Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 859 posts

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

#521

Post by jandrese »

asjw wrote: post #142
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…

When you stop responding, AKA reacting, you are not solving the problem, you are making it worse. In fact I would say that "don't feed the troll" is the root cause of the huge spike in trolling that we have now. Do not feed the troll meant, from what I understood back then, kill it, not let it grow somewhere else where it's protected.

Exactly. "Don't feed the troll" means report it to the moderator so they can ban them. Letting trolls spew their message unopposed is how you lose your community.

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

#522

Post by irascible »

vonmoltke wrote: post #492
krainboltgreene wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> How is "I don't consider you human" not an extreme position? Most bigots do not believe that.

Oh pray tell us what exactly bigots believe?

Can't believe I'm seeing this on HN.

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

#523

Post by kerkeslager »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #512
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…

What you're describing is "that heap of Nazis over there". It doesn't matter if the deplatformed people pop back up in marginal, poorly connected hate-tolerant sites. That actually helps. They have been successfully "sent to Coventry" in a place where their cultural impact is nil.

I don't know on what basis you think that their cultural impact is nil.

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

#525

Post by gotoeleven »

urbanjunkie wrote: post #459
gotoeleven wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

there's that reasoned debate everyone is clamoring for

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

#526

Post by oneplane »

awb wrote: post #464
oneplane wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communication and language works on shared concepts and wording, which can be collected as a set of definitions. If we were to not do that, language and communication would not work very well, and with that there would be no foundation for sensible discourse. Or at least, that is what I have seen and experienced so far.

> If we were to not do that, language and communication would not work very well, and with that there would be no foundation for sensible discourse. You're right, but we misunderstand each other and disagree all the time because language can be subjective. Take your definition of toxicity: "abusive, unsupportive, or unhealthy emotionally towards others and in some forms themselves". All of those words are subjective.…

Adding personal context in subjective writing does indeed help instead of assuming one's local interpretation is the same as the reader's.

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

#527

Post by Sorry_Rum_Ham »

eqdw wrote: post #274

Discussions like this are frustrating to me because they always seem to skip over what feels like a crucial element: Do you know _why_ this uptick has happened? Does anyone? I get the feeling, in general, when people talk about wanting to "Do Something" about this sort of thing, they are always focused on managing the symptom and never focused on addressing the cause. Frequently, when I try to bring this up, the caus…

I believe the reason for the uptick is two-fold.

1.) In general, this is a reactionary movement from the elite class of society(straight, white, cis people) to keep a death grip on the social and systemic power they see being taken from them in the form of diversity, equality, feminism, etc. This has been happening for a long time now, but it got real, real bad after...

2.) ...Trump was elected. Him winning the election was a shot of weapons-grade steroids into the ass of these regressive movements. He validated and emboldened them. He made them feel not only okay about being bigoted, but morally good for it.

That's my thoughts, at least.

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

#528

Post by NathanKP »

kerkeslager wrote: post #501
marbletiles wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Voat is tiny. Sure there is always going to be a population of die hard edgelords who are determined enough to move to a new site, but in general the vast majority of people are lazy. And most likely it takes the bot / disinformation account owners a while to move all their activity over to a new community

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

#529

Post by HeroOfAges »

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 only say that because you don't agree with the agendas of the people you've listed. Would you trust me to choose when to deplatform the people who drive the agendas you agree with?

edited because of grammar

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

#530

Post by chubot »

Mangalor wrote: post #362
chubot wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is the real world now ... People form their beliefs and make decisions in the world based on what they consume online. I frequently see Twitter memes spoken from people's mouths in person. I mostly abstain from it, but like it or not, Twitter does matter. I've also been online since 1993, and used Usenet for many years. Back then you could compartmentalize some argument as a bunch of nerds, but now it's just "…

But weren't "nerds" always just "people"? It's the interpretation of the culture that's changed as well.

To clarify, in 1993 or even 2000, you could see a bunch of flame wars on Usenet, and you could ignore them because they "meant nothing". You could dismiss it as a nerd argument that's not connected to your life in the real world.

That was usually accurate. (Although I should say there were very intelligent people on Usenet, and that's why I used it. I learned a lot there.)

It's harder to do that now. You can ignore certain channels, but they spill out into the "real world" quite frequently.

To give a different example, UFC fighters pick fights with each other online, often on Instagram or YouTube. So what happens online is critical to the entire sport, which has grown a tremendous amount in the past decade. It determines whether they get paid $100K or $1M. Real life happens online now.

That's a somewhat random example but there are many many subcultures / industries where what happens on social media determines what happens in the real world.

Post reply on HN