Intimidate the really wild groups ie Neonazis and ignore the rest. The ones who do harm need to realize that society will defend its values and the other ones are just wasting their own time on the web.
Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
61–70 of 859 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#62> people who disagreed would usually leave it at that and walk away respectfully. Now, it seems like everyone treats everything as an argument or debate to be won at all costs. Even niche sites like HN are not immune.
You seem to be assuming a. that these are real people and not bots and b. that these people are not paid shills etc. - yet we have ample evidence to the contrary on both points. If you ask me, we are in the midst of an information war that is crossing over with a culture war. I wish it would blow over but we seem to be stuck with it until the people behind it either win or become demoralised. The only solution that springs to mind is the complete removal of anonymity online, but that would bring its own problems.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think its a fallacy at this point to assume the people pushing toxic or objectively wrong viewpoints are trolls. If it ever was 100% trolls, that time has passed and their target audience is expanding their work in earnest. We now have people who 100% believe objectively wrong things and have an obsession to spread their belief as fact. Edit: If there is a solution to this issue, it will depend on the ratio of thes…
When someone on the street corner tells you the world is ending you ignore them. You dont need a complex technical or social solution. When someone tells me that xyz plant oil cures cancer or the earth is flat... I ignore them. If I want to be a troll I may play along or challenge them if its fun. That's the internet. There have always been nutters- they just found other nutters to talk with and you get a loud feedba…
I don't think ignoring the nutters is viable. Enough people are believing anti-vax lies to start bringing back deadly disease which affect more than just themselves. Enough people are believing climate change propaganda which is slowly harming the habitability of our planet for our human race.
What was once contained on the internet is leaking out onto the streets and is already affecting you and I in many ways.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#64It appears to me that the web is is reflecting the insane level of polarization and toxicity in real life. Unless we can find a way to dial that down, I don't think there's anything effective that can be done about the same thing on the web (without having to engage in actions that are even worse, anyway).
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#65“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” -Rumi
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#66I don't think you can fix it, it's just the nature of the Internet. I was talking to some older coworkers who were adults before the Internet became mainstream, and they said that before the Internet, your social circle was neighbors and co-workers, so being an ass would have direct, and sometimes physically painful, ramifications. They said that on the Internet, there's no real ramifications for being a horrible per…
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#67Stop using social networks.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#68Stop responding to it. No seriously, just stop. This isn't a "complex problem that needs nuanced technical and legislative solutions". Back in the old day, there was this saying. "Do not feed the trolls". Sadly, we've forgotten that. Our current approach is, "create rigorous 30 minute point by point take down videos to defeat their point of view". Our urge to debate and correct people who are wrong just fuels them ma…
We found a lot of lies during the UK election last month. Not difference in opinions, not beliefs about whay may or will happen, easily proven lies, posted across community forums, copied and pasted to other ones, and repeated in an increasing cresendo People then believe those lies, they repeat them, and even if they don't those lies sink into their subconcious and change their behavior, not necessarily today or tom…
You might find that the people you see posting and repeating these lies see the things that you post and repeat as lies.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think its a fallacy at this point to assume the people pushing toxic or objectively wrong viewpoints are trolls. If it ever was 100% trolls, that time has passed and their target audience is expanding their work in earnest. We now have people who 100% believe objectively wrong things and have an obsession to spread their belief as fact. Edit: If there is a solution to this issue, it will depend on the ratio of thes…
When someone on the street corner tells you the world is ending you ignore them. You dont need a complex technical or social solution. When someone tells me that xyz plant oil cures cancer or the earth is flat... I ignore them. If I want to be a troll I may play along or challenge them if its fun. That's the internet. There have always been nutters- they just found other nutters to talk with and you get a loud feedba…
>When someone tells me that xyz plant oil cures cancer...
I ignore them.
What happens when you see that same person talking to a cancer patient trying to sell them plant oil?
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#70Sounds like "Naive Realism" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology...
"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" - George Carlin.
Funny... but what's even funnier is that EVERYBODY THINKS THIS.
People dont realize that it's not that there are a group of bad drivers out there, but that everyone drives badly sometimes. It's always different people.
The toxicicity online is similar. There's just a lot more people online a lot more hours per day, and everybody is a jerk sometimes.