How to make a viral platfrom \ stacker news ~meta

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3611 sats \ 12 comments \ @Michelson_Morley 15 Sep 2023 meta

"Rotten bananas, sold for $5000!"

This is the essence of what tiktok, twitter, youtube, and other recommendation systems do.

There's been some discussion about how stacker.news should orient / organize itself to grow further. This post is about how explosive growth actually does happen, virality, which is probably not common knowledge or obvious.

"The Algorithm" is not mysterious. Here it is: Twitter doesn't try to show posts that you'll like— it tries to show you posts that are overvalued. They are mediocre but have tons of likes. This makes you want to tweet. Because if "Rotten bananas are being sold for $5000", and you have fresh bananas, whoa! You're rich! But then you tweet and it doesn't get as many likes as you were led to believe.

It is a general rule. Show people 1% good content, 99% overvalued content. This makes people sell their bananas on your site. It also makes people a little crazy. But that's how you do it. Why did Trump become viral? Because he trolled. It isn't inherently evil, it just forces attention on you.

Twitter, tiktok, etc, are troll systems. This is why people "quit twitter" saying it's hurting their health. Walking around in a market where rotten bananas seemingly sell for $5000, while your fresh bananas barely sell at all, will make you lose your sanity.

Stacker.news can leverage this as well: don't optimize for "getting people to zap" or "showing people good content", optimize for showing people content that has more zaps than quality. Overvalued content. This will lead to people creating content of their own. And becoming a little crazy.

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785 sats \ 1 reply \ @tom335 15 Sep 2023

Good take on it... I mean, when using Twitter and YouTube, there was something obviously "out of sight" for me or that feeling that we're being trolled. Of course we immediately think "oh is the algorithm" as most people nowadays keep repeating, as if they know what happens.

Twitter now is a bit (a tiny bit) better, but YT is pure shit, you cannot even comment there, every possible word is censored and shadow banned.

However, I didn't get exactly the practical aspects of what you mean with "overvalued", mainly because, for people liking something, it cannot be faked unless you buy likes, what we know that is possible but not so viable, economically. It's also obvious that YT specially promotes content that works for their interests.

Rotten bananas is a nice explanation, though, at least for me. I would just add that, maybe the content that become viral is not overvalued for YT: they choose and promote content that is valuable for them. And for most people, that content is just average, but as they don't have the critical view to dismiss shitty stuff, they just consume it, and give likes and shares.

I frequently make some experiments, using YouTube anonymously. I reset the connection, got another IP, a what the platform recommends is ALWAYS the same. Lots of bullshit, childish stuff, porn disguised of something else, terrible music, woke agenda, extreme leftist political views, and many, many other disgusting garbage.

If that is truly viral, we can lose all hope in humanity. But it's not, YT recommends always the same thing, regardless of the audience. Things only start to change if you're logged in and start interacting with some videos. Still, YT keeps trying to fool and trap you with some other content.

Maybe I miss the point here, but if we bring the same idea of selling rotten bananas, we'll also dismiss the opportunity of creating something more positive. It's possible to promote things that are interesting for people, while not turning SN a suicide machine. Yes it's soo frustrating to see idiotic posts on Twitter being so hyped, but life is a thing.

728 sats \ 0 replies \ @Michelson_Morley OP 15 Sep 2023

what the platform recommends is ALWAYS the same ... Lots of bullshit

Exactly. To be specific, platforms like youtube want to know if you're a creator or a lurker; if you're never going to make anything anyway its fine to show you less overvalued stuff.

What would you show a new user, who potentially is a high quality bass player? Would you show the best bass player ever? Or would you show them a mediocre bass player with 10 million followers?

On twitter everyone (pretty much) is a potential creator, it's not hard to tweet. They can troll more than youtube.

I'm not sure it's the end of hope for humanity though, like all strategies it's just something to be aware of. You can beat a troll simply by not feeding it. You can get food by being a troll.

A particularly insidious example is OnlyFans. Many people (myself included, for a long time) carry the idea around that if you're a hot girl, you can easily get rich on onlyfans. That's what they want you believe. But try it, sell your fresh bananas, and it's not so easy. And then, well. "Whats wrong with me?". Nothing, your bananas are just fine. It's just a troll.

1471 sats \ 5 replies \ @k00b 16 Sep 2023

This is well reasoned and insightful. Is this whistleblown somewhere or did you deduced it yourself?

Even if I know they work and find them intellectually stimulating, I'm not interested in using dark patterns. What motivates me to build is to make and discover who I am. I want that person to be great and feel great about who they are. My goal with SN is to create what I want and not what I can trick people into wanting.

Fundamentally I want what's relevant and true fast (as do most people according to a market researcher that I know). If your virality hack is true, it's an example of what's wrong with The Old Ways.

728 sats \ 3 replies \ @Michelson_Morley OP 16 Sep 2023

Most was whistleblown by a leak from Tiktok a while back, sadly I didn't invent it myself :)

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 16 Sep 2023

I can find news articles on the leak but not the source.

You wouldn't happen to know where to find the leaked memo would you?

1943 sats \ 1 reply \ @Michelson_Morley OP 16 Sep 2023

For sure. I think I read about it in the sort-of-classic "Enshittification" article on Wired.

https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

A few pages down is the text

TikTok's parent company, citing multiple internal sources, revealing the existence of a "heating tool" that TikTok employees use to push videos from select accounts into millions of viewers' feeds.

These videos go into TikTok users' For You feeds, which TikTok misleadingly describes as being populated by videos "ranked by an algorithm that predicts your interests based on your behavior in the app." In reality, For You is only sometimes composed of videos that TikTok thinks will add value to your experience—the rest of the time, it's full of videos that TikTok has inserted in order to make creators think that TikTok is a great place to reach an audience.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 16 Sep 2023

Thanks that's better than what I was able to find but it's still more colored than I'd like.

Your framing is way more straightforward than theirs.

60 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 16 Sep 2023

My goal with SN is to create what I want and not what I can trick people into wanting.

This is gentlemen.

60 sats \ 1 reply \ @Tjacten 15 Sep 2023

Sometimes those platforms felt rigged at times. Like there's some lobbying going on in the background.