This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at The Conversation.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1400901
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1400901
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This article would have been useful about seven years ago. That’s when Facebook officially turned down the request of social anthropologist Bev Skeggs and her research team to look at the algorithms for siloing users. Facebook’s legal team blasted back, which was when they realized they’d kicked a hornet nest.
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The customization was driven home to me when looking after my oldest son’s dog, Yukon:
This ad banner appeared at the bottom of one of the news aggregate sites I visit daily:
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I’ve been trying to chart a more deliberate path to the information I want and actively trying to avoid just clicking on whatever is recommended to me.
Why not simply avoid it completely and proactively manage how information is viewed as a rule? Is this a weaning process?
I recommend a huge dose of skepticism about social media recommendations.
That should be there at the get go. Regardless of where you land on the internet and\or web or in real life.
For example, as much time as I spend here, I am still skeptical. Is it really just Irasdad? Or does he have a staff of writers on immediate demand?
Second, consider supporting efforts to require social media platforms to offer users a choice of algorithms for recommendations and feed curation, including ones based on simple-to-explain rules.
This is not going to solve the issue. Certain providers have made multiple assurances of a variety of factors only to experience Oops! when caught letting them lapse or actively circumventing them behind closed doors. The opportunity of a choice is a placebo effect. And we all know who I am talking about.
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Washington State’s Republicans have also gone off the deep end into violent extremism. Local Republicans with the help of wack job conservative talk radio spun up a huge anti government rally all based on misinformation about Covid19 yesterday, saying that unvaccinated would be arrested and imprisoned. Deeply concerning. There needs to be some accountability for this.
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WTF?
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In the big picture, I am not at all sure what we are going to do with this percentage of the population that has turned its back on reality. If people don’t recognize reality, then I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do with them. We are going to have to research large-scale deprogramming or something, similar to what has to be done when individuals are rescued from cults. Only this will be for millions of people. 
ETA: tying this back to the article at hand, I would just say that I think social media has become a turbo-charger for what Fux News started in the '90’s. The brainwashing began back then, but social media has ramped it up in ways Fux never could.
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My android phone automatically started sending me “curated” articles—including Faux News— through some Discover feature. I was finally able to disable it, but it took some effort. I hate it when big tech pushes shit at me. Leave me alone. I can find my own news sources.
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Yesterday I posted some nutty things I heard in a waiting room. I, for one, needed to be reminded of people who live in a separate reality. I’m talking beliefs that are objectively false. I can’t say I was shocked, but hearing it voiced out of the mouths of fellow voters was unsettling to put it mildly.
My life expectancy calculator puts me at another 6 yrs. So I may live to see our first “soft” dictator. As I typed this I saw a quick screen shot of Sinema with her diamond crucifix reflecting the light of the Senate. I suspect that image of shameless venality with stay with me to my forever date.
ETA: No, I’m not making fun of peoples’ clothing, but the way these people were dressed, clothing and shoes, suggested they didn’t have a pot to pee in. I’m not exactly a fashion plate, but my wife and I dress with dignity even for a trip to the market.
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Too bad targeted ads don’t offer tutorials in spelling, which the woman holding the sign could use.
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My favorite is “morans”.
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