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[–] 32 points 5 days ago (11 children)

Social media. It's unregulated, and allowing people to fall into echo chambers of hate. When all you see is unchallenged radical nonsense you become a radical. The social media companies don't care what people see, just that they stay on the apps as long as possible. Young men are a particularly vulnerable group - when you feel disenfranchised and worried for the future you're the perfect target for easy answers from hate groups. And if you get fed more and more of that crap because you watched a bit, it soon becomes all you see unchallenged.

We urgently need social media regulation across Europe - not bans for children (pointless) but complete reform of social media to benefit all ages. Control of the algorithms need to be taken out of the hands of the big US & Chinese tech companies who use to to create addiction and maximise "engagement" to maximise profit, and instead it needs to be run for the benefit of the citizens / user. Public Service Social Media is what we need - much like Public Service Television ensured balanced and healthy TV across Europe in the 20th and early 21st century, we need the same for social media.

Social media is the common factor between the rise in far right hate groups across the UK, US, France, Germany, Italy and more. The changes in the Netherlands are a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 days ago

    Social media is unregulated but also in the hands of billionaires. Most of which absolutely hate democracy and think we, the general population are an obstacle to overcome as they work to replace us with machines.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago*

    Social media is practically universal; that does not explain why young men are the most right-swinging group. I don't think it's just an emergent situation like you suggest. I think that they are swinging hardest because they are most vulnerable to the intentional manipulation we are all experiencing.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 days ago (8 children)

    While I think the current corporate structure of social media is fucked, I absolutely 100% do not want the government controlling feeds, content, or communication. That’s a path that will lead to an even worse outcome than the path we’re currently on.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago (4 children)

    How is the government controlling social media worse than Zuckerberg or Musk doing so?

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago (3 children)

    Think about the current US government.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    Well, we are in c/Europe community so that's not really a government I'm thinking of.

    But besides: There's hardly any difference between US government controlled and US billionaire controlled social media. And frankly, both are orders of magnitudes worse than EU government controlled social media.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    See the danger is that you can’t rely on the European government being the same forever, and by the time you realize it’s too late…I mean look at the slow frog boil second rising of v the right in Europe right now

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    Control as in decide whats allowed and whats not? No thank you.

    Control as in enforcing people placing illegal content on the internet, from child pron to hate speech to sexual harrasment to doxxing? Yes please. The regular internet and social media should be as safe as the physical world.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Defining what is illegal content is exactly the issue. A photo of two women kissing might be fine where you live for now, but in Saudi Arabia that would be quite problematic.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago

    Totally, a government choices should be held accountable. Which is why giving the government power is only a good thing in fully functional democracies. I agree. But a Saudi based company is not likely to give you a better treatment as the Saudi government. But either way, on someone else's platform you'll have to adhere to someone else's rules. I like how the Fediverse gives us our own houses with our own rules.

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