Thread by @dynamicsymmetry

Watching the FB whistleblower hearing and I have to say that I’m frustrated by how much this is centering on THINK OF THE CHILDREN

The problems there are real! I’m not saying they aren’t! But I’ve been listening for like half an hour and not once has anyone mentioned political radicalization, while we’ve spent like a third of that time on how scary it is that kids have accounts their parents don’t know about

And anytime discourse like this plays heavily on parental paranoia it just… it does not tend to end well.

I’m very concerned about teens stricken by depression stemming from issues with body image. I’m also pretty concerned about teens being exposed to conspiracy theories and hate speech and I think maybe the people in this hearing should be too!

But see, there are a lot of Republicans in this room, and focusing on the latter might make some of them uncomfy, so

We are 36 minutes in and the first time anyone has mentioned radicalization is Haugen herself, just now, in her opening statement

The focus on kids on the part of the senators may be genuine but it’s also profoundly political and convenient, let’s be real about that

I don’t think it’s ridiculous to suppose that they’re looking for a public show of Bipartisanship at a really prickly time, and focusing to any significant extent on misinformation and conspiracy theories would not work in favor of that, because only some are implicated.

Anyway I’m only some of the way in so maybe that changes but so far I’m not sanguine

NONE of these people except Haugen so far has even mentioned Myanmar

I am annoyed

GENOCIDE IS A LIL BIT IMPORTANT, BLUMENTHAL

Nope, we’re back to THINK OF THE CHILDREN again

I really do not want to minimize how much of a problem that part of this is, but like I said, genocide is

A lil bit

Important

Right, and the sheer import of that list right there is part of what’s so damning. Focusing on one item to the exclusion of others lets FB off the dang hook

https://twitter.com/ianrosewrites/status/1445427378298130437

Okay, they are at least mentioning radicalization and misinformation a bit more. I’m still uneasy about the overall focus here

(Why am I uneasy? Because this sort of thing often works to justify shit like FOSTA/SESTA, that’s why)

I think it’s worth noting that engagement-based ranking is part of what drove me off FB. Once my feed was no longer chronological I felt like I was losing control over my own gd account, it was a visceral negative response.

The same thing has kept me from engaging on Instagram in any serious way, and it’s made me increasingly frustrated with Twitter.

And the fact is that it’s bad for the bottom line to show us things in chronological order.

For me, it literally is about how I process information. When it’s non-chronological I get disoriented and uncomfortable, I feel not only that I’ve lost control but that I don’t actually know what’s going on.

And that’s because I have lost control, and I don’t know what’s going on

We already know that this arrangement of information for users has been a major part of the epistemological crisis, but I wonder if it’s also a big part of what’s made so many of us feel so profoundly unmoored in time

I just don’t think our brains are built for this