Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web? • Hacker News Board

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

#451

Post by kazinator » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

amatecha wrote: post #352

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…

Yeah I've been online since ~92 and have been saying approximately the same thing as well. Back then you hop onto IRC and you're generally talking with academics and programmers from around the world. Browse any web directories and it's extremely information-rich. There was a real technical or situational hurdle to even be present on the net back then, and I think most users had a sense of wonder and perhaps respect…

> since ~92

Thus you would remember a bit of the tail end of the era before Eternal September.

Normally, September was the time when a crop of new students would get accounts at universities and step into the world of Usenet for the first time, behaving like asses.

In September 1993, AOL connected to Usenet. That became known as Eternal September.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

The online world we have today is basically the continuation of Eternal September, reaching further depths of deterioration.

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

#452

Post by matthewmacleod » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #444

marbletiles wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data suggests that deplatforming works. Milo; Katie Hopkins; InfoWars et al have all lost their former agenda-setting influence following deplatforming. And studies have shown that banning hate sub-Reddits does _not_ cause that content to “pop up elsewhere”, it causes it to decline overall. It’s important to remember too there are incentives for people to argue and behave otherwise: FB, Twitter, hate-speech monge…

If you de-platform people they still think the way that they think, you just don't see what they're thinking and have no ability to challenge it. Then they turn up and vote...

However, what they don’t do is convert loads of other people to their way of thinking.

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

#453

Post by fzeroracer » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #410

fzeroracer wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except no one when talking about mandatory vaccinations is saying people with allergic reactions or medical conditions would be forced into being vaccinated. Creating a massive strawman in attempt to discredit my argument does not a good argument make, especially as I'm making it from the PoV of someone that has had such an experience in the past. I feel no need to engage with such a point because it has zero bearing…

Accusing someone who is trying to engage with you in good faith of creating strawmen also does not make a good argument. Not everyone who has an allergic reaction to a vaccination is going to have medical documentation of that. Maybe their parents couldn't afford to take them back to the doctor for confirmation. Maybe they couldn't take the time off work. That happens, especially among the poor. Or was the "strawman"…

> Not everyone who has an allergic reaction to a vaccination is going to have medical documentation of that. Maybe their parents couldn't afford to take them back to the doctor for confirmation. Maybe they couldn't take the time off work. That happens, especially among the poor.

This is what allergy testing is for. If you don't have the paperwork, then you can get tested. The fact that people don't have time to get tested is an entirely separate issue relating to the class stratification in the US

And I told you what the strawman was. You were insinuating that people with allergies would be forced against their will to be vaccinated and risk a deadly reaction. You tried to claim that was a reasonable point and I disputed that.

And I said exactly what he was lying about. Which was that specifically he was claiming to not take any sides in this argument, when his post history shows clearly that he has taken a stance. That's lying at the minimum and gaslighting at worst. Which is also why I have trouble believing he came to the table to argue in good faith. This is without mentioning his leading sentence.

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

#454

Post by luckylion » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

freeone3000 wrote: post #399

luckylion wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These "super edge cases" are happening monthly. Yes, in a world with literally billions of people, you have a few millions who believe outlandish things. If that was the extent of the problem with polarization/toxicity on the internet (or public debate in general), I doubt we'd talk about it, and I'd be very happy with the state of the world. Those people have no large base, no stable membership, no money, no power…

You say "millions of people believe foolish things", and then completely disregard exactly how many there are and how concentrated they become. I disagree with the assertions at the end that "a few million" do not constitute a large following, and allow me to provide a few counterexamples: * the Flat Earth Society has a very stable membership and patreon. Mark Sagent's youtube channel alone has 58k subscribers. Socia…

> Or, in other words: There are more people believing in flat earth than there are democrats caucasing in Iowa. How in the world is this not a problem.

I mean, isn't the answer already in these sentences? The world vs Iowa.

It's not that I don't believe pseudoscience and cults are a problem, it's just that they are a small problem on the grand scheme of things. Increasing polarization of society at large is a problem on a different scale. It's something that has very tangible effects for most people, some guy believing that the earth is flat and having 60k people watch his videos really doesn't.

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

#455

Post by urbanjunkie » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #359

I don't know if I know the solution, but I know one thing that isn't the solution: silencing everyone who disagrees with you. A lot of the people complaining about "toxicity" on the internet seem to be under the impression that if we "deplatform" the so-called toxic people, that will fix things. But on the contrary, that makes things worse. If someone says something awful on the internet, and everyone either ignores…

You literally have no fucking clue, and have decided to generalise from a sample set of 1 autistic person.

Fucking pitiful.

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

#456

Post by djsumdog » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

marbletiles wrote: post #427

kerkeslager wrote: post #359

I don't know if I know the solution, but I know one thing that isn't the solution: silencing everyone who disagrees with you. A lot of the people complaining about "toxicity" on the internet seem to be under the impression that if we "deplatform" the so-called toxic people, that will fix things. But on the contrary, that makes things worse. If someone says something awful on the internet, and everyone either ignores…

The data suggests that deplatforming works. Milo; Katie Hopkins; InfoWars et al have all lost their former agenda-setting influence following deplatforming. And studies have shown that banning hate sub-Reddits does _not_ cause that content to “pop up elsewhere”, it causes it to decline overall. It’s important to remember too there are incentives for people to argue and behave otherwise: FB, Twitter, hate-speech monge…

You realize Voat exists right? And Gab? I wrote this about how Voat grew:

https://battlepenguin.com/tech/voat-what-went-wrong/

Deplatforming was a big part of that. Deplatforming didn't stop Milo. His base dropped him because he started defending hebeaphiles & pedophile / men being attracted to teens/pre-teens/boys (there's actually something sadder here; with Milo not realizing he was himself abused ... there's an entire tragic story lost there people don't seem to understand or pick up on because they're too busy hating him).

They might leave the platforms you like, but they move over to Voat, Gab or startup their own Pleroma/Mastodon instances (that get banned from everywhere). Deplatforming doesn't really work in the way you thin it does. It literally gives people more drive to stand up for and behind what Capital-T "truth" they think got themselves banned.

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

#457

Post by hasbot » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

pnako wrote: post #419

deepspace wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big problem with giving hate mongers a platform is that they do not return the courtesy. Try posting a well-written and well-thought-out criticism of Trump on /r/thedonald and see how many seconds it takes before the post is taken down and you are banned. They are not interested in disagreement, tolerance and diversity. They are only interested in having a platform to spew their hate from.

That's a problem with reddit, whose narrow-focused subreddits encourage groupthink. It's not specific to Trump, I'm sure doing the same in pro-Sanders or pro-Warren subreddits will have the same effect. Or indeed pro-Rihanna or pro-Metallica subreddits. You'll have better luck with 4chan. People will call you a lot of bad words for sure, but they will also debate your point to death.

I remember when /r/politics was full of conservatives, right-wingers, the tea party, what have you. People would ask them to elaborate on their position, ask for references, or point out the flaws in their logic. The response? Moving the goalpost. Or "both sides do it." After a while, I ignored them because it wasn't worth my time to debate them. We won in a way; conservatives eventually stopped bothering to comment in /r/politics and retreated to their safe spaces.

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

#458

Post by mmhsieh » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

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.

also puritanism

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

#459

Post by urbanjunkie » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:06 PM UTC

gotoeleven wrote: post #450

kerkeslager wrote: post #431

(a) Bigotry is already normalized in the United States. The president is a bigot and almost half the country voted for him. This is another negative effect of deplatforming: if you live in a liberal city and only frequent Reddit/Facebook, you live in an echo chamber where you don't have any visibility into what's normal. (b) The legitimacy of a platform is based on what is said there, not the other way around. You vi…

What did he do to call him a bigot? Enforcing immigration laws? Banning travel from countries where we can't vet people properly? Declining to have the military pay for people's sexual reassignment surgeries? Not letting people on welfare earn citizenship? Restricting a refugee system that was being abused? One of the sources of polarization is that the definition of hate and racism and bigotry seems to be broad and…

fuck off and die, you trump supporting cunt.

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

#460

Post by oneplane » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:06 PM UTC

asdf21 wrote: post #430

oneplane wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find a recent article on HN containing debates on/against/about/for socialism with banned accounts in them, so it's hard to see the content/context that would then be called toxic, but I do see in your reply that you mention "tedious" and "idealogical flamebait" which is not mutually exclusive to toxic behaviour. I suppose someone could write flamebait or be tedious without being toxic.

How would you know? You can't see any of the comments because the mods generally remove them all.. The reason why YC seems more left-leaning nowadays compared to a few years ago, is exactly what the grandparent of this thread suggested, anyone right-leaning (or libertarian) has been harassed off the site / strongly discouraged from sharing their perspectives.

I wouldn't know in an absolute sense, which is why I wrote "I suppose". To determine if some text could be described as toxic you do have to read it at some point, and without that (if they are deleted as you wrote earlier) it becomes much more theoretical.