The study is based on having LLMs decide to amplify one of the top ten posts on their timeline or share a news headline. LLMs aren’t people, and the authors have not convinced me that they will behave like people in this context.
The behavioral options are restricted to posting news headlines, reposting news headlines, or being passive. There’s no option to create original content, and no interventions centered on discouraging reposting. Facebook has experimented with limits to reposting and found such limits discouraged the spread of divisive content and misinformation.
I mostly use social media to share pictures of birds. This contributes to some of the problems the source article discusses. It causes fragmentation; people who don’t like bird photos won’t follow me. It leads to disparity of influence; I think I have more followers than the average Mastodon account. I sometimes even amplify conflict.
The study is based on having LLMs decide to amplify one of the top ten posts on their timeline or share a news headline. LLMs aren’t people, and the authors have not convinced me that they will behave like people in this context.
The behavioral options are restricted to posting news headlines, reposting news headlines, or being passive. There’s no option to create original content, and no interventions centered on discouraging reposting. Facebook has experimented with limits to reposting and found such limits discouraged the spread of divisive content and misinformation.
I mostly use social media to share pictures of birds. This contributes to some of the problems the source article discusses. It causes fragmentation; people who don’t like bird photos won’t follow me. It leads to disparity of influence; I think I have more followers than the average Mastodon account. I sometimes even amplify conflict.