What MIT peeps think about social media

[masraum]

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/social-media-broken-a-new-report-offers-25-ways-to-fix-it

Researchers, policymakers, and users have identified several key issues with the social media ecosystem. These include vast power held by a few corporations, which hurts innovation and competition; the spread of false news and debates about the limits of free speech; how social media threatens privacy, election integrity, and democracy; and platform oversight and transparency.

The Social Media Summit @ MIT brought together experts to discuss these issues and focus on solutions, which range from new oversight panels to breaking up big companies.

“Social media is rewiring the central nervous system of humanity in real time,” said MIT Sloan professor

who led the event. “We’re now at a crossroads between its promise and its peril.”

A new report from the summit, now available online, takes a deep look at the range of problems posed by existing social media models, and offers 25 potential solutions to address them.


Here’s a look at seven areas of concern addressed at the summit, and just a few of the potential solutions.

1. The spread of false news and misinformation

False news spreads quickly online, aided by social media algorithms that amplify popular, and often incendiary, content. And social media companies and their advertisers often benefit from it, Aral noted.

One solution is to crack down on the most prolific offenders, said Clint Watts, a research fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute. “We know about them, and [enforcement] needs to focus there for maximum impact,” Watts said.

2. The difficult balance between user privacy and platform transparency

Social media poses what Aral calls a “transparency paradox.” Researchers and the public have the right to know how social media platforms are accessing and using consumer data. But there’s also a need to protect user privacy and security.

Algorithmic transparency that lets researchers examine peer-to-peer information sharing without sharing personal information would lead to greater understanding about malicious use and how to prevent it, said Kate Starbird, an associate professor at the University of Washington. Some platforms are already more transparent than others. “We’re able to review data patterns on Twitter because their data is public,” she said. “Facebook and YouTube do not readily share data and we can’t study them very well.”

3. Lack of regulation for social media companies

Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs at Facebook, said he agreed that independent oversight is a necessity.“We’re way beyond the stale debate of whether we need new rules of the road,” Clegg said during a discussion with Aral. Clegg also noted that if different areas of the world regulate social media differently, it could balkanize the internet. The U.S. and European Union need to work together, he said, and bring India into the fold.

4. Lack of competition

Competition is a big incentive for companies to change behavior, Aral noted, but there is market concentration in the social economy with Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

“We’re dealing with an array of issues, including concentration that is choking off innovation, harming advertisers and small businesses, and leading to less competition for quality and privacy,” said Zephyr Teachout, an assistant professor of law at Fordham Law School.

The European Union is considering the Digital Markets Act, which would address anti-competitive practices and dictate corporate responsibility for non-compliance. This might be a model for other areas.

5. Algorithms contribute to bias, racism, and polarization

Social media and search engines have become the main way people organize and access information, said Safiya Noble, co-founder of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry at UCLA. But companies that run them are guided by profit, and not things like democracy or human rights, she noted, and sometimes the most popular, profitable speech promotes racism, misinformation, and polarization.

Part of the problem is frictionless systems that allow users to easily retweet and share this kind of information, said

a principal research scientist at MIT Sloan. Introducing friction by slowing online interactions and giving users the chance to think before sharing information is one solution, she said.

6. Social media business models don’t always serve users

Social media business models are built on the attention economy, in which platforms sell users’ attention for advertising. But what gets attention isn’t always good for users, or society. Revising business models away from the attention economy could help.

Subscription-based models, which aren’t tied to adverting, are an alternative, said Scott Galloway, an adjunct professor of marketing at New York University, though he noted that there is a danger if the best, fact-checked information is available only behind a paywall.

7. The line between free speech and harmful speech is sometimes unclear

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides websites with immunity from third-party content. It needs to be reformed to make platforms more liable for the content they publish, said Richard Stengel, a former undersecretary of state for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy and former managing editor of Time magazine. “Regulations have to incentivize platforms to take responsibility for illegal content just as Time magazine was,” he said, noting that platforms are currently in a gray area when it comes to regulating content.

Renée Diresta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, said policy should also differentiate between free speech and free reach. The right to free speech doesn’t extend to a right to have that speech amplified by algorithms.

“There’s always been this division between your right to speak and your right to have a megaphone that reaches hundreds of millions of people,” she said.

[island911]

What's funny is in how much that list is a product of social media propaganda.

[Tervuren]

The level of misinformation on social media is amazing.
I twitter browsed in 2020.

What concerns me is what they did not bring up.
Mind control.
This is an amazing power, and was surprised it wasn't mentioned.

[island911]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

The level of misinformation on social media is amazing.
...

But this is not a function of social media. People have been forever passing BS. It is each individual's need to sort. (note the blue in my sig)

[Baz]

Someone here already called it out.......and he's no MIT grad......

https://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/1098017-whats-wrong-our-culture.html

[sc_rufctr]

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

As far as I know, that is how it happened back then as well?

I haven't researched it, but I remember they had difficulty filling the first life boats.
It wasn't until it got a lot worse that people figured it out.

[id10t]

The MIT eggheads are just upset that the finger protocol is obsolete.

Then again, I am too.

[stownsen914]

Originally Posted by island911

But this is not a function of social media. People have been forever passing BS. It is each individual's need to sort. (note the blue in my sig)

Problem is, many (maybe most) don't have the cognitive ability to sort effectively. They respond based on what appeals to their emotions and then form beliefs without knowing why half the time. And they get to vote regardless!

[berettafan]

Promotes racism?

So MIT started with assumptions fed to them by the very product they are studying?

Somebody is due a refund on their tuition.

[sc_rufctr]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

As far as I know, that is how it happened back then as well?

I haven't researched it, but I remember they had difficulty filling the first life boats.
It wasn't until it got a lot worse that people figured it out.

You're right... There was certainly a reluctance to get onto the life boats but that didn't last long.

I think the point of the Meme is how "difficult" society has become in 2021.
- The simplest things are debated endlessly.

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

You're right... There was certainly a reluctance to get onto the life boats but that didn't last long.

I think the point of the Meme is how "difficult" society has become in 2021.
- The simplest things are debated endlessly.

But isn't it still the same?
If for example, CV19 had met the initial projections people would have noticed.
Instead they were told really really big numbers, and a need for really really big measures.
And the places that didn't do those measures did not have the kind of predicted predicted gaps for having not taken those measures.

If the "eggheads" are upset at not being listened to, they have themselves to blame.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

The level of misinformation on social media is amazing.
I twitter browsed in 2020.

What concerns me is what they did not bring up.
Mind control.
This is an amazing power, and was surprised it wasn't mentioned.

Even here

[red-beard]

Social media at its core is Gossip. And that means unverified information. In the before times, gossip was spread by word of mouth, literally. Then telephones came and you did not have to meet up, but it was generally one on one. Now it is spread to hundred, thousands and even millions of people at the click of a button.

[Fast Freddy 944]

I see folks with smart phones every where. I was at the gym a while back and down stairs some dudes were playing basket ball, and they had a good game going, then, bip-boop-bap, they stopped whipped out the smart phones all at the same time. LOL! Zombies.....Total social media mind control...

[wdfifteen]

"Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs at Facebook, said he agreed that independent oversight is a necessity.'We’re way beyond the stale debate of whether we need new rules of the road,' Clegg said ..."

That sounds like the banks after the 1980s banking debacle crying, "Where were the regulators?"

Why do these companies need the government to tell them to do what they already know they should be doing?

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

If for example, CV19 had met the initial projections people would have noticed.
Instead they were told really really big numbers, and a need for really really big measures.
And the places that didn't do those measures did not have the kind of predicted predicted gaps for having not taken those measures.

If the "eggheads" are upset at not being listened to, they have themselves to blame.

The projections were based on no one doing anything to mitigate the spread of the disease. Borders were closed, masks were worn, social interaction was restricted. Really really big measures were taken that affected the entire country, even the holdouts who wouldn't take measures locally. You don't know that if no one had taken any of the recommended measures those really, really big numbers would not have come to pass.

The "eggheads" shouldn't be upset about not being listened to, they should be upset about not being understood.

[3rd_gear_Ted]

The concept of friction being needed is my take away.

The computer screen doesn't give you the "stink eye" like your conversation partner would when you say (type) something dumb.

[red-beard]

We do, but you can't see it...

[Baz]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

-snip-
- The simplest things are debated endlessly.

When a more practical approach would be to analyze them endlessly.

But that doesn't sell as much as the debates, so here we are.....chasing the almighty dollar as the expense of ourselves.

I have met the enemy....and he is us......