What if we could do less harm minimisation of social network behaviour because they were less toxic, had less addictiveness and were less fruitful for weaponized corrosivity?
What might such networks look like? Since this is an evolutionary process, I suspect we need to consider an ongoing design process rather than a terminal state. But starting points.
Nick punt on de-escalating twitter.
I am less persuaded by debudbble the ‘thoughtful twitter debate’ app.
Mildly interesting ideas for better social networks although not ideas as to how they would attract custom.
Indyweb
The artisanal social media movement is a good start. See Indyweb for more.
Fediverse
See Fediverse for more.
Incoming
- Interesting research: Sarah Dean whose works on the higher order effect of recommendation algorithms looks tasty (Andrus et al. 2021; Dean and Morgenstern 2022; Hron et al. 2022; Xu and Dean 2023).
Via Oglaf
- Lauren Weinstein, Social Media Is Probably Doomed
- It’s Time to Bring Back the AIM Away Message
- How Harmful Is Social Media?
- Social Media and Political Dysfunction
- The Coddling of the American Mind
- The Coddling of the Australian Mind? A Review of the Evidence
- The Coddling of the American Mind
- Going “Write-Only”
- Center for Humane Technology TED-izes this.
- Adam Mastroianni, Reading the news is the new smoking
- Reject the Rules of the Social Media Game
- How to Make Tech Products (that Don’t Cause Depression and War)
References
Andrus, McKane, Sarah Dean, Thomas Krendl Gilbert, Nathan Lambert, and Tom Zick. 2021. “AI Development for the Public Interest: From Abstraction Traps to Sociotechnical Risks.” arXiv.
Behr, Ines Von, Anais Reding, Charlie Edwards, and Luke Gribbon. 2013. “Radicalisation in the Digital Era: The Use of the Internet in 15 Cases of Terrorism and Extremism.”
Bernheim, B. Douglas, and Antonio Rangel. 2009. “Beyond Revealed Preference: Choice-Theoretic Foundations for Behavioral Welfare Economics*.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 124 (1): 51–104.
Dean, Sarah, and Jamie Morgenstern. 2022. “Preference Dynamics Under Personalized Recommendations.” arXiv.
Edelmann, Joe. 2022. “Values, Preferences, Meaningful Choice.”
Hamid, Nafees, and Cristina Ariza. n.d. “Offline Versus Online Radicalisation: Which Is the Bigger Threat?”
Hassan, Ghayda, Sébastien Brouillette-Alarie, Séraphin Alava, Divina Frau-Meigs, Lysiane Lavoie, Arber Fetiu, Wynnpaul Varela, et al. 2018. “Exposure to Extremist Online Content Could Lead to Violent Radicalization:A Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence.” International Journal of Developmental Science 12 (1-2): 71–88.
Hron, Jiri, Karl Krauth, Michael I. Jordan, Niki Kilbertus, and Sarah Dean. 2022. “Modeling Content Creator Incentives on Algorithm-Curated Platforms.” arXiv.
Lambert, Jeffrey, George Barnstable, Eleanor Minter, Jemima Cooper, and Desmond McEwan. 2022. “Taking a One-Week Break from Social Media Improves Well-Being, Depression, and Anxiety: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 25 (5): 287–93.
Mannell, Kate, and Eden T. Smith. 2022. “Alternative Social Media and the Complexities of a More Participatory Culture: A View From Scuttlebutt.” Social Media + Society 8 (3): 20563051221122448.
Ottman, Bill, Daryl Davis, Jack Ottman, Jesse Morton, Justin E Lane, and F LeRon Shults. 2022. “The Censorship Effect,” 85.
Paasonen, Susanna. 2021. Dependent, Distracted, Bored: Affective Formations in Networked Media.
Xu, Ruqing, and Sarah Dean. 2023. “Decision-Aid or Controller? Steering Human Decision Makers with Algorithms.” arXiv.
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