ShowerThoughts

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Sometimes we have those little epiphanies in the shower.. sometimes they come from other places. This is a home for those epiphanies.

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csm10495@sh.itjust.works

Meta in particular, and social media in general, have greatly contributed to the decay of democracy. (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 4 months ago by notsosure@sh.itjust.works to c/showerthoughts@sh.itjust.works

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Due to social media, literally anyone with internet access and a loud voice has been able to get attention for any crackpot political opinion.

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[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Nah, it's worse than just giving everyone a voice. That wouldn't be too bad.

The really bad part is that they figured out about more extreme/controversial/negative voices tend to draw more engagement, more time spent on platform, and therefore more ad views. Facebook and the rest didn't just give the worst of us a voice -- they amplified the voices of the worst of us, far more than for normal people, all in the name of squeezing just a little bit more profit out of the system.

[–] rayyy@piefed.social 3 points 4 months ago

Nicely summed up. One more point though: "Using the propaganda model...news businesses favoring profit over the public interest succeed, whilst those favoring reportorial accuracy over profits fail — and are relegated to the margins of their markets (low sales and ratings)".