I feel like this article has more than a whiff of pearl clutching, but it is describing something very real and prompts a lot of hard thinking about the Internet in general.
In short -- children's programming on the Internet doesn't even rise to the level of pablum and it's an obvious example of how mis-aligned incentives and algorithms can get a little bonkers.
https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2
I agree with your assessment. I also think this article could've been written in the form of the classic 5-paragraph essay, and been much clearer for the brevity. My take-away is that the internet is still full of crap no one, let alone a child, should watch.
ReplyDeleteLeah Bloom I think the fact that a lot of this crap is auto-generated unpleasantly fascinating. I also assume that at some point kids want something cohesive in their media, but wonder what a steady diet of robo-junk does to that process.
ReplyDeleteI'm troubled by the fact that companies like Google throw their hands up at problems like this as though the problems were gravity that can't be controlled rather than parts of systems they've created and own and control.
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