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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?

#281

Post by eitland »

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…

5 years layer than what you describe but what I remember from the 1995 to 2000 was relatively peaceful, even the newsgroups I visited (mostly technical ones). There were dark corners but you mostly knew if you stepped into one.

Then again I was mostly looking for html tutorials, facts for physics and history projects etc.

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

#282

Post by eropple »

devmunchies wrote: post #224
eropple wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shitlords don't just "meme". They radicalize themselves and others. I had a friend ask to crash on my couch during GamerGate because a guy on 4chan took a picture of himself with a knife in front of her apartment building and it's the people who aren't shitlords who are the problem here? What's your proposed "immune system" response to that, exactly? Or to an Elliot Rodgers, he who was cheered on by exactly this crow…

this whole thread has nothing to do with real world threats of physical violence. online trolling is different than your extreme example.

Yeah, no, that excuse stopped working around six years ago. “Online trolling” is now part and parcel of political action and can be separated only through naïveté or disingenuity and no, there is no third option. The shitlord who chased my friend from her home was cheered on by that faceless mob of “online trolls” and encouraged other people to do likewise and worse. Similarly, Elliot Rodgers and the like got their book from “online trolls” who happened to also be virulent misogynists who were ecstatic that somebody took what they advocated and put it into action.

What you call “extreme” is the reality for people less privileged than you being subject to these fucks’ weird jollies. What’s your just-ignore-it stuff going to do for them?

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

#283

Post by rlucas »

If you're working on this in a for-profit context, I'm a Seattle VC looking to invest in solutions for this particular problem, and my phone/email/etc. are in my profile.

My most recent investment was on this thesis: http://blog.rlucas.net/vc/exchanging-thoughts-on-a-thoughtex...

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

#284

Post by ianai »

netcan wrote: post #217

There's a Bernard Cornwall book where an Arthurian warrior collaborates with the druid Merlin. It takes place in Britain during the Saxon invasion period. At one point Merlin's in a library. We learn that Druid's are not allowed to write. Once you write something down, it becomes fixed. Fixed on paper. Fixed in your mind. Rigid and unalterable... this is not conducive to magic, which cannot work under such rigidity.…

I’d say the fix then is to remove the words. Ie leave social media or make it too decentralized to attack.

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

#285

Post by at-fates-hands »

GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #180
kody wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

This is my experience and perception as well. I don’t understand people who think it’s always been some civil gathering.

> I don’t understand people who think it’s always been some civil gathering.

In the early days of social media, the idea was to create engaging communities, which I felt for the most part happened. I was on a LOT of social media platforms in the mid aughts and really got a lot of it with the people I connected with. For me, it was actually quite positive and healthy then.

In the last eight years or so? I had to get off. The overwhelming negativity, the weaponization of the platforms, the "cancel culture" and a rash of other things just make a majority of the platforms completely unusable now. On top of that, you add in the incredibly poor track record these platforms have with user data and privacy, the non-stop tracking, and the thousands of ads in your feeds?

It used to be a joy to use these platforms. Now it's gotten to a point where I'm not sure what the point of social media is anymore.

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

#287

Post by kody »

JohnFen wrote: post #183
kody wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> I can't help but remember (through my biased lenses of course) when most of the web (that I visited) looked like 4chan. Interesting. I don't remember the web (or the pre-web internet) generally looking like 4chan in the earlier days. Pockets of it always did, of course. But we are both engaging in a statistical error here -- we're using sample sizes of one. Your experience and mine may differ quite a lot simply bec…

It really is interesting that our anecdotes can be so different. I'm assuming you're older than me (25) since you mention the pre-web internet, so I'd also guess that by the time you were on the web/pre-web internet you would've had a more developed filter than I.

My introduction to the web progressed roughly with watching my dad use BBS -> playing Neopets and Runescape -> becoming very involved with Runescape forums -> running a Runescape forum (first introduction to moderating user-submitted content at the age of 10. Yeah...) -> getting involved with video game modding communities, which meant I was spending all my free time browsing forums, following every link, completely absorbed by everything the early web's computer game communities churned out.

My experience probably would've been very different if I hadn't been able to get around the parental controls my parents used, or if I had been interested in different hobbies with a more approachable web presence.

I've been nostalgic for the "old web" lately, but I'm also very, very grateful that I haven't clicked on an inconspicuous URL that turned out to be a jumpscare, virus, weird porn, or gore in quite a while.

EDIT: I don't want to imply that the Disturbing Web == Videogame Web; that just happened to be my experience.

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

#288

Post by blablabla123 »

JohnFen wrote: post #183
kody wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> I can't help but remember (through my biased lenses of course) when most of the web (that I visited) looked like 4chan. Interesting. I don't remember the web (or the pre-web internet) generally looking like 4chan in the earlier days. Pockets of it always did, of course. But we are both engaging in a statistical error here -- we're using sample sizes of one. Your experience and mine may differ quite a lot simply bec…

I also have a quite ambivalent memory of the Internet from around 1998 on. Of course the standard content is more readily accessible. But more toxic stuff ranges from weird chat experiences on the IRC for instance to disturbing content. What changed probably is that a lot of stuff moved from various places of the Internet (Usenet, IRC, Torrents, Tor-like networks...) into the Web. Speaking of discussions, now they happen right at the entry doors of the Internet: at the online presences of big news outlets.

In any case, I'm quite happy with normal discussions and normal content though...

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

#289

Post by chc »

devmunchies wrote: post #116
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 remember the AOL instant messenger days and people being super derogatory and vulgar for kicks. Even xbox live of 2007 was just as vulgar as today. I don't think its that the internet is more toxic, its that we are more sensitive (more easily offended). A strong immune system is the best defense. If it rolls off your back, is it really toxic?

I used to think this way. If I just ignored toxicity and suppressed my reaction, everything would be fine. But the dose makes the poison. Over time, it wears you down. I spent years letting things roll off my back, and all it got me was a bunch of metaphorical back pain that I could have avoided if I'd either moved out of the way or plugged the leak.

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

#290

Post by quotemstr »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #277
kazinator wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on dial-up bulletin boards since 1983, Usenet since around the same 1991. Though in some ways it's the same, here is the difference: it has become more diverse. In 1991, the people you might have conversed with on Usenet were a lot similar to you. Of course, if we go to some comp.lang.* newsgroup or whatever, people are similar even today. But I mean that if you went into any newsgroup whatsoever in 1991, o…

I agree. Big centralized platforms (youtube, Reddit, the chans, HN to some exent) mean that the internet riff raff (i.e. people with no interest in the niche and who may feel like trolling) are free to show up in any given niche area of the platform (e.g. a subreddit or someone's channel) and then shit all over it. A community that would have been perfectly peaceful on a newsgroup, IRC channel or forum now has to con…

I don't think it's that at all. People have always been able to visit different websites. It still happens today. The rise of mega-platforms is concerning, but not for the reason you cite. It's always been possible for "riff-raff" to notice a community.
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