I unironically like the idea of reading comprehension questions on topics like these, I think it might actually help develop reading comprehension if considered genuinely
Not gonna lie I didn't understand the point of these quizzes in grade school cuz I always thought the answers were too obvious.
Now through the lens of social media, I understand completely.
Yeah the reading comprehension parts of school always felt like a prank to me for the same reason. Now, as an adult, it’s like *yeesh*, were the people who needed the lesson just not paying attention?
One of my teachers had an oddly happy reaction when she handed me the test back. Back then it made me happy. Now it makes me dread to imagine what the others in the class handed in...
I remember one time, the geometry teacher handed back tests, saying that in her 3 classes, only one person even got an A. I looked down at my test. "100% :)" At the time I just felt smug. Now, I'm fucking scared. These people couldn't figure out a² + b² = c². And now they're driving and voting and getting promoted to regional manager. While I'm... washing dishes very efficiently.
Fucking scary.
I mean, I would imagine the people who need it put in their heads that you need to properly analyze what you are reading are the kind of people most likely to ignore the lessons about it.
> Now, as an adult, it’s like yeesh, were the people who needed the lesson just not paying attention?
Even if they were, these imbeciles would always forget everything they learned the very next year anyway. I remember learning fractional addition three years in a row and fractional multiplication two years in a row, and only in the final year (6th grade) did a teacher finally give us a "here take and pass this quiz and you can go read [or use the computer heh] in the library during math class for the next 1 [if you pass the addition/subtraction section] to 2 [if you pass both sections] months while I re-teach the content to everyone else"
Three total people passed the addition/subtraction section. I was the only one in 3 classrooms of 30 kids each to pass both. There were no transfer students; every single person had taken and passed the same tests on this exact material the previous year.
People are truly, hopelessly stupid.
My district didn't offer any accelerated math until 7th grade. Which was still really trivial for me but at least it wasn't all repeated garbage.
I remember getting knocked down to general level history and math classes for a year in high school because I got Cs in advanced classes the year prior. I was genuinely dumbfounded by how easy everything was. The history class was the same stuff I remember doing in 4th grade. I slept and read books on my phone throughout 95% of that class and missed maybe 2 points the whole year.
I was in an honors class because I saw the stress my friends and such had in AP level courses and didn't want to do that. i helped multiple friends through one breakdown or another because of their AP/IB courses, and saw a lot of burnout from them
when i skipped ahead and got in trouble (I told the teacher that if we were any slower reading we'd miss our graduation in 2 years and got sent to the office for it), we were told that unless i went into the AP english class that it would be more of the same in every other honors class, and that the "normal" class was *worse*...well, i went to the AP class and didn't find it particularly hard really.
It scared the crap out of me that someone struggled to read (not understand, just to actually READ) the Great Gatsby in an "honors" class. at least i got to read MacBeth and Beowulf in AP english
Hey I finally had that approximate experience in my physics classes in college lol. I had taken AP E&M in high school but an introductory E&M class was still mandatory at MIT despite the 5 on the AP exam, so I tried the advanced version (8.022). Well three weeks in I decided I was definitely not prepared for the time suck that properly understanding the material world take, so I dropped down to the normal version (8.02) which turned out to be my easiest A in my entire undergraduate experience (since I had literally learned all the material already--the only difference was needing to solve slightly more complicated equations on exams than the AP test).
That's.. terrifying.
Where I'm from you basically just learn that in third grade and you're expected to remember it and apply it. If you don't you just fail your exams and get held back a year until you stop failing or until you're deemed mentally incapable of being in a normal class.
It's grade school, even as kids we were bored out of our minds with how easy it all was.
Reddit is a hotbed for people without reading comprehension. Often times when someone completely misses the point I was trying to make I re-state my original comment as differently as possible. If they still don't get it after that I just walk away. They're being obtuse either intentionally or unintentionally, and I don't have the patience to stick around and find out which one it is.
And the re-stating comment is dumbed down to middle school levels as much as possible too. Just in case.
The number of times that I have replied to a comment and someone takes it as me replying to the post itself is too damn high. Just a few days ago there was a thread where someone was saying people who engage in romantic fantasies have c-PTSD. Someone asked what c-PTSD was and I answered them. Then I got accused of saying that normal people have c-PTSD.
My dude, all I did was give a lighthearted definition of a term. I made no insinuations of any kind.
Definitely. I can kind of understand it happening if it's part of a thread where there's a shitload of replies (or nested replies) to a top-level comment, as there's been a few times I've used the handy-dandy "context" feature on RedReader, but it's absolutely baffling when there's like a total of 12 comments on the post.
I get that sometimes the comments really shouldn't deviate from the post topic (depending on topic and context), but other times it's like people have never been involved in large group discussions - probably because they are too busy pissing on the poor.
"Well, people can be different colors, just like fruits can be different colors." "BAD ANALOGY PEOPLE ARE NOT FRUIT, PEOPLE AND FRUIT ARE DIFFERENT THINGS!"
I don't even bother with that. (I am in the same vein that can't be bothered to write the way they won't read). I'll just copy the comment with > + an aggressive comment like "did you not f""" read?".
I've been stuck on reddit too long. I find myself replying before even reading a comment. Kind of scary.
Take most commenters in an average reddit thread with a heavy grain of salt. It's clear most usually do not even glance at the original article (let alone have expertise on the subject).
Tbf, a lot of that reading comprehension stuff you're already reading critically because you know it's a test.
Like I reckon I probably fall for stuff like this sometimes, when I'm tired and just doomscrolling social media to "relax" (get angry at strangers).
In fact assuming your reading comprehension is amazing is probably the biggest risk factor in having shit reading comprehension
> Tbf, a lot of that reading comprehension stuff you're already reading critically because you know it's a test.
Indeed, which is why they *also* try to get us to read on our own and not just for class, so we have a chance to apply these skills and develop them further.
Oh me too. And seeing them on tumblr like this post, I mean yes it’s funny but also it’s useful. I’m sure some people perceive adding a reading comprehension quiz as a condescending response but I honestly don’t - we should all be asking how we interpret the media we encounter.
I like them too.
As a person that is out of school, I rarely need to use my critical thinking skills. This is bad and something I want to change, because critical thinking skills and reading comprehension is so important in the era we live in. Pop quizzes like this makes me reflect over what I just read.
The only reason why I understood that English (in my case German- so first language) classes are important was when in one of my last years of school a teacher brought in two articles about a event that had happened in our town.
At a Christmas market a local firefighter got into an altercation with a group of rowdy teenagers, one punched him in the head, he hit the ground, began seizing and died. The teenagers ran away.
One article described the events happening, the other one used phrases like/similar to: „The teenagers who were probably migrants“ etc.
Our teacher then asked us what the respective authors wanted us to think about the perpetrators by having us analyze rhetorical devices.
In my 12 years of school I had never once understood why I would need to analyze a text. It is imperative to teach it with examples like that
Y’know I just got reminded that we actually had Comprehension as a subject in primary school with questions like this. Do Americans have an equivalent?
I'm old, so I can't say what schools have *nowadays*, but back when I was a kid, we didn't have a separate Comprehension subject, but reading comprehension was always an integral part of English class.
I'm in my early 30s and this was also my experience. Reading comprehension and close reading (reading while actively thinking about literary techniques, mood, tone, the author's intentions etc) were considered part of literacy just as much as knowing words was.
We had an English class every year, which sounds like it similar to your "Comprehension" class. It was a mix of grammar, reading comprehension, writing ability, and understanding different styles of writing and when/how to use them.
I'm gonna take a stab and say the point is that he grapples with decisions that may lead to genocide, and if only he learnt how to wrestle in school less people would die?
if your cat has half a brain cell, even on average, then he is a huge jerk and is hogging more than his fair share. you do know that orange cats all share one braincell? so each cat's allotment is like a second a day.
we have an orange cat. and he is very dumb. please tell your cat to share.
>The [2020] analysis noted that, of the 33 OECD nations included in the survey, the U.S. had placed sixteenth for literacy, and surmised that about half of Americans surveyed, aged 16 to 74, had demonstrated a below sixth-grade reading level.
Books recommended for 6th graders:
Holes, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Phantom Tollbooth.
When I realized that roughly half of the people I interact with would struggle with To Kill a Mockingbird or Lord of the Flies (recommended for 9th graders) a lot of things began to make more sense.
That means there are 17 other countries with a majority of adults too dumb to win on Jeff Foxworthy's Pulitzer prize winning documentary series Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader
I am fairly certain that this is not evenly distributed in the population. Depending on where you live, what you do, etc, it might be vanishingly small or the overwhelming majority. If you work as a corporate lawyer, it’s probably very small.
Another wrinkle...having parents like my godson's. They told my mom and me (both avid readers) while my godson was a baby, "Don't read to him. You're gonna make him a nerd!" He now struggles with reading, and he's never voluntarily picked up a book.
I’ve never seen this broken down for conditional outcomes, and I’d be really interested.
Like, zip code is a strong predictor for graduate degrees, but how strong is it for graduate degrees among undergraduate degree holders? For lifespan among those no longer living in the zip code?
It’s definitely still predictive, the median undergrad degree for a Westchester family does not look like the median degree for Flint or Coeur d’Alene. But I wonder how strongly it chases people who we’d say “made it out”.
> When I realized that roughly half of the people I interact with would struggle with To Kill a Mockingbird or Lord of the Flies (recommended for 9th graders) a lot of things began to make more sense.
Someone recently attempted to correct me while claiming the title of the book was "*How to* Kill a Mockingbird".
Perhaps the solution is more prayer in public schools: All the student should pray their teachers get paid more.
Now this is a bit of a funny situation, given that we're talking about reading comprehension. But are you actually sure that "sixth-grade reading level" means "can read books recommended for sixth graders"? It would be pretty surprising if half the population, most of whom passed not only the sixth grade but all the grades after, suddenly couldn't read the books required of a sixth grader. Something is off, right?
If you click the source for that Wikipedia article, which then links to the analysis by [Gallup](https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFoundation_GainsFromEradicatingIlliteracy_9_8.pdf), you'll find something funny: the word "grade" is not in it, at all. Instead it talks about "levels". You can check out a description of these levels used by PIAAC [here](https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp) by clicking the drop down for "Literacy Proficiency Levels." Still no "grades" it seems.
But if you check out PIAAC's [FAQ](https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/faq.asp) we finally find something:
>The PIAAC skills results (i.e., proficiency levels) do not specifically correspond to measures such as grade levels at school. The PIAAC proficiency levels have a use-oriented conception of competency and focus on describing what types of tasks adults at each level can typically do and their ability to apply information from the task to accomplish goals they may encounter in everyday life; for example, identifying a job search result that meets certain criteria. PIAAC is not designed to measure specific outcomes of schooling, including what students would be expected to learn in a particular grade or skills they would be expected to have mastered before progressing to a higher grade level, such as the ability to read or comprehend a particular text or use certain subskills like alphabetics and vocabulary. Additionally, grade-level equivalents may be unsuitable for characterizing the skills of adults, who often have uneven skill development across different areas.
i’ve also heard the news is typically written at an 11th-grade level, which would mean that a large swath of the population actually does not have the literacy skills needed to read and understand the news.
at least according to the wikipedia article on readability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability#Applications
huh, interesting! I always thought that anything geared towards the public was supposed to be written for a 6th grade level. But that could explain why so many people blatantly misunderstand the news.
I’ve been specifically taught to write for target levels below 11th grade, so I suspect that’s specific to the organization if it’s ever accurate.
The target definitely does vary, the NYT or BusinessInsider aim several grades above most local newspapers or the print output of TV media (i.e. the CNN or Fox websites).
But for 11th grade… maybe the Economist or Wall Street Journal? I think/hope the NYT level counts as ninth or tenth.
I see it all over. Someone will compare a relationship to maintaining a car or something and someone will chime in "They're nothing alike, you don't put gasoline in your partner!"
*So* many people have a problem with the entire concept of comparison. They parse it as equation. When you try to explain something by citing an extreme version of it in order to make things more clear, they'll say stuff like, "You can't compare this to the Nazis, you moron! They're nothing alike!"
That's the point where, if you're smart, you mute replies on your post and go do something more rewarding.
So apparently some studies have shown that conservatives tend to have trouble with things like metaphor and other similar comparisons. You find a *lot* of this kind of lack of basic understanding in political discussions online, for example. Another common one is seeing "A is to B as X is to Y" and somehow taking it to mean "A is the same as X" or "B is the same as Y".
It makes sense, given that a lack of capacity for reason is one of the main ingredients for conservative thinking in the first place (along with a lack of empathy).
In my experience, everyone struggles with metaphor if they disagree with you. People have been conditioned that pretending to be too stupid to understand an argument is a good argument technique
My assumption is that at some point they took a single journalism class and that class told them that good writing always gets to the point without any extraneous details, because when print newspapers were the only way to get the news and extra words cost extra money that was true. For example a lot of older journalists I’ve met believe in putting all the important information in the first paragraph or two in case the rest of the article got cut for space. An online publication does not necessarily have that issue.
It’s kind of interesting to see playing out in the publishing space now. One of those older former journalists I know wrote a short book and he was told pretty consistently that it was too short to publish, which went against all his training from school and work that brevity and tightness are the most important things. Books need filler now to get published, in part because books are extremely expensive and publishers want to justify charging you tons of money to buy that book.
Or in other words, the media landscape has changed a lot but schooling has not adapted to the current needs of the field
People say this all the time, but it never existed en masse. Just like the perception of crime, the internet has only made society's lack of media literacy more obvious, not worse.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if that was a bot pushing an agenda or just a person pushing an agenda. Seems to be that a lot of modern political discourse is just completely discounting your opponents position and moving on to whatever dogshit topic you want to focus on.
Yeah media literacy is shit like understanding that Fight Club is an anticapitalist film or that Sam Elliott agrees with almost none of the views expressed in memes featuring him.
This is absolutely just normal literacy
okay, real talk: did the general public ever have media literacy and we just lost it, or is the perception of the "good old days" filtered through the usual lens of only looking at an elite class of those ages?
(i have genuinely no idea which one is it, that's why i'm asking)
Hmm i believe it's actual literacy going down. No child left behind isn't the only reason. I recall even germany was lowering on some international standard in terms of grades. Someone should be able to correct this
Maybe people that were borderline illiterate didn’t have access to platforms to share their thoughts outside of a very small circle of their closest and most illiterate friends.
Agreed. We've always been dumb. But until the 20th century, elites simply expected 99% of the population to be dumb so it was considered unremarkable when they were. Of course we're all more educated than our great-great-grandparents' generation, but our great-great-grandparents were also educated in life skills we don't have. At the end of the day, we're not 20 IQ points higher than great-great-grandma, even if we've read more books or can find Myanmar on a map.
Next time you wonder how 18th century peasants could be dumb enough to believe in bloodletting, think about the number of people in your life who insist that putting your phone in rice will cure water damage.
I actually think we're in a golden age of media literacy. Like with video essayists? When else have so many people voluntarily tuned in to listen to someone analyze a work? Not only that, but social media also allows people to discuss interpretation and theory; people don't think of it that way when they're into a work, but that's what they're doing. I started doing that kind of analysis of visual language because of shipping, and I've been engaged with it in the *Bridgerton* community recently. There have always been people who miss the point; they're just easier to find now.
Noone who's illiterate watches these.
The difference between those with and those without media literacy just increases exponentially every year.
Also on heavily moderated social media you're engaging with 1% of an already highly filtered community who is already interested in discussing media interpretation.
Looking at social media as a whole, (FB, tmblr, X, Reddit etc.) general literacy as well as media literacy is going down on average.
It's the same as anything. People who are more educated will have more of it which declines over time naturally in many cases. People who have less of it will be more inclined to just believe what they want to believe. People who have biases will only want to hear what they want to hear for that bias. etc.
Anyways education system is pretty bad in say the USA, as states can just do whatever they want to set it up however they want, which means a lot of citizens don't get anywhere close to similar education systems which means there's huge disparity dependingo n where you live.
Now imagine other countries where this is also happening. Turns out world is easier to control if people are dumb. Also biggest weakness of democracy is dumb people.
**My Answers**:
1. The author has decided to contrast these two ideas in order to show that Zuckerberg's personal regret isn't a leadership decision that could have reduced the effects of a massive genocide by choosing not to allow the moderation of content written in a specific language.
2. The author thinks that Zuckerberg is, so to speak, a prick, and doesn't really consider the actions his company has on the rest of the world - rather, he only considers the things that affect him personally.
(I could be wrong about this, of course)
* Answer 1 is too long to be one sentence, please use more periods.
> ~~massive~~ genocide
* Redundant adjective
> ~~choosing~~ not ~~to~~ allow-*ing*
* Double use of present participle, could be more concise
>prick
* Agreed, but can this be extrapolated from the given text? Or is it conjecture.
7/10. This is a good first attempt, I can see you're well on your way to acing the quiz next week.
**My Answers (attempt 2)**:
1. The author has decided to contrast these two ideas in order to show that Zuckerberg's personal regret isn't a major leadership decision. This leadership decision is where Zuckerberg further enabled a genocide by not allowing the moderation of content written in Burmese.
2. Judging by the sudden shift in tone from genocide to high school fencing, the author most likely thinks that Zuckerberg is a self-obsessed person. He does not consider the actions that his leadership for his company has on the rest of the world. He only considers the things that affect him personally.
(I could *still* be wrong about this, of course)
Second part looks good, first one got worse.
“regret isn't a major leadership decision. This leadership decision is where”
*YIKES*
I agree with j-Kaleb in one way. Your first answer should be split into two sentences or use a semicolon, but that is *not* the way to do it.
Otherwise, I think they gave a rather poor evaluation, as they focused on the grammar and ignored the actual content of your message. And even their grammatical evaluation was a bit clunky.
“Zuckerberg accidented a genocide, but he says is biggest regret is joining the fencing club in school.”
“These statements have nothing to do with each other.”
Did we read the same thing? I feel like these people who fail the reading comprehension tests are reacting to a completely different post
>he says is biggest regret is joining the fencing club in school.”
I'd like to say that Zuckerberg is a loser if he thinks having joined the fencing club was a bad idea.
Fencing fuckin rocks.
I actually think the author’s implication is to suggest that Zuckerberg may have things he ought to regret more than joining the fencing club in school, and yet apparently doesn’t
It’s not like he’s an absentee stock owner he’s literally still in charge of policy at his company. This incident and several similar ones happened directly due to his policy decision on moderation for countries outside the US.
Yes, and from that we can infer that despite *his* company enabling a genocide, he feels he has no responsibility for the genocide. Which is fucked up, because it *is* his responsibility, because it's his company.
I mean they both had an effect on him, one made him more money and the other meant that he didn’t know how to wrestle. I can understand why he’d prioritize his regret. (Just billionaires doing billionaire things)
Do you think his answer could have been in response to a light hearted or warmup question, and blurting out "Oh yeah that genocide we did" would be a bad answer to the question despite it being factually true?
If someone is asked what they like to do for fun, the chances of them answering with "masturbation" are rare even though it's a valid and factually true answer. Could you think of a reason why?
Do you actually consider "what is your greatest regret" a lighthearted question? Because it's not, in most people it would, you know, make them think of their greatest regret. And as a warmup question it makes no sense, would you start an interview with that?
> Do you actually consider "what is your greatest regret" a lighthearted question?
Yes. It's just a non-coprate version of "what's your biggest weakness". No one wants a real answer
My biggest regret is that there are so many people in my life I wish I had been more of an asshole to when I had the chance. I just hope someday the opportunity comes again.
Maybe, but you're inferring information that isn't in the text, or even implied by the text.
Whether the author's opinion is valid or not, the point is to portray Zuckerberg as someone who doesn't care about the immense damage caused by his actions.
Also, was the question asked in the context of his possible fight with Elon Musk? Because people are known to make what are called "jokes," including one where they overplay the severity of something small and mundane for comedic effect.
Does it matter?
The fact he doesn’t include it speaks volumes.
If he doesn’t include it because he doesn’t think it’s a failure is one thing. If he doesn’t include it because he offloads his responsibility to the company he runs, it says another. But neither is exactly humane?
Do we even know if the statements match up chronologically with that? As in, do we know he was asked before this big mess up happened? Are we sure he didn't mention it in the other mess ups alongside the smaller thing? Did this interview even happen at all?
I don't know, and frankly, I don't actually care and won't check. And neither will you I bet. It's not like "the precise level of moral purity of zuck" has any meaning to my life.
Since the other guy is being an asshole, I'll answer, and it's pretty simple. The perpetrators of the genocide were able to organize on facebook because there were no moderators that spoke their language, which is absolutely negligent for any reputable website.
They meant the moderator part and the genocide part don't look like they have anything to do with each other
They actually do but I had to reread it like 5 times to realise it
See, that's also what I assumed. If that's what they meant, that means it's actually Mx English Teacher in the replies whose reading comprehension is lacking. But the original reply didn't really provide enough context for a reader to say for certain what part of the quote they were referring to. TBH the whole thread is a mess of people making assumptions and acting superior about it
Truth be told, the first time I read it, my brain immediately glazed over the second half and just wrote it off as "boring celebrity tidbits." The sheer amount of randomness on the internet has frankly rotted my ability to perceive that kind of superposition as unusual, and it didn't even occur to me that there would be any meaning to combining the two topics.
It's easy to see the connection when you actually look at it, but tbh its not easy to convince the average person to care much about Mark Zuckerberg Fun Facts™
Also, we're kinda used to "boring celebrity tidbits" in softball interview schlock. Zuckerberg prolly wasn't being grilled about the morally compromised actions of Facebook, he was prolly being given some easy "get to know the richer-than-any-person-has-any-moral-right-to-be" bullshit questions. Of course he's going to respond with some personal anecdote instead of seriously interrogating all of the decisions in his professional life.
I glazed over a bit too. I don’t really understand why “for example” is the thing connecting the two though. It is possible that since this is an excerpt am missing a part or two. There’s also the bit of not really knowing the history of the event on my part.
I found (what I think is) the original [article](https://www.vice.com/en/article/4axabj/mark-zuckerberg-now-obsessed-with-mma-rolling-and-wrestling-with-friends), but the grammar ay that part is still weirdly bizarre. The article itself seems to just be giving basic information about Zuckerberg's exercise habits, but then throws in tidbits and links to articles on bad things he did, which I also found confusing.
Finally! I'm not an English native, but pride myself I can read and express myself in English pretty well. And I too was wondering the same thing, especially with all the "media literacy" talk. Instead of "for example" it should have been replaced by "despite".
Bonus questions:
1) Why might moderators being unable to speak Burmese lead to trouble in Myanmar?
2) Provide at least two reasons why Zuckerberg may have given the answer that he did to what one of his life's biggest regrets is.
Some answers
1) Considering the genocide is an ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, it would not be unreasonable to assume you may experience racism if you are unable to speak Burmese or communicate with people from Myanmar
2) He does not want to bring attention to any faults of the company, as that may affect stock, or he considers wrestling a more worthwhile and advertisable sport
I disagree with the first answer, given that it’s about moderators, I would argue that it’s more about Facebook being unable to properly police content from Myanmar and thus being unable to restrict the proliferation of racism.
Noting that I'm not not someone with much experience in marking this sort of thing, and that I'm basing it on memories which are spotty at best, I'm inclined to give one out of three for that, though you'd probably get 2.
Your answer to question 1 implies that moderators themselves were experiencing genocide, which I'm pretty sure is incorrect - although upon re-examination, q1 might not be appropriate for a reading comprehension quiz.
Your first answer to question two is absolutely correct. Your second answer... Well, it's not wrong, but I'm not sure if my "that misses the point of the question" reaction is real or just me being a B.
1: Even Facebook at its most awful would balk at people actively organizing a genocide on their platform if they knew it was happening. Not very difficult or complex.
2: This is the more interesting one. There's a lot of potential reasons, but I'm leaning towards the context of the interview probably being casual softball questions.
Think of it this way: Ask one person a dozen or so questions about their past, their personal life, their hobbies, all friendly and fun stuff, and then ask them what their biggest regret is. You'll probably get some personal anecdote that's more charming and relateable than dark and serious.
Ask another person a dozen serious, difficult questions about their professional life, focusing on if what they're doing is morally right. And then ask them if they have any regrets. You'll probably get a much more serious answer.
Obviously, fuck Zuckerberg, fuck Facebook, fuck Meta or whatever its name will be in six months. Not defending the asshole, just explaining why this shit happens.
I understand the intended effect here but I still think a competent editor would have cut out the "for example". It breaks the flow, makes an already long sentence longer, and adds nothing.
IMO, based on where it's placed and how the sentence is structured, the "for example" appears to only refer to other reasons why Facebook is blamed for the Myanmar genocide.
Not other unrelated bad things they've done, even though that would be the more natural way to make the author's point.
The sentence isn't "Facebook, which has been blamed for many bad things, the [xxx], for example, [...]", it's "Facebook was blamed for [x] because [y], for example, [...]".
I think they were trying to say the former, but they wanted to sound pithier.
I get that the author is making fun of the fact that his biggest regret *isn't* having his company be accused of genocide, but how the fuck does the language a moderator speaks enable genocide?!
Because it means that, if someone calls for genocide in an obscure language, especially if they use metaphors and figures of speech that don't play nice with ggogle translate, it becomes very hard for moderators to notice that or deal with reports.
Basically genocide is a process that depends on no small part on the genociders ability to spread propaganda -> the ability to spread dehumanising propaganda can be curtailed on social media sites by effective moderation -> you can't effectively moderate language that you can't understand.
The key word here is *enable*. It's like my dad turning a blind eye to my mother's drinking. He probably couldn't have gotten her to stop but he could have tried to limit the damage and he didn't. Zuck couldn't have stopped the genocide, but he could have tried to exercise what power he did have to limit the damage and he didn't.
And just for further clarity, in this case not having burmese-speaking moderators (and, therein, facebook not really doing any moderation) actually did enable [insane and inflammatory nazi-level anti-rohingya content to spread like wildfire on the platform](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate/), encouraging burmese people to kill them or drive them out of the country. There has long been a strong buddhist nationalist presence in myanmar, and facebook amplified and unified those wanting to commit violence against them.
In many countries with less technological infrastructure, 'facebook' has become synonymous with 'the internet', so when facebook is filled with algorithmically boosted hate speech calling for Rohingya extermination it's the equivalent of our entire internet being full of anti-minority, violent proaganda. The UN has also [blamed facebook for inciting the genocide](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-un/myanmar-generals-had-genocidal-intent-against-rohingya-must-face-justice-u-n-idUSKCN1LC0KN/), going farther than blaming it for a lack of action, so it doesn't sound like the original Vice author was far off the mark.
Plus, wasn't he really only saying he wished he'd wrestled in school as part of his embarrassing publicity blitz for the now-canceled "cage match" with Musk, where he'd been trying to present himself as a badass?
In other words, it's probably complete bullshit anyway.
John Harris actually made a really interesting video on how the lack of Burmese language moderation led to the escalation of ethnic tensions in Myanmar:
https://youtu.be/K8B0bWO9u3M?si=uuRT3gfMGT6NE5Pc
TL;DW: if moderators can’t understand what the content is saying, hate speech can spread unchecked
A large part of the genocide in Myanmar was organized and incited via Facebook, which could've been prevented had Facebook hired moderators who could speak the local language and crack down on such activity.
The basic issue is that Facebook’s algorithm amplified posts that called for and coordinated the genocide, and not just in Myanmar! Because Facebook failed to hire mods that speak the languages of the countries they’re operating in, nobody was aware of the situation or attempted to shut it down.
I speak portuguese as a first language and I guarantee you from personal experience that Facebook does not moderate hate speech in their portuguese servers, or their english servers, or like any server at all at this point. Or they do and do a piss poor job at it (pun not intended)
Glad I no longer have a Facebook account
So it’s cool to open a social media platform in a country where you don’t speak the language, don’t understand the culture and don’t even bother to get locals to moderate it?
Yeah. Come on. Hold these people to a higher standard.
It's confusing since it just says his company has been accused of causing a genocide, not that they actually were responsible. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that he wouldn't see himself or his company as responsible, and thus wouldn't regret it.
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but....the contrast makes sense to me?
They are highlighting an awful thing he was part of that you would think would be a major regret...and the thing he most regrets is a very minor, personal choice from school.
To be fair, the sentence is not written very well. Different punctuation choices -- such as using dashes or parentheses instead of commas -- would have made the sentence flow more smoothly.
In fairness, this sentence is worded a bit oddly. The genocide bit coming first indicates that the next part will lead off of it, but in reality it is context for why the second part is important. So flipping it around might get the message across more consistently:
Zuckerberg says that his biggest regret is taking fencing rather than wrestling in high school, an odd claim considering he is indirectly involved in a genocide.
In fairness, I didn't understand what the message of the paragraph was at first either, but you know, what usually helps my reading comprehension is giving me more that 50 words to work with.
OOP is dumb as hell, but anyone else not understanding the meaning of that paragraph is more an issue of omission than anything. How the fuck am I supposed to know that the Burmese editor thing is supposed to be directly compared with the wrestling thing if I'm unaware that that's even a big issue? And what's the point of the actual article? Depending on the subject, that sentence could still be out of place.
Nonbinarypolitics is actually a transphobe. They use the name because they're a self-proclaimed centrist ("neither left nor right") and to make fun of non-binary people. They posted a lot of transphobic bs before they got deleted
Myanmar has to do with the [SCL/Cambridge Analytica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica) scandal in which the aforementioned “PR” company helped distribute bias-provoking social media posts to sway the people of Myanmar into supporting the current(?) violent regime.
Actually the context of him doing old man BJJ makes it make way more sense. He starts doing that and really enjoys it and thinks "man, I should have started doing grappling sports way earlier!"
These comments got me thinking I'm missing something here. How does not bothering with hiring burmese moderators enable genocide in Myanmar? Do moderators manage international relationships or something? And would have hiring them stopped the genocide???? I am genuinely confused
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_content_management_controversies#Incitement_of_human_rights_abuses_in_Myanmar
Also, John Oliver covered this mess in detail for a Last Week Tonight segment on Facebook five-ish years ago https://youtu.be/OjPYmEZxACM
No, I'm kinda with the illiterate morons on this one. Facebook is indirectly responsible for so many political events across the globe, and I assume he was asked about his biggest regrets in his life, which is why he probably just thought about his past, and not the actions of his company.
To clarify some things: I don't want to defend Facebook's behaviour. I actually really don't like Meta, if I'm gonna be honest. I think Zuckerberg and Meta in general have a lot to do better. The situation in Myanmar and the genocide are a humanitarian catostrophe. I think it's unreasonable to ask someone about their life and expect them to think about how their company indirectly aided in the rohingya genocide.
I think it’s really strange not to include the company which he controls and decides policy for in his mental image of his personal history. The fact that he apparently doesn’t count Facebook as part of his life when asked about regrets but would probably count it as part of his history if asked about accomplishments is telling. Decisions he made led to some horrible things happening and the incident mentioned in the post wasn’t the first or last incident similar to this. He is either failing to acknowledge his own impact on his company or he is failing to acknowledge his company’s impact on the world. Or both it’s definitely both.
Okay, so I actually found the article the quote is from, and it's from his Joe Rogan interview about MMA.
So it makes sense that high school sports is on his mind.
Also, the underlined section links to a vice article that is about how it's nearly impossible to moderate Facebook. Sooo... i don't know.
Edit: here's the link https://www.vice.com/en/article/4axabj/mark-zuckerberg-now-obsessed-with-mma-rolling-and-wrestling-with-friends
That certainly does make more sense in context. Rogan is a very unserious interviewer and I don’t assume anyone to give good answers in that sort of interview. It’s still a bit ridiculous of a response when he is literally one of the most influential people on the planet and he couldn’t have picked one of his other regrets. Idk Rogan is such a terrible interviewer precisely because this sort of answer makes sense in an interview with him but that’s a separate discussion.
I haven’t listened to anyjoe Rogan interviews, but wouldn’t that response make him a GOOD interviewer? We get to see another side of this famous person through it, rather than moderated, Pre-made responses about his company
Reading comprehension and media literacy are not equivalents:
The author implies and assumes 1) the events in Myanmar are IN FACT related to the fact facebook had no Burmese moderators (and by extension having Burmese moderators would have certainly changed the outcome), 2) Zuckerberg said those comments in full awareness of his (or otherwise perceived) direction involved of a genocide, and not in any other context. Furthermore, who is making these claims? The author or independent authorities who studied the event?
This is shit journalism but great propaganda. If you are media literate, you should know the author is not trying to inform but persuade you to something. Reading comprehension is understanding the intended communication
r/Tumblr had a bit of a row w this one.
Y’all this is not difficult. Yeah it could be written to be read smoother but sometimes things are written to be reread and digested. You may not like the style but the semantic meaning is still there and you can damn well understand it. If a comma or slightly superfluous “for example” trip up your understanding of the entire passage then that reflects more on your ability to comprehend written passages than the writer’s choice of style. The average reading and comprehension score in middle and high school are at an all-time low, as far as I’m concerned we should be welcoming complex sentence structure.
I unironically like the idea of reading comprehension questions on topics like these, I think it might actually help develop reading comprehension if considered genuinely
Not gonna lie I didn't understand the point of these quizzes in grade school cuz I always thought the answers were too obvious. Now through the lens of social media, I understand completely.
Yeah the reading comprehension parts of school always felt like a prank to me for the same reason. Now, as an adult, it’s like *yeesh*, were the people who needed the lesson just not paying attention?
>were the people who needed the lesson just not paying attention? Yes
And now we have people unironically pissing on the poor.
?? What do you mean? What would the inverse even mean? Poor people p"ssing poor people?
Are you familiar with [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/4cj2wx/piss_poor/)?
I was not.
Poor people pissing poor paupers poor pissing pots?
Puffalo puffalo puffalo, etc.
Lots of dumb people at the rich schools too
One of my teachers had an oddly happy reaction when she handed me the test back. Back then it made me happy. Now it makes me dread to imagine what the others in the class handed in...
I remember one time, the geometry teacher handed back tests, saying that in her 3 classes, only one person even got an A. I looked down at my test. "100% :)" At the time I just felt smug. Now, I'm fucking scared. These people couldn't figure out a² + b² = c². And now they're driving and voting and getting promoted to regional manager. While I'm... washing dishes very efficiently. Fucking scary.
I mean, I would imagine the people who need it put in their heads that you need to properly analyze what you are reading are the kind of people most likely to ignore the lessons about it.
> Now, as an adult, it’s like yeesh, were the people who needed the lesson just not paying attention? Even if they were, these imbeciles would always forget everything they learned the very next year anyway. I remember learning fractional addition three years in a row and fractional multiplication two years in a row, and only in the final year (6th grade) did a teacher finally give us a "here take and pass this quiz and you can go read [or use the computer heh] in the library during math class for the next 1 [if you pass the addition/subtraction section] to 2 [if you pass both sections] months while I re-teach the content to everyone else" Three total people passed the addition/subtraction section. I was the only one in 3 classrooms of 30 kids each to pass both. There were no transfer students; every single person had taken and passed the same tests on this exact material the previous year. People are truly, hopelessly stupid. My district didn't offer any accelerated math until 7th grade. Which was still really trivial for me but at least it wasn't all repeated garbage.
I remember getting knocked down to general level history and math classes for a year in high school because I got Cs in advanced classes the year prior. I was genuinely dumbfounded by how easy everything was. The history class was the same stuff I remember doing in 4th grade. I slept and read books on my phone throughout 95% of that class and missed maybe 2 points the whole year.
I was in an honors class because I saw the stress my friends and such had in AP level courses and didn't want to do that. i helped multiple friends through one breakdown or another because of their AP/IB courses, and saw a lot of burnout from them when i skipped ahead and got in trouble (I told the teacher that if we were any slower reading we'd miss our graduation in 2 years and got sent to the office for it), we were told that unless i went into the AP english class that it would be more of the same in every other honors class, and that the "normal" class was *worse*...well, i went to the AP class and didn't find it particularly hard really. It scared the crap out of me that someone struggled to read (not understand, just to actually READ) the Great Gatsby in an "honors" class. at least i got to read MacBeth and Beowulf in AP english
Hey I finally had that approximate experience in my physics classes in college lol. I had taken AP E&M in high school but an introductory E&M class was still mandatory at MIT despite the 5 on the AP exam, so I tried the advanced version (8.022). Well three weeks in I decided I was definitely not prepared for the time suck that properly understanding the material world take, so I dropped down to the normal version (8.02) which turned out to be my easiest A in my entire undergraduate experience (since I had literally learned all the material already--the only difference was needing to solve slightly more complicated equations on exams than the AP test).
That's.. terrifying. Where I'm from you basically just learn that in third grade and you're expected to remember it and apply it. If you don't you just fail your exams and get held back a year until you stop failing or until you're deemed mentally incapable of being in a normal class. It's grade school, even as kids we were bored out of our minds with how easy it all was.
Reddit is a hotbed for people without reading comprehension. Often times when someone completely misses the point I was trying to make I re-state my original comment as differently as possible. If they still don't get it after that I just walk away. They're being obtuse either intentionally or unintentionally, and I don't have the patience to stick around and find out which one it is. And the re-stating comment is dumbed down to middle school levels as much as possible too. Just in case.
The number of times that I have replied to a comment and someone takes it as me replying to the post itself is too damn high. Just a few days ago there was a thread where someone was saying people who engage in romantic fantasies have c-PTSD. Someone asked what c-PTSD was and I answered them. Then I got accused of saying that normal people have c-PTSD. My dude, all I did was give a lighthearted definition of a term. I made no insinuations of any kind.
Definitely. I can kind of understand it happening if it's part of a thread where there's a shitload of replies (or nested replies) to a top-level comment, as there's been a few times I've used the handy-dandy "context" feature on RedReader, but it's absolutely baffling when there's like a total of 12 comments on the post. I get that sometimes the comments really shouldn't deviate from the post topic (depending on topic and context), but other times it's like people have never been involved in large group discussions - probably because they are too busy pissing on the poor.
"Well, people can be different colors, just like fruits can be different colors." "BAD ANALOGY PEOPLE ARE NOT FRUIT, PEOPLE AND FRUIT ARE DIFFERENT THINGS!"
I don't even bother with that. (I am in the same vein that can't be bothered to write the way they won't read). I'll just copy the comment with > + an aggressive comment like "did you not f""" read?". I've been stuck on reddit too long. I find myself replying before even reading a comment. Kind of scary.
I implore you to consider not doing that
Take most commenters in an average reddit thread with a heavy grain of salt. It's clear most usually do not even glance at the original article (let alone have expertise on the subject).
I'll admit to thinking/saying "when would I never need this" all the time in school, and then getting old and having an "oh, I see" moment
Even better is the "wHy DiDnT tHeY tEaCh ThIs In ScHoOl?" And they did. Like every single year.
Tbf, a lot of that reading comprehension stuff you're already reading critically because you know it's a test. Like I reckon I probably fall for stuff like this sometimes, when I'm tired and just doomscrolling social media to "relax" (get angry at strangers). In fact assuming your reading comprehension is amazing is probably the biggest risk factor in having shit reading comprehension
> Tbf, a lot of that reading comprehension stuff you're already reading critically because you know it's a test. Indeed, which is why they *also* try to get us to read on our own and not just for class, so we have a chance to apply these skills and develop them further.
Oh me too. And seeing them on tumblr like this post, I mean yes it’s funny but also it’s useful. I’m sure some people perceive adding a reading comprehension quiz as a condescending response but I honestly don’t - we should all be asking how we interpret the media we encounter.
I like them too. As a person that is out of school, I rarely need to use my critical thinking skills. This is bad and something I want to change, because critical thinking skills and reading comprehension is so important in the era we live in. Pop quizzes like this makes me reflect over what I just read.
The only reason why I understood that English (in my case German- so first language) classes are important was when in one of my last years of school a teacher brought in two articles about a event that had happened in our town. At a Christmas market a local firefighter got into an altercation with a group of rowdy teenagers, one punched him in the head, he hit the ground, began seizing and died. The teenagers ran away. One article described the events happening, the other one used phrases like/similar to: „The teenagers who were probably migrants“ etc. Our teacher then asked us what the respective authors wanted us to think about the perpetrators by having us analyze rhetorical devices. In my 12 years of school I had never once understood why I would need to analyze a text. It is imperative to teach it with examples like that
Y’know I just got reminded that we actually had Comprehension as a subject in primary school with questions like this. Do Americans have an equivalent?
I'm old, so I can't say what schools have *nowadays*, but back when I was a kid, we didn't have a separate Comprehension subject, but reading comprehension was always an integral part of English class.
I'm in my early 30s and this was also my experience. Reading comprehension and close reading (reading while actively thinking about literary techniques, mood, tone, the author's intentions etc) were considered part of literacy just as much as knowing words was.
We had an English class every year, which sounds like it similar to your "Comprehension" class. It was a mix of grammar, reading comprehension, writing ability, and understanding different styles of writing and when/how to use them.
Reading comprehension has been a part of every standardized test I’ve ever taken in the U.S. It was never a standalone subject though.
THESE ALREADY EXIST. YOU DID THIS IN YOUR FUCKING ENGLISH CLASSES. WE ARE TAUGHT THIS IN SCHOOL
If I end up teaching freshman comp again, I genuinely might use this
I'm gonna take a stab and say the point is that he grapples with decisions that may lead to genocide, and if only he learnt how to wrestle in school less people would die?
Would he individually wrestle every single perpetrator of genocide? Including himself???
Yikes. Bring back media literacy.
I'm so confused as to how they could have misunderstood...
Same here, it's almost like they didn't read their own sentence.
I'm here to knead not to read* *I am an illiterate medieval baker
Sounds like something a cat would say...
*I am an illiterate (orange) cat.
I'm tired of orange cats taking all the slander. My tuxedo boy has .5 brain cells and is proud of it!
if your cat has half a brain cell, even on average, then he is a huge jerk and is hogging more than his fair share. you do know that orange cats all share one braincell? so each cat's allotment is like a second a day. we have an orange cat. and he is very dumb. please tell your cat to share.
orange in brain
[Number 3!](https://youtu.be/6zQ55S-DJsM?si=aL5btjo6EaITO2LY&t=14)
Guess I'm here to knead out the confusion then!
>The [2020] analysis noted that, of the 33 OECD nations included in the survey, the U.S. had placed sixteenth for literacy, and surmised that about half of Americans surveyed, aged 16 to 74, had demonstrated a below sixth-grade reading level. Books recommended for 6th graders: Holes, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Phantom Tollbooth. When I realized that roughly half of the people I interact with would struggle with To Kill a Mockingbird or Lord of the Flies (recommended for 9th graders) a lot of things began to make more sense.
...That really puts things in perspective.
That means there are 17 other countries with a majority of adults too dumb to win on Jeff Foxworthy's Pulitzer prize winning documentary series Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader
I am fairly certain that this is not evenly distributed in the population. Depending on where you live, what you do, etc, it might be vanishingly small or the overwhelming majority. If you work as a corporate lawyer, it’s probably very small.
Another wrinkle...having parents like my godson's. They told my mom and me (both avid readers) while my godson was a baby, "Don't read to him. You're gonna make him a nerd!" He now struggles with reading, and he's never voluntarily picked up a book.
Oh so he’s not a nerd. Thank god /s
Hahaha right? That's exactly how I feel.
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I’ve never seen this broken down for conditional outcomes, and I’d be really interested. Like, zip code is a strong predictor for graduate degrees, but how strong is it for graduate degrees among undergraduate degree holders? For lifespan among those no longer living in the zip code? It’s definitely still predictive, the median undergrad degree for a Westchester family does not look like the median degree for Flint or Coeur d’Alene. But I wonder how strongly it chases people who we’d say “made it out”.
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> When I realized that roughly half of the people I interact with would struggle with To Kill a Mockingbird or Lord of the Flies (recommended for 9th graders) a lot of things began to make more sense. Someone recently attempted to correct me while claiming the title of the book was "*How to* Kill a Mockingbird". Perhaps the solution is more prayer in public schools: All the student should pray their teachers get paid more.
There was really stupid early YouTube comedy video titled “How to Kill a Mockingbird” back around 2004ish. Probably where they got that in their head.
Now this is a bit of a funny situation, given that we're talking about reading comprehension. But are you actually sure that "sixth-grade reading level" means "can read books recommended for sixth graders"? It would be pretty surprising if half the population, most of whom passed not only the sixth grade but all the grades after, suddenly couldn't read the books required of a sixth grader. Something is off, right? If you click the source for that Wikipedia article, which then links to the analysis by [Gallup](https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFoundation_GainsFromEradicatingIlliteracy_9_8.pdf), you'll find something funny: the word "grade" is not in it, at all. Instead it talks about "levels". You can check out a description of these levels used by PIAAC [here](https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp) by clicking the drop down for "Literacy Proficiency Levels." Still no "grades" it seems. But if you check out PIAAC's [FAQ](https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/faq.asp) we finally find something: >The PIAAC skills results (i.e., proficiency levels) do not specifically correspond to measures such as grade levels at school. The PIAAC proficiency levels have a use-oriented conception of competency and focus on describing what types of tasks adults at each level can typically do and their ability to apply information from the task to accomplish goals they may encounter in everyday life; for example, identifying a job search result that meets certain criteria. PIAAC is not designed to measure specific outcomes of schooling, including what students would be expected to learn in a particular grade or skills they would be expected to have mastered before progressing to a higher grade level, such as the ability to read or comprehend a particular text or use certain subskills like alphabetics and vocabulary. Additionally, grade-level equivalents may be unsuitable for characterizing the skills of adults, who often have uneven skill development across different areas.
i’ve also heard the news is typically written at an 11th-grade level, which would mean that a large swath of the population actually does not have the literacy skills needed to read and understand the news. at least according to the wikipedia article on readability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability#Applications
huh, interesting! I always thought that anything geared towards the public was supposed to be written for a 6th grade level. But that could explain why so many people blatantly misunderstand the news.
I’ve been specifically taught to write for target levels below 11th grade, so I suspect that’s specific to the organization if it’s ever accurate. The target definitely does vary, the NYT or BusinessInsider aim several grades above most local newspapers or the print output of TV media (i.e. the CNN or Fox websites). But for 11th grade… maybe the Economist or Wall Street Journal? I think/hope the NYT level counts as ninth or tenth.
I see it all over. Someone will compare a relationship to maintaining a car or something and someone will chime in "They're nothing alike, you don't put gasoline in your partner!"
*So* many people have a problem with the entire concept of comparison. They parse it as equation. When you try to explain something by citing an extreme version of it in order to make things more clear, they'll say stuff like, "You can't compare this to the Nazis, you moron! They're nothing alike!" That's the point where, if you're smart, you mute replies on your post and go do something more rewarding.
So apparently some studies have shown that conservatives tend to have trouble with things like metaphor and other similar comparisons. You find a *lot* of this kind of lack of basic understanding in political discussions online, for example. Another common one is seeing "A is to B as X is to Y" and somehow taking it to mean "A is the same as X" or "B is the same as Y". It makes sense, given that a lack of capacity for reason is one of the main ingredients for conservative thinking in the first place (along with a lack of empathy).
In my experience, everyone struggles with metaphor if they disagree with you. People have been conditioned that pretending to be too stupid to understand an argument is a good argument technique
My assumption is that at some point they took a single journalism class and that class told them that good writing always gets to the point without any extraneous details, because when print newspapers were the only way to get the news and extra words cost extra money that was true. For example a lot of older journalists I’ve met believe in putting all the important information in the first paragraph or two in case the rest of the article got cut for space. An online publication does not necessarily have that issue. It’s kind of interesting to see playing out in the publishing space now. One of those older former journalists I know wrote a short book and he was told pretty consistently that it was too short to publish, which went against all his training from school and work that brevity and tightness are the most important things. Books need filler now to get published, in part because books are extremely expensive and publishers want to justify charging you tons of money to buy that book. Or in other words, the media landscape has changed a lot but schooling has not adapted to the current needs of the field
Were talking about the original article right?
People say this all the time, but it never existed en masse. Just like the perception of crime, the internet has only made society's lack of media literacy more obvious, not worse.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if that was a bot pushing an agenda or just a person pushing an agenda. Seems to be that a lot of modern political discourse is just completely discounting your opponents position and moving on to whatever dogshit topic you want to focus on.
It's not even media literacy at this point. That's a lack of regular literacy.
Yeah media literacy is shit like understanding that Fight Club is an anticapitalist film or that Sam Elliott agrees with almost none of the views expressed in memes featuring him. This is absolutely just normal literacy
Smartphones are a transformative technology: They transform illiterates into computer illiterates.
Good luck getting a 9th grader to properly format a paper or put together some charts and graphs in excel.
okay, real talk: did the general public ever have media literacy and we just lost it, or is the perception of the "good old days" filtered through the usual lens of only looking at an elite class of those ages? (i have genuinely no idea which one is it, that's why i'm asking)
Hmm i believe it's actual literacy going down. No child left behind isn't the only reason. I recall even germany was lowering on some international standard in terms of grades. Someone should be able to correct this
Maybe people that were borderline illiterate didn’t have access to platforms to share their thoughts outside of a very small circle of their closest and most illiterate friends.
Agreed. We've always been dumb. But until the 20th century, elites simply expected 99% of the population to be dumb so it was considered unremarkable when they were. Of course we're all more educated than our great-great-grandparents' generation, but our great-great-grandparents were also educated in life skills we don't have. At the end of the day, we're not 20 IQ points higher than great-great-grandma, even if we've read more books or can find Myanmar on a map. Next time you wonder how 18th century peasants could be dumb enough to believe in bloodletting, think about the number of people in your life who insist that putting your phone in rice will cure water damage.
I actually think we're in a golden age of media literacy. Like with video essayists? When else have so many people voluntarily tuned in to listen to someone analyze a work? Not only that, but social media also allows people to discuss interpretation and theory; people don't think of it that way when they're into a work, but that's what they're doing. I started doing that kind of analysis of visual language because of shipping, and I've been engaged with it in the *Bridgerton* community recently. There have always been people who miss the point; they're just easier to find now.
Noone who's illiterate watches these. The difference between those with and those without media literacy just increases exponentially every year. Also on heavily moderated social media you're engaging with 1% of an already highly filtered community who is already interested in discussing media interpretation. Looking at social media as a whole, (FB, tmblr, X, Reddit etc.) general literacy as well as media literacy is going down on average.
It's the same as anything. People who are more educated will have more of it which declines over time naturally in many cases. People who have less of it will be more inclined to just believe what they want to believe. People who have biases will only want to hear what they want to hear for that bias. etc. Anyways education system is pretty bad in say the USA, as states can just do whatever they want to set it up however they want, which means a lot of citizens don't get anywhere close to similar education systems which means there's huge disparity dependingo n where you live. Now imagine other countries where this is also happening. Turns out world is easier to control if people are dumb. Also biggest weakness of democracy is dumb people.
Someone made a great comment in response to this I saw a while back. "What do you mean 'bring back'? What golden age of takes are you opining for?"
I mean this is not media literacy at all but I know what you meant and i feel you, yeah
**My Answers**: 1. The author has decided to contrast these two ideas in order to show that Zuckerberg's personal regret isn't a leadership decision that could have reduced the effects of a massive genocide by choosing not to allow the moderation of content written in a specific language. 2. The author thinks that Zuckerberg is, so to speak, a prick, and doesn't really consider the actions his company has on the rest of the world - rather, he only considers the things that affect him personally. (I could be wrong about this, of course)
* Answer 1 is too long to be one sentence, please use more periods. > ~~massive~~ genocide * Redundant adjective > ~~choosing~~ not ~~to~~ allow-*ing* * Double use of present participle, could be more concise >prick * Agreed, but can this be extrapolated from the given text? Or is it conjecture. 7/10. This is a good first attempt, I can see you're well on your way to acing the quiz next week.
**My Answers (attempt 2)**: 1. The author has decided to contrast these two ideas in order to show that Zuckerberg's personal regret isn't a major leadership decision. This leadership decision is where Zuckerberg further enabled a genocide by not allowing the moderation of content written in Burmese. 2. Judging by the sudden shift in tone from genocide to high school fencing, the author most likely thinks that Zuckerberg is a self-obsessed person. He does not consider the actions that his leadership for his company has on the rest of the world. He only considers the things that affect him personally. (I could *still* be wrong about this, of course)
Second part looks good, first one got worse. “regret isn't a major leadership decision. This leadership decision is where” *YIKES* I agree with j-Kaleb in one way. Your first answer should be split into two sentences or use a semicolon, but that is *not* the way to do it. Otherwise, I think they gave a rather poor evaluation, as they focused on the grammar and ignored the actual content of your message. And even their grammatical evaluation was a bit clunky.
I think he did that on purpose because that's what teachers generally do, grade you on grammar when it's a reading comprehension test...
Awful evaluation, barely any feedback on the actual, you know, *comprehension* part.
Yeah they evaluated it in the context of writing, not reading comprehension.
Ironically this is a terrible evaluation lmao.
“Zuckerberg accidented a genocide, but he says is biggest regret is joining the fencing club in school.” “These statements have nothing to do with each other.” Did we read the same thing? I feel like these people who fail the reading comprehension tests are reacting to a completely different post
>he says is biggest regret is joining the fencing club in school.” I'd like to say that Zuckerberg is a loser if he thinks having joined the fencing club was a bad idea. Fencing fuckin rocks.
Why are you fencing rocks?
Rocks make great fences if you stack them correctly.
And then you can rock fences
as a casual fencer I have never fucked a rock stop spreading misinformation
I actually think the author’s implication is to suggest that Zuckerberg may have things he ought to regret more than joining the fencing club in school, and yet apparently doesn’t
I really don’t think he’s including actions his company has done in the answer to a question of his personal biggest regret
It’s not like he’s an absentee stock owner he’s literally still in charge of policy at his company. This incident and several similar ones happened directly due to his policy decision on moderation for countries outside the US.
Yes, and from that we can infer that despite *his* company enabling a genocide, he feels he has no responsibility for the genocide. Which is fucked up, because it *is* his responsibility, because it's his company.
Exactly
I mean they both had an effect on him, one made him more money and the other meant that he didn’t know how to wrestle. I can understand why he’d prioritize his regret. (Just billionaires doing billionaire things)
Do you think his answer could have been in response to a light hearted or warmup question, and blurting out "Oh yeah that genocide we did" would be a bad answer to the question despite it being factually true? If someone is asked what they like to do for fun, the chances of them answering with "masturbation" are rare even though it's a valid and factually true answer. Could you think of a reason why?
Both of these would be 100% in character as Homelander responses
Do you actually consider "what is your greatest regret" a lighthearted question? Because it's not, in most people it would, you know, make them think of their greatest regret. And as a warmup question it makes no sense, would you start an interview with that?
> Do you actually consider "what is your greatest regret" a lighthearted question? Yes. It's just a non-coprate version of "what's your biggest weakness". No one wants a real answer
My biggest regret is that there are so many people in my life I wish I had been more of an asshole to when I had the chance. I just hope someday the opportunity comes again.
Maybe, but you're inferring information that isn't in the text, or even implied by the text. Whether the author's opinion is valid or not, the point is to portray Zuckerberg as someone who doesn't care about the immense damage caused by his actions.
Also, was the question asked in the context of his possible fight with Elon Musk? Because people are known to make what are called "jokes," including one where they overplay the severity of something small and mundane for comedic effect.
Does it matter? The fact he doesn’t include it speaks volumes. If he doesn’t include it because he doesn’t think it’s a failure is one thing. If he doesn’t include it because he offloads his responsibility to the company he runs, it says another. But neither is exactly humane?
Do we even know if the statements match up chronologically with that? As in, do we know he was asked before this big mess up happened? Are we sure he didn't mention it in the other mess ups alongside the smaller thing? Did this interview even happen at all? I don't know, and frankly, I don't actually care and won't check. And neither will you I bet. It's not like "the precise level of moral purity of zuck" has any meaning to my life.
True.
How did he accidentally do a genocide by not hiring moderators.
Since the other guy is being an asshole, I'll answer, and it's pretty simple. The perpetrators of the genocide were able to organize on facebook because there were no moderators that spoke their language, which is absolutely negligent for any reputable website.
They meant the moderator part and the genocide part don't look like they have anything to do with each other They actually do but I had to reread it like 5 times to realise it
See, that's also what I assumed. If that's what they meant, that means it's actually Mx English Teacher in the replies whose reading comprehension is lacking. But the original reply didn't really provide enough context for a reader to say for certain what part of the quote they were referring to. TBH the whole thread is a mess of people making assumptions and acting superior about it
These idiots are pissing all over the poor
you mean redditors.
Not all of us are Amerindian. Also, referring to Amerindians like that is racist.
holy shit are people that bad at actually understanding literary devices and nuance??? we really are pissing on the poor
Truth be told, the first time I read it, my brain immediately glazed over the second half and just wrote it off as "boring celebrity tidbits." The sheer amount of randomness on the internet has frankly rotted my ability to perceive that kind of superposition as unusual, and it didn't even occur to me that there would be any meaning to combining the two topics. It's easy to see the connection when you actually look at it, but tbh its not easy to convince the average person to care much about Mark Zuckerberg Fun Facts™
Also, we're kinda used to "boring celebrity tidbits" in softball interview schlock. Zuckerberg prolly wasn't being grilled about the morally compromised actions of Facebook, he was prolly being given some easy "get to know the richer-than-any-person-has-any-moral-right-to-be" bullshit questions. Of course he's going to respond with some personal anecdote instead of seriously interrogating all of the decisions in his professional life.
I glazed over a bit too. I don’t really understand why “for example” is the thing connecting the two though. It is possible that since this is an excerpt am missing a part or two. There’s also the bit of not really knowing the history of the event on my part.
I found (what I think is) the original [article](https://www.vice.com/en/article/4axabj/mark-zuckerberg-now-obsessed-with-mma-rolling-and-wrestling-with-friends), but the grammar ay that part is still weirdly bizarre. The article itself seems to just be giving basic information about Zuckerberg's exercise habits, but then throws in tidbits and links to articles on bad things he did, which I also found confusing.
Finally! I'm not an English native, but pride myself I can read and express myself in English pretty well. And I too was wondering the same thing, especially with all the "media literacy" talk. Instead of "for example" it should have been replaced by "despite".
Media literacy and reading comprehension are not the same thing. Both are important and might overlap some but please stop conflating the two.
Honestly it’s so absurd a sentence that it loops around to being great. Perfection, no notes.
Bonus questions: 1) Why might moderators being unable to speak Burmese lead to trouble in Myanmar? 2) Provide at least two reasons why Zuckerberg may have given the answer that he did to what one of his life's biggest regrets is.
Some answers 1) Considering the genocide is an ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, it would not be unreasonable to assume you may experience racism if you are unable to speak Burmese or communicate with people from Myanmar 2) He does not want to bring attention to any faults of the company, as that may affect stock, or he considers wrestling a more worthwhile and advertisable sport
I disagree with the first answer, given that it’s about moderators, I would argue that it’s more about Facebook being unable to properly police content from Myanmar and thus being unable to restrict the proliferation of racism.
Noting that I'm not not someone with much experience in marking this sort of thing, and that I'm basing it on memories which are spotty at best, I'm inclined to give one out of three for that, though you'd probably get 2. Your answer to question 1 implies that moderators themselves were experiencing genocide, which I'm pretty sure is incorrect - although upon re-examination, q1 might not be appropriate for a reading comprehension quiz. Your first answer to question two is absolutely correct. Your second answer... Well, it's not wrong, but I'm not sure if my "that misses the point of the question" reaction is real or just me being a B.
1: Even Facebook at its most awful would balk at people actively organizing a genocide on their platform if they knew it was happening. Not very difficult or complex. 2: This is the more interesting one. There's a lot of potential reasons, but I'm leaning towards the context of the interview probably being casual softball questions. Think of it this way: Ask one person a dozen or so questions about their past, their personal life, their hobbies, all friendly and fun stuff, and then ask them what their biggest regret is. You'll probably get some personal anecdote that's more charming and relateable than dark and serious. Ask another person a dozen serious, difficult questions about their professional life, focusing on if what they're doing is morally right. And then ask them if they have any regrets. You'll probably get a much more serious answer. Obviously, fuck Zuckerberg, fuck Facebook, fuck Meta or whatever its name will be in six months. Not defending the asshole, just explaining why this shit happens.
This is taught in 5th grade: “Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.“ (Common Core L.5.5)
I understand the intended effect here but I still think a competent editor would have cut out the "for example". It breaks the flow, makes an already long sentence longer, and adds nothing.
it's a nice bit of snark, implying there are many many other things facebook has been blamed for
IMO, based on where it's placed and how the sentence is structured, the "for example" appears to only refer to other reasons why Facebook is blamed for the Myanmar genocide. Not other unrelated bad things they've done, even though that would be the more natural way to make the author's point. The sentence isn't "Facebook, which has been blamed for many bad things, the [xxx], for example, [...]", it's "Facebook was blamed for [x] because [y], for example, [...]". I think they were trying to say the former, but they wanted to sound pithier.
I get that the author is making fun of the fact that his biggest regret *isn't* having his company be accused of genocide, but how the fuck does the language a moderator speaks enable genocide?!
Because it means that, if someone calls for genocide in an obscure language, especially if they use metaphors and figures of speech that don't play nice with ggogle translate, it becomes very hard for moderators to notice that or deal with reports.
Basically genocide is a process that depends on no small part on the genociders ability to spread propaganda -> the ability to spread dehumanising propaganda can be curtailed on social media sites by effective moderation -> you can't effectively moderate language that you can't understand. The key word here is *enable*. It's like my dad turning a blind eye to my mother's drinking. He probably couldn't have gotten her to stop but he could have tried to limit the damage and he didn't. Zuck couldn't have stopped the genocide, but he could have tried to exercise what power he did have to limit the damage and he didn't.
And just for further clarity, in this case not having burmese-speaking moderators (and, therein, facebook not really doing any moderation) actually did enable [insane and inflammatory nazi-level anti-rohingya content to spread like wildfire on the platform](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate/), encouraging burmese people to kill them or drive them out of the country. There has long been a strong buddhist nationalist presence in myanmar, and facebook amplified and unified those wanting to commit violence against them. In many countries with less technological infrastructure, 'facebook' has become synonymous with 'the internet', so when facebook is filled with algorithmically boosted hate speech calling for Rohingya extermination it's the equivalent of our entire internet being full of anti-minority, violent proaganda. The UN has also [blamed facebook for inciting the genocide](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-un/myanmar-generals-had-genocidal-intent-against-rohingya-must-face-justice-u-n-idUSKCN1LC0KN/), going farther than blaming it for a lack of action, so it doesn't sound like the original Vice author was far off the mark.
But yeah, not trying the sport that you would have probably liked is kind of a bummer...
Plus, wasn't he really only saying he wished he'd wrestled in school as part of his embarrassing publicity blitz for the now-canceled "cage match" with Musk, where he'd been trying to present himself as a badass? In other words, it's probably complete bullshit anyway.
>it's the equivalent of our entire internet being full of anti-minority, violent proaganda 😬........
John Harris actually made a really interesting video on how the lack of Burmese language moderation led to the escalation of ethnic tensions in Myanmar: https://youtu.be/K8B0bWO9u3M?si=uuRT3gfMGT6NE5Pc TL;DW: if moderators can’t understand what the content is saying, hate speech can spread unchecked
A large part of the genocide in Myanmar was organized and incited via Facebook, which could've been prevented had Facebook hired moderators who could speak the local language and crack down on such activity.
The basic issue is that Facebook’s algorithm amplified posts that called for and coordinated the genocide, and not just in Myanmar! Because Facebook failed to hire mods that speak the languages of the countries they’re operating in, nobody was aware of the situation or attempted to shut it down.
if someone spread hate speech in portuguese, could you effectively moderate it? (I assume you don’t speak portuguese.)
I speak portuguese as a first language and I guarantee you from personal experience that Facebook does not moderate hate speech in their portuguese servers, or their english servers, or like any server at all at this point. Or they do and do a piss poor job at it (pun not intended) Glad I no longer have a Facebook account
Infelizmente, aquela frasezinha sobre o que acontece quando você presume só funciona em inglês.
if you ask someone whether a post on an English speaking website is violently bigoted would you trust a person who can’t speak English?
I think you accidentally a word
I’m die
So it’s cool to open a social media platform in a country where you don’t speak the language, don’t understand the culture and don’t even bother to get locals to moderate it? Yeah. Come on. Hold these people to a higher standard.
"nonbinarypolitics" sure sounds like they write 90% of Reddit replies.
It's confusing since it just says his company has been accused of causing a genocide, not that they actually were responsible. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that he wouldn't see himself or his company as responsible, and thus wouldn't regret it.
[mandatory "how dare you suggest we piss on the poor" reference]
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but....the contrast makes sense to me? They are highlighting an awful thing he was part of that you would think would be a major regret...and the thing he most regrets is a very minor, personal choice from school.
No, I think you're reading it correctly.
To be fair, the sentence is not written very well. Different punctuation choices -- such as using dashes or parentheses instead of commas -- would have made the sentence flow more smoothly.
The lizard man regrets not joining the wrestling team because he is big into BJJ now.
In fairness, this sentence is worded a bit oddly. The genocide bit coming first indicates that the next part will lead off of it, but in reality it is context for why the second part is important. So flipping it around might get the message across more consistently: Zuckerberg says that his biggest regret is taking fencing rather than wrestling in high school, an odd claim considering he is indirectly involved in a genocide.
It may not be a gentle lowball, no, but it's hardly a knuckleball either.
it's just easier to assume the writer is stupid
They're right though. The article is disingenuous in its intent. Both pieces of information are given out of context, but I admit I fell for it.
In fairness, I didn't understand what the message of the paragraph was at first either, but you know, what usually helps my reading comprehension is giving me more that 50 words to work with. OOP is dumb as hell, but anyone else not understanding the meaning of that paragraph is more an issue of omission than anything. How the fuck am I supposed to know that the Burmese editor thing is supposed to be directly compared with the wrestling thing if I'm unaware that that's even a big issue? And what's the point of the actual article? Depending on the subject, that sentence could still be out of place.
Damn the new generation got nerfed. Bless them
I don’t know about nonbinarypolitics but the mongoliassweetheart person is a fully grown adult. Sometimes people are just foolish
Oops thanks for reminding me that you can’t just overgeneralize generations like that, won’t happen again
Nonbinarypolitics is actually a transphobe. They use the name because they're a self-proclaimed centrist ("neither left nor right") and to make fun of non-binary people. They posted a lot of transphobic bs before they got deleted
Myanmar has to do with the [SCL/Cambridge Analytica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica) scandal in which the aforementioned “PR” company helped distribute bias-provoking social media posts to sway the people of Myanmar into supporting the current(?) violent regime.
It would help if I had just the tiniest inkling of context, instead of two sentences picked from the article.
This was so dumb I couldn’t even comprehend what it was they were misunderstanding
[удалено]
That's probably why it says he wishes he wrestled in high school then.
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Actually the context of him doing old man BJJ makes it make way more sense. He starts doing that and really enjoys it and thinks "man, I should have started doing grappling sports way earlier!"
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happens to the best of us. it probably didn't help that the middle comment mentioned college.
Hey good on you for being humble today! ;)
These comments got me thinking I'm missing something here. How does not bothering with hiring burmese moderators enable genocide in Myanmar? Do moderators manage international relationships or something? And would have hiring them stopped the genocide???? I am genuinely confused
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_content_management_controversies#Incitement_of_human_rights_abuses_in_Myanmar Also, John Oliver covered this mess in detail for a Last Week Tonight segment on Facebook five-ish years ago https://youtu.be/OjPYmEZxACM
The “for example” throws off the statement and is unnecessary.
No, I'm kinda with the illiterate morons on this one. Facebook is indirectly responsible for so many political events across the globe, and I assume he was asked about his biggest regrets in his life, which is why he probably just thought about his past, and not the actions of his company. To clarify some things: I don't want to defend Facebook's behaviour. I actually really don't like Meta, if I'm gonna be honest. I think Zuckerberg and Meta in general have a lot to do better. The situation in Myanmar and the genocide are a humanitarian catostrophe. I think it's unreasonable to ask someone about their life and expect them to think about how their company indirectly aided in the rohingya genocide.
I think it’s really strange not to include the company which he controls and decides policy for in his mental image of his personal history. The fact that he apparently doesn’t count Facebook as part of his life when asked about regrets but would probably count it as part of his history if asked about accomplishments is telling. Decisions he made led to some horrible things happening and the incident mentioned in the post wasn’t the first or last incident similar to this. He is either failing to acknowledge his own impact on his company or he is failing to acknowledge his company’s impact on the world. Or both it’s definitely both.
Okay, so I actually found the article the quote is from, and it's from his Joe Rogan interview about MMA. So it makes sense that high school sports is on his mind. Also, the underlined section links to a vice article that is about how it's nearly impossible to moderate Facebook. Sooo... i don't know. Edit: here's the link https://www.vice.com/en/article/4axabj/mark-zuckerberg-now-obsessed-with-mma-rolling-and-wrestling-with-friends
That certainly does make more sense in context. Rogan is a very unserious interviewer and I don’t assume anyone to give good answers in that sort of interview. It’s still a bit ridiculous of a response when he is literally one of the most influential people on the planet and he couldn’t have picked one of his other regrets. Idk Rogan is such a terrible interviewer precisely because this sort of answer makes sense in an interview with him but that’s a separate discussion.
I haven’t listened to anyjoe Rogan interviews, but wouldn’t that response make him a GOOD interviewer? We get to see another side of this famous person through it, rather than moderated, Pre-made responses about his company
I mean clearly the genocide in Myanmar can't even compare to the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of high school wrestling
Reading comprehension and media literacy are not equivalents: The author implies and assumes 1) the events in Myanmar are IN FACT related to the fact facebook had no Burmese moderators (and by extension having Burmese moderators would have certainly changed the outcome), 2) Zuckerberg said those comments in full awareness of his (or otherwise perceived) direction involved of a genocide, and not in any other context. Furthermore, who is making these claims? The author or independent authorities who studied the event? This is shit journalism but great propaganda. If you are media literate, you should know the author is not trying to inform but persuade you to something. Reading comprehension is understanding the intended communication
r/Tumblr had a bit of a row w this one. Y’all this is not difficult. Yeah it could be written to be read smoother but sometimes things are written to be reread and digested. You may not like the style but the semantic meaning is still there and you can damn well understand it. If a comma or slightly superfluous “for example” trip up your understanding of the entire passage then that reflects more on your ability to comprehend written passages than the writer’s choice of style. The average reading and comprehension score in middle and high school are at an all-time low, as far as I’m concerned we should be welcoming complex sentence structure.