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Social Media is a Net Negative to the World

cactusflinthead

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cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27594

Posted
Posted

I'm gonna need to see some quantifiable evidence that this is true. 

If it is true then all the forums should be...what? Curtailed? Monitored? 

Y'know why they don't have algorithms for Nazis in Twitterville?

Because it would cost the GOP a lot of talking points. It would get several members banned from there. 

Is CR a net negative?

Is RC didn't offer?

The chili thread?

If you want to say that it's responsible for teenage angst, I've heard that about music too. 

Is it being used for propaganda by unscrupulous people? 

Well, do something about it. Stop taking in cash from them for starters. 

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Hank Kingsley

Hank Kingsley 20707

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33 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I think that there is a distinction between a relatively niche network, such as this overall board, and something such as twatter or facetrons. 

Agreed. Message boards are generally fine.

Political Twitter is an absolute fucking mess.  They psychological warfare can be overwhelming if you're not careful. 

 

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Hank Kingsley

Hank Kingsley 20707

Posted
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Someone could probably right a book about how Political Twitter can fuck up a large group of users. 

How RTs and Favorites become so desirable that you just tweet content that drives engagement, even if you don't believe it. Some trolls don't even know they're trolls. How literally anyone - either a verified account with hundreds of thousands of followers or a completely worthless user with 5 followers - could craft a tweet that goes viral at the right time and actually have some sort of effect on the primary or GE. Sounds crazy but possible. 

Twitter isn't real life. But mainstream journalists/reporters and TV pundits live on their as well, and the echo chamber talking points can bleed into NYT articles or CNN talking head conversations. That's where the danger lies right now. 

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F250

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28 minutes ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

In my personal opinion and experience, the Internet peaked at the time when there was a niche message board for whatever people were into, but before the rise of giant, aggregated social media conglomerates like MyFace, SpaceBook, Twitter, etc. 

No, once the hoard with aol.com email addresses showed up on the internet, it's been downhill ever since.

 

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F250

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46 minutes ago, woohorn said:

OK boomer

My teenager dropped that line on me several times last week.

I told him "Gen-X not boomer!" to which he replied, "Ok, Boomer."

Finally I texted him, "Do you want to know how I impregnated your mom with you?"

I haven't heard "Ok, Boomer" since.

 

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FondrenRoad

FondrenRoad 4378

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Bama Chick said:

It’s horrible for important things.

But I like it for fun stuff- connecting with fans of musicians and television shows and movies and sports teams etc.

And staying in touch with far flung family and old friends.

But it is crap for staying in touch for a couple of reasons.

If you love me, you will copy and paste this post and put it in your status. 

1. It was supposed to be there so grandma can see pictures of your kids and comment on them. Instead, it makes you and your grandma actively hate each other. In the past, you may have barely even known what each other's politics were since everyone is polite at Sunday dinner.  Now you don't go to Sunday dinner because you think Grandma is a bigot and she thinks your kids might end up gay because you raise them not to judge people on their sexuality. And they might be, but you'd be okay with that. Or you are in an interracial couple and grandma loves your spouse as an individual, even genuinely so, while posting a bunch of racist shit on Facebook about your spouse's race. Or you're in a gay couple yourself. 

All that shit was okay prior to Facebook because you didn't really know all that much about your grandma's thoughts and grandma was always nice to individuals she meets, even gay or minority ones that date her grandkids. 

2. You do see your old friends from high school on Facebook doing shit in far away places. What you don't do is pick up the phone and call them anymore because you already know where they went on their last 4 vacations and you've seen their kids first days of schools and report cards every year as well. Junior just scraped his knee last week.  He's fine.  Doctor said he didn't need stitches.  Livestreamed.  Nothing to talk about.  Now you don't really even know them anymore because you don't ever talk to them anymore.

Edited by FondrenRoad
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BradInATX

BradInATX 9208

Posted
Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

if you follow quality people on social media, then you don’t see crap.  When a relative or friend posts something overly political: unfollow.  Post conspiracy theory: unfollow.  Someone retweets too much crap: block.

but I agree that for many, social media hasn’t helped them.

This. If you just keep a clean profile on Facebook and block all of the dumb and annoying people, Facebook is fine. My Facebook is now just a portal for looking at pictures of peoples' kids and vacation pics, and getting/sending event invites. I log in maybe once every 2-3 days, and I enjoy it for what it is.

Twitter on the other hand, is one of the biggest driving forces of division in our country. It's given stupid, ignorant people a voice. Insane liberals who believe in full-term abortions or full-blown communism get a voice. Insane right wing anti-vaxxers and Qanon people get a voice. In the past, these people would be shunned to dark corners of the world and the internet. Now they're on display for everyone. It's made people perceive anyone on the "other side"  to be the worst of the worst. In the past when you'd think of someone who was opposite of you politically, you'd think about your friends or your family who you disagree with, but still generally respect as people. Now, conservatives think about the manic crying woman at Trump's inauguration, and liberals think about neo-nazis and Qanon; even though those groups make up an incredibly tiny fraction of their respective sides. Politics is no longer about defeating policies you disagree with, it's about hating and defeating people you disagree with. It's incredibly divisive, counter-productive, and dangerous. Twitter is poison. 

It's cringe-worthy to see people on the individual candidate threads go into multi-page debates about some tweet that some obnoxious tool wrote. Nobody should care that Joe Dipshit thinks Bernie Sanders playing softball is reinforcing gender stereotypes; let alone be out there arguing with him or retweeting his stupid post on message boards. That just gives their stupidity more views and more attention. That person's opinion should be ignored and shunned, and yet they get infinitely more attention for their stupidity than they ever would have pre-Twitter. It's put stupid people with stupid opinions front and center, where in the past they'd be ignored and shunned and voiceless, as they should be.

Edited by BradInATX
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CooterBrown

CooterBrown 17913

Posted
Posted
This. If you just keep a clean profile on Facebook and block all of the dumb and annoying people, Facebook is fine. My Facebook is now just a portal for looking at pictures of peoples' kids and vacation pics, and getting/sending event invites. I log in maybe once every 2-3 days, and I enjoy it for what it is.


This is where I’m at. I was about to get rid of it completely but I unfriended everyone from my hometown and anyone I had not seen in person in a few years. There’s a Chrome plugin called Social Fixer that’ll block various categories of posts/shares based on what you select. I blocked all political posts. It has worked well. Now it’s just a picture album and events calendar.
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BrazilHorn

BrazilHorn 6576

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8 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

 


This is where I’m at. I was about to get rid of it completely but I unfriended everyone from my hometown and anyone I had not seen in person in a few years. There’s a Chrome plugin called Social Fixer that’ll block various categories of posts/shares based on what you select. I blocked all political posts. It has worked well. Now it’s just a picture album and events calendar.

 

That’s basically what I’ve done except add in religion to the filter in addition to politics. 
 

 

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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13414

Posted
Posted (edited)

I also have a different experience on twitter than some here.  I follow a few friends (who don’t post politics), sports journalists, reporters who I agree with, a few non-political famous people, and general information accounts.  And I don’t read comments from unknown people. I don’t think twice about unfollowing someone if they’re annoying. I rarely post something myself. Overall I find twitter great.

and hats off to twitter for refusing political ads now. Facebook should follow their lead.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89448

Posted
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7 hours ago, FondrenRoad said:

But it is crap for staying in touch for a couple of reasons.

If you love me, you will copy and paste this post and put it in your status. 

1. It was supposed to be there so grandma can see pictures of your kids and comment on them. Instead, it makes you and your grandma actively hate each other. In the past, you may have barely even known what each other's politics were since everyone is polite at Sunday dinner

I used to get those “copy and paste this” requests.  20 years ago.  In email.  

Social media makes it far easier to ignore that crap.  And yes, I know people who have shitty political opinions.  I have family in NE Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, so I have a trifecta of shitty political opinions going on with much of that group.  

I only block those whose politics spill over into comments on my posts/photos that have nothing to do with politics. And I make that very clear to family/friends. Just because we are Facebook friends/family, doesn’t mean I have to follow those who have such views, so my timeline is not full of that stuff - I can still check in around birthdays and see what their kids/grandkids are doing without looking at the rest of their stuff or outright blocking them.  

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troph

troph 24563

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Posted

My dad and I had a major falling out because of the vile shit he posts on FB. Be a conservative religious guy that’s fine. But fact check your hate propaganda first bro. The worst one was when he claimed the gay loving liberals are the real Nazis and he showed a picture and a concentration camp for shock value - except it was one where they took the gays - as shown by the upside down pink triangle. I pointed that out - that he was using a picture of tortured and murdered gays to claim those that love gays are nazis. He raged.... and took it down. Then posted a “why is it that liburls won’t let conservatives have opinions” status update. Same with anything LGBTQ. Just vile.

Social media has ruined a lot of relationships.

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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13414

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Posted
Just now, troph said:

My dad and I had a major falling out because of the vile shit he posts on FB. Be a conservative religious guy that’s fine. But fact check your hate propaganda first bro. The worst one was when he claimed the gay loving liberals are the real Nazis and he showed a picture and a concentration camp for shock value - except it was one where they took the gays - as shown by the upside down pink triangle. I pointed that out - that he was using a picture of tortured and murdered gays to claim those that love gays are nazis. He raged.... and took it down. Then posted a “why is it that liburls won’t let conservatives have opinions” status update. Same with anything LGBTQ. Just vile.

Social media has ruined a lot of relationships.

Yes but it’s just the medium. People are the problem.  I don’t know your dad but from your story, he sucks at being a religious person. Maybe he knows his bible verses and goes to church 5 times per week, but he doesn’t really get the message.

block people that post hateful things. Ignorance can be bliss.

If you miss out on the family pics of blocked people, so what. 

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troph

troph 24563

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Posted
Yes but it’s just the medium. People are the problem.  I don’t know your dad but from your story, he sucks at being a religious person. Maybe he knows his bible verses and goes to church 5 times per week, but he doesn’t really get the message.
block people that post hateful things. Ignorance can be bliss.
If you miss out on the family pics of blocked people, so what. 

I did, I agree. Like everyone is saying - social media needs to be heavily curated to be enjoyable. Yes he’s a shitty religious person.
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High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter 10977

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12 hours ago, Anastasis said:

I think that there is a distinction between a relatively niche network, such as this overall board, and something such as twatter or facetrons. 

Sure.

But the OP was "Net negative". Meaning more bad than good. Some good stuff, lots more bad stuff= Net negative.

 

Destroying democracy and enabling white supremacists vs looking at pics of grandkids and bitching about _odd _rlando.

 

 

You know I love you guys (with a few exceptions) but if melting the facetron and twitter and 4 chan servers meant also melting surly's servers, I'd take that deal.

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High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter 10977

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42 minutes ago, troph said:

My dad and I had a major falling out because of the vile shit he posts on FB. Be a conservative religious guy that’s fine. But fact check your hate propaganda first bro. The worst one was when he claimed the gay loving liberals are the real Nazis and he showed a picture and a concentration camp for shock value - except it was one where they took the gays - as shown by the upside down pink triangle. I pointed that out - that he was using a picture of tortured and murdered gays to claim those that love gays are nazis. He raged.... and took it down. Then posted a “why is it that liburls won’t let conservatives have opinions” status update. Same with anything LGBTQ. Just vile.

Social media has ruined a lot of relationships.

 

Wait, maybe I'm confusing you with someone else, and if I am I apologize, but aren't you gay?

 

 

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troph

troph 24563

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Posted

The point was social media can ruin relationships. I am gay. He didn’t think so until he met a “real” lesbian that was in love with me. That’s when shit got real. Not playing “dress up” anymore and he fell off the rails. But the way he fell off was on posting garbage on Facebook.

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F250

F250 28691

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Posted
Just now, Brisketexan said:

Counterpoint:

We all get to see a whole lot more boobs.

I don't know if that makes up for all the negatives.  Just wanted to make sure the ledger accurately reflected all entries, that's all.

 

Yes, if your timeline isn't streaming a steady flow of hot chicks taking selfies mixed with sports content then you are doing something wrong.

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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45496

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Counterpoint:

We all get to see a whole lot more boobs.

I don't know if that makes up for all the negatives.  Just wanted to make sure the ledger accurately reflected all entries, that's all.

 

2 hours ago, workswithseed said:

To add an addendum, but not just boobs, free boobs.

Counter counter point: 

There's enough free pron out there that we don't need the social media version of boobs also.  *ducks

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