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Comment by ve55 | Hacker News Reader

>there is suffering that would be invisible to the world if it weren't for social media.

Definitely, but the algorithms for social media do not help the worst cases of the most suffering become more viral than more infrequent cases of lesser suffering.

The issue is that all that matters is virality. Sometimes suffering is viral when it should be, but other times it is not, and when it is not, no one will care, because the algorithms of virality control what everyone will see and care about.

We're seeing this right now with covid as it becomes less viral and fashionable to report on, and we've seen it previously with things like the mass factory farming of billions of animals, which doesn't seem to get a ton of attention nowadays, among many other terrible things, even though the magnitude of suffering involved is so great.

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I've read enough history to be convinced that democratic-anything is usually better. Social media is a more democratic medium than traditional media. On the whole, that will turn out for the better, especially as we learn how to control the worst aspects of social media.

Before Facebook came out, how much did news reporters, even on MSNBC, lead the conversation against systematic social and economic injustice towards African Americans? They failed miserably on that front. Now we don't have to rely on the media for that. The oppressed people themselves are leading the narrative, not because it's fashionable, but because they can't breathe.

Not attempting to argue against democracy, but that the algorithms that control what news and items we see are very important, and they are not even open-source! They could take many different forms, some that don't promote outrage as a bottom line, and still be democratic. You mention "especially as we learn how to control the worst aspects of social media", but are we actually making any concrete progress in this area, that we can measure and also call fair?

>The oppressed people themselves are leading the narrative, not because it's fashionable

I'm simply suggesting that the narrative is led by what content is viral. Depending on what people like to talk about, sometimes that might be a just cause and appear to have good effects. But, there is not at all guaranteed, and the system doesn't really care if your cause is just or not, only if it is viral and profitable to report on, which generally means enraging.

The term 'democratic' has fundamentally different connotations in politics, and in media.

'Social Media' is not 'more democratic' it's just a free-for-all where small voices have massively disproportionate power, and there are no controls or integrity - it's just crude, unbridled, bloody populism. A more democratic 'social media' would weigh every plebe's opinion equally.

The 'Free Press' is a self-regulating institution, like a 5th estate, much like the Central Bank, you don't get a 'vote' to determine what interest rates will be, but there is an open system in place for that to happen. You can 'vote' by buying papers and whatnot, but there are other systematic controls.

Social Media is not something we have figured out how to properly use just yet.

To me, "democratic" basically means "majority rule". By that definition, a website offering "social media" is the antithesis of democratric. The website owner is always the deciding vote.

That's a huge mistake. Democracy means "people rule", not "majority vote". The minority are part of the people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

I used the word "basically" for a reason. Nor did I use the word "vote". I said "majority rule". FWIW, I used that term to refer to an outcome not necessarily a process. I should have been more careful.

The Tyranny of the Majority Wikipedia page presents a criticism of majority rule. This criticism does not contradict the idea that democracy is likely to result in majority rule; it supports it. One can say "democracy bascially means majority rule" because, for those of us in the West, that is, by and large, what we get. According to Wikipedia, the legistlatures of all democratic nations use majority rule (the process) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_rule

However, I only presented a personal and basic definition of democracy, not necessarily a comprehensive or correct one. That is why I used the words "To me" and "basically".

When majority rule is not the outcome of democracy, would you agree that "the people", at least some of them, will contest the notion that what they have is a "democracy"?

How can anyone see the popular social newtorks as democractic?

> I've read enough history to be convinced that democratic-anything is usually better.

How did you come to this conclusion? Legitimately asking because I'd draw the opposite conclusion.

I recommend reading “Why Nations Fail” by Daron Acemoglu. At a very high level, nations often fail because of elite-driven rent extraction. Sometimes they don’t just fail for a few decades, they continue to spectacularly fail for centuries.

When people are forced out of their social and economic agency by a narrow elite, they will continue to be deprived of their agency long after that elite is replaced by another elite and another elite until people forget that they ever had culture and wealth. Now, I don’t think we’re seeing the worst manifestation of that in the U.S. Far from it. But it was striking to see not only how consistently problematic elite stratification is, but how good it can be to give power to the people.

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307719227/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_pp...

During the rise of social media I tended to think the same way, but now I think it’s vital to be able to distinguish between “democratic” and “accessible.”

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