1st September 2022
There is a concept, of which many of you will be aware, called “the tragedy of the commons”.
It is a concept about which some people have Very Strong Opinions – and even referring it risks being swamped by “you don’t understand” responses – but it is a useful idea nonetheless.
In a way, it is an articulation of one general reason for why, as a species, we cannot have nice things.
Some people, somewhere – but definitely not you – are going to ruin things for everyone.
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Something akin – but not identical – is happening with social media platforms.
Just as this blog has recently referred to the 3 Ps – populism, polarisation, and post-truth – what is going badly in social media can be reduced to 3 As.
Abuse, Adverts, and Algorithms.
One response to the clutter, spam and trash one encounters on social media is to blame the platforms.
And the private companies that operate the platforms can and should do more to make using social media less unpleasant.
But.
The unpalatable truth about why social media platforms are often not nice places is because of the “social” part of social media, rather than the “media” part.
In other words: social media has not changed human nature, but made it more visible.
And what is happening on social media is what happens when you give large groups of people the means of instantly communicating with each other.
If this dismal observation is correct then seeking to regulate the “media” part of social media is destined to fail, because the ultimate problem is people, not platforms.
(Of course: other people, not you or me.)
And, if it is ultimately a “social” and not a “media” problem then its resolution will be in changes to social attitudes, not legal changes.
Just like people in large cities ignore each other when in close proximity, people may come to ignore each other in virtual communities.
The person shouting on the internet will be as shunned as the person shouting in the street.
Humans may perhaps adapt, once the novelty of social media wears off.
Or perhaps they will not, and social media will just get worse.
For sometimes it is people, and not regulations, that are to blame.
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on the ‘media’ side: if you want better, you probably have to pay for it, and not just by taking the costs of the degraded commons. If the consumer isn’t directly paying for the service, then the owner has to go to a third party, hence problem 1, which also exacerbated the role of algorithms, so problem 3.
As far as human elements can be changed by economics, charging also means that the cost of posting is no longer zero for a user, so some of the worst may no longer be willing.
As someone – many people, probably – once said “If you aren’t paying, then you’re the product”!
Though some of the worst may have plenty of money.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been feeling that I’m being hit on the head with a mallet. Unremittingly. This post has cleared my head and really made me think. Thank you.
The state regulates (often poorly) elements of behaviour that are addictive and/or harmful (drugs, alcohol for example). Research on social media shows similar characteristics, especially for the young. In my opinion, social media is dangerous, and should be avoided, for your mental health and ability to think.
I am not usually a fan of excessive regulation, but the lack of effective action is worrying.
And yet we stand within weeks of the UK mandating fundamental changes to the internet’s architecture, including three additional technical layers delegated to the private sector, in order to get back at a handful of social media platforms, while doing nothing to help actual people, on or offline. (Explained at https://webdevlaw.uk/2022/07/31/fixing-the-uks-online-safety-bill-part-1-we-need-answers/)
100% agree with you but do want to point out the bill still needs to go through the Lords and with the delays wont become law until early to mid 2023 and the bill can still go through changes and more delays.
W.r.t. Social media and regulation, it is perhaps worth asking who it is who is often most vocal in asking for social media to be regulated, curtailed or otherwise limited. It is, I would suggest, the one form of media which has so far resisted any form of regulation except self regulation (which has proven time and again to be largely toothless) even in the face of criminal wrong doing.
Now, I don’t have a Twitter account and I only use other social media in a very limited way so I am not subject to any of the abuse I am told occurs but if abuse is the reason a form of media needs regulation then I can think of one, much older media format that has been “drinking in the last chance saloon” for quite a lot longer than Facebook and the rest have even existed.
It wasn’t Mark Zuckerberg who hacked a murdered teenagers phone.
David, you’ve got me digging out my university textbooks to re-read the stuff on the tragedy of the commons.
That’s stopping me from reading my novel!!
Damn you and your thought-provoking blogs ;-)
I think what you’re talking about here is why I almost entirely stopped participating in social media. As in, stopped contributing.
It’s almost all conflict as that generates the most engagement like the person yelling on the street. Everyone notices that guy.
And it’s also totally distorted as certain groups of people have more opportunities to pile in as well as the impossibility of knowing which comments are from people rather than paid farms.
There’s certainly an argument that the people are at fault. But you do have the fact that a single person can simulate hundreds of people on the platform which is a major distorting factor.
And the fact that the absolute worst people can do their worst without tangible consequence. If someone was yelling at me in the street and threatening my family I’d probably get away with kicking them in the fork but on social media they can intimidate freely.
Ultimately I think the issue with social media is the selective pressure. Only certain people are fine with being open and honest on it which massively distorts things. You’ve either got to be very strong and self-assured or a shitbag. There’s little room for most of us.
I have the impression that anonymity is an important factor. You are right that “people” are much of the problem, but if they don’t have to take personal responsibility for what they say, they are even more likely coarsen debate… I would welcome it if Twitter introduced a filter to screen out anonymous accounts (with an override option to allow specified accounts such as the Secret Barrister….).
A sadly common view predicated on two ideas: first that people will behave better if they cannot be anonymous and second that nobody needs anonymity. Both are demonstrably false.
https://twitter.com/hypervisible/status/1550905102046838784?t=vOLOO1xdTPcTd8NJOZBSkw&s=19
People have talked about stopping users being anonymous. If workable, that would help. Generally we don’t shout in the street because we would be seen, heard, and possibly smelt. Would it be possible to make users visible, and even audible?
Thing is doing that will have alot of unintended consequences for users and could lead to more abuse and harassment on social media not less.
Do you have any actual evidence to support that opinion?
Simple life experience tells us that people generally behave “better” (whatever that actually means in practice) when they’re identifiable and capable of being held accountable for their actions,
Social media is no different – it is observable to the point of being axiomatic that people hide behind the anonymity afforded to them by these platforms.
Indeed, and in further response to Anonymous (!), I will take issue with your “will” instead of “would”. It isn’t clear in fact whether not being anonymous would help or it wouldn’t but it must be worth a go.
Anonymous, you refer to a lot of unintended consequences but such as what?
Many people in marginalised and vulnerable communities find that it is not safe to participate in social media under their real names.
A great deal of abuse happens on Facebook, where users are required to use their real names.
Anonymity/pseudonymity is largely a red herring.
Your describing edge cases where anonymity is justifiable – these cases are not the root of the problems under discussion.
Blast! “You’re”, obviously…
I agree with Kijiri below but why is anonymity/pseudonymity largely a red herring? They must surely be within, not outside, the point.
This blog counts as social media, I think. And for the user, it is always a pleasant place to visit.
I’ve no idea to what extent that is because “we” are all nice people, versus your implementation of your moderation rules.
Generally, moderated spaces are more pleasant – and usually (if not always) those who don’t like being moderated will eventually move elsewhere.
Moderation however in big, open fora such as Twitter, is i) a massive challenge given the volumes involved and ii) a perceived threat to free speech.
So the choice is perhaps friendly but smaller and relatively closed social media versus large, open places where the bad has equal billing with the good. An easy choice for an individual maybe, but a harder one for societies.
“Moderation however in big, open fora such as Twitter, is i) a massive challenge given the volumes involved and ii) a perceived threat to free speech.”
Which rather suggests it is the medium itself – specifically how it is managed (or not) – that gives rise to many of the problems we see.
“Free speech!” is of course a red herring – it has never been an unconditional right, or we wouldn’t have had defamation laws for several hundred years.
I agree this blog is a pleasant place to visit but the key must be the moderator rather than us all being nice people! Most people are likely to stray at some time or another without governance. It seems many “nice” people get carried away on ungoverned social media and write something they should have reserved for private utterance that they afterwards regret. The problem is crystallising passing moments.
I enjoyed your blog on the social aspect of social media and the degree to which the commentary used it as a proxy for the current human malaise.
Yet, there are aspects that algorithms knowingly seek to amplify, which are less reflective of the human condition and more reflective of the desire for profits on the part of the firms.
‘Social’ media is in its infancy and has escaped any meaningful regulation in the Western world. Online silos enable like minded people to distil and foment opinions and dreams without the challenge of external scrutiny until some are ready for combat, to be amplified and ‘liked’ by their tribe(s). Open to everyone at minimal cost, like a personalised idiots lantern, terrorists groom suicide bombers from a safe distance and psychopaths can ‘meet’ in a moment. We have trillions of facts laced with millions of lies at our fingertips so information is devalued and ‘news’ served as a 24/7 entertainment fest. Whilst a tiny fraction take a moment to read the musings of their favourite political commentator, a majority prefer to play repetitive games on screen in a futile attempt to escape their version of reality.
Young mothers scroll, unwittingly preparing infants to seek validation in a similar place. Young men are targeted with age old vices that have been deregulated via slick lobby groups and suppine politicians. The tragedy of the commons is far beyond those who would seek to govern.
I think you are right that the ‘abusive’ part of social media discourse will fade as people get better at ignoring what’s on their screens. I have not used the biggest one for three years now and younger members of the family have moved to perhaps slightly more selective or controllable platforms.
While it’s easy to feel superior (I’m sure I often do) there have been real harms caused to vulnerable people (a category that includes everyone at one time or another) and it seems likely that the power of electronic dissemination can amplify the casual damage from gossip.
But, in the long run, I’m pretty sure that we will get back to some sort of equilibrium with people being (sometimes) unpleasant to those they don’t know, but (more often?) pleasant and even helpful when the opportunity arises.
I think there is another ‘A’ which contributes to negative aspect of social media, namely anonymity. Perhaps some people would be less inclined to be unpleasant if their identity were not hidden. I value anonymity, but would be perfectly happy to have some sort of third party identification requirement. This could be accessed by anyone who has a reason to do so.
“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”
When will the late Douglas Adams receive deserved recognition as not just a funny writer but a very acute observer of the human condition?
Some time after the City of Leicester commissions a statue of Sue Townsend, perhaps.
Beaconsfield Library has a plaque to Terry Pratchett, but one must always wonder how much longer Beaconsfield (or any other town) will have a library.
Both these match the description in the foregoing tribute to Douglas Adams. Hundreds of others will already be occurring to other readers, but this isn’t a Literary Blog. Literate, yes, which is refreshing (and almost back on topic).
If people were only able to engage on social media as themselves and not hide behind untraceable anonymity I think there might be far less abuse. Though nothing will ever stop conspiracy theorists conspiring or the gullible being sucked in.
David wrote, “In other words: social media has not changed human nature, but made it more visible.”
Respectfully, this is factually wrong.
As the interviews given by Christopher Wylie, former employee of Cambridge Analytica show all too clearly, it was all too easy for that company to manipulate behaviours through advertisements and articles that they posted on Facebook.
Alexander Nix, former Cambridge Analytica boss, was caught on a concealed camera, boasting to potential clients of the ability of his company to provide (my phrasing) a “mass manipulation service” for clients.
We know from testimony and from evidence that CA’s manipulation caused a significant, measurable drop in the number of black and ethnic minority voters in the 2016 US Presidential election.
That is actual behavioural change. Manipulation.
The only reason, the ONLY reason that companies like Facebook haven’t been forcibly shut down is simply because their regulators don’t understand just how dangerous they have become. To do that would require not only a complex combination of skills – neuro-linguistic programming, big data analytics, machine learning and clinical psychology – but also unfettered access to the vast data sets that companies like Facebook collect.
The worrying thing is that most people don’t understand just how influential social media can be.
It keeps them blind to the danger.
You mean can, not has.
As individuals most people are OK. To see what people (like you and me) are like en masse try working in a shop or a bar. Orwell chose correctly with pigs.
Dead tree and social media are run by clever people who are good at making people behave as desired. From QAnon to Conservative Home to the Graun to the customer website of one’s power company or bank you are being managed. Just make sure everyone knows that and acts accordingly. Best of all – avoid the public en masse and regard the manipulators with deepest suspicion. As the man said ‘Hell is other people’.
Well, what can one say?
There are two separate assertions in this piece. The weaker is that the bad behaviour on social media is nothing to do with the platforms, but an inevitable consequence of human nature.
That seems to be highly debatable, given that the platforms use algorithms that encourage some of the anti-social behaviour that we see on them. Their business models benefit from this behaviour and so they encourage it.
Then there is the stronger claim that human nature has not changed – that seems to be contradicted by the evidence of reduced attention spans, increased anxiety and so on that are associated with the use of social media.
In real life when we are in community there are usually mechanisms to resolve conflict. There is then an obligation to repair and resolve conflict because you see the same people frequently in person.
The problem (and difference) it seems to me with social media is that there are no consequences for conflict. You can be as obnoxious and trolling as you like and carry on without any consequence. In fact you’ll probably get MORE followers, not less because the algorithms incentivize hate. If you did that in the physical realm you’d face physical consequences and social shunning. What’s interesting is how the anti-social aspects of so-called social media are now bleeding into the real world and now people are starting to act in real life as they do online.
Urban legend suggests that 80% of (in-person) communication is non-verbal… When I searched for substantiation for that statement, literally the first link returned by Google:-
https://www.lifesize.com/en/blog/speaking-without-words/
suggested that number could be as high as 93%.
In other words, before we even get to the critically important points you raise – for example about the “consequence free” nature of divisive commentary posted to social media, we see that we are already at a distinct disadvantage if we deny ourselves basic interpersonal clues such as posture, movement, tone of voice, emphasis of words, eye contact and so on.
It’s worth pointing out, however, that all of these are especially relevant in what I’ll describe as genuine communication (as opposed to intentional manipulation). Once we move on to the latter, things deteriorate rather quickly.
Does motoring not give a fair analogy? How many drivers in their anonymous cars swear & hoot (at the other idiots) much more aggressively than they would in the street ?(especially a local street). When I started driving in Paris and another driver too aggressively fulminated, I would stop, get out and ask them to explain their problem. They invariably: made off, shrank or apologised- the last time so much, that I wondered if I was in the wrong by taking umbrage!
Even if they are not in sight, motorists know that traffic police are near and they know what the rules are.
But on the web, there are no cops and the rules are ….er…. being debated for a bit.
If this analogy holds, then web socialising is more akin to driving in Cairo than in Klimarnock. There are carambolages ahead.
Brace, then brace again; repeat……..
Is a brace the same as a seat belt?