[intopieces]

Every time you use Facebook, see an advertisement there, or click it, every time you share content on Facebook and get others to engage with that platform, you are contributing to a platform that is directly responsible for human psychological harm, in many different ways.

Same for Twitter, and for Reddit, and Instagram... and probably TikTok.

I don’t believe the use of these platforms can be considered ethical.

[falcrist]

Does this logic also apply to commenting on hacker news? Or is it specifically the platforms you mentioned?

What specifically is the reason you consider those particular platforms to be unethical, and what is the solution.

It's not enough to say "social media bad". You can say that about anything including the internet as a whole. We need the reasons it's bad and solutions.

[intopieces]

> What specifically is the reason you consider those particular platforms to be unethical, and what is the solution.

These platforms are so large that they require hundreds of thousands of moderators in order to remove vile, illegal content, causing trauma for a vast underclass of foreign workers.

Here’s a few solutions:

Limit the number of people that a person can be friends with to 150, the Dunbar number.

Restrict the posting of photos to those which have been identified as having you or your friends in the picture, or no humans at all. Require permission from all human participants to post.

Charge a fee for access.

[falcrist]

Why is size the determining factor, though?

Is it just that you're worried about the outsourcing of content moderation? Because other than than the problems are the same. Someone will always need to moderate the content.

[intopieces]

Size is not the determining factor. It's a single factor that highly influences the value in posting damaging content. It's clear from the rise of influencers on YT, IG, Twitter, etc -- as well as the prolific use of these platforms by terrorists and other malefactors -- that being able to reach many people with a single post is a significant driver of people to post content.

My concern is not primarily with the outsourcing of moderation, but with the type of moderation that is required. There are ways to limit the kind of content that people post. Making things less sharable is one way of doing that. Creating barriers to entry is another. My list of suggestions encompasses both. Of course, these are two suggestions which are antithetical to the ad-riddle, growth-driven social network model, so there is no way they would ever be implemented.

I should add another solution to my wish-list: remove ads entirely.

[falcrist]

> My concern is not primarily with the outsourcing of moderation, but with the type of moderation that is required.

But the problem doesn't go away when you shrink the size of the social media site. The same people will still try to post disturbing content. In fact, you're giving them more places to post that content, so potentially more people will have to moderate it.

> There are ways to limit the kind of content that people post. Making things less sharable is one way of doing that. Creating barriers to entry is another. My list of suggestions encompasses both.

Your suggestions can be implemented on smaller websites as well as larger ones.

It seems like your issue is with the ease of access to social media. Thus your solution is to limit access. However, I don't think there's a reasonable implementation of your idea that could work. Nor do I think any kind of social media is going to want to go that route. It doesn't matter if the site is funded by ads or is trying to grow. The point of these sites is to share content. People don't want to limit that.

Also, breaking large social media sites into smaller ones makes it much more difficult to deal with troublesome individuals. Right now, it only takes a few bans before you're blocked from most mainstream sites. If we had, say, 10× the number of sites, that's 10× the number of bans required to get these individuals out of the system and 10× the number of moderators who had to look at their content before banning them.

I'm not saying there's no solution here, but I think people are misidentifying the problem. We all want simple answers and simple solutions even when there aren't any.

[intopieces]

> But the problem doesn't go away when you shrink the size of the social media site. The same people will still try to post disturbing content. In fact, you're giving them more places to post that content, so potentially more people will have to moderate it.

I’m not sure I follow. A site like Facebook already has mechanisms for detecting multiple accounts, and in any case, multiple accounts don’t mean that there are more “places” to post. It’s still Facebook.

I don’t propose breaking Facebook into smaller websites. I propose limiting the reach of a single individual on those sites. Basically, normalizing the localness of social media to be more meaningful.

As well, I think Facebook and other platforms need to reckon with the consent when it comes to posting images of people, in general. That’s why I suggested limiting the posts to only those of friends who consent.

I agree that no one wants this.

[ativzzz]

I think this is pushing it a bit. By similar logic, paying taxes to, or simply being a member of the US (or almost any country) is contributing to a platform that is directly responsible for human harm.

[intopieces]

>paying taxes to, or simply being a member of the US (or almost any country) is contributing to a platform that is directly responsible for human harm.

I agree with that. But I also assert that people have an ethical obligation to opt-out of systems that cause harm when / if they are able, or at least advocate to change them.

I don't have the ability to change Facebook. But I have the ability to opt out of it, though my actions on the Internet, and the ability to advocate for others to do the same. So, here I am.

[Kiro]

You are commenting on one of those platforms right now.

[intopieces]

HackerNews is a limited-focus link aggregation and comment platform. It doesn't require the kind of moderation that larger scale, broad-focus social media platforms do.

I don't envy the work that Dan and Scott have to do in the slightest, but I don't think they'll end up with PTSD from it. At least, that's what I gathered when I read "The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News"[0], especially this description of it: "Pressed to describe Hacker News, they do so by means of extravagant, sometimes tender metaphors: the site is a “social ecosystem,” a “hall of mirrors,” a “public park or garden,” a “fractal tree."

[0]http://archive.is/bbzan

[twblalock]

So you think the only ethical sites are the ones that operate a small scale?

[intopieces]

I can't say for sure, since I don't know every site. But I would posit that ethical operation is inversely correlated with user base size.

[twblalock]

This argument applies to any platform that lets users upload videos. There is nothing wrong with that kind of site in itself.

[justanotheranon]

social media is a mirror--you see what you want in it. for every horrifying or hyperviolent act or outrageous scandal, you can find the most joyous and beautiful depiction.

have you ever seen foxes laughing? they sound like babies. without social media, i never would have known that, nor experienced one minute of happiness while watching it.

https://twitter.com/mollyfprince/status/1277601602866761729