Let's stop pretending Facebook and Twitter's CEOS can't fix this mess

[blaze]

https://www.wired.com/story/ellen-pao-facebook-twitter-ceos-can-fix-abuse-mark-zuckerberg-jack-dorsey/?mbid=social_twitter

"In the earliest days, it wasn’t always obvious what these platforms were doing and what they would become—even to insiders. But at a certain point, it became clear that money was the driving factor, and dopamine- or rage-induced interactions meant more money. They didn’t care about creating a positive experience for users—which would at a minimum require physical and mental safety. Every single one of them knew what was going to happen. And we saw it time and time again.

At Reddit, where I was CEO, we saw the dangers of unfettered free speech and engagement addiction. When we allowed linking to stolen naked celebrity photos on Reddit, that was what took over the site and what the site became. People flocked to Reddit to find stolen nude photos, and the commentary was neither enlightening nor humanizing—and invasive in so many ways for the subjects involved. Good conversations were pushed off the site by the overwhelming demands to see nude photos. Social games companies like Zynga admitted that they were hunting the “whales”—high-spending users who could drive financial results—and that meant encouraging unhealthy behavior. We’ve already seen Gamergate, the Boston Marathon witch hunt, and Myanmar rioting."

snip

"Companies can address harassment without hurting their platforms. Taking down shitty content works, and research supports it. When we took down unauthorized nude photos and revenge porn, nothing bad happened. The site continued to function, and all the other major sites followed. A few months later, we banned the five most harassing subreddits. And we saw right away that if we kept taking down the replacement sites, they would eventually disappear. University researchers who studied the impact of the ban report that it successfully shut down the content and changed bad behavior over time on the site—without making other sites worse."

[democratisphere]

1. Solution. Unsubscribe from fakebook and Twitter-Sh'tter

permanently.

[blaze]

2. That's a good solution for you. But it does nothing to help national security.

Russian cyber intelligence is bombarding these platforms with nation-dividing propaganda.

And that can't be stopped by simply telling people to turn it off. You know that's not going to happen.

[democratisphere]

3. If you allow yourself to be exposed to propaganda on fakebook and Twitter-Sh'tter

then the responsibility for that exposure is totally on the subscriber or you.

[Initech]

4. Let's also stop pretending that they care about fixing this mess.

As long as they put profits over people this shit will remain the same and probably even get worse.