Current Events > What happens if Facebook, reddit Google one day gets bought over by the Chinese?

(+) Yeah! (+)

won't they end up literally controlling the Internet then?

Reddit is already a censorship hellhole.

You can literally get shadow banned for having a different opinion from the hive mind.

There were so many times I made sports predictions that turned out to be true but I got banned from the sub Reddit because people thought I was trolling

Go to Reddit right now and post any kind of anti-Chinese sentiment and see how fast you get banned.

It's not a "what if" scenario, it's already happened.

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DocDelicious posted...

Go to Reddit right now and post any kind of anti-Chinese sentiment and see how fast you get banned.

It's not a "what if" scenario, it's already happened.

wait, posting racist things gets you banned? looks like they're doing their jobs correctly over there

DocDelicious posted...

Go to Reddit right now and post any kind of anti-Chinese sentiment and see how fast you get banned.

It's not a "what if" scenario, it's already happened.

how's that happening? Doesnt Tencent only own a small % of reddit?

BigB0ss13 posted...

wait, posting racist things gets you banned? looks like they're doing their jobs correctly over there

Not racist. Literally just post a picture of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Post any facts that paint China in a negative light and you'll be banned in minutes.

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DocDelicious posted...

Not racist. Literally just post a picture of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Post any facts that paint China in a negative light and you'll be banned in minutes.

This is blatantly untrue

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BabyRoxann posted...

Which MAGA alt is this?

Im anti MAGA Literally polar opposite.

but back in 2018 I went on the NFL subreddit and said Mitchell Trubisky would be a massive bust on Draft Day when he was selected by Chicago Bears and I got down voted to hell and ripped in the comments calling me a troll.

I was 110% correct and now my opinion is the common consensus.

Excuse me, 2017*

DocDelicious posted...

Go to Reddit right now and post any kind of anti-Chinese sentiment and see how fast you get banned.

It's not a "what if" scenario, it's already happened.

I've made a bunch of memes poking fun at China, Xi, and have stated on more than one occasion that Taiwan is it's own nation. I haven't be banned. What subs in particular are you referring to?

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008Zulu posted...

I've made a bunch of memes poking fun at China, Xi, and have stated on more than one occasion that Taiwan is it's own nation. I haven't be banned. What subs in particular are you referring to?

The big ones that end up on the front page, like /funny and /dankmemes.
Obviously posting something on one of the pro-China subs like /sino will get you banned in half a fucking second.

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sinophobia - the last bastion of rah-rah hatred amongst the "woke left".

"What happens if Facebook, reddit Google one day gets bought over by the Chinese?"

Imagine if you replaced "Chinese" with "Jews" or another ethnic group.

This is an incredibly racist and xenophobic topic.

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Mackorov posted...

won't they end up literally controlling the Internet then?

They already are, just most people are ok with the direction they are controlling it into so they don't sweat the authoritarian power being weilded by silcon valley.

"Authoritarian censorship? idk. Oh but it's for things I like? Sign me up! I can't possibly see how this could go badly."

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TrowaBarton7 posted...

"What happens if Facebook, reddit Google one day gets bought over by the Chinese?"

Imagine if you replaced "Chinese" with "Jews" or another ethnic group.

This is an incredibly racist and xenophobic topic.

Clearly they meant "the chinesse government/nation"


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joe40001 posted...

They already are, just most people are ok with the direction they are controlling it into so they don't sweat the authoritarian power being weilded by silcon valley.

"Authoritarian censorship? idk. Oh but it's for things I like? Sign me up! I can't possibly see how this could go badly."

Imagine thinking there is a partisan censorship problem on the Internet. It must be really bad considering all the people freely talking about it on every platform for years on end.

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hockeybub89 posted...

Imagine thinking there is a partisan censorship problem on the Internet. It must be really bad considering all the people freely talking about it on every platform for years on end.

They remove content for "misinformation", even content they later acknowledge not to be misinformation.

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joe40001 posted...

They remove content for "misinformation", even content they later acknowledge not to be misinformation.

why
tho

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Guide posted...

why
tho

Because they operate under the assumption that they are wiser than they are and that their mistakes are NBD. Even if those mistakes can ruin people.

YT released a new detection algorithm recently where it basically assumed every video that had any 9/11 footage was endorsing terrorism and thus channels were demonetized without ability to appeal.

I don't think it's evil, I think it's just a bunch of people with way too much power not caring if they "step on some ants". Particularly if it's in the name of something virtuous like fighting racism, fascism, or anti-science.

There is no cognitive dissonance in some people's minds when they use racism to fight racism, when they use authoritarianism to fight fascim, when they block true things in the name of protecting against "misinformation".

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I'm all for blocking misinformation, as it has been, at least. You're arguing against some nebulous future issue, but we've already seen the very real results of misinformation..

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Guide posted...

I'm all for blocking misinformation, as it has been, at least. You're arguing against some nebulous future issue, but we've already seen the very real results of misinformation..

They've already done bad things and banned true things.

Yes we've seen negative consequences of misinformation, but facebook literally cultivates that shit. Their algorithm is designed to basically funnel "organic moms" into "anti-vaxx groups" and then they go "whoops, let's ban half of them" and not once fix the funnels. Their whole business model is basically about causing fires and for some reason we trust them to be firefighters.

It's stupid, and it's false that it's our only option to let their authoritarian control in to solve a problem they created.

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You can't post bugs or issues with competitive games on reddit because Tencent owns practically the entire industry, and employs people to go on Reddit to astroturf and downvote you.

@joe40001
'm not for authoritarian control, but -- knowing that voter disenfranchisement, negative pandemic response, the Capitol riot, all of that came from misinformation -- I am actually quite cool with measures to stop that.

But this funneling idea, you have my interest. Where did you learn about this works?


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DomingoGerman posted...

You can't post bugs or issues with competitive games on reddit because Tencent owns practically the entire industry, and employs people to go on Reddit to astroturf and downvote you.

What games?

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Guide posted...

@joe40001
'm not for authoritarian control, but -- knowing that voter disenfranchisement, negative pandemic response, the Capitol riot, all of that came from misinformation -- I am actually quite cool with measures to stop that.

But this funneling idea, you have my interest. Where did you learn about this works?

Being cool with measures to stop that is not the same thing as being cool with any measure to stop that. I'm not saying you are, but it's an important distinction.

Watching something like the documentary "The Social Dilemma" on netflix is a good place to start. But basically the modern internet particularly on social media commodifies people and attention, and the "race to the bottom of the brain stem" is all about getting user "engagement" at a more and more primitive level. Put simply critical thinking is a hinderance to this, so the incentive structures of all these algorithms and companies is to try to filter that out. They want you endlessly scrolling through 100 article headlines rather than deeply engaging in a single article on it's merits.

Most of this is fairly self evident to people, but then we somehow are aghast and confused that shallow and poorly thought out things catch on. These companies are designed to turn us into consumers of this, vessels for shallow thought, and then we act like it's weird that people are dumber now.

It's the economics and willful design choices that 1000000x more create this problem than "hosting misinformation". Most of the people on facebook who believe misinformation only do because they were exposed to it through facebook. To ban these people and "un-person" them on the internet is to fundamentally mis-understand the problem.

Facebook entraps people into being dumber, and then punishes many of these people with censorship and bannings, all while also targeting innocent people with these punishments. And we give them a blessing because "misinformation needs to be fought".

So, what is the solution then? Well if you are familiar with computer science, and machine learning and how these things work, it's really not too hard to re-align how these algorithms optimize.

It is SOOOOO much easier to change the parameters of what your ML algorithm optimizes for than it is to be flawless arbiters of "THE TRUTH". We have shown 2 things already, facebook is able to be wrong about what "THE TRUTH" is and also that they are quite good at adjusting their algorithm to align with their desired outcomes. The bitch of it is, their desired outcome is money over the wellbeing of the users. And so we keep letting them play this game of being the worlds biggest arsonists and somehow also our trusted firefighters. It's bullshit and dumb and everybody needs to call them out on it.

The last thing they need is more authority. They have shown their inability to effectively wield power.

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Huh, I would've taken you for a free market capitalist type.

I can agree with quite a bit of this. Most of it, actually. The facebook algorithm is designed to target user interests, demonstrated or predicted, which is a way for misinfo to spread, as with your "organic moms".

Actually, most of my disagreements come from how you tie into this topic. Algorithm manipulation to avert info, false or otherwise, is also censorship. Your solution is still fundamentally people who "think they know better" corralling people who apparently do not, just in a different way.

Well, that, and I don't believe people are getting dumber. Dumb people have always been around, just now they can form mobs more easily.

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Y'all realize reddit is already part owned by a Chinese company, right?

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Guide posted...

What games?

Rainbow Six
Valorant
Call of Duty
League of Legends
Battlefield
PUBG

DomingoGerman posted...

Rainbow Six
Valorant
Call of Duty
League of Legends
Battlefield
PUBG

five fps, and a moba?
gonna take a wild guess and say it's probably how you communicate

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Guide posted...

Huh, I would've taken you for a free market capitalist type.

Free market capitalism is great...

...at producing capital.

But whenever the production of wealth is not tied to the production of value (aka rent seeking), or worse when it is tied to the production of suffering. It's fucking horrible.

I can agree with quite a bit of this. Most of it, actually. The facebook algorithm is designed to target user interests, demonstrated or predicted, which is a way for misinfo to spread, as with your "organic moms".

But it's not about "interests" it's about "engagement". They literally research how the brain works and try to take as many shortcuts as possible. The way you tell it you are acting like "it's just giving the people what they want". But it's only doing that in the same way a slot machine is giving a person what they want. It's hijacking the dopamine system of the brain but not providing value. People want value more than they want addiction, BUT if you want to optimize for "engagement" it's easier and more effective to provide addiction than value.

Actually, most of my disagreements come from how you tie into this topic. Algorithm manipulation to avert info, false or otherwise, is also censorship. Your solution is still fundamentally people who "think they know better" corralling people who apparently do not, just in a different way.

If it is censorship (which I'm not convinced it is), it is a much less aggressive and punitive form. It's no longer "fuck Bob and ban him because he believes in lab leak" it's "I'm not going to funnel people towards the most shallow shit, and today bob is saying stuff that only engages people in a shallow manner and shallowness/rage is no longer what I support by my algorithm".

There's just no way to see it as worse. Because it's not people "knowing better" about truth. It's about people designing a better algorithm to optimize better things.

Even if I concede all the things you are saying, (which I wouldn't fully, but to save time I will for the sake of argument), which do you think facebook is better at:

Optimizing an algorithm around a given parameter?
Deciding important scientific/political truths about the world?

Well, that, and I don't believe people are getting dumber. Dumb people have always been around, just now they can form mobs more easily.

You are letting social media off the hook way too much. It's farming our dumbness for money. People are more dumb now because the most money is made that way. Social media literally makes more money the more predictable people are, and the more dumb a person is the more manipulatable a person is, and the more manipulatable a person is the more predictable a person is. So social media's arguably biggest financial incentive is to make it's user base as dumb as possible, so long as they want to optimize for engagement.

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Guide posted...

five fps, and a moba?
gonna take a wild guess and say it's probably how you communicate

Tencent literally owns all of them.

Is no one concerned how most media is controlled by people who support Israel? That's even more scarier than potentially China controlling the internet or whatever you paranoid mother fuckers think China is gonna do but not happen yet or accuse them of something not that serious or not true.

At this point, we are more on the same page, and are arguing semantics. But as opposed to people using semantics as code for "I'm bored now", I argue semantics with intent. It is my bread.

joe40001 posted...

You are letting social media off the hook way too much. It's farming our dumbness for money. People are more dumb now because the most money is made that way. Social media literally makes more money the more predictable people are, and the more dumb a person is the more manipulatable a person is, and the more manipulatable a person is the more predictable a person is. So social media's arguably biggest financial incentive is to make it's user base as dumb as possible, so long as they want to optimize for engagement.

I agree with that it profits off of dumb people, I just wouldn't say it's making us dumb. It's taking advantage of people susceptible to a host of manipulations, "dumb people", but if the susceptibility doesn't exist, I don't believe in can turn just anyone into a likely candidate for foil hats. Absolutely not denying that signal boosting these people to each other is an issue.

joe40001 posted...

Because it's not people "knowing better" about truth. It's about people designing a better algorithm to optimize better things.

I feel like maybe you caught this as you wrote it out, but someone has to decide what the better things are, in order to optimize towards those things. It's still, fundamentally, "knowing better".

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Guide posted...

At this point, we are more on the same page, and are arguing semantics. But as opposed to people using semantics as code for "I'm bored now", I argue semantics with intent. It is my bread.

I agree with that it profits off of dumb people, I just wouldn't say it's making us dumb. It's taking advantage of people susceptible to a host of manipulations, "dumb people", but if the susceptibility doesn't exist, I don't believe in can turn just anyone into a likely candidate for foil hats. Absolutely not denying that signal boosting these people to each other is an issue.

Silicon valley people VERY often don't let their kids uses their software. Even people who are experts on what is happening and how it happens are able to get sucked it. The dopamine center of a brain is part of who we are. Awareness can help, but it isn't something that will keep you safe.

It's like a doctor who is an expert in the mechanisms of how drugs work wouldn't be immune from the addictive properties of heroin. So too is everybody to some extent vulnerable to the "dumbeming" some moreso than others, for sure, but it is negatively effective nearly everybody who engages with it.

I feel like maybe you caught this as you wrote it out, but someone has to decide what the better things are, in order to optimize towards those things. It's still, fundamentally, "knowing better".

It's literally not though. I've made some ML classifiers and understand the algorithms. I can train an image classifier on cats vs not cats without having any idea what makes something "cat like".

I explain it a bit in a video I made a while back: (timestamp 38s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc4NsbixvFY&t=38s

The point is you don't have to have a clear understanding of scientific truth to optimize an algorithm against misinformation. You simply have to switch the parameter from "engagement" to "value". And I know what you'll say "how could somebody possibly quantify value?" And it's like literally no more difficult than engagment. You get certain data/meta-data parameters and then you do A/B testing off control.

They are already hacking our brains like crazy, and like I could fucking write an algorithm that does an ok job of optimizing this shit in like a week. You are legit telling me that with all the money and brainpower they couldn't possibly do it?

But somehow they definitely can come to scientific conclusions they have no qualifications to conclude?

The truth is hard, ML is fucking easy. It's like harry potter shit.

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