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Former Reddit CEO Decries 'Rage-Induced Interactions' on Facebook and Twitter (wired.com)
Were the creators of Facebook and Twitter oblivious to how social networks could be abused? "I struggle to believe that these brilliant product CEOs, who have created social media services used by millions of people worldwide, are actually naive," writes Ellen Pao, the former CEO of Reddit. "It's a lot more likely that they simply don't care."
[S]ocial media companies and the leaders who run them are rewarded for focusing on reach and engagement, not for positive impact or for protecting subsets of users from harm. They're rewarded for keeping costs down, which encourages the free-for-all, anything-goes approach misnomered "free speech." If they don't need to monitor their platforms, they don't need to come up with real policies -- and avoid paying for all the people and tools required to implement them....
In the earliest days, it wasn't always obvious what these platforms were doing and what they would become -- even to insiders. But at a certain point, it became clear that money was the driving factor, and dopamine- or rage-induced interactions meant more money.... CEOs should just forget about hiding behind "naivete" and "free speech," and instead remind themselves they can take actions that will meaningfully change the direction of the future. The first step is acknowledging the problem... You've solved for increasing engagement; now it's time to make real, positive interactions a priority.
The next time a CEO claims ignorance, "we must hold them accountable," the essay argues, complaining that right now there's a vacuum of leadership.
So instead, "Everyone's holding hands on the road to hell."
In the earliest days, it wasn't always obvious what these platforms were doing and what they would become -- even to insiders. But at a certain point, it became clear that money was the driving factor, and dopamine- or rage-induced interactions meant more money.... CEOs should just forget about hiding behind "naivete" and "free speech," and instead remind themselves they can take actions that will meaningfully change the direction of the future. The first step is acknowledging the problem... You've solved for increasing engagement; now it's time to make real, positive interactions a priority.
The next time a CEO claims ignorance, "we must hold them accountable," the essay argues, complaining that right now there's a vacuum of leadership.
So instead, "Everyone's holding hands on the road to hell."
Failing to mention that the author is Ellen Pao and just saying "former CEO of Reddit"
You don't have to be a Hillary supporter (I'm sure as hell not) to see how this GOP has fallen in line with a fraud and declared war on America's institutions and norms. That people get upset on Twitter should be the absolute minimum.
Civility requires honesty. Frauds do not deserve it. Trump is a criminal on many counts regardless of whether you support his policies or not. Realizing that and separating political wishes from factual reality should not be this difficult.
When Mueller pulls the trigger and America steers back towards rule of law, will this Republican party go with it? It's an open question as they reject the foundation that made America great once.
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
it's hard not to rage sometimes. I've got friends and family who stuggle daily to get the healthcare they need (one of whom's a type-I diabetic). I'm paying through the nose for my kid's college (she's in for medicine, her books in year 3 for 1 semester were $1400). Meanwhile people keep telling me she should just be a welder a few make $26/hr ignoring that's only the top 10% and they're doing dangerous work.
It'd be one thing if I couldn't use the Internet to see how the rest of the world solved all these problems with ease, or if America was a poor country, but again, I've got the Internet. I know better.
Hell, 70% of Americans want Medicare for All and even if the Dems take the House it won't even get a vote there. Nancy Pelosi will shut it down for her corporate masters. She won her primary against a challenger that wanted Medicare for All.
So yeah, I rage a lot. I rage because I keep seeing the same damn mistakes for no good reason and people voting not just against their interests, but litterally against policies they support. How am I not supposed to get angry?
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Stay on Breitbard and Der Sturmer, nazi scumbags. You have 100% right to speak your mind there within the confines of law. You have 0% of a right to be a nazi on anyone's platform. That's how this works, they own their platform. Blow.
Deal with it snowflake nazis, scatter back behind the fridge where you belong, deplorable cockroaches. America doesn't censor you, society does - for good reason, you are un-American uneducated scumbags of no value to society.
Ellen Pao made a mess of it. Ever since, she's has been trying to portrait herself as a victim. -She- made a mess of it.
"CEO of Reddit"
No point in reading any further.
He should donate all the money he made from the rage-fest that is Reddit, then. I'd suggest a charity that assists victims of the poison reddit has spread.
Hate speech is not free speech. This has been decided in the courts. Other speech has consequences. For example shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. Or speech that incites others to violent acts or riot.
It is clear that the CEOs of Fakebook and TWITter among others do not care about trying to eliminate hate speech and speech that incites to violence, any more than they care about trying to eliminate fake news from their platforms. All that they really care about is how much personal info that they can collect and sell, and how many ads they can sell. In other words, its all about the money!!
I, Xi Jinping, charge you with the crime of loving freedom. OH FOR SHAME
Her name is nowhere listed in this article description. Really?
You need to decide: either Liberals or Nazis. The Nazis says they ain't Liberals and the Liberals say they ain't Nazis.
You say "we". Who do you mean? The Idiots? you definitely a member.
I'm guessing chairman Pao would be much happier with the Chinese model. They do after all censor all the social media for "positive impact" and "protecting a small subset of users".
It must be difficult to be so smart that you feel a responsibility of governing the lives of every human being on the planet.
Article summary doesn't even mention the name of the former Reddit CEO, but I'm guessing its Ellen Pao, right?
You can just mouse over the link and the URL tells you it's Ellen Pao
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Pao
She's controversial outside of anything Reddit related, especially her gender discrimination suit against another former employer that to an outside observer looked a lot like extortion.
Free speach bitches!
It's nice to be able to blame others when you no longer have any influence or financial interest on social media.
It would also be very beneficial for users of social media to never be passionate about issues because a sedated, non-controversial flock are very cheap and easy to wrangle.
Financial interests are all that matters to the owners of social media sites. If it didn't cause an outcry (more work) they probably would be running Trump/Nazi/Erectile Medication ads on every page of their sites.
You do realize that the number of actual Nazis in the US is barely measurable? What we do have is a bunch of hateful people that decide to just label people as Nazis as a way to claim the moral high ground and suppress those with ideological, but mainstream differences. Oddly enough, it was the Nazis who used the tactic of calling their opponents less than human, deplorable, cockroaches who were the root for all that was wrong in order to get the general populace to go along with treating them as scum who should not be associated with and ultimately to purge. Very much like the far left is currently doing to conservatives. There may be some dictionary differences between Nazis and the groups of antifa, democratic socialists and progressives, but the tactics to usurp power have very common traits.
A fair point, the "actual" nazism just requires more of an intentional break from society and reality. Most people are cows to the slaughter, where nazis are like rotten meat advocating for a less sanitary abattoir.
We need a nazi roundup and mass execution, it will probably end up happening one way or another. They're too stupid to keep their heads down, the retarded backwoods uneducated traitors. We'll get them all eventually.
Let's see...you can make threats all you want about Trump, conservatives, republicans, Christians, traditional values, and no one bats an eye on social media. But, say one thing about liberals, homosexuals, blacks, illegal aliens and you get banned. That sound about right? Freedom...ain't it great? Granted, Fakebook, twitter et al, are technically a private business, and they can have a TOS as they see fit, but they better watch out banning this or that, or the long arm of the federal government will come down on them and destroy their profitable business. Because, we all know when government gets involved, it turns into a cluster f*ck!
We must hold our founding fathers accountable.
I can't think of any other tech article in which a former exec is reference and the name not the submitted /. post. Of course in this case it was Ex-CEO Ellen Pao
If you post something on Reddit in a community that doesn't like it:
) it will immediately be downvoted
2) because it's downvoted, it will be invisible to virtually everyone
3) you also get punished in terms of "karma score" system for posting in unfavorable communities
The result is communities that are echo chambers, where you find likeminded people and you all hi-five each other constantly and vote each other up, and downvote opposite voices. Those opposite voices eventually get tired of putting their best effort into writing stuff nobody reads, and leave. It was designed as an echo chamber.
I love how Pao's name was conspicuously missing in that entire post.
It's almost like people wouldn't respect her opinion if they knew who it was coming from... Hrmm, why would that be?
Everyone needs to stop categorizing people so we can get things done
You're absolute correct, but you forgot to apply the other slices of bread to the shit sandwich, the "Christian conservative" far right.
Seriously... It's really, really sad listening to the two parties argue over who's the biggest victim. Part of me wishes you'd just kiss and make up and another part wants to give you all a broken bottle and watch you kill each other off, but that'd never happen because you're just too goddamn pathetic.
What you'll do is lobby your representatives to pass limp, symbolic legislation targeted at your adversaries that'll just be overturned in 4-8 years...
Of late, Reddit has just banned a bunch of random accounts because they're Iranian bots, apparently, colluding to drive narratives to specific ends.
They were clearly successful, given the accounts (before being wiped) had histories of posting literally all over the political spectrum, on a wide variety of topics, the majority of which had nothing to do whatsoever with politics or geopolitical issues.
Meanwhile, of course, any Redditor can tell you of the massive and weird shift of one of Reddit's most popular subreddits, politics, underwent: before Bernie bro'd out, the sub made even diehard Trumpers look like saints in terms of vitriol spewed towards Clinton. As Bernie was being knocked out? Might've been the second coming of Jeebus, given the amount of inane fanfare for Clinton. What happened? Simple. A group (several, actually) worked in concert to take over the subreddit and drive their narrative.
I have no problem with that in itself; what's damning is the fact that some people get a pass, while others get a, "REEEEEEEEEEE BOTS NARRATIVE PROPAGANDA!"
But of course, silencing political foes while letting your friends do as they wish is what the Party is all about. Pao wasn't the originator of the Reddit Thought Police, but she moved them along briskly, and they're still picking up speed - one only needs to listen, not even carefully, and the intermission between jackboots hitting pavement is ever decreasing.
It seems to me like this problem of allowing free speech while keeping the general public away from toxic posts was solved ages ago by Slashdot and it's system of moderation and meta-moderation. If only other sites would adopt the system.....
> You have 0% of a right to be a nazi on anyone's platform. That's how this works, they own their platform. Blow.
Looking forward to revisiting this gem of a post in another decade or two when China and India control the major platforms and decide to ban things insulting to Hindus or deemed subversive to the state.
the stuff that makes the median income look good is underwater welding. It's crazy dangerous. Do it wrong and you blow up.
$50k year isn't a lot of money any more. And you'll live in the middle of nowhere on oil fields to get it. That's fine when you're 18 and drive 3 hours into town every weekend. Not when you're 25 and want kids (and schools for said kids).
Also, wages for welders aren't going up but inflation _is_. The only people who's livelihoods aren't being eaten alive by inflation are folks with STEM degrees, especially Medical.
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and the high pay for underwater welding skews the figures on income for welders. Most welders make $15-$18/hr. In 2018 that's not a middle class life. That's a bare minimum living wage and you better hope you never get sick or injured...
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welding is no no way shape or form, safe. it could be safe but the way things work in most corporations that hire welders, they force them to work in unsafe conditions.
an author puts "free speech" in quotes.
You're free to post your unreasonable defense of a traitor on Breitbart or Sturmer or anywhere nazis do their faggot act, but you have no "right" to be a cowardly traitor pushing nazism on Twitter or Reddit, anywhere else.
This is because those are free-market companies. They own their platforms and don't have to allow cowardly nazi faggot shit to make it less usable or enjoyable to normal patriotic citizens. They don't need you. Nobody does.
So you cockroaches are free to scatter back to the cracks and crevices your uneducated ideology was excreted from, but you have no rights to be cunts on "social media" that you don't own. Sorry, but that's OUR system, snowflake.
When Reddit says Pao decides, Pao decides. Deal with it, fuck off back to your nazi shitholes. Your kind isn't welcome in civil society. We reject you cowards with the extreme prejudice you preach directly.
Welding involves vaporizing toxic chemicals about 1 foot from your face. It emits UV and in fact Xray radiation. It involves moderately high power levels at one's fingertips, in the rain, upside down, any configuration possible. You're a moron.
Yes, it's dangerous, and yes you're a shitty welder making obsequious commentaries you know very little about generally.
Tolerant liberal.
welders often have a ton of nasty health problems in their 50s and 60s from decades of breathing vaporized metal. There are ways to alleviate the problem but, well, the mostly require gov't intervention or companies don't bother and we just put a party in charge that's deeply opposed to gov't intervention...
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Tolerating Nazis is known as an appeasement. I am not for that. My grandfather murdered nazi scum by hand and I hope to be given the chance to follow in his patriotic and life-loving footsteps. Nazism is the enemy of America.
If you support it expect to die. Don't be confused thinking my liberal social values extend to treasonous nazi faggot scumbags. You will die.
You don't have liberal values. You're the fascist you claim to oppose. Or you're just a crapflooder.
At least you are being honest and acknowledging that Christian conservatives are the bread in the shit sandwich.
This is the purpose of these platforms.
Look at 4chan. The whole purpose is to have people yelling and insulting each other.
This is what people want.
The mistake was coupling this to real world identities. Not having people be able to troll and flame.
Please cut out the crapflooding. Nobody could conceivably think your post was serious.
road to hell
internet fights
Based on the available evidence, either (A) drama queen hyperbole*, does not compute (B) /. is the fifth circle of hell
*which I might try to solve with ridicule or mockery, but not by trying to "hold websites accountable". This fecal smear on my screen isn't particularly Dice's fault.
Besides her right to ragefully rant, I also acknowledge the possibility that she was right all along and we're living in simulated reality (B).
Other than promoting the idea that speech is something adults need to be "protected" from?
Did I miss a point in there somewhere?
I need to shower now. Filth talking shit about a sewer.
Sounds like a plot of rage-fueled anger Anon. You sure youâ(TM)re not projecting?
No, fascism implies complicity with the state. In this case the state is represented by Trump, an all but avowed nazi. I don't preach racial superiority either way, that's retarded phenotypism in a genotype world.
Support nazism = you're a nazi. Period. Do not pass go, Die in Federal Prison, you are a traitor if you support nazism. (and a moron)
And nazis should expect death like they preach towards other groups, oh yes the fuck you should. That's not fascism, that's a natural reaction to nazism. Deal with it nazi snowflake faggots. The world will not appease you.
Good luck scraping the shit off either of those.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
That's all. Just "duh".
The title pretty much sums it up, Ellen Pao trying to shit on other social media CEOs is possibly the most hypocritical thing I've ever seen. She is not only part of the problem but a prime source of it.
She wasn't "controversial". She was straight up bigoted and consistently lied and extorted people as a matter of policy. On reddit and off reddit.
As my professors taught me, the good engineering answer is "It Depends". I hate people like you who accuse all "Hate speech" of not being Free Speech. See that last sentence there, it was FUCKING BOTH YOU STUPID SHITHEAD.
Now go watch the movie "The Jerk". Then listen to some Bill Hicks albums. Then listen to Ice T's "Cop Killer" album.
People who equivicate "Hate speech" with logical-not of Free Speech are absolutely fucking traitors. God gave me some inalienable rights. Good Luck taking them from me.
Take some advice please- "The Devil Is In The Details". "It Depends". There are enemies of Free Speech. People who feel the need to expand laws against threats of violence, and weakly use the imprecise "Hate speech" label as sweepingly wrongly as you did, are enemies of Free Speech. Free Speech matters a lot.
What's the main problem? Trolls having twisted fun? The borderline-insane who make death threats against women and minorities? Far right/left? I'd rather the extremists were out in the open, so that their ill-considered arguments could be shot down. If anyone crosses a line then they get the full force of the law or the site... same as they would in real life - call that censorship but I prefer the word 'responsibility'. As for trolls - I'd rather they were mucking about on the web than setting fire to bus-stops and shooting cats.
Ahh, so you were only a Nazi when Obama was in office. I got what you're saying now. By the way, if you grandfather saw this side of you he would probably disown you.
I'm angry for a reason. I'm not just raging to rage. I'm not some 20 year old with too much testosterone.
My point is the rage of the working class is being largely ignored. It's how we got a proto-dictator like Trump (and yes, I will call him a proto-dictator. He praised Kim Jon Un's people standing in attention and President Xi of China granting himself the presidency for life). I call out Pelosi because she's one of the ones ignoring me.
Everything _is_ politics. Everything we do and think has broad implications on society as a whole, even the really stupid stuff, when it's scaled up to a national level. When you ignore the working class getting the crap beaten out of them sooner or later they're going to do something to fix that. If we're lucky we get sound policy (hey, it happened in Europe). If we're not we get dictatorships and war. Now's the time to choose which one.
But Hey, go right on dismissing all this as "just politics" like it doesn't matter. Right up until it bites us all in the ass, hard.
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That's how this works, they own their platform.
Exactly! Anyway, back to the topic of dictating what others are obligated to do with their own platform...
that was the entire point.
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Considering there are over 5,000 known, admitted Nazi-esque groups (Nazis, Fascists, white nationalists, any far right identity politics party basically) and each group likely has at least two members, there are at least 10,000 in the US. One of the requirements to become a Nazi (or any other far right ideology) is an extreme gullibility and less than average intellect. To become a Nazi, one must be willing to believe known lies and pretend reality is completely different than how we measure it. To become a Nazi basically means you are proofed against rational debate; the grounds for said debate have been completely removed, so the only hope a Nazi has is for reality to teach them. When Nazis can escape reality by living online in their forums, they can avoid the lessons reality tries to teach them.
It's a real problem.
And there is precedent...
Remember newspapers, when they were not merely cage lining or, now, superseded by online whatever?
Remember the editorial page? Letters to the Editor?
There was a time when editors and/or their staff did indeed read those letters. All of them, even the rants and threats. But they would not publish them if these writers crossed a line. Editorial staff might even let the police know.
So, Twitter etc, somewhat the modern, Internet version of Letters to the Editor, permits this spew. Maybe they should not. Maybe they should do what newspapers did, back when we more successfully pretended to be a civil society, and simply drop these upon inspection.
Certainly a reasonable filter would include spotting posts with plain physical threats, for instance, and discard them. Those old Letters to the Editor did that, and no one was the wiser.
And if these sad individuals demand a forum, they can do what they did back then, when newspapers ruled, and publish themselves. Some did.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.