Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#801

Post by djanlermats2020 » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #277

kazinator wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on dial-up bulletin boards since 1983, Usenet since around the same 1991. Though in some ways it's the same, here is the difference: it has become more diverse. In 1991, the people you might have conversed with on Usenet were a lot similar to you. Of course, if we go to some comp.lang.* newsgroup or whatever, people are similar even today. But I mean that if you went into any newsgroup whatsoever in 1991, o…

I agree. Big centralized platforms (youtube, Reddit, the chans, HN to some exent) mean that the internet riff raff (i.e. people with no interest in the niche and who may feel like trolling) are free to show up in any given niche area of the platform (e.g. a subreddit or someone's channel) and then shit all over it. A community that would have been perfectly peaceful on a newsgroup, IRC channel or forum now has to con…

Trolls are a trivial problem, easily dealt with.

The real problem with practically every internet community is its moderation, because the worst people with the least business doing that job inevitably float to the top and are then impossible to dislodge without voting with your feet and creating an entire new community.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#802

Post by CapricornNoble » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 3:43 PM UTC

swampangel wrote: post #257

devmunchies wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this whole thread has nothing to do with real world threats of physical violence. online trolling is different than your extreme example.

If 10 people on the internet tell you they want to kill you, how do you tell if 1 of them is serious and is actually going to show up physically? The answer is that you can't, and there isn't a firm line where all trolling is on one side and harassing/violent behaviour is something different. Many of us can heuristically decide that trollish behaviour aimed at us won't extend to our person/home/workplace, and doesn't…

>>>If 10 people on the internet tell you they want to kill you, how do you tell if 1 of them is serious and is actually going to show up physically?

All the more reason for everyone to concealed carry. If not a firearm, at least something like a karambit.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#803

Post by djanlermats2020 » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

Remove practically all the tools built to combat "toxicity" and force people to talk to each other and use their words again.

Also: Fire every moderator, everywhere, and never let anyone be a moderator ever again.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#804

Post by fastball » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #655

fastball wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people are over-emphasizing the anonymity aspect of it. If the only think causing someone to behave morally is the idea that they are being watched by other people who know who they are, then their parents/religion/society has failed them.

>If the only think causing someone to behave morally is the idea that they are being watched by other people who know who they are, then their parents/religion/society has failed them. what do you think the function of parents, religion and society is if not to observe people and watch them? That's what socialization is. Stake in a community and incentive to adjust to social norms, because the consequence of anti-soc…

That doesn't really explain why many people are not assholes when given anonymity. And whatever those people have, we need to replicate in everyone else. Unless you believe that those people are somehow genetically "nice" and it is impossible to replicate with environmental factors.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#805

Post by iso1631 » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

antepodius wrote: post #349

iso1631 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem from the last 10 years is the spread of "everyone's entitled to an opinion". It seems that objective truth no longer exists in the eyes of the population. This is both a cause and a consequence of the defunding of journalism and the change of the profession from news to views.

That's not a novel phrase, and it's also at least partially a peace treaty between worldviews with fundamental differences.

And if it's an opinion on things like "should it be legal to have sex before marriage" or whatever that's fine

The problem comes when you have 5 civil engineers saying a bridge is not safe, and 50 random members of the public saying it's safe. If we treat those opinions as equal, we end up with a bridge collapsing.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#806

Post by krapp » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

leftyted wrote: post #800

Sorry_Rum_Ham wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the reason for the uptick is two-fold. 1.) In general, this is a reactionary movement from the elite class of society(straight, white, cis people) to keep a death grip on the social and systemic power they see being taken from them in the form of diversity, equality, feminism, etc. This has been happening for a long time now, but it got real, real bad after... 2.) ...Trump was elected. Him winning the elect…

> In general, this is a reactionary movement from the elite class of society(straight, white, cis people) to keep a death grip on the social and systemic power they see being taken from them in the form of diversity, equality, feminism, etc. This has been happening for a long time now, but it got real, real bad after... Trump's base is decidedly not elite. It's working class people who live outside cities. The elites…

>Trump's base is decidedly not elite. It's working class people who live outside cities.

Define "city," "elite" and "working class."

Because if Trump's base primarily consisted of people who lived in areas with, let's just say, populations under 10,000 without access to municipal services and who primarily farm and live off the land, then he would never have had enough support to carry the primaries. Clearly a significant number of his supporters live in what most people would consider a "city."

According to these articles, at least[0,1], Trump's primary support was among relatively affluent Republicans. It shouldn't be a surprise, either. Trump is an elite, a billionaire businessman. Obviously, other elites were going to support him.

That said, I would agree with GP in a general sense, that we're seeing a hard right-wing, reactionary shift primarily driven (as right-wing shifts typically are in the West) by white cis Christian males fighting to maintain their cultural power in the face of demographic and progressive change. However, I don't think there's necessarily a strong correlation in this movement to urban/rural or high/middle/low income lines, although I could be convinced by data to the contrary.

[0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/0...

[1]https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps...

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#807

Post by CapricornNoble » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

sagichmal wrote: post #740

eanzenberg wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to get political, but do you think Joe Rogan is an extremist? Jeanine Cummins? What about Ben Shapiro? These are people that the MSM is trying to cancel quite literally right now.

Nobody is trying to cancel Joe Rogan. I don't know who Jeanine Cummins is. Ben Shapiro is definitely an extremist.

>>>Nobody is trying to cancel Joe Rogan.

Oh I bet the Woke Twitterati (tm) would if they could, but Joe Rogan is in the same stratosphere as Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle where they are effectively impervious to cancellation barring some Harvey Weinstein/Bill Cosby-level misconduct.

https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/joe-rogan-cancel-culture-sme...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvAc7002eRM

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#808

Post by djanlermats2020 » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

nardi wrote: post #179

scottlocklin wrote: post #77

>I've noticed a huge uptick in the toxicity online in the last 5-7 years. You're crazy my dude(tte). I've been on the interbutts since 1991 and Usenet days, and it's exactly as it always was. The big difference is we have reporter ding dongs on Twitter thinking Twitter, aka the comments section they removed from their web presence, is the real world. Also old people on Facebook who never learned the lessons of being…

Yes, the internet’s always been toxic, but the audience has changed. It used to be a small subset of the world population that had the money, time, and know-how to get on the internet. Now it’s the entire world, and it seems to me that the average media-consumption sophistication has gone way down. Trolls used to be a smaller fraction of the whole, and easier to ignore. Now, the signal-to-troll ratio is all out of wh…

The actual problem isn't "trolls", it's people who call everyone who disagrees with them a troll.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#809

Post by djanlermats2020 » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

burnte wrote: post #515

kerkeslager wrote: post #359

I don't know if I know the solution, but I know one thing that isn't the solution: silencing everyone who disagrees with you. A lot of the people complaining about "toxicity" on the internet seem to be under the impression that if we "deplatform" the so-called toxic people, that will fix things. But on the contrary, that makes things worse. If someone says something awful on the internet, and everyone either ignores…

> I don't know if I know the solution, but I know one thing that isn't the solution: silencing everyone who disagrees with you. I'm not a fan of trying to SILENCE anyone, however as a private entity, no corporation is required to allow anyone to use their platform for (nearly) any reason. Twitter can ban me today because they don't like my shoes. Facebook can ban me because Mark Zuckerberg thinks I look funny. Google…

The fact that corporations can silence whoever they want doesn't change that silencing everyone who disagrees with you is a bad solution that won't work, sorry.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#810

Post by CapricornNoble » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

ceres wrote: post #608

panzagl wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deplatforming can't work- otherwise the world would now be as white-bread homophobic and misogynistic as it was in the 50's when blacks, gays, and women were deplatformed.

This isn't same thing and you know it. Deplatforming someone for being racist, homophobic and sexist is and should continue to be encouraged. In your example, what they were doing was fundamentally wrong and if you asked any good person today they would tell you as much.

Please tell me you recognize the irony of your comment.

Your last sentence is essentially indistinguishable from the position held 50 years ago by people who also felt they were "morally right" in deplatforming.