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Feb. 15, 2023 - I Don't Speak German
07:49
PREVIEW: Bonus Ep 27 Social Media, Science and Art

Daniel and Jack had an impromptu chat one night, accidentally recorded it, and decided that - a few edits later - it would stand up as a bonus episode.  We hope you enjoy it.  If you do, we might do more bonus episodes without a set topic, just us shooting the breeze. * Become a backer of Daniel or Jack to get exclusive access to a new bonus episode. Becoming a patron also brings access to all other bonus episodes.  At least one new Patreon exclusive bonus episode every month. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper/posts Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618&fan_landing=true Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent.  Patrons get exclusive access to one full extra episode a month. IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1

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IDSG bonus episodes are a regular extra just for Patreon backers of myself or Daniel.
Here's a preview of the new one.
Really what I want to say about social media is 280 characters is bad.
The whole problem is that it's 280 characters and it's algorithmically filtered.
That's really the answer.
I don't want to say it's overly simplistic to say we need to go back to blogs, but Yeah, blogs, we kind of need to go back to blogs and comment sections are kind of because what you I mean, ideally what you want.
Sorry, I'm distracting from what we were chatting about.
But you know, like what you want is you want a like an article like something to read and then respond to and then like the ability to respond beneath that.
And the whole like the whole logic of like the blue check, right?
You know, of like, well, this is an actual like.
That's a person with a blog.
identifiable person with like known, you know, sort of affiliations or known, like with some kind of notoriety, you know, that's a person with a blog.
That's a person like running, like writing at length or doing something like significant in the world, you know, at least.
And then like so many, like the replies are just like, you know, people commenting, people shit posting, people doing memes, doing whatever.
And this is not to elevate one and denigrate the other.
It's just saying, like, there are, like, very different ways that people use Twitter.
And, like, what I'm interested in Twitter for is, like, I follow a lot of journalists because I actually want to follow their journalism.
And it's easier to follow them on Twitter and follow, like, people talking about that than it is to, like, check all the different sites every day, right?
You know?
And I feel like that's kind of what I want out of it.
And I think that, like, the comment sections actually make more sense as Comment sections as opposed to, you know, it looks like, all right, we're all talking about a particular like thing.
Let's sit and talk about that here.
And I feel like without the algorithmic, like sort of like the web structure, you don't get the toxicity of it, you know?
Yeah, no, I just, you know, the more I think about it, the more I'm like, yeah, we just got to go back to blogs.
I think the great virtue of Twitter is that it's like a town square.
It's like the internet town square, you know?
And when it's working well, that's good.
And it works as a town square or like a village notice board in that sort of active way because there is conversation.
Like sites that are actually just directories are boring.
People don't use them because they're boring.
Because you can click wherever and it's like, who cares, right?
But Twitter has that ability to be not just a, as I say, not just a notice board, but actually like a discussion area, you know?
Right, yeah.
That said, the discussions proper shouldn't really be in that format.
As I say, it's a town square and it should be like...
You have the nice conversation, but fundamentally the point of it is, if you want this, then you go over there.
If you want that, then you go over there.
That's the actual utility of it, I think.
And it tries to be all these other things at once.
And that's only going to get worse.
It saps the energy out of other spaces.
Yeah, that's only going to get worse as Musk tries to transition it into his, like, X thing that he's obviously trying to do.
So, you know.
Yeah, no, no, no.
Yeah, no, I don't know.
For me, it's... I get all these sort of tongue-clicking articles from mainstream journalists about, oh, most Americans now get their news from Twitter.
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
In itself, inherently, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Because what we're talking about is people encountering tweets that link to this story, or that article, or this essay, or this news report, etc.
And what's wrong with that?
Yeah.
Well, what's inherently wrong with that?
There's nothing inherently wrong with that.
If you're only listening to other people's second-hand accounts, or if you're retweeting articles that you haven't read because the headline seems to flatter your prejudices, or if you're only paying attention to, you know, Breitbart and The Daily Caller and stuff like that, yeah, okay, that's bad.
But that's not the fault of the space you're in.
Yeah, no.
Well, and I think that, I mean, one thing that complicates this is the algorithm and that it's privately run.
Yes, because it's rigged.
Regardless of whether it's... It's a perfect metaphor for the free market, because it presents itself as a free market and it's actually rigged, structurally.
Yeah, exactly.
But regardless of... Eli made it worse, but ultimately even the prior algorithm.
I think that like having an algorithm and having like sort of like trust and safety system is probably is a positive like you do want to actually like restrict like how people get access to this and you know you do want to have like some kind of like regulatory mechanism.
I'm not an expert.
What you get if you don't have any of those things is 4chan, isn't it?
Right.
Well, yeah, and I think that, you know, it is like old, you know, old fogies like us who have been on the internet for, you know, 25 years who, you know, actually have a little bit of the experience of going like, yeah, I remember, I remember the forum days and, you know.
And understanding how do you actually run these things in a way that actually improves conversation for everybody, right?
But I also think getting away from there being four websites, I think that's also the other thing.
There is a mass consolidation that's just happened.
And that feels real.
I mean, that is kind of the problem.
I mean, it does allow, you know, that like suddenly, you know, Nazis are on Twitter.
Get rid of Nazis on Twitter.
You can, you know, do a whole lot by just getting rid of that.
But, you know, having those kinds of central authorities is also kind of a negative for a whole lot of other reasons.
And I feel like that like conversations with Even that level of nuance are not things that people really want to hear, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
This is another thing, you know, I was talking about kind of starting to get my essay writing mojo back.
This is another thing I've been thinking about.
I've been just pondering the idea of how you make social media work constructively and socially.
And like most things, the answer, you know, there's no perfect answer to anything, but the answer, as with most things, is democracy of some kind.
And it maps very, I mean, I was talking about how Twitter is like, the algorithm and social media spaces are like perfect reflections of the free market in that they seem like this free-for-all, but they actually have this deep structural bias built into them.
I mean, this whole thing sort of, this is nebulous and half-formed at the moment.
It's still percolating, you know, but it maps perfectly onto the old calculation debate about how you move from an anarchic market system to some form of planned economy.
And the answer to that is the fundamental... I mean, it's too simple to just say this on its own, but the fundamental answer to that old question is democracy.
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