There’s a fundamental distinction here. OF COURSE FB (or G, or Yahoo) can drive use. They can put it on the homepage & it gets a firehose
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Replying to @benedictevans @zeynep
And, they can optimize daily engagement with thousands of small tweaks. The trouble is, that only works for the short term
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Replying to @benedictevans @zeynep
FB can put something on the home page, or emphasize it in the feed. But though a shop can put it in the window, that won’t make a fashion
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Replying to @benedictevans
That's not the right level of analysis, imo. What people want is to belong, or what they want from fashion is to be, say, cool & expressive.
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Replying to @zeynep @benedictevans
So early inventors think comm tech should be used for info. Users get their hands on it & start communicating. Phone, Minitel, internet.
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Replying to @zeynep @benedictevans
So the thing that cannot be resisted is that most people want to communicate, not read your erudite encyclopedia entry. But *how* they can+
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Replying to @zeynep @benedictevans
..communicate can end up leaning saccharine (FB/"Like") or vituperative/mobby (Twitter/Retweet/mention mechanism) depending on structure.
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Replying to @zeynep @benedictevans
In both cases, they are expressing a need to belong and communicate; but different strands are encouraged/incentivized, in feedback loops./
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Replying to @zeynep
Abuse is, *partly*, a product design problem. No-one disputes that, but it is tangential to the question of control 1/2
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Replying to @benedictevans @zeynep
I can optimize how you use a feature. I cannot make you use it. I can optimize a fashion, but I can’t make it fashionable. 2/2
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So, here's the feedback loop. Once you let abuse run rampant, you help create a community. They'll then persist in spite of product change.
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Replying to @zeynep @benedictevans
Similar with FB. The algorithm starts with some incentives; there is no way, even with implicit incentives, people don't shift to it—some.
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Replying to @zeynep @benedictevans
And that shift over time ends up in with culture in one particular optimum, whereas an early other type design might ended up elsewhere. /
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