9 ms·

Social media access to user data (whether foreign or domestic) is bad, but it is a distraction from the real evil: behavioral management at scale. When you can

Social media access to user data (whether foreign or domestic) is bad, but it is a distraction from the real evil: behavioral management at scale. When you can target specific demographics and control what they see 8-10 hours of the day, you can change what they think, say, do, and most importantly, how they vote. People are literally being programmed (euphemistically, "conditioned") by the specific triggers and stimuli with almost surgical precision, and completely unbeknownst to them. This is uncomfortable to recognize and discuss, so the conversation is sadly reduced to "China/AI is bad/evil" to further foment hate and division.

capableweb 3y ago
> When you can target specific demographics > control what they see > People are literally being programmed [...] by the specific triggers I hate marketing/PR as much as the next person, but have become part of daily life. How do we get rid of it? Outlaw the practice of trying to influence people by marketing? Edit: Rereading your comment I realize you're talking about something else, but I guess the same applies nonetheless.
- millzlane 3y ago
  I feel like a large push from the AD council would be appropriate. (Not sure what the exact message would be) It feels like some of the largest industries rely on the masses being easily programmable. TV, Radio, Billboard, basically advertisements. Most are designed to make you give them your money. It's easy to spot and ignore when you realize it's happening.
- godelski 3y ago
  How do we get rid of it? Can you get rid of it? No. Doing so would result in the loss of many important rights and have unintended consequences. Not even China can get rid of this. BUT that doesn't mean you can't put regulations and limitations on them. As one example, we may want to make laws that ensure that ads are easily recognizable as ads. I'm referencing Native Advertising. I want to use an example from the NYT[0] that is marked, to give an example of how nefarious this can actually be. The article itself only mentions the show once, in the middle, and mostly discusses women's lives in prison. It would not be surprising to believe that this is not an ad but actually a news story. It is both, but that's why it is nefarious. Is this ad easily recognizable? Even with the notice? We can talk about dark patterns (native advertising might be one), and prevent many of them. Not allowing for bait and switches. Ensuring that options are easily conveyed. I don't think it matters which side of the political spectrum you're on or many of your philosophical ideals, but tricking people into buying things they don't want or need is not ethical. We live in a specialized world and one person can't be an expert in everything. If the game is supercomputers and teams of psychologists and lawyers against individuals then I think we all know this is an unfair game. We have to talk about how to level this playing field if we want to preserve individual freedoms and safety. So I know this doesn't really answer your question, and the truth is that I don't have a good answer. I think the topic itself is surprisingly complicated and we need to think carefully about it. The path we're going down clearly isn't acceptable to most people. But overreacting will also be similarly bad. We need to have a tough social conversation and figure out what we want together. We have to learn, a lot, because this is nuanced. We have to be open to being wrong, with a focus on learning and improving rather than asserting our positions (because they are all wrong in some form or another). Which that might be the hardest thing of all, but if we can do this then we can solve a lot more problems. Maybe this is the great filter? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/netflix/women-inmates-separate-but-not-equal.html https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/netflix/women-inmates-separ...
  - karmajunkie 3y ago
    While i think these are ideas worth considering, what I think is the answer is perhaps staring us in the face: put regulatory limits on the amount and kind of data that apps and websites can collect. The real problem with tiktok is not the CCP; it seems likely in my mind that our own government has equally nefarious techniques at play in other countries, and I think its unfair to single out a single company over this or any other behavior that is otherwise legal. So cut them off at the knees—make the behavior of tiktok illegal, for them and for any other of the thousands of companies doing basically the same thing. Pointedly i mean the extra-application data collection, cross-checking with third-party data miners (which should be illegal already), and the sorts of things we've just become accustomed to being par for the course.
    - godelski 3y ago
      > put regulatory limits on the amount and kind of data that apps and websites can collect. Yeah, I would be in full support of this. I think there's a double edged sword that people are playing with and don't see the other edge. Any data that you use to control your population can also be used by an adversary for the same purpose. The same is true about encryption. We have two competing forces in our own government. Blue team and red teams. But we know red team gets a lot more money and is a lot flashier. Focusing all on red team is fun and exciting but makes you a glass cannon.
    - jay_kyburz 3y ago
      You would have to make it illegal to show different content to different users. Get rid of "the algorithm" and every website becomes a simple catalog of content. I also think if you do any moderation of content, you lose your "common carrier" status and become a publisher, responsible for any content you publish.
      - smokelegend 3y ago
        Thought experiment, Anyone every consider making a social media site/app like fb, tiktok, insta, twitter, where the user can control the algo, and or have sum input of the algo, in so much that the user can "control" what they see, still have ads [company gets paid] but the user can control those ads to a certain degree...[sort of like brave browser][but for social media] Just wondering, not saying data collection is good, but perhaps, if it were more transparent and interactive, people would be more accepting to using and capitalizing on their own data. Value for value, the user gets to decide what data to share, and the company gets to push ads based on known algorithm unique to each user's approved data metrics... perhaps this already exists??? Is this a pipedream? Or a yes, yes, "if you build it, they will come" life changing moment? I need to know, it is important I change my outfit if it's the latter, athletic shorts and a tshirt, (in my opinion) don't convene much confidence when shopping around for angel investors... ;)
- ipv6ipv4 3y ago
  > How do we get rid of it? Put down your phone.
  - beenBoutIT 3y ago
    Hold onto the phone and just don't use social media.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - karmajunkie 3y ago
    You get points for pithy snark, but given that the problem predates smartphones, this isn't likely to solve it.
    - baq 3y ago
      The smartphone enables extreme personalization of the bamboozle. Maybe not that simple but would go a long way.
    - jstarfish 3y ago
      No, it really is that simple. Never before has a foreign entity been able to deliver personalized content at the individual level. Not at this scale. The only way a device could get any more embedded would be through rectal insertion. Not every problem can be solved. Sometimes the best we can do is mitigate. [Smart]phones are spyware in every pocket...by design.
      - jay_kyburz 3y ago
        That solves "your" problem. It doesn't solve the problems for your democracy. We want to limit the ability of the wealthy and foreign nations to control the mob. We want the mob to be well adjusted, well educated, happy, and kind.
        burglins 3y ago
- whitemary 3y ago
  > Outlaw the practice of trying to influence people by marketing? If and when that is an option, yes definitely. What are we waiting for? And how is this even up for discussion?
- c7DJTLrn 3y ago
  >How do we get rid of it? Start by not letting it get its hooks in children and young adults.
- matmann2001 3y ago
  Not sure you can eliminate it, but you can certainly reduce the impact and scale by fighting anti-competitive behavior . A major reason this sort of mass manipulation is so lucrative and effective is because you only have operate on a couple of platforms to reach a majority of eyeballs.
- einpoklum 3y ago
  > How do we get rid of it? Outlaw the practice of trying to influence people by marketing? Perhaps the first step towards getting rid of it is realizing that it is not "we" who legislate things. That is, not a collective including yourself which has your best interest in mind to a significant extent. "We" have to face the reality in which "they" set up this system - legislatively and commercially. And I don't mean some evil cabal; you (or me) sometimes participate in the activity of "them". It's just that "we" need to stop identifying "their" actions as what "we" decided to do.
- artificialLimbs 3y ago
  We handle it through education. Informing people. Making them aware.
- RunSet 3y ago
  A good approach is to teach something like this in public schools. https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/propaganda-7-most-important-technique-of-propaganda/24309 https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/propaganda-7-mo... It seems to have vanished from curricula and I wonder why. It's not as though anyone stands to benefit from an electorate that is less capable of identifying propaganda.
paulcole 3y ago
If you’re an adult watching TikTok 8-10 hours a day that’s on you to fix. When I was at my “peak”, I was watching 2-3 hours a day and that felt like a lot. If a kid is watching TikTok 8-10 hours a day, that’s on the parents to fix. This is like the hot dog man meme. “Who’s responsible for this?” Ultimately you are in control of your eyeballs and your time. Stop watching! Or not. TikTok is awesome. Watch it 8-10 hours a day if you want.
- UberFly 3y ago
  It's also OK to go after the shady character spending all its effort manipulating and spying. I get lots of things do their best to do this, but this is the CCP in your living room. There should be a line somewhere.
  - paulcole 3y ago
    OK but if you don’t want the shady character in your living room, don’t let them in. Don’t complain when somebody else doesn’t close the door you left wide open.
- hiatus 3y ago
  > Ultimately you are in control of your eyeballs and your time. Stop watching! There are people making hundreds of thousands of dollars whose sole job is to get you locked into a feedback loop in these apps. We are engineering addiction.
  - whitemary 3y ago
    The addiction is a side effect of a society built on exploitation. In other words, capitalism is literally the problem.
    - hiatus 3y ago
      Does addiction exist in non-capitalist countries? Could you expand because I'm not sure if I understood the point you're making.
MuffinFlavored 3y ago
FOX news and CNN don’t change what people think/how they vote?
- brainphreeze 3y ago
  They're all doing it. Big tech, social media, left/right.
  - whitemary 3y ago
    There is no left in the US
    - xienze 3y ago
      _rolling eyes emoji_ Yes, as has been pointed out countless times, the US left would be considered further right than the Nazi party to all you enlightened Europeans. We know, we get it. Doesn’t change the fact that there is something called left wing politics in the US, and it’s considerably different from right wing politics in the US.
      - deprecative 3y ago
        There is nothing called left wing politics in the US. Just people with their heads so far up their own ass they don't realize how far right the US is.
- DirkH 3y ago
  Whataboutism
- noptd 3y ago
  As if that's relevant or excuses this behavior.
- warning26 3y ago
  Are you suggesting that FOX and CNN are good things? If it's possible, I'd say we should ban anything working in this way.
makach 3y ago
how does this differ from newspapers, books and the spoken word?
- millzlane 3y ago
  You have to actively seek it out, or be told about it. Rather than it being presented in your face the moment you wake up out of bed. Referring to folks so addicted it's the first thing they grab, see all the notifications, and are back at it by morning time.
- smeej 3y ago
  Newspapers aren't nearly as effective at keeping attention indefinitely/at every opportunity, nor at controlling what you read next.
  - shawabawa3 3y ago
    Fox news seems to have done a pretty good job of this in the US
    - vosper 3y ago
      Fox News isn’t a newspaper
    - robocat 3y ago
      Presumably most viewers have chosen that echo chamber, so it really isn’t the same to compare it. Also Fox News has only a few million viewers each night e.g. “Fox News Channel coasted to an easy win in prime time Monday night, delivering an average total audience of 2.351 million viewers”.
- wolpoli 3y ago
  For newspapers, it was relatively easy to see and compare the content of the different papers side by side. I am not sure how I would jump out of my social media news bubble.
- akudha 3y ago
throwaway038519 3y ago
Regarding your comment about behavioral management at scale. Carl Sagan once said: "If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." It would be interesting to know if this were true in that case.
- lazystar 3y ago
  In other words, cognitive dissonance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
  - scrum-treats 3y ago
    Indeed. Like thinking Tiktok is "such a serious danger" while having apps such as Spotify, Snapchat, and Amazon or Meta < anything > installed on our phones, using Google < anything >, or using devices such as "smart-tvs" and computers with Windows OS. Let's not forget the mild tinge of prejudice/racism that colors the messaging. Dissonance is just that.
- klabb3 3y ago
  This is pretty much Plato’s cave. But yeah, it seems to be absolutely true.
  - syndacks 3y ago
    Not sure Plato’s cave applies here.
    - swayvil 3y ago
      You clearly skipped the footnotes.
    - wmidwestranger 3y ago
slim 3y ago
Furthermore you can target specific persons : heads of states, gov personnel, parliament representatives,... and their families, friends. You can get them "conditioned", you can drive them to commit errors for the purpose of black mailing them, etc...
slowhadoken 3y ago
Correct. The other issue is to not develop pro-CCP rhetoric out of this false dichotomy too. It’s all just varying degrees of social pollution created by some propagandists.
- bt4u 3y ago
  [dead]
pessimizer 3y ago
This is literally just the anti-China "brainwashing" propaganda warmed up for a new paranoid generation. I used to collect John Birch and anti-communist publications from the 50s for their histrionic historical value, but now I'm thinking I should start reprinting them and changing the dates. Both Democrats and Republicans would eat it up. edit: somehow Cambridge Analytica's bullshit marketing material combined with The Manchurian Candidate in the boomer mind. ----- edit: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-brainwashing-and-how-it-shaped-america-180963400/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-brainwashi... > “The basic problem that brainwashing is designed to address is the question ‘why would anybody become a Communist?’” says Timothy Melley, professor of English at Miami University and author of The Covert Sphere: Secrecy, Fiction, and the National Security State. “[Brainwashing] is a story that we tell to explain something we can’t otherwise explain.” > The term had multiple definitions that changed depending on who used it. For Hunter—who turned out to be an agent in the CIA’s propaganda wing—it was a mystical, Oriental practice that couldn’t be understood or anticipated by the West, Melley says. But for scientists who actually studied the American POWs once they returned from Korea, brainwashing was altogether less mysterious than the readily apparent outcome: The men had been tortured. > [...] > Meanwhile, the American public was still wrapped up in fantasies of hypnotic brainwashing, in part due to the research of pop psychologists like Joost Meerloo and William Sargant. Unlike Lifton and the other researchers hired by the military, these two men portrayed themselves as public intellectuals and drew parallels between brainwashing and tactics used by both American marketers and Communist propagandists. Meerloo believes that “totalitarian societies like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union or Communist China were in the past, and continue to be, quite successful in their thought-control programs… [and] the more recently available techniques of influence and thought control are more securely based on scientific fact, more potent and more subtle,” writes psychoanalyst Edgar Schein in a 1959 review of Meerloo’s book, The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control—Menticide and Brainwashing.
codedokode 3y ago
This is not something new. History shows that when the government controls the media, it can control people's opinions and beliefs. The only difference is that now the control over TikTok users' minds is not in the hands of US Government and that's why they are unhappy.
- maxloh 3y ago
  Is there a political party that the Chinese government considered less hostile than the other?
- brandall10 3y ago
  The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis is a great doc on how this took shape in the early 20th century; its primary focus was the double nephew of Sigmund Freud who invented public relations and was a powerful political consultant for many US administrations. One of his main areas of research was using media as a tool for crowd control... he had a somewhat noble viewpoint about it, believing that large crowds by nature devolved into anarchy: "Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos".
  - browie 3y ago
    What do you mean devolved into anarchy?
    - brandall10 3y ago
      That the larger the population got, the harder it would be to control, politically or otherwise. That there would be all sorts of competing factions for mindshare and ideology, radicalization, etc, in a fully free society. He more or less viewed consumerism as a means pacify these tensions, to indirectly exert control... hence the development of closer ties between big business and the government.
  - beenBoutIT 3y ago
    This guy's a big part of the reason America is so deeply screwed. America's eating habits have been artfully manipulated to the point that dietary common sense in the US is likely among the lowest in the Western world.
quadcore 3y ago
It may be new to the extend it's hyper centralized indeed.
useEffect 3y ago
Highly recommend reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism on this topic
wslh 3y ago
I wonder if full homomorphic encryption plus ZKP are the way to go and if time will prove it in this decade.
throwaway4575 3y ago
If your democracy can be thwarted by free speech from a bad actor, then your democracy is shit.
electrondood 3y ago
This is exactly what Russia did in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The Trump campaign gave voter polling data to Konstatin Kilimnik. Russia then proceeded to exploit Facebook to target swing voters, and Trump won because of 80k voters across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  That is one of thousands of reasons, yes.
- user_named 3y ago
  No they didn't. Source.
- ryanmerket 3y ago
  been saying this for years... the response is always: "they didn't spend enough money to sway enough people" but who did they target? which zipcodes or DMAs? specific UIDs? Trump won be 80k votes in the swing states.
- jdkee 3y ago
  Russia's reach on Facebook was minimal and likely did not meaningfully alter the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election. See https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/report-select-committee-intelligence-united-states-senate-russian-active-measures https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/report-sele... See also https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-e...
hedora 3y ago
In particular, the lawsuit alleges they are in compliance with a Chinese law that sounds identical to the US CLOUD Act. Is that terrible? Of course. However, US law is as bad or worse.
wmidwestranger 3y ago
Absolutely correct. Along with the usual reduction, there is also the, "Actually, it's too free speech that is bad we need censorship." Meanwhile, no issues with operant conditioning from the Skinner Box Phone.
password4321 3y ago
Also on the front page: TikTok Feeds Teens a Diet of Darkness https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932387 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932387
mikrl 3y ago
Memetic warfare I think they call it.
polyomino 3y ago
8-10 hours a day? Basically nobody is using social media this much.
bigbluedots 3y ago
This is frequently asserted as fact, and I don't disagree that it is possible. But do you have some specific evidence that you can provide?
dotnet00 3y ago
Brings to mind that old leaked Google internal 'thought experiment' video "The Selfish Ledger": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDVVo14A_fo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDVVo14A_fo
xnx 3y ago
AKA advertising
gnarbarian 3y ago
I think this is always been the case with media going back as far as language existed. We are more aware of it now. the big innovation recently has been the ability to manage content of peer to peer communication as well through social media.
ChrisRR 3y ago
Just look at how people were programmed into believing that masks were bad. At best they could save lives, at worst they were an inconvenience. But some people acted like you had just punched them in the face if you asked them to wear one And why? Because certain politicians and media outlets decided to randomly make it a political issue, and then suddenly you have people angrily spouting all kinds of crap rather than be slightly inconvenienced and have to smell their own breath

capableweb 3y ago

> When you can target specific demographics > control what they see > People are literally being programmed [...] by the specific triggers I hate marketing/PR as much as the next person, but have become part of daily life. How do we get rid of it? Outlaw the practice of trying to influence people by marketing? Edit: Rereading your comment I realize you're talking about something else, but I guess the same applies nonetheless.

millzlane 3y ago
I feel like a large push from the AD council would be appropriate. (Not sure what the exact message would be) It feels like some of the largest industries rely on the masses being easily programmable. TV, Radio, Billboard, basically advertisements. Most are designed to make you give them your money. It's easy to spot and ignore when you realize it's happening.
godelski 3y ago
How do we get rid of it? Can you get rid of it? No. Doing so would result in the loss of many important rights and have unintended consequences. Not even China can get rid of this. BUT that doesn't mean you can't put regulations and limitations on them. As one example, we may want to make laws that ensure that ads are easily recognizable as ads. I'm referencing Native Advertising. I want to use an example from the NYT[0] that is marked, to give an example of how nefarious this can actually be. The article itself only mentions the show once, in the middle, and mostly discusses women's lives in prison. It would not be surprising to believe that this is not an ad but actually a news story. It is both, but that's why it is nefarious. Is this ad easily recognizable? Even with the notice? We can talk about dark patterns (native advertising might be one), and prevent many of them. Not allowing for bait and switches. Ensuring that options are easily conveyed. I don't think it matters which side of the political spectrum you're on or many of your philosophical ideals, but tricking people into buying things they don't want or need is not ethical. We live in a specialized world and one person can't be an expert in everything. If the game is supercomputers and teams of psychologists and lawyers against individuals then I think we all know this is an unfair game. We have to talk about how to level this playing field if we want to preserve individual freedoms and safety. So I know this doesn't really answer your question, and the truth is that I don't have a good answer. I think the topic itself is surprisingly complicated and we need to think carefully about it. The path we're going down clearly isn't acceptable to most people. But overreacting will also be similarly bad. We need to have a tough social conversation and figure out what we want together. We have to learn, a lot, because this is nuanced. We have to be open to being wrong, with a focus on learning and improving rather than asserting our positions (because they are all wrong in some form or another). Which that might be the hardest thing of all, but if we can do this then we can solve a lot more problems. Maybe this is the great filter? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/netflix/women-inmates-separate-but-not-equal.html https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/netflix/women-inmates-separ...
- karmajunkie 3y ago
  While i think these are ideas worth considering, what I think is the answer is perhaps staring us in the face: put regulatory limits on the amount and kind of data that apps and websites can collect. The real problem with tiktok is not the CCP; it seems likely in my mind that our own government has equally nefarious techniques at play in other countries, and I think its unfair to single out a single company over this or any other behavior that is otherwise legal. So cut them off at the knees—make the behavior of tiktok illegal, for them and for any other of the thousands of companies doing basically the same thing. Pointedly i mean the extra-application data collection, cross-checking with third-party data miners (which should be illegal already), and the sorts of things we've just become accustomed to being par for the course.
  - godelski 3y ago
    > put regulatory limits on the amount and kind of data that apps and websites can collect. Yeah, I would be in full support of this. I think there's a double edged sword that people are playing with and don't see the other edge. Any data that you use to control your population can also be used by an adversary for the same purpose. The same is true about encryption. We have two competing forces in our own government. Blue team and red teams. But we know red team gets a lot more money and is a lot flashier. Focusing all on red team is fun and exciting but makes you a glass cannon.
  - jay_kyburz 3y ago
    You would have to make it illegal to show different content to different users. Get rid of "the algorithm" and every website becomes a simple catalog of content. I also think if you do any moderation of content, you lose your "common carrier" status and become a publisher, responsible for any content you publish.
    - smokelegend 3y ago
      Thought experiment, Anyone every consider making a social media site/app like fb, tiktok, insta, twitter, where the user can control the algo, and or have sum input of the algo, in so much that the user can "control" what they see, still have ads [company gets paid] but the user can control those ads to a certain degree...[sort of like brave browser][but for social media] Just wondering, not saying data collection is good, but perhaps, if it were more transparent and interactive, people would be more accepting to using and capitalizing on their own data. Value for value, the user gets to decide what data to share, and the company gets to push ads based on known algorithm unique to each user's approved data metrics... perhaps this already exists??? Is this a pipedream? Or a yes, yes, "if you build it, they will come" life changing moment? I need to know, it is important I change my outfit if it's the latter, athletic shorts and a tshirt, (in my opinion) don't convene much confidence when shopping around for angel investors... ;)
ipv6ipv4 3y ago
> How do we get rid of it? Put down your phone.
- beenBoutIT 3y ago
  Hold onto the phone and just don't use social media.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- karmajunkie 3y ago
  You get points for pithy snark, but given that the problem predates smartphones, this isn't likely to solve it.
  - baq 3y ago
    The smartphone enables extreme personalization of the bamboozle. Maybe not that simple but would go a long way.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    No, it really is that simple. Never before has a foreign entity been able to deliver personalized content at the individual level. Not at this scale. The only way a device could get any more embedded would be through rectal insertion. Not every problem can be solved. Sometimes the best we can do is mitigate. [Smart]phones are spyware in every pocket...by design.
    - jay_kyburz 3y ago
      That solves "your" problem. It doesn't solve the problems for your democracy. We want to limit the ability of the wealthy and foreign nations to control the mob. We want the mob to be well adjusted, well educated, happy, and kind.
      - burglins 3y ago
whitemary 3y ago
> Outlaw the practice of trying to influence people by marketing? If and when that is an option, yes definitely. What are we waiting for? And how is this even up for discussion?
c7DJTLrn 3y ago
>How do we get rid of it? Start by not letting it get its hooks in children and young adults.
matmann2001 3y ago
Not sure you can eliminate it, but you can certainly reduce the impact and scale by fighting anti-competitive behavior . A major reason this sort of mass manipulation is so lucrative and effective is because you only have operate on a couple of platforms to reach a majority of eyeballs.
einpoklum 3y ago
> How do we get rid of it? Outlaw the practice of trying to influence people by marketing? Perhaps the first step towards getting rid of it is realizing that it is not "we" who legislate things. That is, not a collective including yourself which has your best interest in mind to a significant extent. "We" have to face the reality in which "they" set up this system - legislatively and commercially. And I don't mean some evil cabal; you (or me) sometimes participate in the activity of "them". It's just that "we" need to stop identifying "their" actions as what "we" decided to do.
artificialLimbs 3y ago
We handle it through education. Informing people. Making them aware.
RunSet 3y ago
A good approach is to teach something like this in public schools. https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/propaganda-7-most-important-technique-of-propaganda/24309 https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/propaganda-7-mo... It seems to have vanished from curricula and I wonder why. It's not as though anyone stands to benefit from an electorate that is less capable of identifying propaganda.

paulcole 3y ago

If you’re an adult watching TikTok 8-10 hours a day that’s on you to fix. When I was at my “peak”, I was watching 2-3 hours a day and that felt like a lot. If a kid is watching TikTok 8-10 hours a day, that’s on the parents to fix. This is like the hot dog man meme. “Who’s responsible for this?” Ultimately you are in control of your eyeballs and your time. Stop watching! Or not. TikTok is awesome. Watch it 8-10 hours a day if you want.

UberFly 3y ago
It's also OK to go after the shady character spending all its effort manipulating and spying. I get lots of things do their best to do this, but this is the CCP in your living room. There should be a line somewhere.
- paulcole 3y ago
  OK but if you don’t want the shady character in your living room, don’t let them in. Don’t complain when somebody else doesn’t close the door you left wide open.
hiatus 3y ago
> Ultimately you are in control of your eyeballs and your time. Stop watching! There are people making hundreds of thousands of dollars whose sole job is to get you locked into a feedback loop in these apps. We are engineering addiction.
- whitemary 3y ago
  The addiction is a side effect of a society built on exploitation. In other words, capitalism is literally the problem.
  - hiatus 3y ago
    Does addiction exist in non-capitalist countries? Could you expand because I'm not sure if I understood the point you're making.

MuffinFlavored 3y ago

FOX news and CNN don’t change what people think/how they vote?

brainphreeze 3y ago
They're all doing it. Big tech, social media, left/right.
- whitemary 3y ago
  There is no left in the US
  - xienze 3y ago
    _rolling eyes emoji_ Yes, as has been pointed out countless times, the US left would be considered further right than the Nazi party to all you enlightened Europeans. We know, we get it. Doesn’t change the fact that there is something called left wing politics in the US, and it’s considerably different from right wing politics in the US.
    - deprecative 3y ago
      There is nothing called left wing politics in the US. Just people with their heads so far up their own ass they don't realize how far right the US is.
DirkH 3y ago
Whataboutism
noptd 3y ago
As if that's relevant or excuses this behavior.
warning26 3y ago
Are you suggesting that FOX and CNN are good things? If it's possible, I'd say we should ban anything working in this way.

makach 3y ago

how does this differ from newspapers, books and the spoken word?

millzlane 3y ago
You have to actively seek it out, or be told about it. Rather than it being presented in your face the moment you wake up out of bed. Referring to folks so addicted it's the first thing they grab, see all the notifications, and are back at it by morning time.
smeej 3y ago
Newspapers aren't nearly as effective at keeping attention indefinitely/at every opportunity, nor at controlling what you read next.
- shawabawa3 3y ago
  Fox news seems to have done a pretty good job of this in the US
  - vosper 3y ago
    Fox News isn’t a newspaper
  - robocat 3y ago
    Presumably most viewers have chosen that echo chamber, so it really isn’t the same to compare it. Also Fox News has only a few million viewers each night e.g. “Fox News Channel coasted to an easy win in prime time Monday night, delivering an average total audience of 2.351 million viewers”.
wolpoli 3y ago
For newspapers, it was relatively easy to see and compare the content of the different papers side by side. I am not sure how I would jump out of my social media news bubble.
akudha 3y ago

throwaway038519 3y ago

Regarding your comment about behavioral management at scale. Carl Sagan once said: "If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." It would be interesting to know if this were true in that case.

lazystar 3y ago
In other words, cognitive dissonance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
- scrum-treats 3y ago
  Indeed. Like thinking Tiktok is "such a serious danger" while having apps such as Spotify, Snapchat, and Amazon or Meta < anything > installed on our phones, using Google < anything >, or using devices such as "smart-tvs" and computers with Windows OS. Let's not forget the mild tinge of prejudice/racism that colors the messaging. Dissonance is just that.
klabb3 3y ago
This is pretty much Plato’s cave. But yeah, it seems to be absolutely true.
- syndacks 3y ago
  Not sure Plato’s cave applies here.
  - swayvil 3y ago
    You clearly skipped the footnotes.
  - wmidwestranger 3y ago

slim 3y ago

Furthermore you can target specific persons : heads of states, gov personnel, parliament representatives,... and their families, friends. You can get them "conditioned", you can drive them to commit errors for the purpose of black mailing them, etc...

slowhadoken 3y ago

Correct. The other issue is to not develop pro-CCP rhetoric out of this false dichotomy too. It’s all just varying degrees of social pollution created by some propagandists.

bt4u 3y ago
[dead]

pessimizer 3y ago

This is literally just the anti-China "brainwashing" propaganda warmed up for a new paranoid generation. I used to collect John Birch and anti-communist publications from the 50s for their histrionic historical value, but now I'm thinking I should start reprinting them and changing the dates. Both Democrats and Republicans would eat it up. edit: somehow Cambridge Analytica's bullshit marketing material combined with The Manchurian Candidate in the boomer mind. ----- edit: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-brainwashing-and-how-it-shaped-america-180963400/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-brainwashi... > “The basic problem that brainwashing is designed to address is the question ‘why would anybody become a Communist?’” says Timothy Melley, professor of English at Miami University and author of The Covert Sphere: Secrecy, Fiction, and the National Security State. “[Brainwashing] is a story that we tell to explain something we can’t otherwise explain.” > The term had multiple definitions that changed depending on who used it. For Hunter—who turned out to be an agent in the CIA’s propaganda wing—it was a mystical, Oriental practice that couldn’t be understood or anticipated by the West, Melley says. But for scientists who actually studied the American POWs once they returned from Korea, brainwashing was altogether less mysterious than the readily apparent outcome: The men had been tortured. > [...] > Meanwhile, the American public was still wrapped up in fantasies of hypnotic brainwashing, in part due to the research of pop psychologists like Joost Meerloo and William Sargant. Unlike Lifton and the other researchers hired by the military, these two men portrayed themselves as public intellectuals and drew parallels between brainwashing and tactics used by both American marketers and Communist propagandists. Meerloo believes that “totalitarian societies like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union or Communist China were in the past, and continue to be, quite successful in their thought-control programs… [and] the more recently available techniques of influence and thought control are more securely based on scientific fact, more potent and more subtle,” writes psychoanalyst Edgar Schein in a 1959 review of Meerloo’s book, The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control—Menticide and Brainwashing.

codedokode 3y ago

This is not something new. History shows that when the government controls the media, it can control people's opinions and beliefs. The only difference is that now the control over TikTok users' minds is not in the hands of US Government and that's why they are unhappy.

maxloh 3y ago
Is there a political party that the Chinese government considered less hostile than the other?
brandall10 3y ago
The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis is a great doc on how this took shape in the early 20th century; its primary focus was the double nephew of Sigmund Freud who invented public relations and was a powerful political consultant for many US administrations. One of his main areas of research was using media as a tool for crowd control... he had a somewhat noble viewpoint about it, believing that large crowds by nature devolved into anarchy: "Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos".
- browie 3y ago
  What do you mean devolved into anarchy?
  - brandall10 3y ago
    That the larger the population got, the harder it would be to control, politically or otherwise. That there would be all sorts of competing factions for mindshare and ideology, radicalization, etc, in a fully free society. He more or less viewed consumerism as a means pacify these tensions, to indirectly exert control... hence the development of closer ties between big business and the government.
- beenBoutIT 3y ago
  This guy's a big part of the reason America is so deeply screwed. America's eating habits have been artfully manipulated to the point that dietary common sense in the US is likely among the lowest in the Western world.

quadcore 3y ago

It may be new to the extend it's hyper centralized indeed.

useEffect 3y ago

Highly recommend reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism on this topic

wslh 3y ago

I wonder if full homomorphic encryption plus ZKP are the way to go and if time will prove it in this decade.

throwaway4575 3y ago

If your democracy can be thwarted by free speech from a bad actor, then your democracy is shit.

electrondood 3y ago

This is exactly what Russia did in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The Trump campaign gave voter polling data to Konstatin Kilimnik. Russia then proceeded to exploit Facebook to target swing voters, and Trump won because of 80k voters across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

mensetmanusman 3y ago
That is one of thousands of reasons, yes.
user_named 3y ago
No they didn't. Source.
ryanmerket 3y ago
been saying this for years... the response is always: "they didn't spend enough money to sway enough people" but who did they target? which zipcodes or DMAs? specific UIDs? Trump won be 80k votes in the swing states.
jdkee 3y ago
Russia's reach on Facebook was minimal and likely did not meaningfully alter the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election. See https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/report-select-committee-intelligence-united-states-senate-russian-active-measures https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/report-sele... See also https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-e...

hedora 3y ago

In particular, the lawsuit alleges they are in compliance with a Chinese law that sounds identical to the US CLOUD Act. Is that terrible? Of course. However, US law is as bad or worse.

wmidwestranger 3y ago

Absolutely correct. Along with the usual reduction, there is also the, "Actually, it's too free speech that is bad we need censorship." Meanwhile, no issues with operant conditioning from the Skinner Box Phone.

password4321 3y ago

Also on the front page: TikTok Feeds Teens a Diet of Darkness https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932387 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932387

mikrl 3y ago

Memetic warfare I think they call it.

polyomino 3y ago

8-10 hours a day? Basically nobody is using social media this much.

bigbluedots 3y ago

This is frequently asserted as fact, and I don't disagree that it is possible. But do you have some specific evidence that you can provide?

dotnet00 3y ago

Brings to mind that old leaked Google internal 'thought experiment' video "The Selfish Ledger": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDVVo14A_fo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDVVo14A_fo

xnx 3y ago

AKA advertising

gnarbarian 3y ago

I think this is always been the case with media going back as far as language existed. We are more aware of it now. the big innovation recently has been the ability to manage content of peer to peer communication as well through social media.

ChrisRR 3y ago

Just look at how people were programmed into believing that masks were bad. At best they could save lives, at worst they were an inconvenience. But some people acted like you had just punched them in the face if you asked them to wear one And why? Because certain politicians and media outlets decided to randomly make it a political issue, and then suddenly you have people angrily spouting all kinds of crap rather than be slightly inconvenienced and have to smell their own breath