36 votes

How much of the internet is fake?

7 comments

  1. [4]
    TheInvaderZim
    Link
    This article is the reason why small (and more particularly, closed) communities like Tildes are so important. I actually came here to check out any discussion when I finished reading it because...
    • Exemplary

    This article is the reason why small (and more particularly, closed) communities like Tildes are so important. I actually came here to check out any discussion when I finished reading it because of how relevant this particular platform is.

    I'm speaking from the frame of mind of an advertiser, as advertising itself is currently in crisis. On the one hand, I can go and buy the front page of reddit for a day (the whole thing, a post across every major subreddit) for less than $100,000. MAYBE just over that on a busy day. That perpetuates the system in my favor.

    On the other hand, it has become next to impossible to judge just how effective any given effort actually is outside of an actual commitment/purchase metric, which means that huge chunks of any given business (particularly the forward-facing, public-to-anyone bits) are basically wandering in the dark on what works. That perpetuates the system against me.

    That's to say nothing of how actively rejected it has become among the population.

    The only solution to this digital 'inversion' (though I prefer 'singularity' - the moment or set of moments where AI overtakes human endeavors in some way, shape or form) isn't acceptance nor outright rejection. Acceptance, after all, only makes the problems inevitable. Rejection on the other hand, unless taken to mean 'entire system is burned until nothing remains,' only ensures that the problems manifest in more unpredictable ways.

    The solution is to seek out places you CAN trust, and to find other cells within that network which have undergone the same process as yours.

    There are many things in current affairs, current advertising methods included, that will ultimately end up burning until nothing remains. The "social" era of internet is coming to a rapid and unpleasant close, and it will cannibalize itself in an effort to stay sustainable - as is being seen above. News, politics, even some business foundations, will fall victim to the problems outlined in this article.

    Those that survive, and which continue forward, are the methods that are flourishing today - the internet age of the influencer, or the cult of personality if you want. The age of the gated community, or echo chamber if you must. Those face their own problems which will eventually result in their defeat by the next system, but in the immediate future, there is no other alternative. People have to be able to know what's real, or else the falsehoods collapse the entire system, as we're seeing today. So, the next generation of systems will be like Tildes - places which enable that.

    19 votes
    1. [3]
      Deimos
      Link Parent
      This is one of my favorite articles about how ineffective the spending on internet display ads seems to be, due to factors like the ones you mentioned (and this article's already 2 years old now):...

      This is one of my favorite articles about how ineffective the spending on internet display ads seems to be, due to factors like the ones you mentioned (and this article's already 2 years old now): Display Ads: My 3¢ Worth

      9 votes
      1. [2]
        TheInvaderZim
        Link Parent
        I dosagree with a lot of that guy's assertions. Unless youre taking the dumbest, most general route possible, your ads should always be specific enough to track, and a ClickThroughRate of 0.06% is...

        I dosagree with a lot of that guy's assertions. Unless youre taking the dumbest, most general route possible, your ads should always be specific enough to track, and a ClickThroughRate of 0.06% is abhorrent. This is very much a "tv commercial" mindset applied to online ads, which didnt work before the crisis and only continues to not work now.

        I'd like to say I at least finished reading the article before making this point, but... I didnt. The whole thing is built on such assertions.

        4 votes
        1. unknown user
          Link Parent
          I am not really interested in ads (apart from depising them and blocking them unless the ad publisher is kind enough to publish them unintrusively, i.e. w/o leaking my info to 3rd parties), but,...

          I am not really interested in ads (apart from depising them and blocking them unless the ad publisher is kind enough to publish them unintrusively, i.e. w/o leaking my info to 3rd parties), but, with my little knowledge of the topic, I found the article convincing. Would you mind elaborating on why those assertions would be invalid?

          4 votes
  2. Algernon_Asimov
    Link
    I don't even know how to process this. I mean... I knew about all these facts independently, but when they're all listed together like this, it's a bit overwhelming. I've seen...

    I don't even know how to process this. I mean... I knew about all these facts independently, but when they're all listed together like this, it's a bit overwhelming.

    I've seen machine-learning-based chat bots trying themselves out on Reddit. But now I realise I only saw the bad bots or the learning bots; the good and practiced bots would just blend in. You can only tell the bad fakes, because fakes that are good enough are indistinguishable from the real thing. And I suppose the same is true for the internet as a whole: only the bad fakes can be detected.

    I just keep circling back to the meme-joke I know from Reddit: everyone is bots except me.

    14 votes
  3. [2]
    unknown user
    Link
    I'm still in the process off reading this but this passage is incredibly interesting, given, while you scroll down your feed, the videos play automatically. Thus the statistic says nothing but...

    Facebook Watch videos every day — though, as Facebook admitted, the 60 seconds in that one minute didn’t need to be watched consecutively. Real videos, real people, fake minutes.

    I'm still in the process off reading this but this passage is incredibly interesting, given, while you scroll down your feed, the videos play automatically. Thus the statistic says nothing but that people encountered 60 videos while browsing along. That is an evil lie.

    4 votes
    1. top
      Link Parent
      Facebook has no incentive to be truthful and there's no way for an independent audit to find view counts.

      Facebook has no incentive to be truthful and there's no way for an independent audit to find view counts.

      2 votes