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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

#741

Post by crankylinuxuser »

jstarfish wrote: post #698
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. That was usenet. But in those days, we didn't have 3rd party recommended filters - but there's no reason why they wouldn't work now. Maybe it's time to remake Usenet, minus binaries. Binaries, piracy, and their data load per server are what killed Usenet. (Yes, I know it's still living on in paid-service world. But gone are the days your ISP runs a machine.)

> Binaries, piracy, and their data load per server are what killed Usenet. Binaries and piracy were two of the biggest reasons to use Usenet. Spam is what killed it.

I respectfully agree and disagree.

Spam was and still is a nassive headache. However Bayesian filters were really starting up. But Spam was annoying at best.

What caused Usenet servers to be quit was that ISP's were seeing them as a pirate haven and a lawsuit magnet. There was all the impetus to stop supporting piracy, and lose the costs incurred with that bandwidth to a Usenet server.

Sure, it was a great draw to use it to pirate... but it is also why it fell. Now these days, time to move to IPFS. That place is ripe for piracy, and super simple to share.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#742

Post by bshanks »

kerkeslager wrote: post #550
guelo wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

> 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. "Poisioning a conversation" is a bad metaphor that conflates two different things which do exist, but need to be dealt with in two different ways: 1. Baiting: trying to say something horrible to anger people for their own entertainment. The proper response to this is simply to…

The issue is that many in group 1, baiters, intentionally and effectively mimic those in group 2, earnest people. So sadly, although they are different, there is no way to reliably distinguish them from their posting behavior.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#743

Post by spiralx »

smsm42 wrote: post #595
TeMPOraL wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I'd like to talk with you, see if you have an alternative way of keeping the society from self-destructing.

I do. I propose we do exactly what we've been doing for the last 10000 years when human society didn't self-destruct. Do you have any other proposal that has a similar or better track record?

Those 10,000 years have involved very, very little in the way of free speech for most people - I don't think going back to the days of lèse-majesté and the Inquisition is what you had in mind, even though those institutions certainly provided stability in a sense.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#744

Post by bshanks »

_m8fo wrote: post #237
Tiktaalik wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is not actually strong moderation. Forum communities with actual strong moderation, eg. Something Awful, ResetEra have near zero issues with hate speech, Nazis and other things that reddit has let fester.

Well, that's because reddit is simply a platform, right? reddit undeniably has tools to allow for strong moderation. see /r/AskHistorians for a perfect example of this.

Reddit tries to be just a platform, but it fails in two ways:

1) Namespace of subreddits. The subreddit which snags the most obvious name for a topic has a much better chance of becoming canonical for that topic that competitors with worse names.

2) Cross-subreddit identity and supporting tooling. For example, i can easily search for all recent posts made by a particular user, but i can't easily search for all posts made by a particular user within one specific subreddit. This sort of thing promotes "cultural leakage" across reddits and makes people think of all of Reddit as one community with one culture.

Related: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16573842 which summarizes a study that finds cultural leakage across subreddits.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#745

Post by spiralx »

Karunamon wrote: post #692
tmuir wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flaw in your argument is that the obedience must be demanded at gunpoint. In actuality, the obedience can be gained through a combination of continuously putting people under stress, and framing yourself as the only viable solution to the stress. Its how you train dogs, and how you train Marines. Narcissists and con artists don't need to threaten violence to achieve their means. The threat of violence is simply o…

Fair, but how do you continuously put people under stress using only words on a screen? The comment you originally replied to asserted that "There's no words that can make robots out of people", and so far you've provided counterexamples that use many more things; none of which are restricted to internet comments. Keeping the original topic in mind, we're talking about online comments. Not cults, not marines, not any…

> Fair, but how do you continuously put people under stress using only words on a screen?

Once someone has become afraid of something, it doesn't just vanish after the event that caused it is over.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#746

Post by spiralx »

cookiecaper wrote: post #294
bllguo wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to distinguish fact from fiction is not a skill that is near universal, and it should be. Seems like a straw man to attack "thought policing" and "indoctrination." We're talking about critical thinking and logical reasoning.

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…

> A good example of this is that many engineers are known for a just-the-facts, no-frills approach. This is because engineers tend to prioritize facts and correctness over aesthetic and emotional value.

And yet engineers are over-represented (compared to people with other degrees) amongst Creationists and conspiracy theorists and, I would guess, terrorists. I think engineers value simplicity and direct causation more than facts or correctness.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#748

Post by tmuir »

nkurz wrote: post #723
tmuir wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not pretend you're not attempting to gaslight me. I _returned_ name calling, as my interlocutor decided the easiest way to dismiss my claim was to frame it as chicken little proclaiming that the sky is falling. Then I debated his points. Lets break it down point for point: - lopmotr framed my comments as a conspiracy theory. I retorted that there is obvious evidence all over reddit that supports my claims. - lo…

As someone who is sympathetic to your argument, I disagree with your tactics. 'lopomotr' suggested that you might be falling prey to the same psychology that you are seeing in others. While it's probably impossible to be completely polite when doing this, I don't think he was trying to be rude. As you might guess, self-identified "conspiracy theorists" don't necessarily consider "conspiracy theory" to be purely an in…

I'll admit that this theory is pretty out there, and I'm not going to continue to expound about it here. I'll also admit that I can easily get pretty worked up, and veer into the partisan, hair on fire rhetoric that is the very subject of my ire. I pledge to do better, and read your article.

I developed the roots of this idea over December '16, after several conversations with one of my life long friends I hadn't seen since a few months before the election. He's an attorney, and someone I know to be extremely bright. He voted Trump. The level of spite and shadenfreude in all of his arguments, and him repeating the phrase "I've never been so sure of anything in my life", in regards to his confidence in Trump to fulfill his campaign promises, was very jarring. All of these traits were completely foreign to my friend before Summer '16. He hadn't gotten less intelligent in any other avenue of his life.

I only came to this theory through the realization that susceptibility to public relations tactics, weaponized persuasion, whatever you want to call it, is not a matter of intelligence at all.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#749

Post by tmuir »

nkurz wrote: post #735
tmuir wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I submit to you, a subreddit I've found in the past week that is absolutely horrifying, and I think stands quite counter to the "variety of opinions" model you put forth. This isn't anything visually graphic, but the opinions expressed in this subreddit make me believe that these people are preparing for a violent insurrection, full stop. https://www.reddit.com/r/CBTS_Stream/ CBTS stands for the Calm Before The Storm…

The subreddit you refer to has since been banned: "This subreddit was banned due to a violation of our content policy, specifically, the prohibition of content that encourages or incites violence and the posting of personal and confidential information." https://www.reddit.com/r/cbts_stream

wow. I wonder what falls out of that.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#750

Post by upvotinglurker »

_m8fo wrote: post #65
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your suggestion would lead to an echo chamber. Take a look at metafilter and how samey they've gotten. One thing to remember is that even small barriers implicity give mods much more power.

I complete agree. My premise is that you can only remove two out of the four -- echo chamber, trolling, toxicity, community. If you accept this premise the only logical conclusion is to remove trolling and toxicity. Without community the point is moot, after all. So really you're removing two out of echo chamber, trolling, toxicity.

What's the difference between trolling and toxicity? The words have seemed interchangeable in most contexts where I've heard them used.
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