I am not very knowledgeable about this stuff but I think people need to decide what the issue is. EG people blast Facebook for its "algorithm destroying democracy" but also blast WhatsApp, which AFAIK has no algorithm, for also "destroying democracy".
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So is your problem with "means of communication where people can easily send things to many contacts" or is your problem with "black box algorithmic curation"? Or both?
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(And I'm still not sure how much the "optimizing for engagement inherently boosts fascism" thing is either empirically or theoretically supported. To the extent it's true, it may be some other aspect of the algorithm, or may be an aspect of the audience...how much do we know?)
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Replying to @xenocryptsite
There's research on this! I'll try to compile it
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Replying to @Pinboard
Thanks. One of my general things is "statements about algorithms are really statements about domains". So, if the claim is "optimizing for engagement inherently boosts Nazis" or something, then that's really a claim about human behavior, not algorithms...
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Replying to @xenocryptsite @Pinboard
...EG "conspiracy theories are inherently addictive", or "power users are inherently disproportionately Nazis", or whatever.
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Replying to @xenocryptsite
The statements are entirely about human behavior. The algorithms are very simple and general, they just learn to reinforce whatever (arbitrary) behavior they notice that increases their reward. So the interesting claims are entirely on how this intersects with human proclivities
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They're kind of a mirror held to human nature in that respect, and it makes them fascinating. But real people with degrees and stuff study this and write real papers and I'll try to track that down.
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