For example, author Roxane Gay has said, “Content going viral is overwhelming, intimidating, exciting, and downright scary..”
It’s so interesting that such a seemingly regular aspect of our modern day society seems to be so disorienting for those in the center of it. It just seems like something people aren’t meant to experience and yet it increasingly because a outcome more people want to achieve
Let’s look at some examples of the relationship between virality and intent.
This a very interesting relationship to observe because it’s easy to forget being on the side of the many that the one person who made the post is as complex as I am.
[As I follow YouTube recommendations] It’s far more likely that my biases will be confirmed and possibly even enhanced than they are to be challenged and re-evaluated. And it’s likely for a lot of consumers of YouTube that they will be segregated by political cultural and ethnic lines.
This actually a YouTuber I engage with frequently. I think his perspective is so interesting because despite his personal convictions he still knows that if he is only to rely on these system he cannot further build the perspective he’d hope to.
Elon Musk’s view expressed in that tweet is different than some of the ideas of the previous owners, who at least tried to figure out how to make Twitter’s algorithm support healthier conversation.
I wonder if there is something be gained but being so open about there being negative incentives to maximize engagement
Elon Musk’s view expressed in that tweet is different than some of the ideas of the previous owners, who at least tried to figure out how to make Twitter’s algorithm support healthier conversation.
What is gained for Elon stating this so openly. Is the hope that it pushes personal responsibility from the site and on individuals? I don’t believe this sentiment does an effective job but it’s interesting to reflect on the rhetoric.
Reddit to look up, meaning this site is unfriendly to blind or low-vision users.
It’s insane to think that such a massive website doesn’t have this type of support wildly available for users. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that many of these practices more exist in theory then in practice.
Disabilities can be accepted as socially normal, like is sometimes the case for wearing glasses or contacts, or it can be stigmatized as socially unacceptable, inconvenient, or blamed on the disabled person.
What does it actually mean for something to be socially normal? It feels like the only reason something is considered “normal” or not is how convenient it is for other people
Non-User Information: Social Media sites might collect information about people who don’t have accounts, like how Facebook doe
How can everyday people effectively protect their data when consent/participation isn’t a prerequisite. What solutions are there past legislation?
So for example, Facebook stored millions of Instagram passwords in plain text, meaning the passwords weren’t encrypted and anyone with access to the database could simply read everyone’s passwords. And Adobe encrypted their passwords improperly and then hackers leaked their password database of 153 million users.
In so many ways this makes so little sense to me. I would assume it’s one of those cases where that functionality is an artifact of earlier versions. However, the fact this issue went unaddressed shows where priorities are.
But when one TikToker’s video about taking them went viral, the surveys got filled out with mostly one narrow demographic, preventing many of the datasets from being used as intended.
My question is how were people supposed to find the studies to begin with? If they’re generally accessible and do not have demographic validations what was the actual plan for getting a significant outreach?
This is because sometimes different pieces of data line up coincidentally (coincidences happen), and if you try enough combinations, you can find the coincidence that lines up with your conclusion.
How do we as data scientists balance not wasting our time attempting to connect irrelevant factors together and not letting our own assumptions influence our findings. It seems incredibly difficult to understand how our own perceptions is kind of a limiting factor.
would be to disrupt people’s rosy vision of the internet as their own personal emotional safe place that serves as a proxy for real-life interactions they are lacking
This perspective is incredibly telling for how disconnected these people are from the world around them. Their relationship with the internet is the exact same but with a nihilistic mindset.
the enjoyment of causing others pain or distress (“lulz”) has also been part of the human experience for millennia:
With behaviors like these being prevalent throughout all of human history is hard to imagine how we limit that harm. How do we design new systems that can account for seemingly ever present behaviors?
In his television program, Mr. Rogers wanted all children to feel cared for and loved. To do this, he intentionally fostered a parasocial relationship with the children in his audience (he called them his “television friends”):
I wonder nowadays kids feel about youtubers and other online entertainers. Now that such a dynamic is more widely available how is this affecting kids?
it also requires that there be some sort of reality to the connection that is supposedly being made between parties.
This is a very interesting consideration for what makes something authentic. To what extent can anything be on the internet be truly authentic? Do we have to view things on the internet in a different way?
But one 4Chan user found 4chan to be too authoritarian and restrictive and set out to create a new “free-speech-friendly” image-sharing bulletin board, which he called 8chan.
The interesting part about these spaces for me is the idea that as these users become more desensitized to this type of content there is always a need to "up the ante." A desire to forever push the edge until it eventually can't only exist on the bubble of these websites.