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Do social media platforms perform an analysis of potential societal impact of new features they introduce? If so, what are their methodologies?
I was wondering whether social media platforms perform any reflection or even more in depth analysis of the potential impact on society that they features they introduce could have. For example, the retweet button on Twitter causes a lot of disruption (flame warms, disinformation…etc), and the creator of it has since publicly stated he regretted it. However, has this served as a lesson? Do any of the platforms have any methodologies they use to analyze this before a feature is introduced?
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1 Reply
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Watch “the social dilemma” documentary. Its pretty interesting. Generally it seems the answer is one of three.
1)they don’t know, they don’t care
2) they know, they don’t care
3) they know, they’re using it to manipulate society -
My sense is that there’s a ton of research done. But it’s mainly within academic circles. Some journalists have been really vocal about it and provided platforms. I like Nick Bilton’s work a lot. He has a podcast called The Hive but also used to be the Tech Editor at NYTimes.
I know for a fact that Tiktok has in-house subject matter experts on the impact of social media. They make recommendations based on research and analysis before a feature is introduced.
But we’re unlikely to see IG ads, sharing information about all the social impact they are having (bc I think most of it is harmful).
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