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Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

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Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#371

Post by dredmorbius »

gdubs wrote: post #150

We tend to think we’re more in control of our behavior than we actually are. That is, our brains are operating from habit a large amount of the time, and the idea of the CEO brain consciously deciding our every action is largely an illusion. This is why emergency exit doors must open outwards. People have died in fires in theaters trying to push on doors that said “Pull”. The crash bar on an emergency exit door is wh…

Crash bars offer an unthinking affordance: if a crowd presses up against crash doors, the doors open automatically, relieving the pressure (or at least, if the doorway / passage itself is not overwhelmed).

Automatic negative feedback mechanism.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#372

Post by Trundle »

icanhackit wrote: post #344
VLM wrote: post #164

For, uh, purely scientific purposes I've noticed the posting volume on pr0n subreddits like /r/gonewild and uh, a few dozen similar subreddits, is perhaps 100 to 1000 times the sheer posting volume of a controversial subreddit like /r/the_donald. The sheer volume of relatively R rated pr0n is perhaps 1000 times the volume of everything else. There seems to be tap dancing around the issue that reddit is a 1960s Playbo…

> reddit is a 1960s Playboy magazine fifty years in the future [...] Just like the old saying about Playboy, I only read it for r/ama not the nekkid ladies. That's a thought-provoking way of putting it, though I'd add the /r/gonewild subreddit and its variants makes it considerably more meta. A lot of people, particularly females, are posting explicit imagery of themselves - revealing a hidden culture exhibitionism a…

Have any data on it mostly being girls doing it for the thrill? It seems like every time I like a photo and look the posters profile, they've got something else going on where the free photo was just marketing. Tons of underwear selling.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#373

Post by dredmorbius »

mulmen wrote: post #272
KirinDave wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same sort of myth as "why are manhole covers round?" and there are lots of attributions for why that ignore history for a just-so story.

I don't understand the reference. Why are manhole covers round? I always thought it was to prevent the cover from falling into the hole. Is that not the case?

Sewer grates are frequently square. For what it's worth.

(Not always, but quite frequently.)

They have the same gravitational-gradient dynamic as manholes.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#374

Post by nostalgeek »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #291

Since the dawn of social media, as an anthropologist, I find the way it has evolved to be incredibly fascinating. The original point of social media was to bring people together and build communities. Now, more than a decade removed from it's inception, it is doing the exact opposite. It's tearing people's communities apart, making people more polarized, and driving huge wedges into the very foundation of this countr…

> The original point of social media was to bring people together and build communities. Now, more than a decade removed from it's inception, it is doing the exact opposite. It's tearing people's communities apart, making people more polarized, and driving huge wedges into the very foundation of this country.

"Corporate" Social media are businesses, they are not here to bring people together but to sell influence. Businesses like Google,Twitter or Facebook have been very good at that. Social media are no different than TV or any ad sponsored business. The customer is the advertiser. How do you think these businesses are making billions without their users paying anything?

Venture Capitalists decided to support these business models with massive amounts of money, allowing them to reach critical mass. The whole "bringing people together" was just marketing ploy during the growth period in order to acquire an audience. But that's not how VC got their return on investment. Remember when Facebook was a website acting as a private network for families and friends? they quickly pivoted away from that because it doesn't make that much money.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#375

Post by dredmorbius »

floren wrote: post #339

I can't wait for the word "toxic" to drop out of favor. It implies that the person is not just giving a bad opinion, but is in fact fundamentally flawed and dangerous. Arsenic isn't toxic because it had a bad day at work, arsenic is by its nature a deadly poison and you can't change it, only avoid it. The vast majority of people labeled "toxic", though, are just humans with a variety of opinions and beliefs, some you…

There are in fact system dynamics in which specific behaviours are unhealthy. Toxic, if you will.

Consider these, generally, hygiene factors.

There are substances which are toxic in specific concentrations or circumstances, which are otherwise healthy: oxygen, CO2, water, vitamin D, salt, nutritional iron. Certain forms of discourse.

My view increasingly isn't that there are things, but interactions or behaviours. A thing isn't, but is what it does or how it behaves.

(This ... tends to simplify numerous ontological questions.)

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#376

Post by mistermann »

icanhackit wrote: post #344
VLM wrote: post #164

For, uh, purely scientific purposes I've noticed the posting volume on pr0n subreddits like /r/gonewild and uh, a few dozen similar subreddits, is perhaps 100 to 1000 times the sheer posting volume of a controversial subreddit like /r/the_donald. The sheer volume of relatively R rated pr0n is perhaps 1000 times the volume of everything else. There seems to be tap dancing around the issue that reddit is a 1960s Playbo…

> reddit is a 1960s Playboy magazine fifty years in the future [...] Just like the old saying about Playboy, I only read it for r/ama not the nekkid ladies. That's a thought-provoking way of putting it, though I'd add the /r/gonewild subreddit and its variants makes it considerably more meta. A lot of people, particularly females, are posting explicit imagery of themselves - revealing a hidden culture exhibitionism a…

> revealing a hidden culture exhibitionism

Not only do many females seem to enjoy exhibitionism on subs like /r/gonewild, there's also a not-so-hidden culture of exhibitionism that takes place in real life that "strangely" seems to have so far escaped being raised in the ongoing gender wars discussions. Human beings are very complex beings.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#377

Post by ecommerceguy »

panarky wrote: post #37

> Struggle to Detoxify the Internet The internet isn't toxic. It's the people who are toxic. These people are just as noxious in real life even if some of them hide it when their identities are known. Can anything be done to detoxify the people, or do we just treat them like spam and filter them out? And what happens next when millions of rabid voices are suppressed? The toxic people don't cease to exist, we just won…

And Reddit has been toxic since day 1.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/z4444w/how-reddit...

They were Fake news before fake news was a thing.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#378

Post by mistermann »

moduspol wrote: post #281
potta_coffee wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"correct worldview". People like you scare me.

Sorry--it is satire, but the comment represents literally how it comes across to me when I see claims that "better education" will effectively bring about less toxic discussions. The implication is clear: If only people were rational and educated, like me, they wouldn't think the way they do, and then we would all agree.

How about this: first teach advanced critical thinking skills, so people have the skills (if not the will, that's another problem) necessary to see through propaganda from both sides.

I have a feeling a lot of people would have issues with this approach though.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#379

Post by pbhjpbhj »

dalbasal wrote: post #345
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Reddit... does it know it's job is to prevent outraged reaction? // Ha, ha, ha. Cause that'll increase pageviews. Outraged reaction is exactly what all news media is going for because people rant and rave and in passing see more adverts. It's just they want to sanitise the topics according to their advertisers wishes. Reddit doesn't have non-censorship values, it's heavily censored; not all from the top admittedly,…

Well, yes that's the obvious (and cynical) assumption. It's definitely true as a real pseudo-economic force on the internet and media generally, but let's not just assume reddit are following that "interest" blindly. If you think reddit doesn't have those values, I guess we disagree. I don't see any way of coming to that conclusion apart from fundamentalism, it's either absolute or it's bullshit.

Let's see - Vanity Fair, Wired, GQ - there seems good reason to think that Conde Nast are willing to compromise and go with the click bait, a lot.

https://www.wired.com/story/bad-actors-are-using-social-medi... .. is the first entry Reddit, is it in the list, nope.

I think Conde Nast are prepared to stoop pretty low in the search for dollars before integrity.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#380

Post by swman »

KirinDave wrote: post #192
InvisibleCities wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is why emergency exit doors must open outwards. People have died in fires in theaters trying to push on doors that said “Pull”. The crash bar on an emergency exit door is what’s known in design as an affordance. Is this true? I always assumed it was because it's pretty much impossible to pull open a door when you are being crushed by people pressing against one another trying to escape.

It's the same sort of myth as "why are manhole covers round?" and there are lots of attributions for why that ignore history for a just-so story.

I find that word so offensive and mysoginist..
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