Yeah, remember how the internet radicalized the Bolshevik movement in 1917?
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[Verge] The fight against toxic gamer culture comes to the classroom
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Probably because the algorithm is most likely designed to push you twords content that it thinks will make you stay on the site. Unfortunately a lot of prominent subgroups have reactionary elements that will lead you down the rabbit hole.
I don't think it's fair to blame technology for what is ultimately a social problem.
Unless you're consciously aware of how the algorithms work and are taking steps to avoid exposure to the worst of the worst, a Youtube binge can be quite a bit worse than a steady TV diet of Fox News.
And it's frustrating to think that there's no real incentive for the powers that be to change any of it.
And it's frustrating to think that there's no real incentive for the powers that be to change any of it.
Oh wow. Okay.
"Verge: GamerGate In The Classroom - (How youth radicalized on the internet make education risky and scary)"
And you don't know how Russia would be defined now? So you have absolutely no clue about what you're talking about.
"But what about the far left!"
It doesn't exist as a radicalising movement of hate.
Thats what the article is about.
Are you aware that you're just shit posting and derailing the thread to be about your unrelated comments rather than the article?
This thing has been incubating for quite a while though, conservative groups harnessing social media and game culture from the very beginning to influence a very susceptible type of person (young, lonely, disenfranchised male), radicalize them and breed the next generation of conservatism right in time to replace the old generation. So I guess I'd see gamergate stuff as more of a symptom of all the work that went into this (but GG was definitely used as a great leverage point in this crusade).
Up until 2 years ago I was teaching communication classes at a small private college, and hoo-boy....
Over the course of my almost 10 years of teaching public speaking, I saw the most extreme speeches go from someone timidly doing an anti-abortion speech, to students straight up doing "why rape culture is a myth" type garbage that they clearly got from certain YouTube personalities. And this was at a school with a large Criminal Justice department, with some of the most troubling speeches coming from future cops...
It wasn't the reason I left, but by the end I felt like I had failed as an educator as YouTube slowly consumed my classes semester after semester.
Over the course of my almost 10 years of teaching public speaking, I saw the most extreme speeches go from someone timidly doing an anti-abortion speech, to students straight up doing "why rape culture is a myth" type garbage that they clearly got from certain YouTube personalities. And this was at a school with a large Criminal Justice department, with some of the most troubling speeches coming from future cops...
It wasn't the reason I left, but by the end I felt like I had failed as an educator as YouTube slowly consumed my classes semester after semester.
Sorry, wasn't my intention , I am out of here, continue with whatever you wanted to discuss.
spman2099, thank you for your answers, truly appreciated both the answers and the tone they were given in, contrary to others'.
Technology - the internet, the smartphone, YT's algorithms - didn't spring forth fully formed from the head of Zeus. It's a self-perpetuating issue. People have biases; biases get coded into platforms; biases get reinforced. Safiya Noble's book on this is particularly good, I think.
Bo is great - an essential scholar for where we are now - and I'm not at all surprised they'd be targeted in this way. I hate that this is my reaction. But I'm in an academic working group on digital aggression and the first thing we did - before working on anything at all! - was figure out how to protect everything we were doing, every access point we were creating, etc. Nothing got made if it wasn't safe. Preparing for the inevitable has become part of the scholarship and I'm so jaded over it.
Somewhat ironically, I'm at slightly more conservative campus and we don't get quite as much overt pushback in our humanities games courses, which are filled with coders and designers. We've been really lucky, compared to what I hear from others in the field.
This is a large part of the reason why I left the education field. It's a sinking ship in many regards. Parents aren't doing their jobs, teachers aren't doing their jobs, and the educational system as a whole is underfunded and hasn't kept up with technological advances. There are a huge number of variables at play as to why it all sucks, and this is just one of them.
That said, as far as this specific article goes - parents need to keep up to date with what their kids are consuming. Screens have become an absolute addiction, and YouTube shouldn't be used as a babysitter or evening activity for impressionable minds without parents knowing and controlling what their kids are consuming or being shown. Additionally, phones need to be unavailable in the class, hard stop. There is no need for any student to have a phone in a classroom, but they should all have a (school-controlled) laptop for education.
That said, as far as this specific article goes - parents need to keep up to date with what their kids are consuming. Screens have become an absolute addiction, and YouTube shouldn't be used as a babysitter or evening activity for impressionable minds without parents knowing and controlling what their kids are consuming or being shown. Additionally, phones need to be unavailable in the class, hard stop. There is no need for any student to have a phone in a classroom, but they should all have a (school-controlled) laptop for education.
That's not at all how algorithms work.
You can make them work that way by design, but it's a wholly conscious decision, and if that's your argument, then fine.
Programming isn't some expressive artform that pours the coders soul onto the canvas.
Learn this as soon as posible:
Far right = Fascism
Far left = Anti Fascism
"Antifas" exist to defeat fascism. "Far right and far left is the same dog with different collar" is the biggest lie you will ever hear. As you've been told already by spman2099, the far right leads to misogyny, racism, homophobia, and violence, while the far left fights so that shit doesn't happen.
Thing is, you cannot stand between the two and think "I won't take part on this", because that means you are ok with the racism, sexism, homophobia etc". You are either one or the other. Want it or not. Usually people who "chose" to stand aside, is people that lives in a "comfort bubble", either because they were born as a "socially acceptable member of the society" (the classic Straight white man, sounds cliché, but shit's real) or either because they are born on the "money side", which conforms a barrier between you and a society with their problems.
Cheers.
Yea, the reason I posted this in the gaming forum, beyond the obvious GamerGate reference, is that I think there's something UNIQUELY positioned about gaming content that not only reaches youth, but resonates with youth. Not only are games already targetting youth, but there's toxicity in gaming and gaming culture that makes this behavior seem normal and accepted - even desirable. Yes absolutely, this effect is keenly felt elsewhere and no one is claiming that nationalism and facism originated from video games XD. And certainly there are very influential figures and groups that don't have anything to do with gaming. And yet, we can't deny that there's something immensely powerful and confirming for kids when people they look up to, doing the things like to do (gaming), seem to validate their base instincts (it's ok to be angry and hateful when others don't do what you want. Screw what society or institutions want from you, you deserve this).
So much stuff is already black and white for kids, and that means that introducing ideas early on is not just something that sorts itself out. That often makes gaming ground zero. Conversely, I think there is room for gaming to be something that can also powerfully speak to issues and feelings that are difficult to convey otherwise. Saw someone play through LIS2: Ep1 today. They were surprised by how political it was, but they also appreciated seeing that perspective and having it presented in a way that they and I could never personally understand. Certainly doesn't make me an expert, just a tiny bit more empathetic.
Man.. that sucks and that's extremely scary.
Sorry that you were misunderstood here, I hope that wasn't our intentions either. I don't get the sense that you were speaking in bad faith. While I believe there is essentially no reason to give far right ideology any room for discussion whatsoever, I think the way that we go about handling that certainly matters, as well. I know that I sometimes can jump on smaller things or problematic phrasing in an unproductive way, and I'll apologize that I or anyone has allowed that to happen here. The ends often do not justify the means. It kind of speaks to how difficult it can be to have these conversations without talking past one another, especially when we're so primed for conflict (which is a terrible state to try to do anything constructive in, somewhat to Dr. Monkey 's experience). Don't let me pull you back if you're done, but it would be a shame to accidentally silence potentially constructive voices before they ever get a chance to be.
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Algorithms are really going bit everyone in the ass when they promote harmful things so easily and the sites don't adjust quickly enough.
The bias itself likely doesn't exist in the algorithm. I agree that if the platforms took these issues seriously these students wouldn't be radicalized as easily, but I don't think the algorithm itself is the issue, and that the issue is with the moderation of these platforms.
The person I quoted is saying that smartphones being widespread caused people to be radicalized. It's not unlike the people who think Facebook and Russia are why Trump got elected.
No one said it was an expressive art form. But programs and platforms - and indeed all tech creations - aren't separate from the humans who create them, either. I reiterate my book suggestion here.
I have definitely had kids in my classes that I can tell will grow up to be alt-right shitbags. Usually the way I try to combat this is by looking at works by people from marginalized communities and relating it to what's going on today. If I can get one of those kids to SEE the difference between black nationalism as outlined by Malcolm X and modern white nationalism, regardless of whether they agree with X, I count that as a victory.
That's the most I can do, man. They spend WAY more time with YouTube than they do with me.
That's the most I can do, man. They spend WAY more time with YouTube than they do with me.
We couldn't even get one page without some enlightened centrism it seems.
I had some random survey pop up last week in the Youtube app asking about what problems I had with the homepage main feed. I dont really have any issues with it but told them a lot of videos were offensive and not relevant to my interest. Seems maybe they are starting to take a look at it.
I still disagree. I still think this is most a matter of society and education rather than anything else.
We can speak a lot about that, but this is not the sub to do it (AND I don't have time AND english is not my native language).
I think the issue in this thread is that people seem to be assuming that either far right or far left are terms that mean anything. The number of (completely contradictory) beliefs that have been given those labels is almost unending. (At least, outside proper academic discourse, where I assume they're much more careful with words.)
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Just wait. 5 to 9 years from now, they'll be in the workforce 😑
I work with kids, and I've had a handful of conversations with the older ones (11 to 13) about gamergate, and it's chilling to see how present this shit is in their life. Many of them have been exposed to racist/misogynistic hate messaging and recruitment via video game communities, and not all of them have the intuitio/knowledge to know that it's trash ideology.
We need to be teaching feminism and anti-racism to kids from birth. And we need Google to completely disable the algorithms that allow people to access and discover hate content on youtube.
We need to be teaching feminism and anti-racism to kids from birth. And we need Google to completely disable the algorithms that allow people to access and discover hate content on youtube.
Lmao imagine bothsiding this issue, getting called out by several people and leaving the thread with this gem. You learned nothing. Talk about unchanging 'world views'.
This is indeed a serious problem. I lived through the high school with most of us kids being "blank slates", with some exceptions (I had a classmate who was pretty much a spanish nationalist and he vandalized some leftist monuments here in my town, but I think he didn't go beyond that), so this is indeed really worrying.
The article, I think, tackles everything that I think it's a problem when try to "unlearn" people: A complete rebuttal of facts won't be enough, because they are gonna link it with "leftism conspiracies" and stuff, and that's truly a problem.
True enough. I think people usually add the "Far" ettiquete to some political side, when they believe the main issue with the described side is that they are violent (like, physically violent, I guess), which is, like you said, pretty much meaningless (just condemning violence for the sake of condemning violence without contextualizing it will always misguide people).
The article, I think, tackles everything that I think it's a problem when try to "unlearn" people: A complete rebuttal of facts won't be enough, because they are gonna link it with "leftism conspiracies" and stuff, and that's truly a problem.
True enough. I think people usually add the "Far" ettiquete to some political side, when they believe the main issue with the described side is that they are violent (like, physically violent, I guess), which is, like you said, pretty much meaningless (just condemning violence for the sake of condemning violence without contextualizing it will always misguide people).
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Most students wouldn't even notice it in a lecture class of 260.
But it is most certainly creepy as shit, especially for a professor. It's stalking behavior.
It was published August 21, 2019.
I went to college in the fall of 2003 and that seems like an eternity now. By the time I graduate in 2007 social media was around, but it was in its infancy. My campus didn't have wi-fi options, and the vast majority of the students took their notes on paper with a pen or pencil. As I get older I look back on that time as a window into society where the tech was becoming available, but it hadn't matured enough to resemble what we have now. Hell, my freshman year the entire campus had an internet blackout for the ENTIRE YEAR because of ISP issues. Nowhere on campus had access to the internet, so all of your research had to be done by book at the library using the card-catalogue system. It was a pain, but it wasn't such a pain that any of us really bitched. Just a couple of years later such a thing would have been unthinkable.
I bring this all up not because I want to advertise that I'm an oldie, but because 2007 isn't that long ago. Yet, in just the 12 short years since I graduated it feels like college is worlds different from what I remember. This toxic culture of anti-intellectualism either didn't exist on my campus, or was so far underground that I didn't see it. It's scary how far it has gone and how fast it has happened. It would never have even dawned on me to record a professor to blackmail them or to run a hit campaign. Sites like Rate My Professor did exist, but they weren't taken very seriously and were mostly ignored because everyone knew that they were already cesspools. But the tech and people's behavior has changed so much in that time that it really does feel like a frightening world.
I bring this all up not because I want to advertise that I'm an oldie, but because 2007 isn't that long ago. Yet, in just the 12 short years since I graduated it feels like college is worlds different from what I remember. This toxic culture of anti-intellectualism either didn't exist on my campus, or was so far underground that I didn't see it. It's scary how far it has gone and how fast it has happened. It would never have even dawned on me to record a professor to blackmail them or to run a hit campaign. Sites like Rate My Professor did exist, but they weren't taken very seriously and were mostly ignored because everyone knew that they were already cesspools. But the tech and people's behavior has changed so much in that time that it really does feel like a frightening world.
They aren't joking, my little sister is in high school and has multiple friends who believe in flat earther shit. They got it from YouTube and also famous people (like athletes) pushing it.
Yep. Gamergate had a major impact in social discussion on the internet. It gave right wingers the playbook for how to fight feminism, progressivism, and liberalism.
The sci-fi/fantasy novel space had it's own gamergate situation a few years ago. Right wingers manipulating the Hugo awards under the guise of just wanting "apolitical" books when it was actually a push against progressive authors and novels.
The sci-fi/fantasy novel space had it's own gamergate situation a few years ago. Right wingers manipulating the Hugo awards under the guise of just wanting "apolitical" books when it was actually a push against progressive authors and novels.
My only silver lining is that colleges across the board are hurting right now, due to high school graduation rates/college enrollment being at a generational low. Gen-Z is a much smaller cohort than Boomers or Millennials, being the kids of Gen-X.
The next real "baby boom" in college aged kids is going to be a number of years from now, as the oldest millenials' kids reach college age.
Hopefully the parents b.1985-2000 can prepare their kids better for the horrors of social media/tube sites than their gen-x counterparts, who were almost completely caught with their pants down.
Have the campus buy cellphone Jammers and kill WiFi in certain classrooms.
I hope you know how cowardly that was. Do you always run away when your opinion is confronted?
Unconscious bias is a thing and can creep in in many ways. It's a real danger with AI and ML and we need to be very much on top of these teachings as more and more programming shifts to ML
This shouldn't be your takeaway.
What you and everyone should learn from this is that we are transitioning from a stage were actions on the internet don't stay on the internet.
Make no mistake we are moving into a state where various subcultures online get organized to have real world effects and our most dangerous subcultures will increasingly engage in terrorism and bullying to further their agenda.
Oh no, I don't disagree at all. I agree that this is a matter of society and education, not sure what else it could be haha. But, I'm ALSO saying that gaming is a big part and has a strong influence on society and culture - particularly in the sphere around children (and thus education).
Oh, come on. While not the same dog with a different collar, it's a lot more fair to say that far left = anarcho-communism as an opposition to extreme nationalist and fascism.
And for you "Anarcho-communism" is the same as " extreme nationalist fascism"? Also, what is "anarcho-communism"? Does that even exist? Both seek the abolition of the state, but appart from that...
Where did I say it was the same? Just diametrically opposed in terms of ideology.
That's what I said. "Same dog, different collar" is a lie, when people say Leftists are the same as far right people.
I just thought your description of "far right = people for fascism" and "far left = people against fascism" was egregiously wrong.
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Oh sorry, in what am I exactly wildly egregiously wrong? Are you gona speak a little bit more of "Anarcho-Communism"?