The people in China, and to a lesser extent Russia, want to have a word with you about how the government can control the internet. It’s not happening year yet. I’m hopeful that people will just go around the censors to get the content they want. I’m concerned that when Tiktok shut off its service and some people wrongly thought the gov’t “blocked” the packets, many Americans were okay with that.
I use YouTube and don’t get much far-right content. My guess is it’s because I don’t watch much political content. I use a podcatcher and websites for that. If I watched political content, it might show me some lurid videos promoting politics I disagree with because that tends to keep viewers engaged with the site/app longer than if they just showed videos consistent with the ideology I seek out. That gives people the feeling they’re trying to push an ideology.
I made that up without any evidence. It’s just my guess. I’m a moderate libertarian who leans Democratic because Republicans have not even been pretending to care about liberty, and for whatever reason it doesn’t recommend the far-right crap to me.
That’s if we’re lucky and he doesn’t transform the US into a full blown dictatorship with president for life status.
I may be hitting the copium, but I feel like this will not happen. It feels like having influence over social media platforms is really powerful, but the Internet is still there. It’s easy to send or find information if you want to, much easier than before the Internet. It’s much easier for set up or use a new information outlet than it was to start a TV station or newspaper. I thought no retailers could beat Sears, until Walmart came. People protested Walmart saying if they don’t like your CD for political reasons, people just won’t buy it. No one can touch Walmart. Then came Amazon. I think social media platforms will be even more short-lived in their influence, especially considering how easy it is to “change the channel” or start a new “channel”.
I read some of it, but I find it funny because it should be a joke for the bar to be so ridiculously high for a new technology: understanding human history.
We need to find a way to teach people to sort out information, to put their immediate emotions on pause and search for information
This entire comment and @whoisearth@lemmy.ca’s comments are so powerful.
I think people have two modes of getting information: digging into a newspaper article and trying to figure out what’s going on and seeing a lurid headline in the tabloid rack. Most people do both ends of the spectrum and a lot of in-between. Modern technology lends itself to giving tabloid-like content while we’re waiting in line for a minute. This is why Tiktok is concerned about being removed from the app store, even though it’s easy to install the app yourself, easier than signing up for a newspaper delivery subscription was. But Tiktok isn’t more like a lurid tabloid that most people would not go two steps out of their way to find, but they might read it waiting in a slow line. I’m hopeful that people will learn to manage the new technology and not keep being influenced by tabloid entertainment.
The horror of the Soviet Union are will soon pass beyond living memory too.
It feels like the Nazis are passing beyond living memory so there are few people alive who remember how bad they were.
I wish it said what the effective yield will be for bond purchases if they sell for the expected price. Is that yield consistent with other bonds with similar ratings?