Study: Social media probably can’t be fixed
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It's got its issues (for me the main one are the tankie scum devs), but it seems to be the best platform there is.
The good thing about it is you can move to clients like Piefed and still access all the content / communities.
As long as the devs have an instance-agnostic 'live and let live' attitude and just ignore any instances they don't politically like and advise others to do the same, it's not really a problem.
If they ever try to enforce their ideology via their code: actual issue.
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As long as the devs have an instance-agnostic 'live and let live' attitude and just ignore any instances they don't politically like and advise others to do the same, it's not really a problem.
If they ever try to enforce their ideology via their code: actual issue.
Also worth considering the reputational factors.
I joined ML by mistake and I was pissed off to find out that it was a nest of degenerate tankie roaches.
I had experience with Mastodon, so I switched instances, but that might not be the case for others looking for a non-US oligarch internet platform.
They most definitely do not have a "live and let live" attitude for people dealing with russian genocidal occupation, but that's a discussion for another day.
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They work perfectly as intended and do what the US regime wants since they control all the important ones.
Social media is media. Too important to leave unchecked. -
It's got its issues (for me the main one are the tankie scum devs), but it seems to be the best platform there is.
The good thing about it is you can move to clients like Piefed and still access all the content / communities.
Certainly the problem is not the rabid Mc Carthy fascists calling people scum
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first of all, it's a broad overgeneralization to assume that all social media is created with the intention to manipulate people. there was honest people running social media, but it's long past. (in the corporate domain)
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social media can be useful if it presents non-emotional, non-brigading content. rational discourse is one of the valuable options possible. throwing away the whole internet because Xitter sucks is throwing away the baby with the bathwater.
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but yes, social media is the new Volksempfänger and manipulates people (social engineering)
When it reaches a large enough audience, the regime takes control.
They don't even hide it.
Lemmy for now is not important enough. -
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Also worth considering the reputational factors.
I joined ML by mistake and I was pissed off to find out that it was a nest of degenerate tankie roaches.
I had experience with Mastodon, so I switched instances, but that might not be the case for others looking for a non-US oligarch internet platform.
They most definitely do not have a "live and let live" attitude for people dealing with russian genocidal occupation, but that's a discussion for another day.
degenerate tankie roaches.
There we go, fascists dehumanising people.
You would've been a camp guard 80 years ago. -
Certainly the problem is not the rabid Mc Carthy fascists calling people scum
What's wrong with calling genocide white-whitewashing, pro-russian genocidal imperialism individuals scum.
The funny thing is the tankies don't even speak Ukrainian or russian and have never lived in Ukraine or russian.
Literally scumbag roleplaying as communists.
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degenerate tankie roaches.
There we go, fascists dehumanising people.
You would've been a camp guard 80 years ago.Fuck right off with your support for russian genocidal imperialism.
Hope you and your tankie scum friends meet the same fate as Donbas cowboy, Russell Bentley.
Bentley’s wife, Lyudmila, then claimed that Russian soldiers from a tank battalion abducted him.
According to the Investigative Committee, Vansyatsky, Agaltsev, and Iordanov tortured Bentley on April 8, and he died shortly afterward.
Vansyatsky and Agaltsev are suspected of blowing up a car with Bentley’s body in it and ordering Bazhin to get rid of what was left of his remains.
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Fuck right off with your support for russian genocidal imperialism.
Hope you and your tankie scum friends meet the same fate as Donbas cowboy, Russell Bentley.
Bentley’s wife, Lyudmila, then claimed that Russian soldiers from a tank battalion abducted him.
According to the Investigative Committee, Vansyatsky, Agaltsev, and Iordanov tortured Bentley on April 8, and he died shortly afterward.
Vansyatsky and Agaltsev are suspected of blowing up a car with Bentley’s body in it and ordering Bazhin to get rid of what was left of his remains.
hahaha are you some seething ukrofash?
Not reading your BS, you lost buddy. Send the ghost of kiev
https://archive.ph/Za0cf -
What's wrong with calling genocide white-whitewashing, pro-russian genocidal imperialism individuals scum.
The funny thing is the tankies don't even speak Ukrainian or russian and have never lived in Ukraine or russian.
Literally scumbag roleplaying as communists.
Only genociders I've seen where those ukrofascists trying to ethnically cleanse eastern ex-ukranus.
Not many more of them to send to the meatgrinder huh? -
Yeah, this author is the pop-sci / sci-fi media writer on Ars Technica, not one of the actual science coverage ones that stick to their area of expertise, and you can tell by the overly broad, click bait, headline, that is not actually supported by the research at hand.
The actual research is using limited LLM agents and only explores an incredibly limited number of interventions. This research does not remotely come close to supporting the question of whether or not social media can be fixed, which in itself is a different question from harm reduction.
The article is mostly an interview with one of the researchers that produced the study. Don't like the headline? Fine. Just read what that researcher has to say.
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No social media was created to manipulate people. (Most) social media is a business, optimised to make money. You make money by showing people ads. You can show more ads to people if they stay on the platform longer. You can make people stay longer by engaging them emotionally. End of conspiracy...
Facebook got their seed money from Peter Thiel. They also employ a lot of ex CIA. So not sure about the no conspiracy thing.
Also the millions they take in creating targeted political ads in order to manipulate their users and influence elections isn't a conspiracy. How they met with the President, kissed his ring, and then went all in on right wing content.
Yeah no conspiracy here, just keep walking
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Did you read the article? Their findings were that not using such algorithms did not have the expected effect. That social networks themselves, by their nature, lead to similar network, filter, and trigger effects. Chronological order made it worse, not better, apparently.
The engagement driven algorithms making it worse seems intuitive. So I'm surprised and skeptical too. I haven't read their paper, only the article/interview.
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The original source is here:
Can We Fix Social Media? Testing Prosocial Interventions using Generative Social Simulation
Abstract page for arXiv paper 2508.03385: Can We Fix Social Media? Testing Prosocial Interventions using Generative Social Simulation
arXiv.org (arxiv.org)
Social media platforms have been widely linked to societal harms, including rising polarization and the erosion of constructive debate. Can these problems be mitigated through prosocial interventions? We address this question using a novel method – generative social simulation – that embeds Large Language Models within Agent-Based Models to create socially rich synthetic platforms. We create a minimal platform where agents can post, repost, and follow others. We find that the resulting following-networks reproduce three well-documented dysfunctions: (1) partisan echo chambers; (2) concentrated influence among a small elite; and (3) the amplification of polarized voices – creating a “social media prism” that distorts political discourse. We test six proposed interventions, from chronological feeds to bridging algorithms, finding only modest improvements – and in some cases, worsened outcomes. These results suggest that core dysfunctions may be rooted in the feedback between reactive engagement and network growth, raising the possibility that meaningful reform will require rethinking the foundational dynamics of platform architecture.
The linked article also includes an interview. At least in this case, it's not only a rephrasing of the paper or paper abstract.
(Just pointing it out here so people don't skip the article while thinking there's nothing else there.)
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But what we find is that it's not just that this content spreads; it also shapes the network structures that are formed. So there's feedback between the effective emotional action of choosing to retweet something and the network structure that emerges. And then in turn, you have a network structure that feeds back what content you see, resulting in a toxic network. The definition of an online social network is that you have this kind of posting, reposting, and following dynamics. It's quite fundamental to it. That alone seems to be enough to drive these negative outcomes.
Trying to grasp it in my own words;
Because social networks are about interactions and networks (follows, communities, topics, instances), they inherently human nature establish toxic networks.
Even when not showing content through engagement-based hot or active metrics, interactions will push towards networking effects of central players/influencers and filter and trigger bubbles.
If there were no voting, no followable accounts or communities, it would not be a social network anymore (by their definition).
