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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

#611

Post by Rescis »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #582
hnuser1234 wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we've got desires to identify with groups, and we've got desires to share criticisms of groups, and we struggle to find a balance. If we never criticize, we stagnate, if we never identify, we "self-destruct". We can come up with a "quick solution" as the notion of keeping more of our criticisms to ourselves, but that's certainly not a goal you want to pursue overzealously. You need to be able to share criticisms.…

> We can tell people it's not attractive to be ranty, but I'm not very comfortable going further than that, at the risk of wandering into thought policing. I don't want to see it going much further than that either. I was thinking more along the lines of making it so being thoughtful is "sexy" and being ranty isn't, the way today owning a car is "sexy" and smoking isn't. Free speech has its positive and negative cons…

> Free speech has its positive and negative consequences on stability and happiness; I do not want to fight free speech, I'm looking for ways to reduce the negative consequences. I'll protect your (and mine) right to rant about whatever you want, but I sure as hell would like the general policy discussion to involve less rants and more thoughtful cooperation.

I agree that free speech is an essential aspect of what makes us humans, and that it comes with both many positive and negatives.

In implementation of a plan to mitigate the negatives though, I much more support a private entity such as Reddit censoring whatever they wish, as if people believe it becomes to harsh they can simply leave. I'm paranoid that allowing an entity like the government (where constituents can't easily just leave) to get involved with it is good, as it allows for many conflicts of interest. These conflicts could be instances where the ruling party or minority parties push to label an opposing belief as more divisive, or where the ruling majority seeks to 'disincentivize' a minority or outside belief/religion by saying it is offensive to what they deem our values.

I feel like we should push for the civilization of speech to be a societal change, not a policy based change.

On a slightly different note, people have been saying that language and civil discourse have been going to hell for a very long time. George Orwell rather famously wrote an essay titled "Politics and the English Language" in the early-mid 20th century, wherein he detailed how society was moving towards using unclear and imprecise language to pander to the many without being forced to use falsifiable statements. Anthony Burgess wrote "A Clockwork Orange" in the 1960's where he highlights the main characters savagery in part by highlighting their usage of 'barbaric' dialect. William Langland wrote that “There is not a single modern schoolboy who can compose verses or write a decent letter.” in 1386. While civil and educated discourse is an important issue, people have been saying it will lead to the downfall of society for a very long time, but in many cases it is just changing and the entrenched powers dislike having to cope with that change.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#612

Post by [deleted] »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #384
prepend wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the discussion and I’d need to see the link. While obviously calls for violence are illegal (FBI steps in), there are many possibilities where the discussion could be useful (eg, convincing people to better understand refugees). Largely I’ve been desensitized to complaints about TD as typically it results in hyperbole (eg, election was a direct threat to people’s lives).

"It depends on the discussion" You're gonna have to provide a context in which this wouldn't be a terrible and unacceptable thing to say, cause I can't think of one.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#613

Post by heywhatabout »

0x00000000 wrote: post #483
anon6357814 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So we've tried 4chan also exists and it works and is marvelously non-toxic once you realize that any insults hurled at you are impersonal because they can only attack what you have immediately posted previously. Your attack surface is tiny, assuming basic information hygiene.

One of my biggest issues with reddit is post history. Oops this person posted something we don't like 3 weeks ago, dismiss his post and attack him. Oops, this person posted somewhere we don't like, ban them from the 46 subreddits I moderate. Oops this person posted for the first time in a default sub they have been subscribed to for 3 years today, ban him for brigading.

I imagine there are a few trade-offs when flicking the "post-history" switch either way.

Post history On: You get to follow a users comment history. If you read an insightful comment by them, and want to read more, then having a history is nice. Users are people

Post history partially On: e.g. comments could decay to anon after some period. (Cue the sites that collect all post data and match to users) Slightly increases the cost of doing a deep dive on a users history. Users are people, fading to ideas

Post history Off: Lowered attack surface for people who are actively trying to find an argument with you. Less pressure to have a persona consistent with the typical one of any particular community. Users are ideas

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#614

Post by Shivetya »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #607

> To its devotees, Reddit feels proudly untamed, one of the last Internet giants to resist homogeneity. Waitwhat? Reddit is a huge hivemind, with each subreddit having more or less the same views, since people who do not agree to the narrative of that subreddit are quickly downvoted so much that they can't post more than once a day or something.

and one fact they want to ignore, many of the politically oriented subs are managed by PACs who worked for years to get their people into moderator positions if not create subs as they needed them. then through mailing lists, text alerts, and such, they know what stories to post and act on.

reddit is anything but wild wild west anymore, its been co-opted by those who know how to manipulate opinion of products and persons

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#615

Post by salvar »

jpindar wrote: post #186
salvar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the old "We just need to change human behaviour" solution. Yeah, that would definitely work if it worked.

When's the last time you saw someone smoking a cigarette?

10 minutes ago? I get your point though, smoking has gone down. Would you be open to raising taxes on trolling?

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#616

Post by treerock »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #607

> To its devotees, Reddit feels proudly untamed, one of the last Internet giants to resist homogeneity. Waitwhat? Reddit is a huge hivemind, with each subreddit having more or less the same views, since people who do not agree to the narrative of that subreddit are quickly downvoted so much that they can't post more than once a day or something.

That's not my experience. There seems to be subreddits on every conceivable topic, and you can subscribe to whatever variety you want and you'll get a wildly varied range of views/politics/whatever.

There are even 'change my view' type subreddits for people looking to understand and debate the 'other side' of their arguments.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#617

Post by [deleted] »

wslh wrote: post #527
larkeith wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's disingenuous to try to classify Reddit as only a porn site, or to report on its communities in that context - by nature of its size and nature, individual (or groups of) subreddits are nearly as disparate as two separate websites, and should not be generalized based on Reddit as a whole; while the porn communities of Reddit may be the largest section, that does not exclude functionally distinct bodies su…

> I think it's disingenuous to try to classify Reddit as only a porn site I completely agree, there are zillions of different experiences depending the subreddit and many of them can amaze you. For example, I have asked very specific questions in subreddits like sysadmin and networking on how AWS and Google Cloud handle layer 2 network protocol like Ethernet, and received the correct answers that I never received pos…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#618

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#619

Post by paulmd »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #236
_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…

Reddit and HN are both missing two key ingredients on the moderation side: Transparency and accountability. There's nobody watching the watchmen, essentially. That leads to a lot of frustration, anger, mistrust, and abuse.

In particular, there is no guarantee that moderators are any good. Whoever registered a subreddit first "owns" it and moderates it themselves/chooses additional moderators. That's it.

This means there was a "gold rush" in the early days and if some shitter is sitting on prime real estate (like brand names of products) there's nothing you can do about it. If they decide to close the subreddit by making it private, nothing you can do about it. If they go inactive and are still squatting on prime digital real-estate, nothing you can do about it... if they later get hacked but are still inactive, doubly nothing you can do about it.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#620

Post by AllegedAlec »

treerock wrote: post #616
AllegedAlec wrote: post #607

> To its devotees, Reddit feels proudly untamed, one of the last Internet giants to resist homogeneity. Waitwhat? Reddit is a huge hivemind, with each subreddit having more or less the same views, since people who do not agree to the narrative of that subreddit are quickly downvoted so much that they can't post more than once a day or something.

That's not my experience. There seems to be subreddits on every conceivable topic, and you can subscribe to whatever variety you want and you'll get a wildly varied range of views/politics/whatever. There are even 'change my view' type subreddits for people looking to understand and debate the 'other side' of their arguments.

I wasn't too clear in my phrasing. Although Reddit as a whole has relatively diverse views, each subreddit has a very specific hivemind.
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