Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

91–100 of 859 posts

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

#91

> people who disagreed would usually leave it at that and walk away respectfully. Now, it seems like everyone treats everything as an argument or debate to be won at all costs. Even niche sites like HN are not immune. You seem to be assuming a. that these are real people and not bots and b. that these people are not paid shills etc. - yet we have ample evidence to the contrary on both points. If you ask me, we are in…

"yet we have ample evidence to the contrary on both points"

People on HN believe that? The web has changed...

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

#92
post #14

Disclaimer: I acknowledge that "toxic" is a loosely-defined term that can be thrown around at people that really aren't... I'm mostly meaning people that go out of their way to be negative/harmful in unnecessary ways, harmful forms of trolling, the inability for people to have a discussion without it dissolving into attacks/etc extremely fast... that kind of thing I think we're looking back at history with rose-tinte…

I don't think OP is claiming toxicity is new, but the extreme polarization of everything is. Look into the lives of politicians in the 1950's and 1960's. They frequently socialized together and worked together. They were able to find common ground. Every victory for one party wasn't necessarily a loss for the other. How often do you think Mitch McConnell goes out for a drink with Bernie Sanders? Tribalism, especially…

"Look into the lives of politicians in the 1950's and 1960's. They frequently socialized together and worked together. They were able to find common ground. Every victory for one party wasn't necessarily a loss for the other. How often do you think Mitch McConnell goes out for a drink with Bernie Sanders?"

That's the problem with transparency and constant scrutiny. In the 50s and 60s you could hide affairs like Kennedy did. Or you could have a drink with people from the other party, discuss things openly and find a deal without anybody knowing. If McConnell met with Sanders today there would be a huge uproar. There is something to be said for the ability to make backroom deals.

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

#93
People in 2010 didn't get into arguments online?

I don't think any of that is true, there were tons of arguments on forums and IRC and stuff.

I believe this is purely a "now we see it all" where as before it was hidden behind private invite only communities and hidden/private chat rooms.

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

#94
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might find that the people you see posting and repeating these lies see the things that you post and repeat as lies.

They frequently do see things in that way - and they're wrong. In fact, they're worse than wrong, because many people see the dueling assertions of fact and give up on knowing the truth of a situation altogether. This is a classic disinformation technique. We do have the ability to determine truth from fiction, it just takes more work than cynically throwing up your hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying.

The desire to "correct" other people who are wrong is the fundamental impulse of authoritarianism.

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

#95
post #56

Stop responding to it. No seriously, just stop. This isn't a "complex problem that needs nuanced technical and legislative solutions". Back in the old day, there was this saying. "Do not feed the trolls". Sadly, we've forgotten that. Our current approach is, "create rigorous 30 minute point by point take down videos to defeat their point of view". Our urge to debate and correct people who are wrong just fuels them ma…

We found a lot of lies during the UK election last month. Not difference in opinions, not beliefs about whay may or will happen, easily proven lies, posted across community forums, copied and pasted to other ones, and repeated in an increasing cresendo People then believe those lies, they repeat them, and even if they don't those lies sink into their subconcious and change their behavior, not necessarily today or tom…

The problem with lies in politics for me is that every politician needs to do them to stay competitive. Also every party has politicians with different objectives, which makes things even harder. Also a good leader should be well compensated, at the same time people are envious of politicians who make a lot of money legally, which makes corruption for politicians necessary.

The only improvement I see is decentralization, which is a very slow, but powerful process. The Gutemberg printing press showed that it is possible, and Bitcoin is doing the same thing right now, but I think superior technology for organizing people and resources is the only solution.

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

#96
post #56

Stop responding to it. No seriously, just stop. This isn't a "complex problem that needs nuanced technical and legislative solutions". Back in the old day, there was this saying. "Do not feed the trolls". Sadly, we've forgotten that. Our current approach is, "create rigorous 30 minute point by point take down videos to defeat their point of view". Our urge to debate and correct people who are wrong just fuels them ma…

We found a lot of lies during the UK election last month. Not difference in opinions, not beliefs about whay may or will happen, easily proven lies, posted across community forums, copied and pasted to other ones, and repeated in an increasing cresendo People then believe those lies, they repeat them, and even if they don't those lies sink into their subconcious and change their behavior, not necessarily today or tom…

I don't know if ignoring lies is necessarily a problem. Because what are the realistic chances that anyone responding to non factual information, is responding with factual information? Probably pretty low on the net if we're being honest.

That said, yes, we absolutely cannot ignore the toxicity in its entirety. Ignoring it entirely is how little old ladies at church bible studies wind up dead. There are certainly classes of toxicity that it's just military sense not to ignore. Religious and ethnic extremism, etc. Basically anything that is going to cause issues with physical violence. To my mind, violence is the line.

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

#97
I can't speak for this site, but for the internet overall: There will always be teenagers and trolls.

Teenagers will always find it amusing to say naughty things and being transgressive. Trolls never bother finding something more interesting to do.

It is like a prank call. You used to call the local pizza joint, and ask for orange chicken, annoying the manager until they flew into a rage. Now you get on a comment section and annoy people.

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

#98
It's a big problem without one simple solution. One thing we can do, though, is not enable it when possible. One big thing I have zeroed in on recently is comments.

When I redesigned my blog/website last year, I intentionally removed Disqus and all commenting ability. In fact, what prompted the redesign was that I wanted to add a box pleading with people to not use comments for tech support for various open source projects I've created and to file Github issues instead.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how bad comments have really gotten. Trolling, bullying, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, abuse, and general mean behavior have become such a rampant problem that "don’t read the comments" has become an Internet meme on par with "don’t feel the trolls." Think about it: when was the last time that you changed your opinion because of a comment you read on a blog or news article? More than likely it just make you mad or made you sad.

I have been low-key nursing this idea for awhile now that the Internet would be better off if a lot of sites killed off comments. When comments become a breeding ground for the worst aspects of human behavior, why should we continue to enable it? Why should we host it and give it a voice? Why should we implicitly endorse it under our brand? Because that is what we do when we host comments.

Commenting should probably still exist on social media sites (Facebook, Reddit, HN, etc.) But most sites would be a lot better off if they just dropped comments entirely and reallocated those resources to more productive uses, and I think their users would be better off for it as well.

Yes, I am just one person with a small blog about programming. But if this is the position that I want to take, I should be the change that I want to see in the world. Thus, the removal of commenting. And I've been pushing this idea a bit in other areas that, just maybe, users don't need to be able to directly comment on things.

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

#99
It is so much easier to hold and propagate a false / misleading view.

Anger pushes us to action more than agreement.

Truth us hard to find and difficult to defend.

When the world is right we’re not driven to action, nothing needs fixing.

I don’t know the answers but the odds are stacked against civility and truth right now.

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

#100
Too many people cannot turn off social media. Also, our 'elected' officials and the media continually drive the polarization that you see - they don't want any middle ground, they want to force us into an us or them choice and its working. The solution is finding middle ground where we can agree, we need to come at the problem from a place of mutual respect rather than a desire to obliterate the other side.
Post reply on HN