SmarterEveryDay
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2020
21:24 · 957K views · Apr 8, 2019
Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day examines how bad actors and bots use Twitter, drawing on the released Russian IRA dataset and interviews. It asks why interactions on the platform turn hostile.
Cited in discussions of platform manipulation and eroding institutional trust, though mentions are mostly passing references.
4 comments from Hacker News
> no wonder people don’t believe in global warming, these “experts” prioritize politics over everything I read this as a clear expression of your frustration. Completely reasonable given the situation. Are you familiar with the YouTube channel "Smarter Every Day"? There's this three-part series that might offer a new perspective on the distrust and disillusionment you seem to be feeling: [1]: [LINK] [2]: this video [3]: [LINK] In particular, the channel creator Destin Sandlin explores how YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are being used as a sort of vanguard in a meta-game to undermine our trust in the social institutions we rely on. It's a pretty dystopian-sounding and bleak theme. However, Destin is really good at conveying a message of hope. Use your Critical Mind, of course, but also realize that there's a personal cost to adopting absolutist views like `"experts" prioritize politics over everything.'
Thanks for the links. I hadn't seen those. Wow. Those were rough. TLDR: Barn, horses, open door, darn. Social media created the problem, makes enormous profits, harms all of society, and is not only powerless to mitigate it, has no responsibility to do so. Because Freedom Speeches™, or reasons. You attribute most of the blame on stupid users. And yet. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey retweeted a bot. this video So then what hope does the average person have of doing better? (Rhetorical question.) A la Merchants of Doubt, I've always wandered how skeptics, shills, and apologists sleep at night. Surely Sandberg, Zuck, Dorsey, et al somehow manage. But what about the drones? So I'll be watching the career arcs of the people interviewed (Del Harvey, Yoel Roth, Renee DiResta, others) to see where they land. -- Back to my own quarter baked idea, the "mitigations" explained via Smarter Every Day operate at the medium layer. And they have a conflict of interest. I'm wondering if there's something to protect individuals, a way for noobs to up armor ourselves. My first notion is something akin to iOS Screen Time, like a uBlock for The Outrage Machine, where your device can help you ward off manipulation (inauthentic nudges).
Yea, that's well known. Not just from federal law enforcement with proof of it, but twitter, youtube and facebook know it and admit to it too. Smarter Everyday interviewed all 3 and their folks talk about this directly. [LINK] [LINK] this video The actual social media platforms saying it's happening. At the same time though, it's not all their fault. It takes two to tango and if you're gullible enough to wreck your own life on the words of someone you've never, and will never meet... that's a special kind of stupid. Here's my hope. All of this gets out of our systems. After whoever wins this election, folks are going to go, "Hold on, we're all acting like crazy people. Let's be sensible and stop going to the extremes and work together." This is the fantasy that fills my dreams. Not flying, being rich or anything like that. That, society being sensible and taking some personal responsibility. That's my crazy, wild fantasy...
You could "just" draw a furry avatar if you have the art skills. Or you could pay an artist to do that for you. Neither tactic really scales, especially when your game is coordinated inauthentic behavior i.e. this video and you need thousands of convincing fake accounts.