The rise of social media as a primary source of news distribution does more harm than good
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 3 votes and with 2 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Judges
Pro will argue that the rise of social media as a primary source of news distribution does more harm than good.
Con argues that it does better, than harm.
We will use society as a reference, because just this topic alone could be based upon many other things, like emotional, or physical wellbeing.
Definitions:
Social Media: Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.
Good: Benefit or advantage to someone or something.
Harm: Causes/Causing an unfortunate or distressing result/result(s).
Primary Source: A main or essential lead of information that is relied on by default to stay informed.
News Distribution: An organization which collects, processes, and distributes information.
Rules:
BOP is shared (obviously).
One forfeit is allowed for each debater.
We will be judged by how well we presented our evidence, and how well we proved our claims.
This is really close. I want to give the win to con, largely due to his rational consumer but being dropped by that forfeiture; and yet he didn’t really challenge the oh so weak depression point…
In the end, I find neither case convincing.
RFD in comments.
You can also access it in this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pOY9a1bwLbi8_NbXueqZmjcMuCYflkoWQgoQIANbZQg/edit?usp=sharing
A frustratingly low effort affair from both sides that makes the decision far harder than it has to be.
Pro presents a case that amounts to a logical argument premised on statistics that he doesn't present. Bias is a quantifiable metric. Distrust can be evaluated. Apathy/disengagement is quantifiable. Corruption and control efforts are documented - examples should be plentiful. Rates of depression and anxiety are quantifiable and their links to receiving news, specifically, from social media should be sourced information. The link between that and depression and anxiety should be provided. Providing a list of 4 sources at the bottom of your argument without taking any relevant information from them or even showing what arguments those sources support does very little to support your arguments. You cannot expect judges to dig through your sources to find the support you need for your points, and frankly, only the one about bias seems directly relevant to this debate. For that matter, it's important for Pro to distinguish that it's not all of social media that's causing these problems, but the fact that social media is on the rise as the primary source of news distribution. Giving me a coherent story for how that could be harmful is a start, but you keep drifting back and forth between evaluating social media as a whole and evaluating it as a distributor of news. It also really doesn't help when you keep talking about how social media could become a primary source of news distribution. The resolution assumes that it IS a primary source, not that it could become one.
Con's opening is even more frustrating. It's an argument that treats the resolution as necessarily false by saying that, since social media is on the rise, individuals are choosing to engage with it in this way, ergo it does... more good... than harm. Out of R1, that's not an argument. It's just an assertion that rise in use = beneficial to individuals. By R2, that assertion has a link story now that is... another assertion: "people would only choose what is net beneficial". Lovely. The story here just doesn't make any sense, either: Con basically just says that people do things because they find some benefit in it for themselves (not always true, but fine), therefore it's net beneficial, which... doesn't follow. Achieving some benefit does not automatically yield a net benefit for a given choice.
So both sides are asserting a lot in this debate. It really doesn't help that Pro forfeits R3, which was his only opportunity to respond to the expanded reasoning from Con. Still, even without a response, I'm still voting Pro. At least his case had a clearly established set of harms with as much or more elucidation on why they're harmful than what Con gave, and that's excluding the sources which are at least present in the round. Con's only source is an analysis of net balance debates, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. He's essentially placing a burden on Pro to do more weighing analysis, which might be important (emphasis on the "might" - it's a pretty weak burdens argument that's basically just "this is what you should do if you want to do optimally under this framework") if Con had himself compared the benefits for individuals to those harms spelled out by Pro, since you both share that burden. I don't see responses to any of Pro's arguments beyond the fact that they aren't directly sourced. Con doesn't tell me that these arguments don't have merit, so he's conceding them, and since they have more support (logically and evidence-based) than Con's argument, I vote Pro.
lxam copied my debate format by borrowing the definitions and judges, minus Oromagi.
I take it he was a fan of the setup.
Your debate and the Lancelot vs Austin debate both have 4 judges.
4 Judges with winner selection instead of 4-section allocation ends up with ties viable. This is why debates that have limited judges should always have an odd number.
My R1 left details out and many issues are unresolved by the time posted but because there is only a few hrs left I don’t have much time to create a new model. I however believe I am on the right track.
I knew I was probably going to lose when I realized how bad my R1 is. To be fair, Pro R2 was less of an impact than I anticipated but by Con R2 I have forgot what kind of improvements I thought I had, and ended up backing up nearly nothing.
wtf happens if you tie? LOL
😂😂😂
“This isn’t a sufficient explanation, as Con neither has a source nor any argument for why this is a fundamental rule. Indeed, it seems to me -- as Pro points out implicitly, in R2 -- that people make bad decisions all the time, or decisions that don’t consider harms to third parties, like non-users.”
Indeed. I thought of the same too. Sadly I can’t revert to the first round.
Looks like I have lost. No worries, that is what happens when the debate is unrated. Looks like the method have a long way to go and this application is far from its potential. I will keep on adding on to the model when appropriate.
RFD (Pt. 1):
Burdens:
I accept that Pro must prove that the harms of social media outweigh the benefits to win.
This doesn’t mean Pro has to outline every single benefit social media could possibly have, and then explain why the costs outweigh the benefits. It’s sufficient for Pro to outline harms, and argue these harms are so large, no benefit could outweigh them -- at that point, it’s Con’s job to bring up benefits that could potentially outweigh these harms, or to mitigate the scope of Pro’s harms. While it would certainly be good debating to do the cost–benefit analysis in Pro’s case, it is possible for Pro to win that the harms outweigh the benefits without an explicit cost–benefit analysis.
Pro’s case:
Pro has two primary claims.
First, they argue that social media leads to misinformation, as anyone can post any opinion, regardless of verification, on social media.
I’m not sure I credit this much, as, as Con points out, Pro doesn’t have strong evidence for this claim -- just because people can post their opinions on social media doesn’t necessitate that it causes so much misinformation, it causes such substantial effects on global or American politics. However, I accept that Pro has a source suggesting social media biases people’s views somewhat, and reduces their trust in institutional news sources, giving them some offense.
(Pt. 2)
Second, they argue that when social media rises as a source of news, people use it and trust it more, thus amplifying its effects on mental health. They offer some sources -- without really explaining the content in them -- suggesting that social media has worsened mental health in teens, although the link to it rising as a source of news isn’t made clearly enough.
Con’s primary objection is that even if these costs exist, it’s not clear they outweigh the benefit, and Pro’s job is to engage in a cost–benefit analysis. While I accept that Pro doesn’t clearly weigh this against potential benefits, Con names no potential benefit. So I’m left concluding that there have been some harms named in this debate, and no potential benefits named in this debate, so the harms, pretty plausibly, outweigh the benefits.
Con’s case:
In R1, Con argues that people are able to evaluate benefits and costs themselves pretty well, and since social media is rising as a news source, that suggests people have a revealed preference in favor of this.
In R2, Pro contests that people are able to evaluate costs and benefits themselves, saying, “Just because something is rising as a news source doesn’t make it beneficial.”
Con has two warrants for the claim that people can evaluate things like social media themselves.
First, in R2, Con argues that this is a “fundamental rule in economics and decisionmaking.” This isn’t a sufficient explanation, as Con neither has a source nor any argument for why this is a fundamental rule. Indeed, it seems to me -- as Pro points out implicitly, in R2 -- that people make bad decisions all the time, or decisions that don’t consider harms to third parties, like non-users. Note that this is not me engaging in judge intervention: tabula rasa judging requires discrediting arguments that are insufficiently explained.
(Pt. 3)
Second, Con cites a forum post they themselves made. Obviously, this isn’t a credible source that serves as an independent warrant, and the quotation they bring up simply asserts that people are good at comparing costs and benefits, without offering any explanation or justification that this is true, or a universal principle that applies in the case of social media.
There’s a bit of semantics about what it means for a benefit to go to “individuals,” but I accept Con’s point that groups are groups of many different individuals, so I don’t think that specific response from Pro works. That said, I’m not sure Con gets much offense from the argument they’re making here.
Conclusion:
I don’t think either of Pro’s impacts is well-explained, but at least they exist -- it seems clear that there’s some risk of people getting false information and acting on it from social media when anyone can post their opinions on it, and some risk of reliance on social media that accentuates its problems with teen mental health. Pro has some sources for these claims. In contrast, Con has no evidence for the claim that people are good at evaluating costs and benefits of the media they use, nor that -- even if people are good at making decisions for themselves -- this doesn’t lead to greater costs for third parties (as misinformation might). Hence, I’m forced to vote Pro.
My apologies to the voters and my opponent for the forfeit on my part, I had a religious trip on the weekend, then got sick after that so I wasn't able to make my argument in time. I wish the best to my opponent.
i can already tell this debate is going to get messy. the nuiance of harm is very subjective. especially regarding information and emotion.
Hey guys, can you please give me a feedback about this debate when it's finished, particularly about the pain points of being a judge and what should be improved in that regard.
I am basically here to test out an "old" model that I have barely used because of the specificity of the topics here. It is okay, it is unrated.
It is entirely surprising that I have won some of the debates when I have gone for entirely unorthodox strategies, but whatever gets your sail flowing.
Never mind*
Ok never-ending I will use my first round
I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Use your Round 1 argument to give yourself a headstart if anything.
I am going to let Intelligence_06 go first and use this first argument as my 1 forfeit.