Derpibooru Article 13

@Background Pony #F5C2

The Internet [is] a cornerstone of democracy

Social media too easily bypasses the rational or at least reasonable parts of our minds, on which a democratic public sphere depends. It speaks instead to the emotional, reactive, quick-fix parts of us, that are satisfied by images and clicks that look pleasing, that feed our egos, and that make us think we are heroic. But too often these feelings come at the expense of the deep thinking, planning, and interaction that democratic politics are built from. This doesn’t mean reasoned debate can’t happen online; of course it can and does. It means that there is a strong tendency—what media and technology researchers call an “affordance”—away from dispassionate debate and toward strong emotions.
, David Golumbia, Social Media Has Hijacked Our Brains and Threatens Global Democracy, Vice.com

Internet’s lawlessness came about as a feature premised on a libertarian ideal of self-direction. Everything would be permitted and cyber-society would simply balance itself out without the need for oppressive governments or organizational rules. It hasn’t worked out that way […]There are two sides to this, of course. One great boon of the internet, particularly for marginalized voices, is how it allows people to share content and ideas that might never make it past old-school gatekeepers and censors. At times, it can be refreshing and enlightening to see media and perspectives that don’t labor under stultifying FCC obscenity codes, to hear voices we might not have otherwise heard. But as we’ve seen over and over again for many years, this is an increasingly sharp double-edged sword.

The vile content that is amplified through digital megaphones is a reminder of why ethics and standards can be valuable, especially for the platforms that project the loudest voices in our culture. The solution, however, is not merely to clutch our pearls and demand that social media “think of the children,” but rather to implement clear, contextual codes of conduct with transparent enforcement that is tailored to the distinctions of every case, including human oversight at every stage. The latter is important. Without it, we run the risk of employing automated systems that reproduce biases at light speed.
IT’S NOT JUST LOGAN PAUL AND YOUTUBE — THE MORAL COMPASS OF SOCIAL MEDIA IS BROKEN, Katherine Cross, The Verge

We’re only a few days into the new year, but it didn’t take long for the latest viral embarrassment to hit YouTube, as yet another popular, telegenic young man posted something reckless and offensive on the video-sharing platform. This time around, YouTube star Logan Paul shared a video where he discovered and awkwardly laughed at the corpse of a suicide victim in Japan’s Aokigahara forest.

“Bro, did we just find a dead person in the suicide forest?” he says in the now-deleted video.

Although Paul subsequently issued apologies, the callous stunt was just the latest in a string of incidents where popular YouTubers have posted jaw-droppingly offensive, prejudiced, or unethical content that would never pass muster at a traditional outlet.

Their behavior is enabled by YouTube’s design as an effectively accountability-free platform, particularly for its most popular, envelope-pushing stars. There are rules and community guidelines about “disgusting” content and hate speech, of course, but they’re enforced haphazardly, often with little context or transparency, and can be easy to circumvent.

It’s a problem that extends beyond YouTube as a platform to streaming and social media at large, where large platforms tiptoe around the sensibilities of loud, angry users at the expense of anyone they can sacrifice on their pyre of rage. It creates a situation where women, people of color, queer, and disabled people all lack equal access to the service, laboring under the added burden of an angry mob scrutinizing their every move, even when they’re not “famous” by any metric.

The idealistic dream these services sell to users — that anyone can be famous with a mic, a keyboard, a webcam, and a bit of elbow grease — sounds like the culmination of early cyber utopianism. But in practice, it often means elevating people to fame when they are wildly unprepared for the ethical responsibilities or consequences of broadcasting their content to millions of fans (including children) around the world. As a principle, it means companies tie their own hands when dealing with edgelords who think Nazism is cool; there are only empty platitudes about free speech to be found in their wake.
IT’S NOT JUST LOGAN PAUL AND YOUTUBE — THE MORAL COMPASS OF SOCIAL MEDIA IS BROKEN, Katherine Cross, The Verge

@The Smiling Pony
But I also think it shouldnt have let trash like Alex Jones on their platform for so long.I dont want YouTube to turn into Oxford or EncartaVideos, i just wish there wasnt so much “SJW Cringe Compilation GamerGate” or “The TRUTH about the CHRISTCHURCH SHOOTER! TURNS OUT THE MOSQUE GOERS THREW THEMSELVES ON THE TRAJECTORY OF THE BULLETS” content that get pushed by the algorithm on impressionable youths.