I don't know if Facebook is a very important a global incubator for mind viruses anymore. Young people seem to use it mostly to organize with older family now. The peak HF of the most impressionable minds happens on TikTok these days. And X is the most interesting and probably influential social experiment in years.
Demonstrating, like, any signs of an increase in sanity in Canada might change my mind. Sigh, though. :D
This is a brilliant idea that would be very good for Facebook. And since my fondest desire is to see Facebook simply die, I hope they never see this post.
Facebook banning news may well change user experience and behavior on Facebook, but I don't see how it would have any effect on the behavior or journalists or media companies. What incentive would there be for the latter? There would need to be some kind of indication, implicit or otherwise, from Facebook that media companies would become eligible to have their links posted on Facebook again if they started acting differently. One of the major incentives for Facebook to do this is eliminating the hassle of moderating news-related content, and articulating standards by which media companies could be allowed back in would completely remove any gains there.
I feel I would be a happy man if all social media died. I myself am not on FB,X,insta,snap or any of the others. I get my news from a few select independent journalists one being Matt Tiabi. I feel I have gotten thru life just fine without social media. As a matter of fact. Bring a child in the 80s and 90s I have witnessed the harm social media has brought to being since it inception. So ya, I hope it all dies.
I've been distantly following the Canada news ban, and while Facebook is doing fine, the news companies are NOT. The news ban shot a huge hole in the news companies' bottom line, and they're floundering around trying to find a workaround.
My feed is full of communist advertising, and that will remain true in the face of a news ban because it's not news. Add the fact that other platforms besides Facebook would "fill the void" (TikTok...).
The pseudo-news purveyors are a big problem independent of the news purveyors. Facebook might get somewhere by banning links, but then people couldn't link to their own content, which would materially hurt Facebook.
I love your work, and I love the idea of X as a Culture War Containment Zone (and I completely agree that it will be soon taken over by LLMs). But I'm going to disagree on a few of your other points:
>News agencies would be forced to pivot from per-click business models
>News agencies would have reduced incentive for outrage-porn pieces
"It Bleeds, It Leads" predates Facebook (and indeed, the internet). The news agencies themselves are ad-supported, and are being paid by advertisers per ad impression. Their incentives won't change just because Facebook isn't driving traffic to their own sites.
>Facebook users would have a more pleasant experience, because most of the reason people quit Facebook over the last five years has been political in nature
Facebook users would probably have a slightly more pleasant experience, but just because the news articles themselves aren't being shared on Facebook doesn't mean people won't be able to argue about %CurrentThing. They'll get their news elsewhere and post "Can you believe it!" on Facebook, which will lead to nearly as many political arguments as now.
>Facebook’s engagement would grow, not shrink, because of a reduced toxicity level
>Facebook’s ad revenue would rise as a result of its engagement growing
Toxicity drives engagement. Someone who will spend x number of minutes on cat pictures will spend some multiplier of x (2x? 5x? 50x?) on toxic stuff. If Facebook limits the toxicity level, their engagement will go down, so ad impressions will go down, and revenue will plummet. It doesn't matter if they are going to X for their Culture War updates or reading a book or going outside. The less time on site, the less revenue for Facebook.
On top of that, while cutting off Canadian news traffic was probably a tough decision, it's not comparable to doing the same for the US. Not only is the US considerably larger in terms of traffic, but advertisers pay more for US-based ad impressions. The revenue loss for Facebook would be orders of magnitude greater.
Moving political debate to Twitter makes things worse. At least with Facebook people can have multi paragraph responses. The tweet format rewards snark and punishes nuance.
Far better to have a social media service which is a paid service. No incentive to be addictive or boost engagement scores. Also, no incentive to censor in order to please the big brands. And have that service encourage more thoughtful discussion. Something like https://conntects.net
Yeah, every once in a while I post links to news stories on Facebook, and they are pretty much ignored compared to photos and other things of interest.
In the U.S. Facebook seems to have gone the opposite direction. I get more Suggested for You posts than posts from friends and groups I signed up for. And many of those Suggested for You posts are from political and other controversial groups, such as militant atheists. Anger counts as Engagement according to Facebook's current algorithm.
I like it! I admit I use FB, have since it’s inception...but try and stick to posts to and from old or distant friends and fam. Grandkids and grand nieces and nephews, they grow up fast! This idea would eliminate all the crap you have to plow thru to clean up and keep your page clean.
I don't know if Facebook is a very important a global incubator for mind viruses anymore. Young people seem to use it mostly to organize with older family now. The peak HF of the most impressionable minds happens on TikTok these days. And X is the most interesting and probably influential social experiment in years.
Demonstrating, like, any signs of an increase in sanity in Canada might change my mind. Sigh, though. :D
This is a brilliant idea that would be very good for Facebook. And since my fondest desire is to see Facebook simply die, I hope they never see this post.
Facebook banning news may well change user experience and behavior on Facebook, but I don't see how it would have any effect on the behavior or journalists or media companies. What incentive would there be for the latter? There would need to be some kind of indication, implicit or otherwise, from Facebook that media companies would become eligible to have their links posted on Facebook again if they started acting differently. One of the major incentives for Facebook to do this is eliminating the hassle of moderating news-related content, and articulating standards by which media companies could be allowed back in would completely remove any gains there.
I feel I would be a happy man if all social media died. I myself am not on FB,X,insta,snap or any of the others. I get my news from a few select independent journalists one being Matt Tiabi. I feel I have gotten thru life just fine without social media. As a matter of fact. Bring a child in the 80s and 90s I have witnessed the harm social media has brought to being since it inception. So ya, I hope it all dies.
I've been distantly following the Canada news ban, and while Facebook is doing fine, the news companies are NOT. The news ban shot a huge hole in the news companies' bottom line, and they're floundering around trying to find a workaround.
This sounds too good to be true because it is.
My feed is full of communist advertising, and that will remain true in the face of a news ban because it's not news. Add the fact that other platforms besides Facebook would "fill the void" (TikTok...).
The pseudo-news purveyors are a big problem independent of the news purveyors. Facebook might get somewhere by banning links, but then people couldn't link to their own content, which would materially hurt Facebook.
I love your work, and I love the idea of X as a Culture War Containment Zone (and I completely agree that it will be soon taken over by LLMs). But I'm going to disagree on a few of your other points:
>News agencies would be forced to pivot from per-click business models
>News agencies would have reduced incentive for outrage-porn pieces
"It Bleeds, It Leads" predates Facebook (and indeed, the internet). The news agencies themselves are ad-supported, and are being paid by advertisers per ad impression. Their incentives won't change just because Facebook isn't driving traffic to their own sites.
>Facebook users would have a more pleasant experience, because most of the reason people quit Facebook over the last five years has been political in nature
Facebook users would probably have a slightly more pleasant experience, but just because the news articles themselves aren't being shared on Facebook doesn't mean people won't be able to argue about %CurrentThing. They'll get their news elsewhere and post "Can you believe it!" on Facebook, which will lead to nearly as many political arguments as now.
>Facebook’s engagement would grow, not shrink, because of a reduced toxicity level
>Facebook’s ad revenue would rise as a result of its engagement growing
Toxicity drives engagement. Someone who will spend x number of minutes on cat pictures will spend some multiplier of x (2x? 5x? 50x?) on toxic stuff. If Facebook limits the toxicity level, their engagement will go down, so ad impressions will go down, and revenue will plummet. It doesn't matter if they are going to X for their Culture War updates or reading a book or going outside. The less time on site, the less revenue for Facebook.
On top of that, while cutting off Canadian news traffic was probably a tough decision, it's not comparable to doing the same for the US. Not only is the US considerably larger in terms of traffic, but advertisers pay more for US-based ad impressions. The revenue loss for Facebook would be orders of magnitude greater.
Meta has already banned news in Canada but this hasn't stopped the spread of stupid ideas. It's a nice idea, but it isn't going to be enough.
Moving political debate to Twitter makes things worse. At least with Facebook people can have multi paragraph responses. The tweet format rewards snark and punishes nuance.
Far better to have a social media service which is a paid service. No incentive to be addictive or boost engagement scores. Also, no incentive to censor in order to please the big brands. And have that service encourage more thoughtful discussion. Something like https://conntects.net
Yes please. Not that I use Facebook. Because I am not my mum.
I strongly approve of this idea. Any thoughts on how to get it in front of Zuck's eyes?
Yeah, every once in a while I post links to news stories on Facebook, and they are pretty much ignored compared to photos and other things of interest.
In the U.S. Facebook seems to have gone the opposite direction. I get more Suggested for You posts than posts from friends and groups I signed up for. And many of those Suggested for You posts are from political and other controversial groups, such as militant atheists. Anger counts as Engagement according to Facebook's current algorithm.
I like it! I admit I use FB, have since it’s inception...but try and stick to posts to and from old or distant friends and fam. Grandkids and grand nieces and nephews, they grow up fast! This idea would eliminate all the crap you have to plow thru to clean up and keep your page clean.
Here's an even simpler solution..... Don't have anything to do with Zuck or henchman Clegg, just like Trump, they will sell you out....