Billionaire LA Times Owner Calls Social Media the 'Cancer' of Our Times

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Billionaire owner of the LA Times and Chairman/CEO of biotech firm NantKwest, Patrick Soon-Shiong is campaigning to change how we consume news. He views social media as a serious problem that is causing issues with this generation's ability to maintain a long enough attention span. He describes social media in these terms, "I say it's the cancer of our time and social media is a form of metastasis of news. We need to change that." He believes that Facebook's desire to advertise creates issues with their ability to identify and deal with Fake News.

He described Facebook as a "advertising facing" organization, and therefore people cannot differentiate from "fake news," "real news" or "opinion news." Late last year, ex-Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya said on CNBC that social media is creating a society that confuses "popularity" with "truth."
 
cageymaru said:
Billionaire owner of the LA Times and Chairman/CEO of biotech firm NantKwest, Patrick Soon-Shiong is campaigning to change how we consume news. He views social media as a serious problem that is causing issues with this generation's ability to maintain a long enough attention span. He describes social media in these terms, "I say it's the cancer of our time and social media is a form of metastasis of news. We need to change that." He believes that Facebook's desire to advertise creates issues with their ability to identify and deal with Fake News.

He described Facebook as a "advertising facing" organization, and therefore people cannot differentiate from "fake news," "real news" or "opinion news." Late last year, ex-Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya said on CNBC that social media is creating a society that confuses "popularity" with "truth."
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While he says this for his own personal reasons based on the fact that newspaper companies are going to the wayside, he is right.
 
While I agree completely, that's not what this is really about. He's just a sore loser. :D

I never touch the stuff (social media). The closest to social I get is about 3-4 forums. Otherwise I communicate directly with my friends and family. Texting is about as removed as I get from that process, but sometimes that's just easier.
 
What's missing is that media outlets, especially print media, missed out heavily on the ad facing gravy train that Facebook and others currently conduct.

Beyond that, social media simply amplifies what current media reports. Social media could be blamed for creating little thought bubbles that people have a hard time escaping, but media outlets with significant pull have a narrow political opinion outlook to begin with. After that is simply a race to the bottom as to how this political pie is divided amongst the populace.

Fox and co might be a joke, but the rest fare only marginally better.
 
doz said:
While he says this for his own personal reasons based on the fact that newspaper companies are going to the wayside, he is right.
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I don't like where main stream news is or was, and most were junk anyway, however hes not wrong either. The main problem being social media and the like really help feed confirmation bias of given groups and thoughts, it offers little to no difference in option or view.

Which is just sad.
 
Working with someone half my age, I still view Social Media's biggest problem just being how people have no attention span anymore. The guy I work with is 22 and is actually pretty good, but I would still estimate on any given work day he gets 50 Snap Chat's and 10-15 texts from other kids his age that are also supposed to be working. And because of my attitude he doesn't respond to most, or that number would triple easily. And its mostly stupid shit, like short vids of someone driving, or his GF telling him she's headed home from school. Then one 10 mins later saying she's home Every fucking day. I constantly wonder what they talk about after work anymore since they already know everything that's happened every moment of the day.

This guy has some agenda, but I'm pretty sure the Times could fold up and he'd still be a multi millionaire a few times over.
 
Krenum said:
100% agree.

People no longer do their research into news stories anymore. People take everything at face value & consider it to be the truth. To much trust has been instilled into social media.
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When did the common people ever do their own research? Rumors, Wives tales, I heard from a friend who knows someone, and the such have been around forever. Social media just makes it easier\faster to spread the bad stuff, but gets zero credit for spreading good things. I'm not a social media guy myself and I can agree that social media has caused a lot of problems for the new generation. But as we've seen the past 2-4 years, Newspapers and our trusted TV news are willing to print\show whatever half truths they want and we're supposed to trust them because they say so.

I do think his hyperbole is a bit much. Last time I checked, Cancer is still the cancer of our time.
 
It's not about what is out there. Shit has always been out there in print. otherwise civilized countries have tabloids and conspiracy rags, AM radio shows etc. None of that has really changed with social media.

What has changed is, the Internet made it a 2-way street which created a self-feeding frenzy that spread like cancer. From that perspective I like the comparison to cancer. A malignant growth that's hard to contain, and it's damaging our social fabric.

The part I don't like about this comparison is that cancer has been around forever. Social media is comparatively new, and it's very much fluctuating and developing. Things could look a lot better in 10 or 20 years, when people have learned how to actually use and view social media. We're not there yet but the fact this discussion is happening all over the place (even in political circles) is a good position. I'm hopeful.
 
As disgusting as it is to refer to something you don't like as cancerous, it probably wouldn't be the worst thing if social media had a similar mortality rate.
 
I agree with the attention span bit.

He believes that Facebook's desire to advertise creates issues with their ability to identify and deal with Fake News.
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Eh, last I checked, advertising and subscriptions paid the majority of the L.A. Times bills.

Most newspapers/magazines are no different when they run full page ads that are designed to look like op-ed articles.
 
Pretty sure cancer is the 'cancer' of our times...though I do agree that most content on the net is toxic sludge.
 
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I totally agree with the guy, i am apprehensive about people on social media, so of the 7 people of my immediate family and my 1 friend that i want to deal with 5 of them are problematic for this reason.
For the same reason companies and institutions on social media i also have issues with, leaving me with a handful or 2 of the remaining sane people on earth.

Also apprehensive about media first and foremost for their bad performance in enlightening the masses, which we sorely need, second for them being on social media too.
 
That's funny, I also consider Billionaire owner of the LA Times cancerous as well. Damn near everything today can cause cancer it seems.
 
Yeah,
A little disingenuous to accuse Facebook of being a slave to advertising...


Really??


However, as others have said, not wrong. I think we all know this stuff.
 
Real news has always been an issue. There's been fake news articles since there was printed media. (think first printing presses) People like to put their spin on things as long as the all mighty dollar or influence is on the line.

This guy can put as much spin on the bullshit he spouts. People have their biases and they speak with their cash and who they support.

Patrick believes the shlock that he is spouting because he's banking on it.
 
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Gweenz said:
Wait wait wait. Yes Facebook sucks, but a fucking billionaire telling us what is killing the country? Point the finger at yourself you fucking asshole.
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Hey hey hey don't you dare criticize the innocent billionaires who have most of their money stashed away in offshore tax havens. That's just them protecting themselves from the evil govt.
 
MrTryfe said:
What's missing is that media outlets, especially print media, missed out heavily on the ad facing gravy train that Facebook and others currently conduct.

Beyond that, social media simply amplifies what current media reports. Social media could be blamed for creating little thought bubbles that people have a hard time escaping, but media outlets with significant pull have a narrow political opinion outlook to begin with. After that is simply a race to the bottom as to how this political pie is divided amongst the populace.

Fox and co might be a joke, but the rest fare only marginally better.
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You think the other TV and Cable stations are better than FOX????? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

They continually run flat out lies as breaking news and spend days upon days with the same lies and then as soon as those are worn out, they move onto new lies until they can't hold onto those anymore.

Then when they are found out they either just drop it or still continue to run the same thing into the ground and never issue correction or retractions.

They are an absolute disgrace and should be sued into oblivion for what they are doing.
 
Krenum said:
100% agree.

People no longer do their research into news stories anymore. People take everything at face value & consider it to be the truth. To much trust has been instilled into social media.
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That's not even the problem. Social media contains the brain vomit of the universe, reading it reduces the collective intelligence. Also as it's addictive, it ruins people in many other ways.
 
This was over a year ago but I sat in on a new hire kid. Normally the "millennial" BS is just that.. BS. We've all been semi-stupid and arrogant when we were kids and the current generation is no different.

That said we had a major issue with this young man because he acquired much of his information about our industry on Wikipedia... which left a giant hole in his understanding of what he had applied to do. That in and of itself wasn't the issue it was more that his response to being corrected was to immediately tell experts in these fields that we were wrong. Over 60 years of experience was sitting across the table at the moment of the interview.

It put into stark contrast a disturbing new trend in which the freedom of access to information in an instant without any effort has distorted a persons ability to trust experience. The sheer ease people can take an old paper from 42 years ago that has been entirely outdated by new research and claim it is doctrine is frankly frightening. So frankly while I don't trust this gentleman's intentions with his comment I am forced to also agree with it to some degree.
 
the 'cancer' of our time is always and has been stupid people. It doesn't matter if they get their stupidity from social media, or the tube, or tv, or before that the equally stupid and bigoted neighbors.

It is about people being able to discern fake news and hearsay from actual factual information. The people who even now say about solar roadways: "yes, but we had to try"

Well not the problem, but the symptom of lack of better education. An education that wouldn't teach useless facts, but critical thinking skills.
But it's the exact opposite now, we have social justice courses teaching how to ignore reason and facts and interpret reality based on feelings.
Of course people coming out at the other end are stupid and fooled by fake news on social media.

Not that there are no fake news in regular news outlets as well. He's just bitter that his fake news is yesterday's fake news.
 
RPKYGK said:
Working with someone half my age, I still view Social Media's biggest problem just being how people have no attention span anymore. The guy I work with is 22 and is actually pretty good, but I would still estimate on any given work day he gets 50 Snap Chat's and 10-15 texts from other kids his age that are also supposed to be working. And because of my attitude he doesn't respond to most, or that number would triple easily. And its mostly stupid shit, like short vids of someone driving, or his GF telling him she's headed home from school. Then one 10 mins later saying she's home Every fucking day. I constantly wonder what they talk about after work anymore since they already know everything that's happened every moment of the day.

This guy has some agenda, but I'm pretty sure the Times could fold up and he'd still be a multi millionaire a few times over.
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He's not talking about snapchat. He's talking about YouTube and facebook where people can sidestep Corporate Media. Snapchat is a conduit for Corporate Media more than any of the others. Corporate Media News, especially, have made complete jokes out of themselves and people were ready to look elsewhere for a long time. They are becoming irrelevant and are going down like bitter old men.
 
The part that I find disingenuous on his part, LA Times and a lot of other publications literally write stories FROM social media posts/blogs and about social media 'celebrities'.
 
Krenum said:
100% agree.

People no longer do their research into news stories anymore. People take everything at face value & consider it to be the truth. To much trust has been instilled into social media.
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It's not that they take it at face value. They use it as "facts" to support their own opinion. They seem to have lost any idea of what differentiates opinion from fact. Social media is an easy target to blame this on, but the truth is the, so called, traditional news outlets are as guilty as any social media site for spreading opinion as fact. There is no such thing as "news". It is all opinion pieces with out of context truths interspersed throughout designed to support a specific point of view.

So, Mr. Newsman, if you want to lay blame for the problems with social media, you need to look at who actually started the problem. Social media is just a natural extension to what has been happening in the 'news' outlets for the last 50 years, or so.

And while the old cliche, "It was on the Internet, it must be true!" has taken on a whole new meaning and created generations of people who cannot differentiate fact from opinion, one does not have to look very far to find where it all started.

Yes, I believe, social media is a bad thing. I also believe news organizations are getting their panties in a wad over it because it is stealing their thunder. You also will not see much done about it due to one simple fact. It is an easy way to manipulate people and guess who benefits from that? Rhetorical question.
 
Simply calling it "cancer" doesn't do it justice.

Pustulating, bloody, inflamed ass cancer...now that's closer to the truth...
 
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