I think it is a fact that we surround ourselves with people like ourselves, inside or outside of social media. I regularly see people being idiots on my social media feeds. Maybe I just don't "like" the right stuff enough - but as the Hubski users who are my Facebook friends probably know, I'm a profligate liker if I genuinely like a thing or person. Liking a person does not mean that you will like everything they post. Liking a news media outlet does not mean that you will like everything that they post, either. Sure, in the media and online when you are discussing a perfectly curated experience in which all negative things are filtered out because somehow an algorithm is able to predict what we don't like. But sometimes we want to see the negative things. Great example: my Facebook feed was positively full of Robin Williams posts. I don't like the fact that he died or how he died. I'm not running around liking these posts. I'm still seeing a shit ton of them. In addition, in social media, we are already curating our audience and our feeds for ourselves by deciding who to follow. I don't see what the problem is with Facebook taking that a step further as long as users are aware that this filtering is occuring. We are already choosing to limit our feeds to theoretically "only what we want to see." That's because if feeds weren't limited we would see everything, 95% of it wouldn't interest us, and social media would have no purpose. Social media is made in order to filter things. I also still think we exist mostly in meatspace. Not experiencing that which we don't like online - first of all, it's still fallacious to state that simply because you like a person or provider you will like everything they post - but in addition, not experiencing that which we don't like online does not in any way mean we get to scrape through life as a whole only experiencing what we do like. Hell in gaming, we can choose to only experience what we like - we can god-mode our way through games, for instance, never losing. I don't see anyone wringing their hands about that.we never have to experience the unpleasantness of something we don't like™.
I guess I agree, but in 20 or 50 years a statement like "we exist mostly in meatspace" could be plain wrong. Who knows? Purely speculative, but at that point we may regret not demanding more accountability of those domains we once dismissed as just "Internet things". Another unspoken difference between the way this circularity ('you get what like, you like what you get') plays out in meatspace versus on facebook is the level of transparency and control. When you (read: "we") surround ourselves with like-minded people in "real life", you are somewhat conscious of the fact that a selection has taken place. If you ask most people, they would say they "chose" their friends, indicating they were in control of that process. The newsfeed and its underpinnings, by contrast, are opaque. Savvy users (like ourselves lol) realize that facebook has taken the liberty of culling and curating content, but your average user is in the dark not only when it comes to how that culling works, but may be unaware that it's happening at all! (At the very least, hasn't put much thought into how/if facebook does what it does.) I hate to take a page from Donald Rumsfeld's book (of all people), but I'd rather deal with a "known unknown" than an "unknown unknown". As it currently stands, the newsfeed operates precisely as an unknown unknown.
That's true, the singularity in some way could occur. Do we not also choose who we are friends with on Facebook? We don't necessarily choose 100% of what we see from them, but on Facebook we also retain the ability to seek that information out. I want to know how a friend is doing? I go to their page, I don't rely on the news feed. The newsfeed operates as an unknown unknown - if you are not a conscious user. However, as I said, it's not like the newsfeed is the only way to get content. In addition, anyone who goes to a user's page in order to see what's up with them, and then revisits the general news feed, should be able to notice that not everything posted on the user's page appears in the feed. I do not think it is as mystical as you are presenting it. Maybe I am overassuming average intelligence, but I think after looking at one or two of your friends' pages on Facebook and navigating back to the feed you'd be able to realize that clearly, not everything is making it across.
Call me paranoid, but I sincerely believe facebook has grander ambitions than simply connecting people and enabling us to stalk old flames. Especially in light of facebook's insatiable desire to track our behavior across the web. The more information they capture about us, the more totalizing and dense the cocoon facebook spins around us becomes. Facebook isn't really about friends anymore; I think it's fair to say there's been an explosion of outside media/corporate branding on facebook. Am I deluded because I think this could go really sinister, really quickly? Yeah, probably. But on the other hand, it isn't to our credit to be completely naïve about the issue.
a) I fail to see how facebook's grander ambitions have much to do with this topic b) if Facebook were to truly create a "perfect algorithm" that only showed me "what i liked," they would never show me ads. That was what you presented as your greatest concern in an above comment, that users wouldn't be introduced to negative things and this was a bad thing. It is completely counter to Facebook's goals to produce this algorithm and show me only what I like - so that earlier point is moot. In addition, it further demonstrates how this comment I'm responding to is only tangentially related to the discussion we were having before. c) This in no way belies my point that you still select what friends you add or do not add on Facebook, which was also relevant...to the discussion we were having before you went off on a huge tangent. That discussion was about whether or not a user would be able to discern that the news feed is filtered by more than him- or herself. d) Are you deluded? Yes. Do you know a lot of people who consider Facebook to be life or something? e) I'm not being naive. However, this (the issue of Facebook being a big sinister prying presence in everyone's life who may warp information based on what it wants its users to think or see) was not the issue that we were discussing. Curation and manipulation are different. In that case, why don't we start talking about how you aren't wringing your hands about Rupert Murdoch and should be? Do you have valid concerns about the presence of Facebook in people's lives? Sure. Were you communicating effectively about what they were? No. You appear to be jumping from point to point because you already know what your argument is - Facebook is a big bad evil - but have not settled on how you are going to prove it, or how it is related to the article at hand.Facebook isn't really about friends anymore;
If you can't see the connection between Facebook's ambitions and the role the newsfeed plays in our lives, this isn't a conversation worth having. Yes, the strategy is to analyze what you've like and show you more of the same. Yes, I understand that you dislike advertisements but continue to see them. That's because the newsfeed is a work in progress. Facebook's end game is to create the perfect advertisement: a targeted ad that you do -in fact- like, or an ad so indistinguishable from other content that you don't notice it is an ad. I'm hardly the tinfoil hat-type, but are you telling me this hasn't crossed your mind? You can't cry foul (or "tangent", as it were) when the "topic" you staked out was beside the point in the first place. Obviously, the topic you feel you've sacredly delineated ("you still select what friends you add or do not add on Facebook") doesn't merit discussion. Being able to see the interconnectedness of things should be a positive, not a strike against. It's an online forum, not a 5th-grade English paper. There are no points awarded for hewing close to some dismal little thesis. An ostrich buries its head in the sand. To you, the most salient argument to be made is that you choose who to friend on facebook. You somehow think this illusion of control means that the filtering process is neutral, anodyne, not worthy of further inspection. Ok, ostrich. And—just because connecting dots really seems to bother you—I'm going to refer you to Death of the Author. The article may or may not be stupid (that was your original point, yes?): but what actually matters is what you, the reader, make of it. How's that for a tangent?Do you know a lot of people who consider Facebook to be life or something?
Clearly you've never spent time around teenagers.
Do you at any point in this conversation see me actually disagreeing with the potential of Facebook to do negative things? No, in fact I state that I think there's validity to your argument - but not your points. Yes, I can. We had established a back and forth about a discussion and topic. In my response to the article, I was not establishing a back-and-forth with the author of the article about what he'd written. Your side did not go well in the discussion so you began to jump around in an attempt to shore up your argument. I pointed this out. You didn't like it. You're right, but there are points for being able to communicate and be comprehensible. Yes, I never was one, either. Thanks for the heat!Facebook's end game is to create the perfect advertisement: a targeted ad that you do -in fact- like, or an ad so indistinguishable from other content that you don't notice it is an ad. I'm hardly the tinfoil hat-type, but are you telling me this hasn't crossed your mind?
You can't cry foul (or "tangent", as it were) when the "topic" you staked out was beside the point in the first place.
It's an online forum, not a 5th-grade English paper. There are no points awarded for hewing close to some dismal little thesis.
Clearly you've never spent time around teenagers.
So what is your point exactly? Is it the one that didn't deserve to be made? Debate only thrives when there is something worth debating. "Heat" is not the antithesis of light but rather the source of it....In my response to the article...
...not establishing a back-and-forth with the author of the article about what he'd written...
Having difficulty reconciling these two. Help me out?