Social media companies amplifying Americans' anger for profit

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Nathan

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Industry ethicist: Social media companies amplifying Americans' anger for profit​

60 Minutes Overtime

"The more moral outrageous language you use, the more inflammatory language, contemptuous language, the more indignation you use, the more it will get shared. So we are being rewarded for being division entrepreneurs. The better you are at innovating a new way to be divisive, we will pay you in more likes, followers and retweets."

That's what Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, told Bill Whitaker this week on 60 Mintues.
In his 2020 documentary, "The Social Dilemma," Harris made the case that social media platforms have hijacked our attention. Now, he's citing a new study of Twitter showing that attacking political opponents is almost guaranteed to draw attention.

Here's a recent example. The day the Department of Justice released a photo showing classified documents in former President Donald Trump's Florida home, a tweet highlighting a straight news story on the subject received about 2,000 "likes." But a tweet from a Republican congresswoman calling Trump's opponents "dumbasses" was "liked" ten times as much, and a tweet from the left labeling Donald Trump "a traitor" was "liked" 20 times more.

And, Harris says, anger skews the political landscape.

"Why is it that the world knows more about Marjorie Taylor Greene than they know about all the other hundreds of congressional candidates? It's because the enraging inflammatory stuff goes the most viral," Harris said.

For the rest of the article: cbsnews.com
 

SeniorBen said:
I watched that last night. We're at a place right now that opinions are valued more than facts. Even verifiable facts are now open to interpretation or they can be simply discarded if they don't fit a person's worldview.
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The truth doesn't care what anyone's opinion of it is and that's a fact.
But since you're aware that that's the place we are at, right now, how
do we change course so that we don't stay in this same spot?
 
True enough, but kind of stating the obvious. There is a very good (bad) reason that government is loath to support, or fund real education. The last thing they want is an intelligent electorate that would vote their crooked butt's out of office. Much better to keep us dumb, and fighting among each other. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Quote:

"Why is it that the world knows more about Marjorie Taylor Greene than they know about all the other hundreds of congressional candidates? It's because the enraging inflammatory stuff goes the most viral," Harris said.
 
I know we have, or did have laws regarding false advertising. I do not know as much about this stuff as I should but it seems something similar might be possible. False advertising was not protected under free speech. The thing that really makes me sad is that most Americans are on the same page, from what I can tell, in what we want. We just have opposite ways that we think will resolve our problems. Example is abortion. Most Americans wanted that left alone. Most of us are not "radical left" or "far right". I believe the majority is nearer the middle.
 
Farrah Nuff said:
The truth doesn't care what anyone's opinion of it is and that's a fact.
But since you're aware that that's the place we are at, right now, how
do we change course so that we don't stay in this same spot?
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One thing we can do is ostracize the radicals who embrace and disseminate crazy conspiracy theories, but that's not so easy to do when it involves close relatives or neighbors.

There are a few of them here on SFs. If you engage with them, that's what they want since, basically, they're just trolls looking for a fight and an excuse to insult you. The best thing to do is just ignore them. Don't feed the trolls, as the maxim goes.

Those are just a few things at the micro level. It's up to our leaders to address the problem at the macro level, but they're not doing that, so I don't know what the solution is. The only thing we can do is cast our votes. Obviously, that's not enough, though.
 
DebraMae said:
Education is where I would start. Maybe laws view.providing penalties to news outlets that knowingly present false information as fact.
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Knowingly would seem hard to prove plus it would seem to be a 1st amendment matter.
Also what to do about the willfully ignorant who are almost certain to believe and repeat
such false information. No real or easy solution to it, in my view.
 
SeniorBen said:
One thing we can do is ostracize the radicals who embrace and disseminate crazy conspiracy theories, but that's not so easy to do when it involves close relatives or neighbors.

There are a few of them here on SFs. If you engage with them, that's what they want since, basically, they're just trolls looking for a fight and an excuse to insult you. The best thing to do is just ignore them. Don't feed the trolls, as the maxim goes.
SF
Those are just a few things at the micro level. It's up to our leaders to address the problem at the macro level, but they're not doing that, so I don't know what the solution is. The only thing we can do is cast our votes. Obviously, that's not enough, though.
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Everyone, pretty much, is a close relative or neighbor to someone I'd think. :unsure:

The silver lining is, I guess, that most of the trolls who are here on SF aren't breeding others of the same ilk. 🤷‍♂️
 
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