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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?

#481

Post by TruthSHIFT »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #442

Rational thinking, manipulation techniques (you have to know them to be able to detect them), emotional awareness and stuff like that should be taught at every school. Everybody should be conscious of the fact 99% of what you find online (let alone see on TV) is bullshit, designed to troll and manipulate you and absolutely not worth taking serious (and if something really seems important - check the proofs and don't…

Also, it should be noted that foreign governments are actively trying to polarize us.

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

#482

Post by deepspace »

kerkeslager wrote: post #473
pnako wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would we still have a pro-vax problem if FB banned it across its properties?

Yes, obviously. Do you think there aren't any anti-vaxxers with the ability to build a website?

Do you think that the average person sharing false stores on Facebook is capable of (a) finding and (b) sharing a website created by some random anti-vaxxer?

The ubiquity of the platform and the ease of sharing massively amplifies the problem.

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

#483

Post by anigbrowl »

freehunter wrote: post #351
krick wrote: post #319

There is nothing to fix, except for the attitude of those who think there is something to be fixed, because essentially it's they who demand something unreasonable: censoring of the free speech. It is unreasonable, because that assumes somebody (the person or group, who "fixes" the problem) can and must decide, what is good and bad in regards of what you are saying. And unless this person is you, you always will be d…

There definitely is something to fix, and it has nothing to do with free speech. Something about text communications makes people much more aggressive than they would be face to face. People wouldn’t say half the things they say online if they had to say them out loud. PM, public forum, real names on Facebook, it doesn’t matter. Something inherent to text communications makes people more toxic than they would be in p…

It's simple; there are few-to-no costs for doing so (at worst, getting banned and making a new account), but the emotional benefit of upsetting someone else, while attenuated, still deliver significant satisfaction to those who seek it.

For simple trolls (as opposed to political actors), the dynamic is simple to model; you spend time and some effort to create accounts and say antagonistic things while people respond with abuse (to which the troll feels immune), and then harvest (via screenshots) examples of the saltiest tears for sharing with ones troll peers for lulz in other forums.

People do the exact same thing in real life, but it's more time-consuming and expensive to establish and maintain physical groups, both in economic terms and direct costs (legal or physical sanctions).

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

#484

Post by keenmaster »

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…

If InfoWars says Sandy Hook never happened, and they have millions of followers, ban them. That’s a really low bar for banning. Same with Milo. Not only did he repeatedly lie in a very verifiable way, but he did it with the vigor of a bully. These are toxic people and institutions that don’t care about the facts. They’re after your amygdala, and we are, to some extent, slaves to our amygdala. You can get a PhD and still retain a lot of your most basic instincts, for better or worse.

If we are slaves to our amygdala, how do we have civilization at all? We externalize cognition, just like we’ve done since the dawn of time. Culture is externalized cognition. Standards are externalized cognition. They are ways of protecting us from ourselves. If you let anyone get on the world’s largest platform, with the world’s largest megaphone, and shout whatever they want, what do you expect other than the devolution of society? And why should we throw our hands up and say “we built the platform. We built the megaphone. Anyone can use it.” That’s not a mythological embracement of freedom. That’s stepping back from your responsibility to set standards.

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

#485

Post by kerkeslager »

anigbrowl wrote: post #401
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…

But the average left-leaning person today doesn't see bigots even as people any more. I spend the bulk of my time studying extremist discourse and communities. Extremist bigots take it as read that people of the wrong ethnic/religious/political group are either not people or at best inferior people, and direct their efforts to promoting those views, planning how to eliminate those they dislike, and normalizing that b…

> Extremist bigots take it as read that people of the wrong ethnic/religious/political group are either not people or at best inferior people, and direct their efforts to promoting those views, planning how to eliminate those they dislike, and normalizing that behavior.

Yes, extremist bigots do tend to favor deplatforming: they just want to deplatform a different group.

Surely we can behave better than the bigots?

> You are, essentially, projecting the characteristics of bad actors onto other actors who are warning and complaining about said bad actors.

Yes, but it's not just projection: the shoe fits.

If we behave like them we are no better than them. We on the left can't claim tolerance if we only tolerate people we agree with.

> That's a tactic known as 'entryism' designed to leverage your nice, conflict-averse personality as a vehicle for normalization and possible future recruitment.

LOL at me being conflict-averse. Check out my post history.

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

#486

Post by lukifer »

iso1631 wrote: post #275
claytongulick wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm... defunding journalism by who? Private funding is making the situation worse. Public funding is the instrument of authoritarian regimes- state sponsored media. I think the root cause is lack of objective, critical thinking skills, and the glorification of "how it makes you feel" being more important than "is this reasonable". I.e. emotion driving reason, rather than reason driving emotion.

By society. We don't want to fund people to separate fact from fiction, yet we lack the time and ability as a population to do it ourselves, so we latch onto outlets (especially celebrities) that seem to match our world view, and we treat what they say as gospel.

I think the vast majority of humans are simply disinterested in objective truth, except to the extent it's actionable in our day-to-day lives; otherwise, our sense-making is driven largely by the utility of social signaling: https://meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/

See also: Donald Hoffman's experiments in truth-maximizing vs. fitness-maximizing: https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25450

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

#487

Post by thebokehwokeh2 »

djsumdog wrote: post #456
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…

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 e…

I'd argue that in this case, it deplatforming absolutely worked in the way intended. There are 2 factors at play here. People who are willing to argue in good faith, and people who are simply trying to put forth an agenda regardless of what anyone says.

Those who likely moved to Gab and Voat and 4/8chan are likely persons that fit the latter description. There is no need to even have discussions with people like these on the internet. The best is for them to be deplatformed and continue their self flagellation. They are simply too far gone. If anything, these sites will probably radicalize, but it will also be easier for authorities to keep tabs on particularly dangerous accounts.

The concept of deplatforming is to protect the integrity of good faith discussion. The key idea there is "good faith". Persons like the aforementioned Milo clearly do not engage in any concept of good faith discussion. IMO there is no need for any discussion base like reddit or facebook to protect these types.

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

#488

Post by kerkeslager »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #465
mpalmer wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this suddenly a discussion about extremism? Not everyone who is bigoted is an extremist, but maybe it's easier for you to argue as though this is the case. > Extremist bigots take it as read that people of the wrong [...] group are either not people or at best inferior people, and direct their efforts to promoting those views, planning how to eliminate those they dislike, and normalizing that behavior. Funny,…

> Not everyone who is bigoted is an extremist, but maybe it's easier for you to argue as though this is the case. How is "I don't consider you human" not an extreme position?

Not all bigotry is "I don't consider you human".

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

#489

Post by slx26 »

reaperducer wrote: post #405
rayuela wrote: post #51

Encourage people to participate in physical social gatherings that center around non-political issues, like hobbies. We need to start emphasizing what we have in common, help people see that ultimately we're really not all that different from each other. The internet lets people hide behind this isolating veneer that makes it too easy to just shout at each other and behave in extreme ways that would never be socially…

Encourage people to participate in physical social gatherings that center around non-political issues, like hobbies. I think there is a lot more to this than many people think. If more people participated in hobbies, then they would spend less time on the internet. The time they do spend would be more targeted and focused instead of mindlessly scrolling and scrolling and getting baited and agitated. They would also f…

I raised the same point about businesses in a comment a few days ago, among other issues https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22025971

[warning, cynic paragraph ahead] We don't have time to socialize, we obviously live to work. We might be stressed as we don't get to disconnect much, but you know, that would be so wasteful! Streets are not for people to socialize, they are for cars and for going somewhere else to do business. Spaces can only be there for money, otherwise they are an inefficiency which we'll have to fix. If you are good at something, you should be earning money from it. We live in a global world. We have so many hobbies! But only so many people fits in an area, so matches are unlikely. Anyway, if you are willing to go out for socialization any hobby is ok. If you are interested in finding interesting people... sorry, they are busy at the moment. That's what interesting people do. Be stressed and busy trying to fix the world from crashing by hitting harder the accelerator. Ah, the beauty of an efficient market. Perfecting time and spaces.

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

#490

Post by krainboltgreene »

jp555 wrote: post #317
growlist wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is possibly a kind of a fallacy in itself: it's possible that there is bad behaviour out there, and that it's associated with one particular group as opposed to another; there's points to be scored by pushing a particular position online if it influences reality. In my experience on some forums, mention anything about Brexit and a flood of anti-Brexit comments appears; either there were hundreds of lurkers t…

There may be groups of bad actors coordinating, maybe. But you remind me of this Alan Moore quote: "The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy or the grey aliens or the 12 foot reptiloids from another dimensio…

Right but like...There are organized movements by governments to do horrific things. China is doing it, Nazi Germany did it, America has and is and will do it.

Random quotes from counter-culture writers doesn't negate that bad actors have coordinated, they weren't bothered by sunlight, and when they got enough power they did truly horrific things.

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