Re Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Savage, Christopher" <ChrisSavage () dwt com>
> Date: December 12, 2017 at 4:23:28 PM EST
> To: "dave () farber net" <dave () farber net>
> Subject: RE: [IP] Re  Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society
>
> Dave,
>  
> A brief reply, for IP if you wish.
>  
> Chris S.
>  
> Begin forwarded message:
>  
> From: Danny Weitzner <djweitzner () csail mit edu>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society
> Date: December 12, 2017 at 10:03:36 AM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: ip <ip () listbox com>
>  
> I'm sure this reflects a well-intentioned guilty conscience, but it strikes me as the height of techno-determinism 
> and Silicon Valley self-importance to believe that the flaws in this medium are at the heart of the tensions in our 
> social fabric. Does anyone really believe that but for FB and other social media we would be having an easy time 
> managing:
>  
> 1/massive economic dislocation, deep-seated tensions in gender relations, 
>  
> 2/culture war version X between the parts of the country that 'want to make America great again' by retreating from 
> the world and turning their backs on diversity and tolerance, versus those parts of the country (not defined any more 
> by just Red States and Blue ones) 
>  
> 3/huge gaps between those who accept science and reason versus those who distrust even well-supported scientific 
> results if the origin is an elite university
>  
> I'd remind everyone that in the 2008 election, may of the now critics of Facebook etc gave those networks credit for 
> the election of our first African-American president over the presumptive Democratic nominee. 
>  
> > > Social networks as a medium are highly imperfect and should be more responsibly managed by the owners and regulated 
> > > when they come into contract with the campaign finance and advertising arenas. But we have bigger problems than 
> > > 'like' buttons and 143+ character messages.<<
>  
> The key point Professor Weitzner misses is our highly-evolved tendency to try to identify those who are in our tribe 
> (to whom we react favorably) and those who are not (to whom we don’t).  In insular pre-industrial agricultural 
> communities, the determination of “our tribe” was geographic.  The industrial revolution, urbanization, and mass 
> communications (especially network television) did not change our evolved nature, but created an environment in which 
> for many of us, the boundaries of our tribe became diffuse.  Racial and gender divides are the exceptions that prove 
> the rule, in that it is essentially obvious from direct observation in most cases that someone is a member of a 
> another race or gender.
>  
> The rise first of cable news, then the proliferation of differentiated information on the web, then social networks, 
> then individually-tailored predictive ads and search results, permit us to revert to our evolutionary norm of 
> spending most of our time and attention on people like us – however ignorant, biased, narrow-minded, or ill-informed 
> we may be.  It works because that’s what we like to see.  It happens because there’s money in it, as the financial 
> positions of Google and Facebook attest.  It also happens because it can be used to affect political power in the 
> real world, as the 2016 election attests.
>  
> Obviously there are lots of real problems in the real world, as Professor Weitzner notes.  But what he misses is that 
> social networks in particular, but also other aspects of the online world, simultaneously make some of those problems 
> worse, and almost universally lower our effective social ability to deal with them effectively.  Those who do not 
> accept science and reason, in the old days, would be confronted daily via network news and broad-distribution papers 
> and magazines with the overwhelming consensus that science works.  Now they can spend their time on flat earth 
> websites and have collections of social network friends who agree with them.  Those who want to turn their backs on 
> diversity and tolerance can now spend all their time reading Brietbart and its ilk, and, again, spend their time and 
> attention on social networks with friends who agree with them and reinforce their closed-minded and ignorant views. 
>  
> Our beliefs and attitudes do not exist in a vacuum.  They are mediated and influenced by what we pay attention to and 
> who we spend our time with.  Social networks (and, again, certain aspects of the online experience generally) are 
> effectively engineered to keep us in our information and attitudinal bubbles.  We like it so we keep doing it; and it 
> lets folks sell lots of very carefully targeted ads.
>  
> These are serious, real problems that should not be so easily dismissed.
>  
> Chris S.
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> Danny
>  
> -- 
> Daniel J. Weitzner, Principal Research Scientist
> MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab
> Director, MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative
> Tel: +1 617 253 8036
>  
> On Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 1:14 AM DAVID FARBER <dfarber () me com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff () iconia com>
> Date: December 11, 2017 at 11:53:34 PM EST
> To: E-mail Pamphleteer Dave Farber's Interesting People list <ip () listbox com>
> Cc: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, Michael Grant <mgrant () grant org>, "Peter G. Neumann" <neumann () 
> csl sri com>, Sam Baker <kokuadigital () gmail com>, Catherine Jefferson <ariel () spambouncer org>
> Subject: Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society
>
> Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society
> ‘No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth.’
> https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/11/16761016/former-facebook-exec-ripping-apart-society
>  
> -- 
> Geoff.Goodfellow () iconia com
> living as The Truth is True
> http://geoff.livejournal.com  
>  
> -- 
> Daniel J. Weitzner, Principal Research Scientist 
> MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab
> Director, Internet Policy Research Initiative
>  
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