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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?

#321

Post by mcantelon »

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…

The severity has grown but the scale of the toxicity's grown in the "human flesh search engine" era.

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

#322

Post by Domenic_S »

platz wrote: post #169
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…

Right, It's not a technology problem. Not everything can be reduced to a technology problem. This is an American, and even worldwide problem. Everyone is writing about polarization right now. Ezra Klein, who I normally loathe, has been doing the podcasting rounds lately about his new polarization book, which has a pragmatic take on the problem. He doesn't see a way out right now. Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, So…

> our personal identities are now stacked in line with our political identities.

Even stronger than that, for many people their political identity IS their personal identity, and those folks can't see anybody else any other way.

I was a child when Clinton was elected. We lived in a conservative neighborhood, and I remember there being disappointment but as far as I can recall everyone resumed their normal lives after that.

Then when GWB was elected, I lived in a more liberal town and there was some angst, maybe a bit of protesting, but by and large everyone went back to their lives.

Trump has been interesting. For many people, if you voted for Trump, you are a Nazi. As far as they're concerned, your political identity IS your personal identity. And let's be fair to both sides, for a lot of Trump supporters, being a MAGA-hat wearer is their personal identity.

We're on the road to something, and it's not good.

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

#323

Post by AndrewKemendo »

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…

Concur with this.

Flamewars have always been with us and a bb or forum flamewar was always something to watch (often annotated with a flame gif on the thread header).

As with everything web, it's just scaled as the web has scaled.

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

#324

Post by godshatter »

mschuster91 wrote: post #150
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…

FWIW, I find reddit to be one of the more pleasant places to converse. Just stay off of the main subreddits.

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

#325

Post by gjs278 »

tayo42 wrote: post #308
kody wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What video game forums compared at all to 4chans /b/? Every where banned you for gore, child porn, harassment, encouraging suicide. I really don't think you should be trying to normalize 4chan as thats just the way the internet is.

no they didn’t. you could tell someone to kill themselves on basically any forum and would not get banned.

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

#326

Post by mcantelon »

Corporate media has done a lot to promote polarization (and even violence). Social media is making corporate media redundant to some degree, but those who run social media are also influenced by the same forces influencing corporate media. And, of course, "woke" ideology hasn't helped given it's similar in some ways to Maoism.

Until the cold war between globalism and nationalism finds some resolution this atmosphere will likely persist.

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

#327

Post by el_cujo »

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…

This is my experience as well. In the early/mid 2000s I mostly browsed sites with a small, dedicated group of regular users. These sites were (mostly) civil and had a "small town" feel where you kind of knew everyone or at least recognized their username. Even back then though, I went on a few sites where the userbase was big enough that you'd be mostly interacting with people who you may never see again on that site, and as a result it was quite a bit less civil than the small sites.

I think the big difference between today vs. back then with respect to toxicity, is now that the web is so centralized, most sites the average person probably visits (twitter, reddit, etc) involves them interacting with strangers who they may never interact with again, so there is less of a feeling like they need to "hold back" like you might when talking to someone you know you'll meet again.

Probably the only exception to this (for me at least) was Facebook, because back when I used it I almost exclusively interacted with people I knew, so there was still that same incentive to not be an asshole because you'd actually meet these people again later. These days a lot of people interact with strangers in the comments of pages/groups for like politics and other stuff, and I feel like that's where most of the nastiness is.

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

#328

Post by thrower123 »

kody wrote: post #158
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 i…

This aligns very much with what I remember of the old PHP and BBCode forums in the early 2000s. Things were all over the place, and flamewars ran rampant. Most of them were run by people where modding was not their real job, just a fun hobby, and a fair number ended up going a little Stanford Prison Experiment.

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

#329

Post by kangnkodos »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #127

It has always been a problem, but I agree it has gotten worse. The problem is that it has gotten worse in the real world too. Ive had friends family and strangers yell at me over minor political disagreements, and its not primarily coming from any particular side or group. You would think they were trying to fight about something important like emacs or vim. But why is this happening recently? I think the rise of sma…

There may be a small number of paid partisans, but I think a bigger problem is people who are paid in internet points. There's some kind of psychological flaw that drives people to get more points. Then the combination of the way web sites are set up, and the people inside of them leads to the extemists "winning" by getting more points. Then the whole mess feeds on itself to get more and more extreme.

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

#330

Post by [deleted] »

iso1631 wrote: post #56
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…

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…

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