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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?

#501

Post by kerkeslager »

marbletiles wrote: post #477
djsumdog wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Deplatforming doesn't work by silencing people, and the environment that you'd have to create to make it otherwise is not an enticing one. So yes, you can often cause the creation of spaces like Voat as a result of deplatforming. Sure, something like Voat pops up. But Reddit improves. And Reddit is where all the people are. There will always be dive bars, there will always be rough online neighbourhoods. But start by…

> And Reddit is where all the people are.

All the people in your echo chamber, that is.

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

#502

Post by rotrux »

interlinkedcell wrote: post #493

Everyone in the anglosphere is always online and can talk to each other now. Meanwhile our culture is pretty polarized. Conversations that could never be had in the time of top down privately owned broadcast & newspaper media are now unavoidable. I don't think it's a "problem" and I don't think there is or should be a technocratic solution. This is new normal, where political struggle has evolved into a prolonged peo…

GREAT POINT NERD.

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

#504

Post by TallGuyShort »

enraged_camel wrote: post #422
anigbrowl wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Exactly. Extremists who espouse intolerance count on the tolerance of the opposing groups to get themselves accepted and their extremist viewpoints normalized. When they do get deplatformed, marginalized and discredited, they complain about it, which itself serves to recruit people, especially those who are unfamiliar with such tactics and mistakenly think that their side is being unfair.

My problem with this "intolerance-is-okay-against-the-intolerant" thing is I'm lumped in with some extremist politics because of my religion. I don't feel at all treated as an individual (or even treated fairly) by either the left or the right. Some people who identify as the same religion have been homophobic. Since I was of voting age, I have never been against legalizing gay marriage, or treating homosexuals differently in the law at all. But I get flak for my religion from the tolerant left. They stereotype me every bit as much as the right stereotypes Islam. But they sure think they're being tolerant, by supposedly shunning intolerance.

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

#505

Post by jandrese »

ebg13 wrote: post #421

> Before, around 2010-2012, people who disagreed would usually leave it at that and walk away respectfully. I don't know what internet you were using, but this does not match my experience. The internet has been a dickfighting playground since at least the 90s. The biggest difference is that comment threads are the majority of how people create content on the internet now and they weren't before.

The term "flamewar" predates all social networks except Usenet. It was not an isolated occurrence in the early days of the net.

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

#506

Post by kerkeslager »

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #487
djsumdog wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thes…

> 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.

I think that it would be wise to doubt one's own ability to differentiate between these two groups.

I also think that the purpose of public debate is not to persuade the person you are debating with: that's almost never possible. It's to persuade the audience. Bad faith arguments, if they really are bad faith arguments, are usually pretty easy to shoot down, so I don't think that we have anything to fear from bad-faith arguers.

In fact, deplatforming benefits bad-faith arguers because their bad-faith arguments look more reasonable when nobody confronts them.

At another level, deplatforming is a bad faith argument, by your own definition. Aren't you trying to put forth your agenda, regardless of what anyone says, by deplatforming people? Your agenda may be good, but that doesn't justify bad faith actions to support it.

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

#507

Post by jandrese »

muzani wrote: post #7

I've been active online since 2000. There was a theory in 2004, known as GIFT: Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad Guess what? People without anonymity are total fuckwads too - this happens on Facebook, Instagram and Twitch, in an era where you could probably find someone's personal details if you look hard enough. I think the key is audience . Bullying feels good for a lot of people. Bullies will go…

In the old days you only ever saw that embarrassing uncle with the extreme views on Thanksgiving. Now he's on your Facebook/Twitter feed every day.

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

#508

Post by christiansakai »

cr0sh wrote: post #491
christiansakai wrote: post #42

Read "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman. You will realize that Social Media is designed in such a way intentionally to draw toxicity from society. No technology is neutral. Technology gives and technology takes away. Medium is the message. Communication evolved because of the medium. For every evolution, it gives something and it takes away something. From oral communication to the printing press to telegra…

> Social media such as twitter, for example, everyone now has a voice (what it gives), but with its char limit (what it takes) doesn't give critical thinking and rational debate a highlight, therefore it spirals down into madness. Twitter has a hard, small limit. Most other platforms either have no limit, or the limit is fairly large. The problem is, people don't use it. Worse, those that do use it are ridiculed, or…

Twitter is just an example. If you read that book, the gist is basically Social Media makes it easy to brain dump and leave that brainfeces all over without having to look it back again (paraphrasing mine). Anyone in the world can post anything, without any accountability, without the need to carefully revalidate and be validated/invalidated.

I saw the post about inner monologue but didn't read it. But I believe it could be related.

I highly suggest reading the book because I'm doing a disservice trying to explain about it. It basically explained how oratory, printing press, telegraph/telephone and television really changed society a lot, but in subconscious ways that most of us don't think.

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

#509

Post by djsumdog »

keenmaster wrote: post #484
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 st…

Who decides who's lying and who's telling the truth? Who is the arbitrator of an obvious lie. Declaring something an "obvious lie" has historically been used to keep other people down as well.

This goes down a very dangerous road. Banning speech is not the right way to deal with this. When you do, you give the speaker more energy. When people in the civil rights movement in the US was slapped down, it gave speakers like MLKing a source to inspire his people; to stand tall in the face of adversity.

The line should be violence. Speech is speech. Speech is not violence (unless is specifically advocates violence and that's been defined in US court cases as not-protected speech). Diablo Valley College ethics professor Eric Clanton was basically let off the hook with a slap-on-the-wrist conviction for hitting someone in the head with a bike-lock .. basically because the person he hit was alt-right. That is fucked up and totally not acceptable. All violence, no matter who it is against, should be the hard line .. and it's not, and that's the real issue.

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

#510

Post by im3w1l »

deepspace wrote: post #406
austincheney wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> silencing anyone who disagrees with you. Agreed. Disagreement, tolerance, and diversity are healthy. The opposite is censorship, insecurity, and conformance.

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.

So on the one hand we have a group that wants to have one (1) subreddit for themselves. And on the other we have a group that wants all subreddits for themselves. Seems like two different things entirely.
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