Meta and twitter cease to exist tomorrow and 99% of the issues are solved IMO
The fediverse is social media and it doesn’t have anything close to the same kinds of harmful patterns
Study: Social media probably can’t be fixed
Submitted 5 weeks ago by Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/study-social-media-probably-cant-be-fixed/
Comments
9point6@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
chaosCruiser@futurology.today 5 weeks ago
Amazon, Google and Microsoft would still be there, so the Internet seems to be suffering from metastatic cancer at this point. Cutting off two revolting lumps helps, but the prognosis doesn’t look that great.
9point6@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
None of those have had much success in creating social networks that suck people in quite like the others
Not to say they don’t have their own problems, but the bulk of problems with social media come squarely from meta & twitter.
Salvo@aussie.zone 5 weeks ago
There will be a big curtaining of Apple, Microsoft, Google and Adobe if Facebook, TikTok and Twitter (and YouTube) have their algorithmic feeds outlawed.
It would probably cause the AI bubble to burst too so our OSs, Applications and Search Engines (and Government) would become usable again.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
lemmy does have problems though. Lots of emotional, judgemental and brigading content still. But it’s less here than elsewhere, probably.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 5 weeks ago
It has. Discussions here are mostly, just like elsewhere, people throwing arrogant smartass-looking text at each other and refusing to elaborate or explain or reason. Due to the experience of getting into such, people who’d actually discuss something instead “money-first” post with a set of markers hinting at their opinions and possible arguments, and masquerade discussion as agreement. It’s only a little less exhausting than going into a shit-throwing contest, even if more rewarding.
imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
The amount of comments thinking that Lemmy is totally not like a typical social media is absurd.
Guys, we only don’t have major tracking of users here.That’s it! Everything else is the fucking same shit you’d see on facebook. The moment Lemmy gets couple tens of millions of users, we gonna become 2nd facebook.
hansolo@lemmy.today 5 weeks ago
It’s that there’s no incentive to have 80 million bots manipulate everything. Our user base is too small, and likely too jaded about fake internet points to be a target for scammers, ai slop bots, or advertisers.
Or at least that’s what I thought when I drink a refreshing Pepsi! hiss-crack! glugg glugg Aaaah!! PEPSI! The brown fizz that satisfies! Pepsi!
someguy3@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
… If there are people to mislead with misinformation, or people with money to buy things, there will be incentive. I learned about this in this great book called
imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
Exactly. Once we are a mainstream page to visit, it will go down as fast as any other page like this before.
PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
Lemmy doesn’t have a neural net prediction/recommendation engine. This is a HUGE difference.
ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
And for the same reasons folks got hooked on old reddit, folls get hooked on Lemmy (its me I’m folks please unplug me from the machine I can’t log out)
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I haven’t used FB in half a decade, but at least with respect to reddit, there are definitely more good “features” in the threadiverse than just lack of tracking.
Not saying there aren’t any issues or that scaling to 10 M MAUs won’t create new problems, but lack of tracking isn’t the only differentiating factor.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 5 weeks ago
Yeah decentralization and open source software and protocols being big ones. It means that if the “main” culture turns reactionary, that we’re not trapped in the same spaces as the shithead just because we share a platform.
There could absolutely be two main fediverses, with no changes to the technology.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
It’s not a typical social media because it’s decentralized, but it’s not immune to all the problems of social media by any means. Being relatively small is its biggest asset - if it ever got reddit big, it would end up the same way.
mack@lemmy.sdf.org 5 weeks ago
yes, and no. what really Facebook lacks (along the top social medias) is strong negative feedback.
I don’t think the village idiot is going that far with the flat earth conspiracy when is publicly downvoted to oblivion
imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
I beg to disagree.
The reason all these delusional posts getting even upvoted to begin with is due to many like-minded people are gathered together in the same sub. As an example, reddit’s r/democrats and r/republicans. One is clearly more sane than another, yet try to say something in a wrong sub - get downvoted to oblivion. But if you spill your delusional shit in a r/republicans - upvotes galore and comments of praise.
Facebook groups are the same shit. And so is Lemmy. One thing in hexbear that is allowed could/will be the reason you got a ban in .world. Up/Downvotes cant fix that.
tl;dr Village idiots can join together to accumulate their own conspiracies in a big ass circlejerk, and social media has no power to stop it.
aquovie@lemmy.cafe 5 weeks ago
Reddit has downvotes. That hasn’t saved it from misinformation, trolls, and radicalization.
roserose56@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Facebook has lots of miss information and scams too, which here on Lemmy don’t have.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
if we’re immune to the problems, it would be because people here use critical thinking skills instead of swallowing large amounts of contents. that’s the sole reason, it has nothing to do with the network’s size.
bigbabybilly@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Social media isn’t broken. It’s working exactly how it was meant to. We just need to break free of it.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
first of all, it’s a broad overgeneralization to assume that all social media is created with the intention to manipulate people. there was honest people running social media, but it’s long past. (in the corporate domain)
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social media can be useful if it presents non-emotional, non-brigading content. rational discourse is one of the valuable options possible. throwing away the whole internet because Xitter sucks is throwing away the baby with the bathwater.
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but yes, social media is the new Volksempfänger and manipulates people (social engineering)
DSTGU@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks ago
No social media was created to manipulate people. (Most) social media is a business, optimised to make money. You make money by showing people ads. You can show more ads to people if they stay on the platform longer. You can make people stay longer by engaging them emotionally. End of conspiracy…
stickly@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
But it’s not possible to get unbiased content on the internet. Everything exists with an agenda behind it, for the sole reason that putting anything on it is going to constantly cost money.
This wasn’t a huge deal when individuals were paying to host and share content to a small audience, it was a small amount of money and you could see their motives clearly (a forum for a hobby, a passion project, an online store, etc…).
Social media is different because it presents itself as a public forum where anything can be shared and hosted (for free) to as many people as you want. But they’re still footing a very large bill and the wide net of content makes their motives completely opaque. Nobody cares that much about the headaches of maintaining a free and open public forum, and any profit motive is just another way to sell manipulation.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
rational discourse is one of the valuable options possible.
Yeah, can’t say that I’ve seen a lot of that on social media.
You don’t need social media to do rational discourse, anyway. All you need is two-way communication, a problem that the Internet solved long before any Facebooks or Twitters popped up. You can have rational discourse on IRC, an email list, or even through instant messaging.
throwing away the whole internet because Xitter sucks is throwing away the baby with the bathwater.
I know you’re being hyperbolic here, but unfortunately there are a lot of people now who really do see social media as “the whole Internet”. And they have thrown a lot away as a result.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
When it reaches a large enough audience, the regime takes control.
They don’t even hide it.
Lemmy for now is not important enough.
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Xanthrax@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
We’re on the solution right now, lmao
kalkulat@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Of course -corporate- social media can’t be fixed … it already works exactly they way they want it to…
moseschrute@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com 5 weeks ago
As long as you know you’re in an echo chamber there’s nothing wrong with it. Everything is an echo chamber of varying sizes.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Or do everything within your reach to make everything an echo chamber, cough cough fandom gatekeepers being toxic to people they don’t like and think are responsible to changes to their beloved media.
mctoasterson@reddthat.com 5 weeks ago
I think just going back to internet forums circa early 2000s is probably a better way to engage honestly. They’re still around, just not as “smartphone friendly” and doomscroll-enabled, due to the format.
I’m talking stuff like SomethingAwful, GaiaOnline, Fark, Newgrounds forum, GlockTalk, Slashdot, vBulletin etc.
These types of forums allowed you to discuss timely issues and news if you wanted. You could go a thousand miles deep on some bizarre subculture or stick to general discussion. They also had protomeme culture before that was a thing - aka “embedded image macros”.
Jason2357@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Anything that is topic focussed rather than following individuals is a big difference, and then take away the engagement algorithm and it’s much better.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
This is a good point. It’s like asking the question: “What is more important in politics? People, or ideas?”
People respond very differently to that. To some it’s people, and to some it’s ideas. That is why you have Xitter-like microblogging which is focused around people, and reddit-like communities which are focused around topics/ideas.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
That’s what I’ve been hoping for with Reddit and now Lemmy. I don’t care about individuals, I care about topic based discussion.
My problem with forums is they are more like a club, where you get loss of off-topic discussion by people who happen to share an interest. I don’t care what tech nerds think about medicine on a tech nerd forum, and joining dozens of forums to get the right discussion is a huge pain.
Forums are cool, and I use a few, but I really want a place that connects different subjects.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 5 weeks ago
just not as “smartphone friendly” and doomscroll-enabled, due to the format.
Boowahahahahaha, I’ve used those with PSP default web browser. With Nintendo Wii web browser. With Java phone web browser (admittedly that was only to read, and very slowly).
Anyway, have clumsy sweaty big fingers (unfortunately due to my behavior girls don’t extrapolate that feature anywhere anymore), strongly prefer anything with physical keys.
They also had protomeme culture before that was a thing - aka “embedded image macros”.
Images, links, enormous smilies’ sets, colored text.
uberdroog@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Its performing as expected
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
I also noticed something in my friend group. No one makes anything. Its all share share share. Im the only one taking original photos or videos or making jokes. Its kind of sad. And is not like their lives are boring either. They’d just rather consume others stuff.
Are most people like that?
tempest@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
I’ve started asking people what they have created lately… They seem to take it as an insult when it isn’t meant to be.
The reality is consuming is easier than producing. You can see it with the usage of phones and tablets vs laptops. It’s hard to create on a touch screen but it’s easy to consume.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Does making horrible horrible things in CK2 count as creation? If not I am simply creating a mess of my life.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Yeah its sad computing is dying because of ipads. Lot of people.dont even have a computer.
BlindFrog@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Yes.
Whatchu gonna do about it?
(not asking specifically you, bridge, just didn’t want to leave the thread at a circle jerk)
Zak@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
The study is based on having LLMs decide to amplify one of the top ten posts on their timeline or share a news headline. LLMs aren’t people, and the authors have not convinced me that they will behave like people in this context.
The behavioral options are restricted to posting news headlines, reposting news headlines, or being passive. There’s no option to create original content, and no interventions centered on discouraging reposting. Facebook has experimented with limits to reposting and found such limits discouraged the spread of divisive content and misinformation.
I mostly use social media to share pictures of birds. This contributes to some of the problems the source article discusses. It causes fragmentation; people who don’t like bird photos won’t follow me. It leads to disparity of influence; I think I have more followers than the average Mastodon account. I sometimes even amplify conflict.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Uhm, I seem to recall that social media was actually pretty good in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The authors used AI models as the users. Could it be that their models have internalized the effects of the algorithms that fundamentally changed social media from what it used to be over a decade ago, and then be reproducing those effects in their experiments? Sounds like they’re treating models as if they’re humans, and they are not. Especially when it comes to changing behaviour based on changes in the environment, which is what they were testing.
AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 5 weeks ago
I mean lemmy is pretty fucking neat, i love it here, no need to fic anything.
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It’s got its issues (for me the main one are the tankie scum devs), but it seems to be the best platform there is.
The good thing about it is you can move to clients like Piefed and still access all the content / communities.
pulsewidth@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
As long as the devs have an instance-agnostic ‘live and let live’ attitude and just ignore any instances they don’t politically like and advise others to do the same, it’s not really a problem.
If they ever try to enforce their ideology via their code: actual issue.
Allonzee@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
(for me the main one are the tankie scum devs)
This right here is the crux of the problem and why the problem goes back so much further. We teach kids to focus on individual achievement, to celebrate the self, and we don’t teach empathy, something that needs to be taught young but the west increasingly considers weakness and a dirty word.
When fail to teach citizens of a society collectivism, because being a member of a society means you are part of a collective whether you decide to be a good collective that functions or one that operates against itself (herp derp competition!) that does not, you get communication like this.
“I hate these people fuck them they should me more like MEEEE” “their opinions suck because they aren’t more like MIIIINE” and we act as a bunch of petulant infants that resent each other’s very existence in OUR world.
If we were taught that it is our responsibility to lift one another up, if we rewarded people in society on the basis of who and how many others they’ve helped and not how much they hoarded for THEMSELVES, this wouldnt be as much of a problem.
The problem is, how do you start such a virtuous cycle when everyone from the owners down are only concerned with “ME ME ME?”
Then again you hate tankies, so go ahead and cuss me out for calling out the reality that capitalism, especially when it has effectively conquered the culture, turns people into selfish little gremlins more likely to rage at a stranger than help them.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Cetainly not the Mc Carthy fascists calling people scum
Krudler@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
BULLSHIT
Perspectivist@feddit.uk 5 weeks ago
Ofcourse not. The issue with social media are the people. Algorithms just bring out the worst in us but it didn’t make us like that, we already were.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 5 weeks ago
From my point of view something that brings out the worst in us sounds like a really big part of the issue.
We’ve always been modified by our situations, so why not create better situations rather than lamenting that we don’t have the grit to break through whatever toxic society we find ourselves graphed onto?
Sorry I know I’m putting a lot on your comment that I know you didn’t mean, but I see this kind of unintentional crypto doomerism a lot. I think it holds people to an unhealthy standard.
Perspectivist@feddit.uk 5 weeks ago
It is a big part of the issue, but as Lemmy clearly demonstrates, that issue doesn’t go away even when you remove the algorithm entirely.
I see it a lot like driving cars - no matter how much better and safer we make them, accidents will still happen as long as there’s an ape behind the wheel, and probably even after that. That’s not to say things can’t be improved - they definitely can - but I don’t think it can ever be “fixed,” because the problem isn’t it - it’s us. You can’t fix humans by tweaking the code on social media.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
The reason why it brings out the worst in people is because it has open borders. You can shit into the network and move on. If you were forced to stay and live with your shit, you’d shit less into the public domain.
TuffNutzes@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It magnifies the worst in people.
zeropointone@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
[deleted]paraphrand@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Lemmy is social media. So is Mastodon. So is peer tube. And everything else in the fediverse.
So I wouldn’t compare social media to a gun, across the board.
ano_ba_to@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks ago
What is not social media? Were the forums from before Friendster, MySpace, Facebook social media too? I don’t know anyone here. Is a mall a house?
General_Effort@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Social media hasn’t been designed for these problems, though. It’s more a babelfish thing.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
No shit. Unless the Internet becomes democratised and publicly funded like other media in other countries like the BBC or France24, social media will always be toxic. They thrive in provocations and there are studies to prove it, and social media moguls know this. Hell, there are people who make a living triggering people to gain attention and maintain engagement, which leads to advertising revenue and promotions.
As long as profit motive exists, the social media as we know it can never truly be fixed.
smayonak@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Yes and yes. What is crazy to me is that the owners of social media want more than profits. They also have a political agenda and are willing to tip the scales against any politician who opposes their interests or the interests of their major shareholders. Facebook promoted right wing disinformation campaigns against leaders who they disliked such as mark Carney. Their shareholders should be sued into oblivion and their c levels thrown into prison. Yet our legal system forbids this.
tacosanonymous@mander.xyz 5 weeks ago
Neat.
Release the epstein files then burn it all down.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Social media was a mistake, tbh
roguetrick@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Pre print journalism fucking bugs me because the journalists themselves can’t actually judge if anything is worth actually discussing so they just look for click bait shit.
This methodology to discover what interventions do in human environments seems particularly deranged to me though:
We address this question using a novel method – generative social simulation – that embeds Large Language Models within Agent-Based Models to create socially rich synthetic platforms.
LLM agents trained on social media dysfunction recreate it unfailingly. No shit.
General_Effort@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
The original source is here:
Social media platforms have been widely linked to societal harms, including rising polarization and the erosion of constructive debate. Can these problems be mitigated through prosocial interventions? We address this question using a novel method – generative social simulation – that embeds Large Language Models within Agent-Based Models to create socially rich synthetic platforms. We create a minimal platform where agents can post, repost, and follow others. We find that the resulting following-networks reproduce three well-documented dysfunctions: (1) partisan echo chambers; (2) concentrated influence among a small elite; and (3) the amplification of polarized voices – creating a “social media prism” that distorts political discourse. We test six proposed interventions, from chronological feeds to bridging algorithms, finding only modest improvements – and in some cases, worsened outcomes. These results suggest that core dysfunctions may be rooted in the feedback between reactive engagement and network growth, raising the possibility that meaningful reform will require rethinking the foundational dynamics of platform architecture.
Kissaki@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
The linked article also includes an interview. At least in this case, it’s not only a rephrasing of the paper or paper abstract.
(Just pointing it out here so people don’t skip the article while thinking there’s nothing else there.)
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Social spaces aren’t something that needs fixing.
We blame the problems caused by wealth inequality on technology as a way to not even discuss making the rich contribute to society
3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 5 weeks ago
Should just be people can’t be fixed…
TAG@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
The article argues that extremist views and echo chambers are inherent in public social networks where everyone is trying to talk to everyone else. That includes Fediverse networks like Lemmy and Mastodon.
They argue for smaller, more intimate networks like group chats among friends. I agree with the notion, but I am not sure how someone can build these sorts of environments without just inviting a group of friends and making an echo chamber.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Can’t?
I’m on Lemmy, am I not?
It CAN be fixed, the question if the will is there. We need to inform and teach more people
Korkki@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
The dream was that social media would help revitalize the public sphere and support the kind of constructive political dialogue that your paper deems “vital to democratic life.” That largely hasn’t happened.
Their idea is basically that people need to be told the same things to what to believe in so that democracy can work as it’s supposed to and social media is disrupting that with all the conspiracy shit, flame wars and polarization of opinions. The issue is that this common idea is fermented by the boomer generation. They grew up in really quite anomalous post war world when there was first time in human history basically monolithic mass media that people watched it AND had high trust in AND the system provided more for the masses more than it does now. Those then lead to to high societal inclusion and high social cohesion that again fed into the prosperity. Now we have fragmented information sphere and things are shit are shit, political center is hated by most and radicalism is once again rising.
However so called democracy or collective decision making in general itself does not rely on people not believing in crazy shit, not being fed the best possible validated information, or god forbid having unorthodox ideas of their own or developing factionalism or totally different reading on reality. It helps make it smoother and avoids violence, but that “smoothness of process” that boomers have come to expect is also why society in wider terms is politically stagnant and rotting. People seem to live in different realities, because in a sense we are, because our economic realities can be so different and decoupled form the mainstream narrative. It never didn’t have to get this bad, but social media only a venting mechanism not the reason for the growing divides. The division in society and the general anguish is real IRL, it just takes forms of all kinds of irrational and counterproductive forms online. The problem isn’t really that people are factional and can’t agree with each other, it’s that nobody can no longer agree with the monolithic unpopular political center that is holding on to power for dear life.
Feyd@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
Let’s just pretend nothing after MySpace ever happened
kibiz0r@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
Because how to use it is baked into what it is. Like many big tech products, it’s not just a tool but also a philosophy. To use it is also to see the world through its (digital) eyes.
General_Effort@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I’m not surprised. I am surprised that the researchers were surprised, though.
Bridging algorithms seem promising.
The results were far from encouraging. Only some interventions showed modest improvements. None were able to fully disrupt the fundamental mechanisms producing the dysfunctional effects. In fact, some interventions actually made the problems worse. For example, chronological ordering had the strongest effect on reducing attention inequality, but there was a tradeoff: It also intensified the amplification of extreme content. Bridging algorithms significantly weakened the link between partisanship and engagement and modestly improved viewpoint diversity, but it also increased attention inequality. Boosting viewpoint diversity had no significant impact at all.
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
As long as people worship themselves (but also, paradoxically, require everyone’s attention and approval all the time just to make it to the next day), it will continue being that way. For those who see it for what it is and are disgusted by it, we have Lemmy/discussion boards.
rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
Good thing is, you don’t need to use it. Bad thing is, it affects reality.
mienshao@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
“Fixing” social media is like “fixing” capitalism. Any manmade system can be changed, destroyed, or rebuilt. It’s not an impossible task but will require a fundamental shift in the way we see/talk to/value each other as people.
The one thing I know for sure is that social media won’t ever improve if we all accept the narrative that it can’t be improved.
-Ursula K Le Guin
harribert@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Seriously, read her books. I looooove „The Dispossessed“
floofloof@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
The Left Hand of Darkness is excellent too.
kalkulat@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
LeGuin is a treasure.
BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Particularly apt given that may of the biggest problems with social media are problems of capitalism. Social media platforms have found it most profitable to monetize conflict and division, the low self-esteem of teenagers, lies and misinformation, envy over the curated simulacrum of a life presented by a parasocial figure.
These things drive engagement. Engagement drives clicks. Clicks drive ad revenue. Revenue pleases shareholders. And all that feeds back into a system that trades negativity in the real world for positivity on a balance sheet.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Yeah, this author is the pop sci author on Ars Technica, not the actual science coverage one, and you can tell by the overly broad, click bait, headline that is not actually supported by the research at hand.
VeloRama@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
The article is mostly an interview with one of the researchers that produced the study. Don’t like the headline? Fine. Just read what that researcher has to say.
balder1991@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
This is spot on.
TAG@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
If you read the article, the argument they are making is that you cannot fix social media by simply tweaking the algorithm. We need a new form of social media that is not just everyone screaming into the void for attention, which includes Lemmy, Mastodon, and other Fediverse platforms.