The misaligned A.I. which drives engagement — or whatever the precise metric is — with no regard for anything else, and optimises that metric ruthlessly with continuous variations to tease out the most effective way to maximise eyeball-seconds, that’s the problem.
The paperclip factory doesn’t hate you, it’s just that you’re made of stuff that can be used to make more paperclips.
Facebook wasn't the cesspit it is today when your news feed actually showed you your friends updates in chronological order.
Hell, it was better still even before the GD news feed even existed.
Facebook ads, if anything, should be a distraction from social pressure. People are creating the social pressure to express yourself, and it’s now manifesting in shallow ways (too much pressure). Ads is not what’s causing this.
If there’s any argument to make, and maybe I’ve been missing this the whole time, maybe you guys are saying platforms like Facebook abstract you into a living Advertisement. Thus, you must behave like an advertisement (get attention at all costs), and that is the core of their ad system, you, like a human battery in the matrix.
But, there’s no argument to be made if you realize you’re jacked into the matrix and can leave. If you’re aware, you can bounce.
Do we bear no responsibility at all here for how we behave?
TV programming in the past was optimised for engagement as well. There were extremely limited slots, so each slot had to appeal to the maximal number of people. This resulted in content that was generally relatively bland and inoffensive.
Fast forward to today, and digital 'slots' are limitless. Each user gets their own personalised view. No longer do you need to optimise for what appeals to the maximal number of people as a group. Instead, you optimise for what results in continued engagement by each individual.
It turns out the vast majority of us are stupid (myself included) and are easily manipulated through negative / divisive / controversial content.
The revenue model hasn't changed. It's the content delivery that has.
So to your point, I agree, ads aren't the problem. To my point, Facebook as it exists today is the problem.
If all the infrastructure around you is intended for driving, it's tough to blame you for not walking instead.
Either software design has a real impact on how users behave and interact with a system or it doesn't. If you concede that design can impact a user's behavior, then it becomes a question of "how much" and the ethics of how to use that power. The irony is that by placing the burden on users to counteract the tendencies that are openly being encouraged by the software we absolve ourselves of our responsibility as designers, engineers, and architects to consider ethics in our work.
Do we bear no responsibility at all here for what we build?
as described in tfa, the ad infrastructure is maximizing controversy and devisiveness when it optimizes for engagement. it's like inciting a mob - the instigator is more culpable than the members
In a system like Google Reader or FB/Twitter before algorithmic feeds, you just see what your friends post in roughly chronological order. It still has the problem that people like to post junk, but there's a natural limit on it. Algorithmic feeds however promote "hot" content, which is pretty much inevitably emotionally driven. There are a lot of possible fixes, such as rate limiters and manual review of high performing content, but they all come down to the same thing: don't let sheer virality be the driving metric. The best way to decouple virality is just to make advertising against algorithmic feeds illegal.
