Interesting racial phenomenon on the intarwebs

[Valheru]

Not sure where this belongs, so mods please feel free to move if required.

Facebook 'sparked white flight from MySpace' (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,,25723022-2,00.html)


A "WHITE flight" to Facebook has turned MySpace into a black ghetto, according to a social analyst in the US.

Danah Boyd said Facebook's arrival sparked a migration from MySpace of white users, the educated and the wealthy, while non-whites had stuck together on MySpace.

"It wasn't just anyone who left MySpace to go to Facebook," Ms Boyd, who works with Microsoft Research New England, told a crowd at New York's Democracy Forum.

"We might as well face an uncomfortable reality ... what happened was modern day 'white flight'."

Ms Boyd said MySpace had become a digital "ghetto".

"The people there are more likely to be brown or black and to have a set of values that terrifies white society," she said.

Her interviews with American teenagers since 2006 showed that online migration mimicked the patterns of class groups' movements across cities.

I find it interesting, because South Africa has experienced this phenomenon during the last 15 years, in a BIG way. I just never figured it would happen in a cybercommunity.

What does this tell us about the weight of the importance we attach to our online interactions?

[Preno]

I'd feel pretty racist right now if I had a Facebook account.


eta: also MySpace skins suck lmao

[Christina]

I may be one of the only people that spends a lot of time online that has never looked at Facebook or MySpace. What do people do there besides post their pictures and blogs and send out friend requests to as many people as they can, and why would skin color matter to that? I don't know what race any of you people are unless you say it or post a picture.

[Preno]

I may be one of the only people that spends a lot of time online that has never looked at Facebook or MySpace. What do people do there besides post their pictures and blogs and send out friend requests to as many people as they can, and why would skin color matter to that? I don't know what race any of you people are unless you say it or post a picture.I highly doubt it's a conscious effect. Most likely, educated white and lower class non-white social networks are simply disparate, so effects that propagate quickly through one network might simply not reach the other to such a significant degree.

[Febble]

I may be one of the only people that spends a lot of time online that has never looked at Facebook or MySpace. What do people do there besides post their pictures and blogs and send out friend requests to as many people as they can, and why would skin color matter to that? I don't know what race any of you people are unless you say it or post a picture.

And me :)

[Christina]

I highly doubt it's a conscious effect. Most likely, educated white and lower class non-white social networks are simply disparate, so effects that propagate quickly through one network might simply not reach the other to such a significant degree.

That seems somewhat inevitable to me. I think that most of us gravitate to forums that have people of relatively the same educational level and that's usually a result of economic class here and not necessarily race. It often translates into a racial distinctions because the economic disparities that create barriers to accessing higher level education tend to effect minorities more here. Maybe there are more cultural distinctions between races on worldwide sites that are geared toward younger people (if they are) than I'm used to.

I don't want to derail this into a science thread but from lurking on IIDB I got the idea that 'race' wasn't a meaningful distinction. Do people mean skin color in this case?

[Bane]

I have both MySpace and Facebook accounts.

I am relatively inactive on MySpace, because the people I want to talk to have all left. I am not racist. In fact, I couldn't care less what someone's skin colour is.

[Notta]

I find that the people I know who have stuck with MySpace are younger and more rural. The older and more urban people (whom I know) have migrated to Facebook. And since Facebook started for college students to connect with other college students, I can see why it would attract people who want to keep in touch with someone they met at college.

Plus, Facebook has links to many, MANY professional organizations to which I belong or follow. MySpace has none of that. And there are far too many teens and preteens on MySpace, as compared to Facebook. Hell, the White House has a Facebook page and RSS feed, but I don't know if it has something similar for MySpace.

And, FYI, the Secular Cafe has a group on Facebook, if you're interested in joining.

[LoneWolf]

I can't see how skin color has anything to do at all with people leaving Myspace for Facebook. That article itself seemed a bit racist though.

[Preno]

How so?

[premjan]

No surprise that online communities mimic real ones in any case.

[Christina]

That line about black and brown people having a set of values that terrifies white people seems pretty insulting to everyone IMO.

[Preno]

That's not what it said.

[Notta]

"The people there are more likely to be brown or black and to have a set of values that terrifies white society," she said.

From the article.

[Preno]

Yeah, I read the article. That quote doesn't say that black and brown people have values which terrify white society.

[Christina]

I think that Preno is right and I unintentionally took it out of context and changed the meaning. "The people there are more likely to be black or brown and to have a set of values" is significantly different from what I said and the generalization I added to it.

[Gooch's Dad]

I joined Facebook when a black former HS student of mine urged me to, so she could keep in touch with me. So sue me!

[LoneWolf]

It implies that a place where the population is increasingly black is a ghetto.

[Notta]

If you're interested, here's a link to the entire original speech (http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/PDF2009.html).

There's a good section on 'homophily', where like attracts like.

In many ways, adult worlds are even more divided than teen worlds. Adults are less likely to know other adults who aren't like them than teens are. There's a concept in sociology called "homophily." It means birds of a feather stick together. Whites know whites. Democrats know Democrats. Urbanites know urbanites. Tech people know tech people. Rich people know rich people. And before you immediately start listing the people you know that aren't like you, realize that this is the auto-reaction to an uncomfortable reality (more colloquially noticeable when people refer to "my black friend..."). Structurally, social networks are driven by homophily even when there are individual exceptions. And sure enough, in the digital world, we see this manifested right before our eyes.

All I could think of when reading this was the 18-month-long RnR / TR / SC / FRDB schisms, and the groups of people who strongly prefer one board over all the others (myself included).

I think it's a good idea to read the entire speech instead of the press releases. She makes some good points about a digital divide on the Internet, and the assumptions one makes about how wide an audience one can reach through social networking sites.

[Preno]

It implies that a place where the population is increasingly black is a ghetto.How is that racist? That's pretty much the definition of a ghetto.

[Notta]

Aren't there ghettos where the population is NOT largely black? Such as the ones found in Mexico or India?

[premjan]

What horrifying values?

What ghettos in India? India is dirty all over I don't think there is any particular part of Indian cities that are all that much more ghetto unless you're talking about slums. The word originally describes Jewish colonies in Europe I think.

[Preno]

Yes, obviously, it works the same way for other minorities, too.

premjan: I'm pretty sure there are Muslim ghettos in predominantly Hindu areas.

[premjan]

Not just Muslim, there are all sorts of ethnic enclaves in India but they are only dangerous for non-members on specific occasions (e.g. religious festivals when tensions rise).

[LoneWolf]

It implies that a place where the population is increasingly black is a ghetto.How is that racist? That's pretty much the definition of a ghetto.

You're right Preno. I was operating under the wrong assumption. I thought the definition of a ghetto was a place full of poor people and crime. I found it racist to assume any such place is going to be mostly black. I can name such places that are mostly white as well as predominately black neighborhoods that are safe clean places to live.

But then I looked up the definition of ghetto and found:

a section of a city, esp. a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships.

So it looks like I don't have a leg to stand on. But I still don't see how the definition can be applied to Myspace.

[Preno]

LoneWolf: well, I assume it's a bit of an exaggeration. Ime it's not uncommon to refer to various internet places as ghettos. E,B! was a ghetto at RnR. You could say that the TR/CF thread is a bit of a ghetto, too.

eta:
3
a: an isolated group <a geriatric ghetto>
b: a situation that resembles a ghetto especially in conferring inferior status or limiting opportunity <the pink-collar ghetto>

premjan: A ghetto doesn't have to be "dangerous for non-members". I'm pretty sure Jewish ghettos weren't particularly dangerous for non-Jews.

[premjan]

The ghettos in India are not due to discrimination, they are mostly self-segregated. My impression is that black ghettos in the US exist because white people move out of them, not because black people move into them. There are some real ghettos of the American kind in India too - for untouchables historically. Those are genuine cases of discrimination because some of those people were historically not allowed to live in other areas, sort of like South African apartheid though not about race. That situation is technically illegal nowadays but I doubt there has been systematic desegregation in India.

[darjeeling]

MySpace has always been crappier than Facebook, in terms of layout and organization, so it's not a surprise that Facebook users think MySpace sucks. Besides, Facebook started out as a Harvard-only and then Ivy League + Stanford-only networking site. It gradually opened up to other colleges and only recently became open to anyone who felt like signing up. Of course it's got a more "exclusive" vibe - it was exclusive until fairly recently.

I fail to see what something like this:
Ms Boyd said her research showed high school students found Facebook "more cultured" and "less cheesy" than MySpace.

...has to do with race. If Facebook let you customize the background in your profile and add all sorts of things like songs, videos, and glitter poop, then you'd see the same cheesy shit on Facebook, too. And, really, with the addition of all the games, applications, and customized clutter, Facebook looks a lot more like MySpace now than it did three or four years ago. I guess that's because black people are signing up or something. ;)

[Anne]

We have musician friends who have been resistant to facebook because myspace works better for them.

Just my experience.

[Free in Freeport]

Myspace is obnoxious. You never know if you click on somebody's link if you're going to be assaulted with loud crap music and bling. It strikes me as very teenaged.

[Bane]

I'd have to say MySpace caters more to teenagers (of any race) than anything else. Facebook, however, is a more "grown up" site. The "flight" of people from MySpace to Facebook, probably means that a large portion of the demographic on MySpace were unsatisfied and wanted a site that caters to adults instead. "Bling" all over one's profile loses its appeal once you hit a certain point, namely when you leave childhood behind.

Facebook is, IMO, "MySpace for grown-ups". I do use it, and play around on it a bit, but I don't sign in to glitter that gives me spots before my eyes for an hour!

[TySixtus]

"The people there are more likely to be brown or black and to have a set of values that terrifies white society," she said.

I always love these ridiculously over-the-top generalizations. Yes, there is a "white society" and yes, there are list of "values" that "terrifies" "them". I'd bet 10 bucks the Ms. Boyd is a white woman, which is the only reason she can get away with saying that shit. If she's not, she has scored major points for couching such direct racist nonsense into a sociological study.

[Garnet]

"The people there are more likely to be brown or black and to have a set of values that terrifies white society," she said.

I always love these ridiculously over-the-top generalizations. Yes, there is a "white society" and yes, there are list of "values" that "terrifies" "them". I'd bet 10 bucks the Ms. Boyd is a white woman, which is the only reason she can get away with saying that shit. If she's not, she has scored major points for couching such direct racist nonsense into a sociological study.

You just put your finger on what was nagging me about this. Racist language isn't always expressed in pejoratives, is it? To me, it's not that the differing values "terrorize" but rather that there are cultural difference that are not necessarily understood from one group to another. People tend to stay with what they know.

[Notta]

"The people there are more likely to be brown or black and to have a set of values that terrifies white society," she said.

I always love these ridiculously over-the-top generalizations. Yes, there is a "white society" and yes, there are list of "values" that "terrifies" "them". I'd bet 10 bucks the Ms. Boyd is a white woman, which is the only reason she can get away with saying that shit. If she's not, she has scored major points for couching such direct racist nonsense into a sociological study.I'm sure she's studied thousands of profiles on both MySpace and Facebook to make this quantitative statement. Not.

[Eudaimonist]

Myspace is obnoxious. You never know if you click on somebody's link if you're going to be assaulted with loud crap music and bling. It strikes me as very teenaged.

That's my reason for not going there. Race as such has nothing to do with it.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[Preno]

I too would like to pre-emptively deny being a racist because I dislike MySpace. Just in case you were wondering.

[Notta]

I'm echoing Mark and Flying Buttress -- MySpace creeps me out because of the annoying backgrounds, excessive bling, and brain-damaging music people choose. I've seen pages made by middle school and high school kids, and they are some of the most annoying Web pages I've ever encountered.

Someone on another board said that MySpace reminded them of the early Geocities sites.

[Pendaric]

I've only barely got the idea of Facebook, and that not properly. I've not even looked at MySpace (and don't particularly intend to).

[darjeeling]

We have musician friends who have been resistant to facebook because myspace works better for them.

Just my experience.

Yeah, good point. The music pages on MySpace let you put up tracks, and you can list all your performance dates.

I was thinking more along the lines of personal networking. Facebook is much more personal, and MySpace is better for promotion.

I'm sure she's studied thousands of profiles on both MySpace and Facebook to make this quantitative statement. Not.

How did she determine people's race/ethnicity anyway? It's not like there's a field you fill in with that information.

[willynilly]

Myspace is obnoxious. You never know if you click on somebody's link if you're going to be assaulted with loud crap music and bling. It strikes me as very teenaged.

I would say this is why I left myspace. They don't have those damn addictive games either.

[Notta]

I'm sure she's studied thousands of profiles on both MySpace and Facebook to make this quantitative statement. Not.

How did she determine people's race/ethnicity anyway? It's not like there's a field you fill in with that information.She interviewed teenagers at schools around the country. Very scientific. (Not. Again.)

[Lugubert]

I may be one of the only people that spends a lot of time online that has never looked at Facebook or MySpace. What do people do there besides post their pictures and blogs and send out friend requests to as many people as they can, and why would skin color matter to that? I don't know what race any of you people are unless you say it or post a picture.
Haven't looked at either. Isn't "skin colour" ambiguous, referring to site layouts as well?

[Notta]

Christina, did you ever pass notes to your friends during school?

MySpace is notes to your friends writ large. And with extra flashy goodness. My niece, for example, has some godawful background of fair maidens standing in the woods with loud, pulsing death rock music playing, and blood dripping off the letters of each section title. All her friends can post, "Hey! You online?" and chat in real time via MySpace. She posts ALL of her cell phone photos, sends endless little annoying memes and apps to all of her bazillion 'friends', and can post emo shit about the latest little ignorant thing her boyfriend did when he ignored her to talk with his buddies about NASCAR. Or whatever, and her BFFs can say, "Dump him, girl!" or "You deserve better!"

Middle school stuff. It was originally for bands and sharing musical tastes, but has degenerated into high school / middle school cliques.

[Christina]

Christina, did you ever pass notes to your friends during school?...Not too much that I can remember. I spent more time hiding a novel behind my textbook pretending to be reading along.

Middle school stuff. It was originally for bands and sharing musical tastes, but has degenerated into high school / middle school cliques.

It sounds harmless enough.

[epepke]

Yeah. Well, I don't suppose that it occurred to anyone that whenever you click on a myspace page, you get something busy as fuck with some popular song blaring on your speakers.

I wouldn't assume a priori that nonwhite people would delight in that idiocy, but if they do, it's not my fucking problem.