We'll Never Ever Do Social Control Media, Nate Silver's Article Helps Explain Why
Our friends at SN (SoylentNews) have this new discussion about Nate Silver's latest lengthy piece, which asserts that "[s]ocial media has become a freak show" (and we agree fully!) because it attracts partisan trolls and chaos.
With the emphasis below added by us: "But every now and then, a FiveThirtyEight article would “go viral” on News Feed. When this happened, it seemed literally almost completely random. It wasn’t even particularly well-correlated with the headline. And it was inversely correlated with the depth and quality of the article. But here’s the thing: that “viral” traffic was almost worthless. A lot of it quite literally consisted of people who visited the site for 5 to 30 seconds, read a paragraph or two, and never returned."
From the discussion moderated by SN's Jan Rinok: "In Reddit I see recommendations and stuff that I suspect to be "astroturfing" or similar e.g. have someone ask a question about the novel you are trying to promote."
Yes, Reddit has Microsoft "astroturfing" (on the payroll).
If you wish to waste time dealing with astroturfers, then by all means go to Social Control Media.
If you want to research and publish, stay away from it. █
Two months ago: Quitting Reddit (Social Control Media Controlled by Conde Nast)