Tom, do you ever stop to consider that your opinions are subjective rather than objective truth?

Also, are you aware of the definition of "Liberal arts?"

"Liberal arts generally covers four areas: the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Its central academic disciplines include physics, chemistry, biology, philosophy, logic, linguistics, literature, history, political science, sociology, psychology, and mathematics."

So according to your comment, you think that physics, chemistry and biology are "rubbish" as well as mathematics?

It is a cute story, it sounds ancient. I like that the teacher wanted to warn kids, or get involved in good faith...I am not sure what he would say about some of today's weird rap lyrics. It is not like that anymore, long time has not been like that. Kids are very internet savvy now, the rounds of educators on internet safety and issues come into the classrooms repeatedly, looks like every year. We get a brochure as well so we know what is going on. I would say on average, they do know so much more than their parents and also know what to believe in, how to fact check should they be interested in that. Not like they are, for most parts. They are not like our EFers or the usual grown up internet users trying to prove somebody wrong, looking for legit sounding links, etc. etc. They follow insta, tiktok, visual and fun stuff. Getting quality data is a bit pasé, they get enough of that at school. Internet is for connecting, socially. Not trying to feel important about politics or seeing where the ultimate truth must be.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

How about some liberal art wrapped up in HelloKitty t-shirt..

If you think rap lyrics are the weirdest thing kids are accessing on the net you're a tad out of touch. I think it's troublesome to assume that just because they are adept users they are also aware of the pitfalls. I've lost track of the amount of conversations I've had/assemblies and classes I've participated in where the kids do not understand that the internet is forever. You cannot erase a digital image. Once you send it you lose all control of it. They don't really understand the potentially dangerous reach of viral. A media teacher recently made this point via FB. Posted a request for her task and image to go as far and wide as possible. Asked that everyone who shared the image posted their country and region. It was incredible to watch.

In my experience the average teenager believes Wikipedia only speaks the truth.

Tom: no liberal arts, no Hello Kitty. Or whatever it is you watch.

Excellent.

Glad that you had the chance to get it off your chest.

I think this article that I just came across in the news is a good example of why some degree of censorship is necessary on social media:

Italy targets TikTok after death of child in 'blackout' challenge
https://www.dw.com/en/italy-targets-...nge/a-56322643


"Italian authorities have opened an investigation into the accidental death of a 10-year-old girl in Sicily who allegedly took part in a so-called "blackout" challenge while using the video-sharing network TikTok.

Following a ruling that the girl died of asphyxiation, Italy's data protection authority said it was imposing an immediate temporary block on TikTok's access to data for any user whose age could not be verified.

The social media platform, popular particularly among teenagers worldwide, is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. According to TikTok's terms and conditions, users must be at least 13 years old.

The block will remain in place until February 15 as Sicilian prosecutors continue to investigate the case.

"While waiting to receive a response, the authority decided to take action to ensure the immediate protection of minors in Italy registered on the network," the authority said in a statement.

TikTok 'lacks protection for minors'

The child died in a Palermo hospital after being found on Wednesday by her 5-year-old sister at home in the bathroom with her cellphone, which was seized by police.

Her parents said she had been participating in the so-called "blackout" challenge on TikTok, placing a belt around her neck and holding her breath while recording herself on her cellphone.

"TikTok was her world. And YouTube. That's how she spent her time," the girl's father Angelo Sicomero was quoted as saying in Saturday's Corriere della Sera newspaper."

The last few sentences allude to the real problem. No degree of censorship will solve that.

Sure still hear a lot from cancelled people

...an article in magazine about info in internet: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018...s-some-regrets...

This is the thing that bugs me, anyone now has the facility to publish anything they want, what people talk about when they say they are being cancelled is that they are not popular, but feel, none the less, that they should be force fed down the throats by firms that have built significant user bases.
It’s also fair to say that firms like twitter, fb, and others have profited off sensationalist rhetoric and are now desperate to not be appear to have been actively involved in terrible deeds that have actually cost lives. Cancel culture doesn’t exist, in any real political oppression of free speech, people who are against “cancel culture” are actually against the right of any private individual to moderate their own domains.
And sure, they will try to falsely equate it to other rights, but, given, say, a shop situation, everyone has the right to shop at a store, but everyone also has the right to eject anyone who willfully takes a dump on the shop floor

You mean that it wasn't an accident?

I didn’t the full thread, coz i can’t be bothered, but i think, that yeah, in a way that literally anyone could make themselves a hugely successful platform or product without realising the full implications of what they do, then, yeah, it’s, it’s utterly possible that people can make things and have no idea where it will go.

We live on a world, that, thanks to the internet, literally anyone can build a global business, we can look at the successes and think they were geniuses, in some part, maybe they were, but we can also see businesses like myspace, that were once the dogs bollocs, but are now reduced to the edges, there’s nothing to stop you from just removing these apps and still leave a full life.

No - wilfull means the opposite. I know what you meant, I was just poking around the "wilful" term, it's overused.

I think platforms know where things will go because they manipulate it, stir it certain direction. I know using Trump as an example will trigger - but what he purposely did was to become unpredictable. They had no idea where his things will go. Biden is predictable, clicks will reduce, media will create conflicts and controversy to keep high amount of traffic. I think Trump was temporarily (or for good) kicked out to stir things up more, increase and predict traffic.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

It's not mutually exclusive. Both the site and the kid's addiction to it are problems. And they basically go hand-in-hand because those sites are intentionally designed to be addictive. And of course, kids that age (as well as many adults) don't realize that these sites are designed to program their users' behavior.

Before I deleted my FB account years ago, some people would tell me that that they had tried numerous times to stop using that site but couldn't stay away from it. That's just how powerful the dopamine loop is. Even the infinite scroll function was invented to intentionally trap people because the brain perceives new information as a "reward" / dopamine boost.

New Study Suggests Excessive Social Media Use Is Comparable To Drug Addiction
https://www.addictioncenter.com/news...ial-media-use/

Social Media Is More Addictive Than Smoking
https://www.mensjournal.com/style/so...ctive-smoking/

If sites, apps and platforms are designed to control their users' behavior, wouldn't they also control what politicians their users are going to support?

Twitter for example, quoting google, has 330 million users, world population i see is around 7.7 billion, so twitter users are a quarter, but then i count as a twitter user and i just signed up years ago and ignore it coz it’s full of people, ehm, seem to me, consistently wrong about life in general, coz most of them are just random people who opinionate(like me right now) on things they have no insider knowledge about. Sure, there are very few who actually do know what they’re talking about, but it’s flooded by accounts that know they can get engagement by seeming.
There were a couple of inside stories made years ago by insider information, but for some dumb reason, a lot of people thought that these insights from people in their own industries would translate into them being investigate reporters into things they have no clue about

Ok, 1
Wtf are you talking about
No one designs shit like that

You build something, and then marketing, sales and other bloody normal people look to how to increase sales

Yeah, it does get dark, been thinking of buying the book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Mazes?wprov=sfti1 coz it’s just all ungidued are there are no heroes, read too many extracts