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

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

#141

Post by dependenttypes »

CM30 wrote: post #21

Truth be told, the most practical solution is to stop centralising everything and using these giant social networking sites that force people with nothing in common together. The bigger your audience gets and the less focused on any one topic it is, the harder it is to moderate/keep under the control, and the more drama you'll inevitably have when groups clash there. Smaller internet forums, subreddits, Discord/Slack…

> stop centralising everything

Even federated approaches like mastodon also have big issues with toxicity.

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

#142

Post by asjw »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #32

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…

When you stop responding, AKA reacting, you are not solving the problem, you are making it worse.

In fact I would say that "don't feed the troll" is the root cause of the huge spike in trolling that we have now.

Do not feed the troll meant, from what I understood back then, kill it, not let it grow somewhere else where it's protected.

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

#143

Post by zhoujianfu »

Probably fixing the root cause of political divisions would have the biggest effect.

Stuff like ranked choice voting and open/no primaries that would result in more moderate politicians winning and less need for political parties.

Also a UBI might help diminish an “us vs them” mentality. The more good policies we have, the more we ALL benefit.

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

#144

Post by Der_Einzige »

etangent wrote: post #94
gbrown wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Furthermore, it is rationalism which exists as the first non religious justification of hierarchy. Read Plato.

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

#145

Post by barryaustin »

There's no straightforward fix because this behavior is something that emerges from mass psychology, like war. In a sense this is war, with new platforms to amplify and direct weaponized ideas.

If war is politics by other means (Clausewitz), we can turn that around and say that politics is war by other means. See: the Russian concept of hybrid warfare.

What ends war is when enough people in a society are convinced it's not worth it. And that happens when enough people are exposed to the horrors of war, when they see what it does to their own lives and to the lives of people they care about.

Now we're in a period when most people haven't been exposed to that level, so this is unfortunately an upswing.

The way through is for some number of us to keep our humanity toward others (in the positive sense), to act accordingly, to carry that through until conflict blows over, and to rebuild society afterwards.

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

#147

Post by fredley »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #108
fredley wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is that social platforms online are built around heavily optimising for engagement. Content that gets engagement must be better, so it gets promoted more heavily, and algorithms show you personally the content it thinks you're most likely to react to. You can't leave because it's messily wrapped up with your social connections to your friends. Until this system dies, we won't solve this problem. I…

You don't have to leave, although I think most people overestimate how much it would hurt their social connections if they did. You just have to refuse to engage with toxic content when you see it, the same way you avoid debating with an obnoxious friend. (Newer social media platforms, unsurprisingly, are designed to make this easier; it's much easier to avoid dumb arguments on Instagram or Tiktok than Facebook or Tw…

It's you against a whole bunch of bright, motivated, and very smart people trying to keep you commenting, clicking, and getting involved. It's not that easy.

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

#148

Post by jedberg »

You really can't.

The only fix is aggressive moderation, and even that isn't great, because you'll be shaped by the ideas of the moderators.

The internet is a wonderful tool. It magnifies reach of all thoughts and facts and opinions. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing, and what each person considers good or bad is different.

We've always had "crazies" with strange ideas. Back in the day they just stood on street corners shouting. Then they passed out leaflets. Then they got on public access cable.

And now they have the internet, where they can reach the whole globe at once.

The one thing I can tell you that won't work is pure democracy. Something I learned at reddit early on is that pure democracy just doesn't work, because the trolls have far more time and patience than everyone else, and they will manipulate the system.

Also, a lot of people just don't want to think for themselves. They will just follow the loudest voice assuming it is correct. This also makes democracy not work well.

But democracy is still the best system we've got.

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

#149

Post by madaxe_again »

samatman wrote: post #115
scottlocklin wrote: post #77

>I've noticed a huge uptick in the toxicity online in the last 5-7 years. You're crazy my dude(tte). I've been on the interbutts since 1991 and Usenet days, and it's exactly as it always was. The big difference is we have reporter ding dongs on Twitter thinking Twitter, aka the comments section they removed from their web presence, is the real world. Also old people on Facebook who never learned the lessons of being…

In other words, except for the scale, and the fact that it's infected the mainstream media, and the accelerants making it even worse, it's the same old thing? So we can summarize as "there's been a huge uptick in the toxicity online (which was always there)?"

It’s the same old same old. People used to heckle in theatres, because the audience lent them anonymity. Mobs are mobs because in a mob you are the mob. Lift the social contract by granting anonymity and we fairly instantaneously resort to slinging faeces at one another.

I think the GP has nailed it, however - we are reporting theatre hecklers as news, and instead of watching the play, everyone is now watching the punch-up in the aisles, and placing wagers.

The problem is that the theatre is on fire, but that hasn’t quite yet eclipsed the spectacle of a good old fashioned confrontation.

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

#150

Post by mschuster91 »

scottlocklin wrote: post #77

>I've noticed a huge uptick in the toxicity online in the last 5-7 years. You're crazy my dude(tte). I've been on the interbutts since 1991 and Usenet days, and it's exactly as it always was. The big difference is we have reporter ding dongs on Twitter thinking Twitter, aka the comments section they removed from their web presence, is the real world. Also old people on Facebook who never learned the lessons of being…

> I've been on the interbutts since 1991 and Usenet days, and it's exactly as it always was.

Quality-wise maybe but nowhere near the same in numbers. Back in 1990-2005 it took expertise to reach the Usenet. Facebook, Reddit et al. changed the game by essentially giving every village idiot without technical knowledge the "freedom" to troll on FB, Youtube, whatever. Conspiracy theories had their own niche usenet spaces, today there are FB groups for all kinds of utter bollocks with hundreds of thousands of members and absolutely no quality or sanity control.

Additionally, for newsgroups you needed some kind of client, most people could only access them after work, further reducing the user base, and there was nothing remotely similar to "likes" - today, people do everything for likes, with instantaneous feedback and no limits (practically everyone has a smartphone with FB and notifications), driving an ever faster and faster "news" cycle.

> And of course, the other media encourages polarization and demonization of the other for dumb short term. That's a purely American phenomenon, and nothing's going to change it until the people pushing this swill on MSNBC, Fox and CNN decide to change it

No, this is not US-only. It may be most expressed in the US (and amplified by its two-party system), but us Europeans see the same issue. Brexit is the most obvious, but France, Poland, Hungary, Austria and Germany also have problems with polarization and (mostly) the far right using outright lies to further it, with Russian financing / backing suspected and proven everywhere.

The thing that must change is to get rid of Russian money in politics, and to enforce neutrality and fact based reporting in media.

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