> My path in technology started at Facebook where I was the first Director of Monetization. [...] we sought to mine as much attention as humanly possible and turn into historically unprecedented profits. We took a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook, working to make our offering addictive at the outset.
> Tobacco companies [...] added sugar and menthol to cigarettes so you could hold the smoke in your lungs for longer periods. At Facebook, we added status updates, photo tagging, and likes, which made status and reputation primary and laid the groundwork for a teenage mental health crisis.
> Allowing for misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fake news to flourish were like Big Tobacco’s bronchodilators, which allowed the cigarette smoke to cover more surface area of the lungs.
> Tobacco companies added ammonia to cigarettes to increase the speed with which nicotine traveled to the brain. Extreme, incendiary content—think shocking images, graphic videos, and headlines that incite outrage—sowed tribalism and division. And this result has been unprecedented engagement -- and profits. Facebook’s ability to deliver this incendiary content to the right person, at the right time, in the exact right way... that is their ammonia.
> The algorithm maximizes your attention by hitting you repeatedly with content that triggers your strongest emotions — it aims to provoke, shock, and enrage. All the while, the technology is getting smarter and better at provoking a response from you. [...] This is not by accident. It’s an algorithmically optimized playbook to maximize user attention -- and profits.
> When it comes to misinformation, these companies hide behind the First Amendment and say they stand for free speech. At the same time, their algorithms continually choose whose voice is actually heard. In truth, it is not free speech they revere. Instead, Facebook and their cohorts worship at the altar of engagement and cast all other concerns aside, raising the voices of division, anger, hate and misinformation to drown out the voices of truth, justice, morality, and peace.
The Master Settlement Agreement in 1998 [1] had no statistical impact on the rate reduction of smoking - the rate of decline of smokers is the same now as it was in 1965.
The tobacco industry is more profitable than ever and they are diversifying into nicotine delivery vehicles like vapes, gum [2]. So the underlying goal - increase nicotine dependence across the global population and capture the nicotine consumption market is still going strong.
Much like the desire to be intoxicated, the desire to influence people will never go away. It's baked into our biology. Everyone in this thread interacting with each other is trying to influence everyone else. Facebook etc... is just doing successfully what Bernays dreamed of.
You can beat these platforms all you want - just like the tobacco industry was beat. The problems will just surface elsewhere in a different form.
Attack the root issue - ban advertising. oh and do it in a way that allows for "free speech." The challenge of the century.
[0]https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agre...
[2]https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-tobacco-industry-rebounds-f...
I say this not because I think we should just give up and not ban advertising but because I'm curious how it might be done effectively.
Hence, why I think it really is (one of) the hardest challenges of our century: How do you eliminate or severely restrict influence vectors?
Who/how determines what qualifies as good/bad influence or reality?
Should positive (however defined) influence be allowed/promoted?
Not sure this one is solvable as it would require a global optimization vector which we don't (and maybe can't) generate.