growing up in Japan, I can attest to Japanese obsessions to twitter - and what is so funny about BBQ discourse is, a lot of Japanese are like
1. thinik all Americans are super obsessed with BBQ
2. use BBQ to mean a cookout
And online Japanese far right and American far right weirdly share a lot of ideas including their detest to dark skinned ppl and women overall... and I personally know a guy from college who bought fully into 2020 stolen election conspiracy theory...
Lots of Americans use "BBQ" to mean a cookout as well! Or perhaps more commonly, they use "barbecue" synonymously with their gas or charcoal grill. "Have a barbecue", "fire up the barbecue", and this can just as often mean brats or burgers or whatever, not smokey and slow-cooked.
I know you are reluctant to police the Internet, but in the same way that governments put restrictions on companies who generate negative environmental externalities (water pollution, air pollution, etc) there needs to be some way to encourage social media companies to price in the societal costs of the negative social externalities they're creating. I don't love litigation for this, but I don't have a better solution either and social media is doing real harm to society, especially to children.
I feel like the only realistic path forward is shame-based and reputational. "I post regularly on Twitter" should carry the same opprobrium as "I smoke two packs a day".
“And if the answer is yes - are you prepared for the ramifications of that answer? It’s hard to see how social media as a business model could survive”
Bring it on. Everything to do with algorithmic feeds, like online gambling, has created a ton of shareholder value by cannibalizing humanity’s stability, mental health, political cohesion, etc. What we want isn’t what’s good for us. We’d all be better off if every website had to just go back to being a neutral feed.
Substack could survive. They could have a front page with featured substacks and then people sign up. Nothing against comment sections on articles. But it’d stop substack from turning into X via Notes and the algorithmic wall.
Insta and X and BlueSky I guess would die entirely. This would be a good thing.
Section 230 treats online platforms like they are non-publishers, so if it were gone they would be publishers (as they already are) and, as you argue, protected by the First Amendment. Am I missing something here?
Re: section 230. The solution that always seemed obvious to me is to make platforms legally responsible for their algorithms, but not their user's content. A simple chronological feed is non controversial, but as soon as the platform starts deciding what content they will and won't show you they are making editorial decisions and should be responsible for that.
growing up in Japan, I can attest to Japanese obsessions to twitter - and what is so funny about BBQ discourse is, a lot of Japanese are like
1. thinik all Americans are super obsessed with BBQ
2. use BBQ to mean a cookout
And online Japanese far right and American far right weirdly share a lot of ideas including their detest to dark skinned ppl and women overall... and I personally know a guy from college who bought fully into 2020 stolen election conspiracy theory...
Lots of Americans use "BBQ" to mean a cookout as well! Or perhaps more commonly, they use "barbecue" synonymously with their gas or charcoal grill. "Have a barbecue", "fire up the barbecue", and this can just as often mean brats or burgers or whatever, not smokey and slow-cooked.
Hahaha yeah this was the gripe of my wife who is from Nashville- like “no, that is not a barbecue” lol
I know you are reluctant to police the Internet, but in the same way that governments put restrictions on companies who generate negative environmental externalities (water pollution, air pollution, etc) there needs to be some way to encourage social media companies to price in the societal costs of the negative social externalities they're creating. I don't love litigation for this, but I don't have a better solution either and social media is doing real harm to society, especially to children.
I feel like the only realistic path forward is shame-based and reputational. "I post regularly on Twitter" should carry the same opprobrium as "I smoke two packs a day".
Lorenz is the absolute worst messenger for that criticism. She is the dictionary definition of someone whose brain has been warped by social media
This article made me sad and I'll be sending my therapy bill to you.
“And if the answer is yes - are you prepared for the ramifications of that answer? It’s hard to see how social media as a business model could survive”
Bring it on. Everything to do with algorithmic feeds, like online gambling, has created a ton of shareholder value by cannibalizing humanity’s stability, mental health, political cohesion, etc. What we want isn’t what’s good for us. We’d all be better off if every website had to just go back to being a neutral feed.
Substack could survive. They could have a front page with featured substacks and then people sign up. Nothing against comment sections on articles. But it’d stop substack from turning into X via Notes and the algorithmic wall.
Insta and X and BlueSky I guess would die entirely. This would be a good thing.
Section 230 treats online platforms like they are non-publishers, so if it were gone they would be publishers (as they already are) and, as you argue, protected by the First Amendment. Am I missing something here?
Re: section 230. The solution that always seemed obvious to me is to make platforms legally responsible for their algorithms, but not their user's content. A simple chronological feed is non controversial, but as soon as the platform starts deciding what content they will and won't show you they are making editorial decisions and should be responsible for that.