Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

[Tadasuke]

I don't engage in politics on Twitter/X. It's not a platform for politics for me. Some people have completely different interest circles in which there is no politics.

After years of blocking and adjusting (+a browser add-on called Control Panel for Twitter), I've come to a point where I mostly see the things I want and don't see the things I don't want. It took years of work, which started way before Elon Musk overtook this company. Since he came to Twitter, bots started sending messages, invites and comments en masse. This meant more work with blocking and reporting (5 notifications per day can happen). I'm sometimes considering leaving the WWW, because it's usually such a stupid and awful place.

[Tadasuke]

In my experience, the WWW was probably the most usable between 2011 and 2015. Since then, it has been becoming worse, with AI sometimes helping and sometimes making things worse (or way way worse). It's the opposite of what I was expecting.

Lots of then good blogs and websites are over. Recently AnandTech for example. And my interest in computer hardware is made boring by the small improvements in capabilities per dollar. Each day I understand people reading paper books or playing retro videos games more and more.

[Powers]

In my experience, the WWW was probably the most usable between 2011 and 2015. Since then, it has been becoming worse, with AI sometimes helping and sometimes making things worse (or way way worse). It's the opposite of what I was expecting.

Interestingly for me the cut was around 2018 and 2020.

[caltrek]

Neo-Nazi Telegram Users Panic Amid Crackdown and Arrest of Alleged Leaders of Online Extremist Group
by A.C. Thompson, James Bandler and Brandon Roberts
September 25, 2024

Introduction:

(The Conversation) The recent crackdown on the social media platform Telegram has triggered waves of panic among the neo-Nazis who have made the app their headquarters for posting hate and planning violence.

“Shut It Down,” one person posted in a white supremacist chat on Tuesday, hours after Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced he would begin sharing some users’ identifying information with law enforcement.

With over 900 million users around the globe, Telegram has been both revered and reviled for its hands-off approach to moderating posted content. The platform made headlines this summer when French authorities arrested Durov, seeking to hold him responsible for illegal activity that has been conducted or facilitated on the platform — including organized drug trafficking, child pornography and fraud.

Durov has called the charges “misguided.” But he acknowledged that criminals have abused the platform and promised in a Telegram post to “significantly improve things in this regard.” Durov’s announcement marked a considerable policy shift: He said Telegram will now share the IP addresses and phone numbers of users who violate the platform’s rules with authorities “in response to valid legal requests.”

This was the second time in weeks that extremists had called on their brethren to abandon Telegram. The first flurry of panic followed indictments by the Justice Department of two alleged leaders of the Terrorgram Collective, a group of white supremacists accused of inciting others on the platform to commit racist killings.

Read more here: https://www.propublica.org/article/tel ... w-allison

[Vakanai]

Each day I understand people reading paper books or playing retro videos games more and more.

What's wrong with paper books and retro video games? Honestly I prefer pixel graphics and 2D platformers most of the time, and it's almost impossible for me to read a novel online compared to paper books.

[Time_Traveller]

Each day I understand people reading paper books or playing retro videos games more and more.

What's wrong with paper books and retro video games? Honestly I prefer pixel graphics and 2D platformers most of the time, and it's almost impossible for me to read a novel online compared to paper books.

I was never interested in technology like Ipads etc, I am planning on putting the majority of my reading books in my bookcase by my new bed and if I have to many I plan to put them under my bed in a underbed fabric storage box (depending on the room), if not they can go to a charity shop.

[caltrek]

Social Media Users’ Actions Rather Than Biased Policies May Drive Differences in Platform Enforcement
October 2, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) A new paper, “Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions,” published today in Nature suggests that the higher quantity of social media policy enforcement (such as account suspensions) for conservative users could be explained by the higher quantity of misinformation shared by those conservative users — and so does not constitute evidence of inherent biases in the policies from social media companies or in the definition of what constitutes misinformation.

Written by researchers from MIT Sloan School of Management, the University of Oxford, Cornell University, and Yale University, co-authors of the paper include Mohsen Mosleh, Qi Yang, Tauhid Zaman, Gordon Pennycook and David G. Rand.

The spread of misinformation has become an increasing concern, especially as the 2024 presidential election in the United States approaches. Many Americans who disagree on political issues agree that the sharing of false information is a substantial problem; sixty-five percent of Americans say that technology companies should take action to restrict the spread of false information. However, there is great dissension as to whether tech companies are actually moderating platforms fairly.

“Accusations of political bias are often based largely on anecdotes or noteworthy cases, such as the suspension from Twitter and Facebook of former President Trump,” said MIT Sloan professor Rand. “This study allows us to systematically evaluate the data and better understand the differential rates of policy enforcement.”

The asymmetry of conservative sanctions versus liberal sanctions should not be attributed to partisan bias on the part of social media companies and those determining what counts as misinformation, Rand and the co-authors noted.

Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1059997

For a presentation of study results as published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07942-8

caltrek's comment: Another way of saying that truth has a liberal bias.

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is

What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis.

By Charlie Warzel

The truth is, it’s getting harder to describe the extent to which a meaningful percentage of Americans have dissociated from reality. As Hurricane Milton churned across the Gulf of Mexico last night, I saw an onslaught of outright conspiracy theorizing and utter nonsense racking up millions of views across the internet. The posts would be laughable if they weren’t taken by many people as gospel. Among them: Infowars’ Alex Jones, who claimed that Hurricanes Milton and Helene were “weather weapons” unleashed on the East Coast by the U.S. government, and “truth seeker” accounts on X that posted photos of condensation trails in the sky to baselessly allege that the government was “spraying Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton” in order to ensure maximum rainfall, “just like they did over Asheville!”

As Milton made landfall, causing a series of tornados, a verified account on X reposted a TikTok video of a massive funnel cloud with the caption “WHAT IS HAPPENING TO FLORIDA?!” The clip, which was eventually removed but had been viewed 662,000 times as of yesterday evening, turned out to be from a video of a CGI tornado that was originally published months ago. Scrolling through these platforms, watching them fill with false information, harebrained theories, and doctored images—all while panicked residents boarded up their houses, struggled to evacuate, and prayed that their worldly possessions wouldn’t be obliterated overnight—offered a portrait of American discourse almost too bleak to reckon with head-on.

Even in a decade marred by online grifters, shameless politicians, and an alternative right-wing-media complex pushing anti-science fringe theories, the events of the past few weeks stand out for their depravity and nihilism. As two catastrophic storms upended American cities, a patchwork network of influencers and fake-news peddlers have done their best to sow distrust, stoke resentment, and interfere with relief efforts. But this is more than just a misinformation crisis. To watch as real information is overwhelmed by crank theories and public servants battle death threats is to confront two alarming facts: first, that a durable ecosystem exists to ensconce citizens in an alternate reality, and second, that the people consuming and amplifying those lies are not helpless dupes but willing participants.

Some of the lies and obfuscation are politically motivated, such as the claim that FEMA is offering only $750 in total to hurricane victims who have lost their home. (In reality, FEMA offers $750 as immediate “Serious Needs Assistance” to help people get basic supplies such as food and water.) Donald Trump, J. D. Vance, and Fox News have all repeated that lie. Trump also posted (and later deleted) on Truth Social that FEMA money was given to undocumented migrants, which is untrue. Elon Musk, who owns X, claimed—without evidence—that FEMA was “actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own. It’s very real and scary how much they have taken control to stop people helping.” That post has been viewed more than 40 million times. Other influencers, such as the Trump sycophant Laura Loomer, have urged their followers to disrupt the disaster agency’s efforts to help hurricane victims. “Do not comply with FEMA,” she posted on X. “This is a matter of survival.”

Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... aign=share

[caltrek]

Rage Clicks: Study Shows How Political Outrage Fuels Social Media Engagement
October 10, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) A new Tulane University study explains why politically charged content gets more engagement from those who disagree. Researchers found a “confrontation effect,” where people are more likely to interact with content that challenges their views than those that align with them.

The study analyzed data from Twitter, Facebook, and online experiments over time, including during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and found that users frequently react to opposing viewpoints with heightened engagement, often driven by outrage.

“The research helps explain the large amount of toxic discourse we observe online. Our results reveal that individuals are strongly driven to voice their outrage toward those with whom they disagree,” said study lead author Daniel Mochon, the Edward H. Austin Jr. Professor of Business Administration and an associate professor of marketing at Tulane University’s A. B. Freeman School of Business. “While previous studies show that people avoid content inconsistent with their beliefs, we found that counter-ideological content actually drives higher engagement.”

The study was published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Researchers exposed more than 500,000 Americans to political posts on Facebook, including those for and against then-President Donald Trump, to observe how users responded based on their political affiliations. The results showed that users were far more likely to comment on or react to posts that contradicted their beliefs, especially when they felt their core values were challenged.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1060818

[Powers]

Not only political.

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

[Time_Traveller]

Decline of X is an opportunity to do social media differently – but combining ‘safe’ and ‘profitable’ will still be a challenge

October 15, 2024 4.47pm BST

It’s now almost two years since Elon Musk concluded his takeover of Twitter (now called X) on 27 October 2022. Since then, the platform has become an increasingly polarised and divisive space.

Musk promised to deal with some of the issues which had already frustrated users, particularly bots, abuse and misinformation. In 2023, he said there was less misinformation on the platform because of his efforts to tackle the bots. But others disagree, claiming that misinformation is still rife there.

A potential reaction to this may be apparent in recent data highlighted by the Financial Times, which showed the number of UK users of the platform had fallen by one-third, while US users had dropped by one-fifth. The data used to reach these conclusions may be open to question, as it is hard to find out user numbers directly from X.

The figures also come out against the background of a disagreement over whether X’s traffic is waning or not. But there has been a notable trend in academia for individuals and some organisations to leave for alternative platforms such as Bluesky and Threads, or to quit social media altogether.

Elon Musk has claimed that X is hitting record highs in user-seconds, a measure of how long users are spending on the site. But advertising revenue is reported to have dropped sharply amid Musk’s controversial changes, such as his “free speech” approach on the platform. If so, it will be reflected in the platform’s financial performance which has been dire. The platform currently has no clear pathway to profitability.

https://theconversation.com/decline-of- ... nge-241228

[firestar464]

It's so weird that anyone sane still takes X seriously

[Time_Traveller]

It's so weird that anyone sane still takes X seriously

Who knows why anyone is on it since Musk's takeover.

[wjfox]

Elon Musk is a truly evil POS.

[Time_Traveller]

Elon Musk is a truly evil POS.

Two different states, two different versions of the Israel war through election votes.

[Powers]

Twitter/X Will Use Your Posts For AI Training And There's No Opting Out
17 October 2024

[...] As per the company's updated Terms of Service, users who post, submit, or display content on Twitter now automatically grant the platform a "worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display, upload, download, and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods now known or later developed, for any purpose."

This license includes the right for Twitter to analyze the text and other information you provide and leverage it to enhance its services, including "for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, whether generative or another type."

Moreover, Twitter reserves the right to make your content "available to other companies, organizations or individuals, including, for example, for improving the Services and the syndication, broadcast, distribution, repost, promotion or publication of such Content on other media and services," presumably suggesting that not only can Twitter itself use your artwork to train its AI models, but it can also share it with other developers who'd be willing to help the platform "improve the Services".

https://80.lv/articles/twitter-x-will-u ... pting-out/

[Powers]

Adobe please.