you get to figure out the patterns. This trains them to be able to use those same patterns very easily, quickly and fluently, in real life and on the internet.

Does the internet need to undergo a structural change or have the contentious netizens been slacking in their duties?
1) In real life, laws were made to prevent the kinds of things that go on on the internet. You can have several hundred million people watching the same page, with the speaker able to say ANYTHING HE WANTS.

In real life, that would be a huge open space packed with listeners. Governments generally have laws requiring that public meetings of that large a size need to apply for permission, in case the speaker is another Adolf Hilter, and enough of the speakers listen to him for them to have the power of the Nazi party.

But you can do it on the internet.

Not really hard to set some parameters for who can join a thread, like set a max number, so you can't get a thread about Nazi supremacy with more than a few thousand readers.

2) In real life, you can't just say what you want, because then the neo-nazis would start spewing everywhere. So we all have to watch what we say, to live in a nice world.

As a result, if you HAVE to vent, you go to a private room, with a few friends, and you speak with them and them alone. If anyone pops their head in, you tell them that it's private. No-one gets to hear or read your messages except for the 3 people in the room during the conversation.

On the internet, the default system is that everyone can listen to and join in on those conversations.

So the neo-nazis really can start spewing everywhere on the internet. So can every person with ideas that are totally unreasonable, unfeasible and highly morally questionable.

The original chat servers worked to mimic human patterns that reduced hate speech.

But then the internet forums changed that, precisely because it gave humans the limitations that they'd already chosen to impose upon themselves in real life, not because they had to, but because it made for such a better environment, and it got the result they expected.

Re-install the human-type limitations on chat and message systems that we have in real life, and you'll see internet speech evolve to resemble the human speech of those environments with those environmental parameters.
 

Esurient Fere

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On the internet content is prioritized by how people interact with it and I think people are far more likely to interact with content that is affirmative rather than dissenting, unless they're a contentious asshole like myself, but the consequence of this is that it creates an affirmation feedback loop.

I think SJW culture is simply a consequence of this, these people are disengaging with reality in favor of their safe spaces and carefully curated gated online communities where they compete among themselves to see who can take their ideology to its most ridiculous extreme.

Now I'd be inclined to think this an online only phenomena and these are just a few particularly outspoken idiots, y'know that's not really a problem, however it has entered the realms of governmental policy (the ever broadening definition of hate speech and sexism) and pop culture (hollywood, games and comics in particular).
How is this any different from non-internet bias? People near each other are influenced by their own localized bias. The internet hasn't created new problems, it has just showcased and exacerbated old ones.
 

EndogenousRebel

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@Esurient Fere would you say that the problems with Internet bias and automation are completely separate?

Gonna illustrate with an example

Growing up just before smartphones became commonplace in school they were things called 'rumors' and while still obnoxious they were mostly harmless because it was "just a rumor". It was very easy to differentiate who took rumors seriously (innate conspirasists), who thought they were important (gossipers/investigators), and who didn't care at all (absentees). The competence needed to handle a rumor was way more apparent and valued because rumors would build until being proven wrong, or correct, unsolvable. Depending on the validity of the rumor it would either propagate, or fade into obscurity and lie at the back of people minds.

Today none of that shit matters. It doesn't matter what the validity of a rumor is, there will always be people who will take it seriously ironically not. Many people will believe something just because other people believe something and these internet relationships people form don't give people a chance to actually judge the character of someone who believes something. We have so much power over our identities today and how we portray ourselves but I'm sure most of us in real life are just straight up fucking stupid.

Yes, old problems are a component of what the new problem is, but obviously so. If someone around you is insisting that something is true, you might think it's plausible if you respect their opinion, but the internet literally gives the ability for a cult to be present in your house without them even knowing where you live.

Cog fixates on SJWs because he's old and old people hates yuppy hipsters that are an embarrassment to their parents. But this is in fact a problem with various communities, groups, and individuals and will continue to happen if media literacy doesn't expand.
 

Esurient Fere

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@EndogenousRebel
I disagree. Rumors function the same online and offline. It's just a matter of scale, and rumors weren't harmless little things. If you repeat something enough people will believe it. Or, if you say something with enough confidence you can convince someone it's true. This worked before the internet and it works on the internet. This is a very old human problem that is reflected even in our language (apocrypha is a fun word that comes to mind).

I wouldn't say the issues are separate, nothing is that clean, but automation is only as good as what you put in. Garbage in, garbage out. And SJW's being the target says more about OP than about the world. We could pick the extreme of most movements and say they're the reason civilization is failing. Just because that's how it feels doesn't make it true.

A few counters to what you're saying:

Before smartphones were common place we were already on the internet a lot, and we all had cell phones and texting. You think the internet is an echo chamber? tryout a group text, a chatroom, or a forum.

A rumor propagating had nothing to do with how valid it was. It was more an indication of how juicy it was. an old example would be all the ways to catch mew in the Pokémon games. A modern example would be people thinking Breonna Taylor was shot in her sleep. There is a big difference when you can talk to enough people to clear up what really happened. Which is why the mew rumors lasted years and Breonna Taylor was cleared up in a year.

People's characters don't have much impact on being believed. I think Trump provides all the example of this we need. You can absolutely mind fuck most people by simply pushing your view with confidence and nothing else. This is also how a lot of abusive relationships work.

You are using some heavy loaded words here. I don't really understand how cult plays into this in a constructive way.

Disinformation has been a large problem for a long time. Media literacy might be a new term for dealing with it but this idea of critically evaluating information is the basis of may philosophies and religions. And humans are not inherently good at doing it.

It is also far too early to tell if these things are actually a negative impact or not. We have a long history of resisting change.
 

EndogenousRebel

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When you say "we were already on the internet a lot" you actually mean a particular set of people. Growing up middle class in a mostly poor area, I was probably the only person with a laptop and PC at home. Phones with advance OS and applications on them didn't become ubiquitous till around Obama's second presidency in 2012. Having text is irrelevant to the discussion on the internet being biased.

I forgot/didn't want to go into it, but I did mention automation in my first post. The algorithms that run these software application do not care about truth. You mention that police shooting with someone sleeping. You write it like it's a dead rumor that is cleared up, when in fact it is simply a rumor that will never die. Taking it away from that look at the following from Facebook.
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This is in reference to a 1930s broadcasted radio play of the book World of Worlds by Orson Welles. So there was a broadcast on the radio, and a rumor started that people thought that it was real and there was wide spread panic. This is just not true, it never happened. But for every person that becomes informed with the boring reality of this, these algorithms will fool dozens and thousands more. Not even mentioning the new incentives the markets these technologies have formed. Rumors were always a stupid thing to engage in, but until the last decade or so they have become easily monetizable.

Most of what you do on the internet is an echo chamber. When you leave this forum, you'll be hard pressed to find any of the talking point here anywhere else in real life. The bulk of Twitter and Reddit seems to think that America is a secretly leftist society when most of its citizens are conservatives and moderates with some liberal tendencies. Not saying what happens on these platforms doesn't matter, I'm just answering your question. This is very much an echo chamber.

I don't know what you think a cult is, but I'm simply trying to convey that where you are located physically does not limit access to people that are on the internet. I'm very liberal and chill, but I still see dumb shit on a lot of social media platforms that I would call extremist content. We are always vulnerable and taking risks when we use these platforms that are actively trying to illicit responses from us and other actors have interest in this too. These aren't just old problems.
 

Esurient Fere

*grownup
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When you say "we were already on the internet a lot" you actually mean a particular set of people. Growing up middle class in a mostly poor area, I was probably the only person with a laptop and PC at home. Phones with advance OS and applications on them didn't become ubiquitous till around Obama's second presidency in 2012. Having text is irrelevant to the discussion on the internet being biased.
No, I meant what I said. If you had a desktop you had access to the internet and likely spent a significant amount of time on it. Probably around the mid 00's would be were I'd draw the line of a lot of use. A lot of use is relative to the context, it would not be considered a lot of use now.
It's interesting that texting isn't considered part of the internet even though mms required an internet connection and was an integral component of group texts.


I forgot/didn't want to go into it, but I did mention automation in my first post. The algorithms that run these software application do not care about truth. You mention that police shooting with someone sleeping. You write it like it's a dead rumor that is cleared up, when in fact it is simply a rumor that will never die. Taking it away from that look at the following from Facebook.
View attachment 5788
This is in reference to a 1930s broadcasted radio play of the book World of Worlds by Orson Welles. So there was a broadcast on the radio, and a rumor started that people thought that it was real and there was wide spread panic. This is just not true, it never happened. But for every person that becomes informed with the boring reality of this, these algorithms will fool dozens and thousands more. Not even mentioning the new incentives the markets these technologies have formed. Rumors were always a stupid thing to engage in, but until the last decade or so they have become easily monetizable.
Automation might be problem, there is a bit of a struggle going on over that. But I agree, when you build for clicks the content is irrelevant. Much like when your goal is to make money your product/service is irrelevant.

Most of what you do on the internet is an echo chamber. When you leave this forum, you'll be hard pressed to find any of the talking point here anywhere else in real life. The bulk of Twitter and Reddit seems to think that America is a secretly leftist society when most of its citizens are conservatives and moderates with some liberal tendencies. Not saying what happens on these platforms doesn't matter, I'm just answering your question. This is very much an echo chamber.
My point is it's all an echo chamber. You think the person living in LA or Rural Iowa aren't reinforcing their local ideas on the internet? Or using whatever they fin don the internet to justify what they think?
Most of America is not conservative (And for America there is a heavy religious bent to "conservative"), the split is fairly even but each side wants to claim being the underdog.
It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that the internet is biased left. Much like rural areas are biased right.
I don't know what you think a cult is, but I'm simply trying to convey that where you are located physically does not limit access to people that are on the internet. I'm very liberal and chill, but I still see dumb shit on a lot of social media platforms that I would call extremist content. We are always vulnerable and taking risks when we use these platforms that are actively trying to illicit responses from us and other actors have interest in this too. These aren't just old problems.
the internet literally gives the ability for a cult to be present in your house without them even knowing where you live.
I don't think it's hard to figure out what mean here.

Anyway, those are my pennies on the issue.
 

EndogenousRebel

mean person
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You don't send a SMS to share your opinion with strangers do you?

I'm sorry you're just affluent and unaware of it. A 23yo friend told me he didn't even know Apple was a company till he saw my MacBook circa 09. I attended a rich advance practice school for some time and, everyone had iPhones/Ipods but there was hardly even really an app store at that time. Meanwhile me we a flip phone having to wait to get home and use the computer. I can guarantee you that most under the age of 25 rn got their first chat experiences from apps like Facebook and Kik.

Suddenly overnight there was a very powerful technology in the hands of everybody. Automation is the problem. It literally doesn't matter the intention of the creator of content. Even if the content created had no intentionally behind it and made random shit, the algorithms would pick the worst content to bubble up to The top.

You're talking political parties my dude. When it comes to preferred policy, it's obvious why the left fails so much in the US. I don't know why you're denying this. I wouldn't make shit up. Also, compared to Europe there is no disputing the fact that most of the US, lefties included have many conservative beliefs. https://news.gallup.com/poll/275792/remained-center-right-ideologically-2019.aspx

Seems kinda disingenuous or generic hot takes. iTs aLl a eCHo CHamBer. Then explains how norms are spread over large geographic areas. Even during MySpace days people were concerned about suicides that would happen because of the new apparent danger of not being able to escape the outside world was creeping up. I'm not sure how you hold these beliefs without being obtuse
 

Black Rose

An unbreakable bond
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with mama
Diversity when it comes to the internet for me is just goop. Remember kittens in blenders. I am glad Google has safety search now and filter bubbles. Things still happen like mass shootings but at least I don't have to see it live-streamed. So much stuff was no echo chamber but at least there are options now.
 
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