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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?

#151

Post by forgottenpass »

Remember back when we used to have concepts like "flamebait" and "flamewars"? When we would openly talk about conversations to not get involved in? Right in direct proximity to those conversations themselves? We'd acknowledge that no-one was above getting hot under the collar, and that while we'd try to avoid it we might have to go bicker at eachother in the corner for a while?

What changed? My rough list is:

1. News bloggers got online and turned flamebait into their business model.

2. Normies got iPhones and started posting online. They never read an netiquette guide. If they had heard of the concept at all they dismissed it as computer nerd nonsense. They don't think about online communication systematically and expect every interaction online to be like talking to customer service: they get to say whatever they want, and only hear a very constrained window of things back. This backfires in all the obvious ways.

3. "Platforms" with KPIs based on engagement are incentivized to enable the largest flamewars possible and put it in as many people's faces right up to the point they start causing bad PR.

4. People with basically zero forethought thought they could fix society by being paternalistic to strangers.

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

#152

Post by claytongulick »

dragonwriter wrote: post #114
etangent wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, the desire to correct other people who are wrong is the fundamental impulse of pedantry. The desire to compel others to conform to one’s ideal of correctness is the fundamental impulse of authoritarianism. ...but also libertarianism, for a particular aspect of correctness.

Huh? Can you explain?

My understanding is that the core value / principle of libertarianism is individual liberty.

How do you derive compelling others from that?

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

#153

Post by jccalhoun »

I am not a believer in things being better back in the day. I think that is nostalgia. Flame wars have existed since the beginning of the internet.

What we can to do make it better is to invest in teaching critical thinking, media literacy, and actual argumentation.

And it is important to know when to walk away. There are a lot of times when I see someone respond to a comment in a way that is shitty or just plain wrong and I would love to try to correct them. However, I try to resist. If it is reddit or something I will look at their post history. If they mostly post on certain subreddits I know that there is no point in my continuing the conversation. Nothing I can write is going to change this person's mind so I stop engaging with that person. I'm not always successful in resisting the urge to tell them how wrong they are but I try.

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

#154

Post by cannedslime »

I rarely see threats, I do see that dialogue is rarely actually happening, its usually just shit flinging with buzzwords like cuck, biggot, xenophobe, leftist, commie, nazi etc. Rarely do I see people make arguments, and even rarer do I see people actually arguing as in exchanging ideas and answering each others questions.

The more mainstream a site gets, the worse it seems to be. Especially where voting is involved (reddit, facebook etc).

Add to this "grassroots" efforts to "takeover" public internet forums, which has been going on for decades by both far left and right wingers. Applying for moderator roles, not because they want to moderate discussion, but have complete control of it..

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

#155

Post by throwaway8879 »

mwcampbell wrote: post #130
etangent wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> The desire to "correct" other people who are wrong is the fundamental impulse of authoritarianism. Maybe, but it's also the impulse of people who rightly care about the future of our shared world.

Rightly according to your subjective experience.

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

#156

Post by ddebernardy »

Tech isn't innocent but you can't blame it all on tech either. Polarization has been a thing for decades upon decades. In the US a major shift occurred around the Civil Rights movement, after which Southern voters basically drifted away from the Democrat Party and coalesced towards the Republican Party. US politics has been polarizing along party lines ever since.

IMHO you won't fix it with technology as it runs much deeper. But you can remove comments to sweep a big part of the toxicity under the rug.

If you'd like a good overview of the longer story, Ezra Klein, who just released a book on the subject, was on Chris Hayes' "Why is this Happening?" podcast earlier this week ("Why we're polarized, with Ezra Klein").

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

#157

Post by grumple »

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)?"

You’re asserting that it’s worse like that’s a fact. It’s not. It’s much better than the old days now that many accounts are tied to your real name, and since enforcement of community standards became commonplace.

The US political polarization is more widespread, on and offline, but online discourse is still pretty mild compared to the old days of greater anonymity.

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

#158

Post by kody »

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…

When reporters on Twitter freak out about the trolls on 4chan like it's some disease infecting our precious wholesome web, I can't help but remember (through my biased lenses of course) when most of the web (that I visited) looked like 4chan. What the folks who think the web is 'degrading' don't seem to realize is how much of a wild west it used to be, and how much corporations have tried to (and somewhat succeeded in) sanitizing it.

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

#159

Post by gbrown »

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.

So... would you consider that an argument against the sanctions levied against, for example, doctors who lie and fake data to stoke fears about vaccines and autism? What about fighting against conspiracy theories about the deep state and pizza parlors?

There's a tendency to wishfully think that people are rational and should be expected to sort out their own information environment with no governmental influence whatsoever, but I don't buy it at all. We're predictably manipulable, emotional creatures, and we can decide rationally to improve our information environment without falling into your implicit slippery slope.

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

#160

Post by scrollbar »

I just got my preordered copy of Ezra Klein's "Why We're Polarized" which professes to study this topic in detail, in particular how it relates to politics in the US https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49930783-why-we-re-polar...

I have a feeling this issue is pretty complex. Looking forward to reading more about it soon.

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