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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"
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.
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'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.
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.
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!
The summary was very careful not to mention her by name, but without reading the article, I can guarantee this is Reddit Ex-CEO Ellen Pao. The person who fought long and hard for censorship to the point of nearly destroying the most popular internet forum in the world.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
an author puts "free speech" in quotes.
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.
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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