Using the cigarette industry as an analogy to understand how we should cope with the danger of social media is a great idea. I never thought of that, but I'm going to be using it from now on.
Last year I decided to completely delete my Facebook account. At first it was just on hold, but after a while I decided to be completely rid of it. Something happened during the pandemic, either to me or the people in my list. There was no middle ground discussions anymore. Everything was turned up to 11, nothing seemed real anymore and couldn't live with that anxiety.
I miss having normal talks to a variety of people, but Facebook isn't doing that anymore. I check my wife's Facebook occasionally to see if there's any interesting news I might have missed, but there's nothing. Just junk ads and shitposting galore. What struck me is that my wife wasn't surprised by my conclusion, she completely agreed. However to her it seemed normal, to me, who's been out of it for a year, it was grating.
In that discussion Dr. Ron Deibert of the Citizen Lab at U of T made a case for breaking up the large social media companies. The EU has been much more willing to regulate in this area than has Canada or the US. And as the conversation indicated, social media is only part of the debate about digital democracy.
Max Fisher hits on something really insightful when he describes how social media employees are more than willing to talk about online harms, but they just can't comprehend that social media itself may be responsible for these harms. I think this divide is also reflected in the Canadian online harms debate. Many otherwise well-meaning proposals don't really directly address the economic incentives these companies face, to maximize engagement at pretty much any cost. All too often, these companies are still being treated as if they are part of the solution, rather than as cigarette companies.
Of course, as Fisher suggests near the end, dealing with this problem would likely require significant, direct government regulation of how these companies do business. And that type of battle would likely make the current C-11 debate look like a calm, rational discussion by comparison.
Out of curiosity, have you discussed elsewhere why you quit Twitter? Especially in light of this interview, I'd be interested to understand how you arrived at that (very defensible) decision.
Excellent podcast, can't wait to read the book. I deleted my FB account a few weeks back, am now trying to wean myself off Twitter, but that will be tougher since I think that I am truly addicted. I think the only option may be to go full Wells and just turn it off.
Really interesting discussion. Have you written anywhere on your decision to leave Twitter (whether at the time or on how it’s gone)? I’d be quite interested in reading more about your thinking on that decision, which I think comes off increasingly as having been quite wise (without being a common one, making it all the more interesting).
As a non-user of any social media, I find this discussion reinforces my deep held suspicions of how our society has been dramatically changed by this technology. I found the Strawman question on the right/left influences intriguing. My thesis is that the present day fixation and hysteria around Climate among the Left has been driven by social media with far more dramatic impacts.
Sinan Aral's, The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health--and How We Must Adapt is another useful read in this space and provides arguments against breaking up large social media entities, rather it looks to regulation based around authentication or verification of content.
Using the cigarette industry as an analogy to understand how we should cope with the danger of social media is a great idea. I never thought of that, but I'm going to be using it from now on.
Last year I decided to completely delete my Facebook account. At first it was just on hold, but after a while I decided to be completely rid of it. Something happened during the pandemic, either to me or the people in my list. There was no middle ground discussions anymore. Everything was turned up to 11, nothing seemed real anymore and couldn't live with that anxiety.
I miss having normal talks to a variety of people, but Facebook isn't doing that anymore. I check my wife's Facebook occasionally to see if there's any interesting news I might have missed, but there's nothing. Just junk ads and shitposting galore. What struck me is that my wife wasn't surprised by my conclusion, she completely agreed. However to her it seemed normal, to me, who's been out of it for a year, it was grating.
The issue raised by Max Fisher was one of those addressed recently at the annual Stanfield Conversations in Halifax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ9xFfHapzI&t=17s
In that discussion Dr. Ron Deibert of the Citizen Lab at U of T made a case for breaking up the large social media companies. The EU has been much more willing to regulate in this area than has Canada or the US. And as the conversation indicated, social media is only part of the debate about digital democracy.
Great interview -- thanks for posting it.
Max Fisher hits on something really insightful when he describes how social media employees are more than willing to talk about online harms, but they just can't comprehend that social media itself may be responsible for these harms. I think this divide is also reflected in the Canadian online harms debate. Many otherwise well-meaning proposals don't really directly address the economic incentives these companies face, to maximize engagement at pretty much any cost. All too often, these companies are still being treated as if they are part of the solution, rather than as cigarette companies.
Of course, as Fisher suggests near the end, dealing with this problem would likely require significant, direct government regulation of how these companies do business. And that type of battle would likely make the current C-11 debate look like a calm, rational discussion by comparison.
Out of curiosity, have you discussed elsewhere why you quit Twitter? Especially in light of this interview, I'd be interested to understand how you arrived at that (very defensible) decision.
Excellent podcast, can't wait to read the book. I deleted my FB account a few weeks back, am now trying to wean myself off Twitter, but that will be tougher since I think that I am truly addicted. I think the only option may be to go full Wells and just turn it off.
Really interesting discussion. Have you written anywhere on your decision to leave Twitter (whether at the time or on how it’s gone)? I’d be quite interested in reading more about your thinking on that decision, which I think comes off increasingly as having been quite wise (without being a common one, making it all the more interesting).
In this photo he looks just like Josh Freed. No?
As a non-user of any social media, I find this discussion reinforces my deep held suspicions of how our society has been dramatically changed by this technology. I found the Strawman question on the right/left influences intriguing. My thesis is that the present day fixation and hysteria around Climate among the Left has been driven by social media with far more dramatic impacts.
Sinan Aral's, The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health--and How We Must Adapt is another useful read in this space and provides arguments against breaking up large social media entities, rather it looks to regulation based around authentication or verification of content.