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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

#461

Post by ecommerceguy »

dragonwriter wrote: post #452
jjrh wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real issue is binary choice. I might disagree with a comment, but acknowledge it's a valid well thought out argument. On the flip side I might agree but acknowledge it's a poorly formed argument. Something might be totally off topic or funny, but if I made me laugh do I down vote it? Slashdot's model of tagging posts was a pretty good idea I think and allowed one to filter out the 'funny' or 'offtopic' comments.

> I might disagree with a comment, but acknowledge it's a valid well thought out argument. So, upvotes and respond. If it's a net positive contribution, you shouldn't be downvoting. > Slashdot's model of tagging posts was a pretty good idea Its a good model for a customizable user experience, and a bad model for a community. Those two goals are often opposed.

I disagree. Upvoting is like a High 5, downvoting, especially on Reddit, is used to bury something people don't agree with. Downvotes, IMO, should require some sort of intellectual effort as to why you are actively burying a comment or post and thus require a reply.

Dragon, you commented and downvoted on something that you are doing right now which is commenting on a comment system. No? At least you had the decency to reply, which most Redditors don't. Which makes Reddit Toxic.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#462

Post by verylittlemeat »

Retra wrote: post #425
moduspol wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you teach critical thinking?

By giving people things to think critically about, and ensuring that they respond in an appropriately thoughtful manner. Of course this doesn't work when politics is taboo.

I think emotional maturity is more important than critical thinking. People in our culture have this life or death anxiety over being right, especially in social groups. You see it all the time on social media. Person 1 makes a throwaway facebook post which contains some kind of factual error. Person 2 points this out. Person 1 feels personally attacked and becomes emotionally invested in "winning." The more pushback person 1 gets the more stand their ground and will scorch the earth to save face. Where is all this intellectual insecurity coming from?

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#463

Post by seany »

1337biz wrote: post #423
seany wrote: post #404

I can't be the only person who is just not bothered by this kind of thing at all, am I? I'm way more worried about political indoctrination in upper education than trolls on the internet.

Then you are running in the wrong circles where you can't just reject any oposing viewpoint as 'Russian bots'.

I'm not quite sure I understand this comment. Can you expand?

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#464

Post by verylittlemeat »

T2_t2 wrote: post #410
_m8fo wrote: post #46

So we've tried: - Real identities (Facebook comments) - Voting and self moderation (Reddit, HN, etc.) - Strong moderation (Reddit, HN) They all result in toxic comments, trolling, an echo chamber,or worse, a complete lack of participation. There's no real solution to this problem. However, if you create consequences or a cost to commenting you'd eliminate toxic comments and trolling at the cost of less participation…

> There's no real solution to this problem. I disagree, There IS a solution, but no one likes it. Segway: Football aka Soccer had a problem back in the day. Games became (more?) boring because teams would go up a goal, and just play "kick the ball to the goalie". Goalie'd pick up the ball, bounce it, pass to a player who kicked it back to the goalie, rinse and repeat. Then they instituted the back pass rule - https:/…

just fyi I enjoyed your comment and anecdote but the word you're looking for is "segue" not "segway."

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#465

Post by cookiecaper »

bllguo wrote: post #363
cookiecaper wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is completely disingenuous. Your average person is capable of critical thinking and logical reasoning -- those who aren't are either wards under the care of another person. Normal people just think logically and critically in reference to local optima, and that's not something that we can or should try to program out of them. That quality is also known as adaptability and it's crucial to successful surv…

No, it's not disingenuous at all. It is not a cop-out to say that people who believe in conspiracy theories, people who don't understand facts, people who are highly opinionated about things they don't understand, etc. are not behaving logically. They can have valid concerns and still be behaving irrationally. You clearly think these are mutually exclusive but they aren't. Appreciate the multiple snide attacks, thoug…

> people who believe in conspiracy theories

Is there not such a thing as conspiracy fact? Aren't some conspiracies, in fact, real? It seems both sides of the political aisle have pet conspiracy theories these days, so it's really hard for this to hold water anymore.

> people who don't understand facts

As another commenter said, people will usually agree on the clear and present facts, e.g., Donald Trump won the presidency. Where you'll find more disagreement is on rationale: either he won because he gave a voice to the discontented American working class, or he won because he worked in cahoots with Vladimir Putin to subvert American democracy.

People don't refuse to acknowledge the obvious state of affairs. They have different interpretations, based on different values and credibility heuristics, of the likely impetus for that state of affairs.

>people who are highly opinionated about things they don't understand, etc.

aka virtually everyone. How many of us know enough to hold our own with the experts in something that we're "highly opinionated" on? If we can in anything, it's very narrow. Are all of our other opinions invalid now? Humans use credibility heuristics to try to determine who is right about something, and then they follow based on that.

> are not behaving logically

I dunno, it sounds logical to me, at least in the practical sense. If we pretend we live in a world of infinite resources and time, you might be right, but considering the constraints of reality, the logical approach seems to be to have and express opinions in the moment according to one's best judgment, since everyone else is going to be doing that too. Just gotta try not to be too haughty about it.

> They can have valid concerns and still be behaving irrationally. You clearly think these are mutually exclusive but they aren't.

I agree someone can have a valid concern and also behave irrationally. I don't agree this is what you started out saying, though.

>Appreciate the multiple snide attacks, though.

No offense intended. Edit deadline is passed, but I wasn't thinking I put any such things in. My apologies if you felt I was being condescending or passive-aggressive.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#466

Post by branchless »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #355
branchless wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are devolved local states equivalent to private landlords? States capture land value via land tax and socialise this. Private landlords capture it and keep it. Night and day.

Are you referring to a feudal lord as a "private landlord" or a "devolved local state"? Both would be more or less fully appropriate. "Devolved local state" is slightly more accurate than "private landlord", because unlike a landlord in a more commercialized society, a feudal lord was not legally able to sell the land he owned. He was legally able to govern it.

My interest is that the feudal lord was living off the backs of others. The state taxing land to build hospitals is not the same thing.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#467

Post by sls »

Torwald wrote: post #443
sbarre wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed.. Social media users don't get those tools because they are not the customers, they are the product.

The people who downvoted you are idiots.

I didn't downvote, but it may be that those that did are tired of seeing this same "insight" on every single story about a free service.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#468

Post by orangecat »

keepper wrote: post #117
_m8fo wrote: post #46

So we've tried: - Real identities (Facebook comments) - Voting and self moderation (Reddit, HN, etc.) - Strong moderation (Reddit, HN) They all result in toxic comments, trolling, an echo chamber,or worse, a complete lack of participation. There's no real solution to this problem. However, if you create consequences or a cost to commenting you'd eliminate toxic comments and trolling at the cost of less participation…

We haven't really tried "real identities". We've come close. Real identities would require verification, which sites like FB only do after the fact. I fear that a huge repercussion of the election issues is that we will get there. A real ID may be required for you to post comments in all websites. And i'm not sure how I feel about that. Reality is that it would drastically reduce comment trolling, if your real identi…

Reality is that it would drastically reduce comment trolling, if your real identify was viewable and searchable by all you know.

That is not at all clear, especially as a percentage of comments. There are plenty of sociopaths who are perfectly willing to troll under their real name. Meanwhile, more reasonable people may quite rationally be worried that expressing any opinion on a controversial issue will lead to online mobs trying to get them fired from their jobs, kicked out of school, or otherwise ostracized. Not to mention scenarios like being a gay teenager in a very socially conservative environment.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#469

Post by nitwit005 »

siegecraft wrote: post #148

This problem is easy to solve: give users the tools to do their own filtering. But services like to pretend that it's a hard problem because they don't want to actually cede that control to their users. The whole point of controlling the communication networks is to control what and how people say and hear.

Most of us solve it by not visiting the political subreddits.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#470

Post by guelo »

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…

Poisoning a conversation is a thing. And if you've participated in online discussions I don't see how you can honestly say it doesn't exist.

You're implying that in every thread where a troll shows up to derail the conversation we all have to stop what we're doing and give thoughtful responses to the troll to show them the error of their ways. But then the only possible conversation is debates with trolls. But that gives too much power to the trolls. Sometimes you just have to shut the trolls up so you can talk about what you want to talk about.

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