Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by admiralspoo 1992 days ago
The fact the echo chambers are algorithmically determined or not is quite irrelevant -- the end result is the same -- cults. The historic precedent for minimizing bad influences of cults is decentralization and distribution so as to prevent systemic failure cascades in case where cultish behavior is endemic. This is federalism and anti-monopoly policies (for either government and private enterprise).

The solution, therefore, is that these centralized echo chambers need to be broken up into smaller pieces.

3 comments

The end result is the same, but the mechanisms that create and persist that phenomenon are now a billion dollar industry driven by very smart people with shareholders that they answer to. The result is that the effectiveness and pertinacity of these creations far outstrip anything ever seen before in human history.
And yet, decentralisation and the social networks' "hands off" policies were exactly what started those cults.

Those trolls, movements and "subcultures" were not started on r/all. They came from niche subcommunities which were effectively unmoderated before they gained media attention or from 4chan and all the other -chan, -booru, etc sites which already were exactly the kind of small decentralised, free-speech-above-all-else services you're talking about.

> The historic precedent for minimizing bad influences of cults is decentralization and distribution so as to prevent systemic failure cascades in case where cultish behavior is endemic.

If this is anything more than repetition of dogma then please explain how exactly this should be applied to the current situation. What should be done?

Yes. Antitrust enforcement is key to restoring democracy. Should be Priority #1