581–590 of 859 posts
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Those are also things we should eliminate.
What you're proposing sounds uncomfortably like totalitarianism.
So then the question is: whose view of toxicity is right? The answer we have so far is: whoever protests the loudest or whoever controls the medium.
Although it's the answer we've got, it's far from obvious that it's the right answer.
Progressives seem to have gained the upper hand at this point.
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This is like saying "Just ignore the problem until it goes away," which is cute, but very naive. This is a systematic problem with huge economic incentives pushing things to the extreme. There is massive funding from state and political institutions amplifying and promoting extreme political views. This is come a long way from some lonely dweeb in his basement just looking to get a rise out of someone online.
hmm, I think that in this particular case ignoring it will make it go away.. because in the end, the problem is that people pay attention to it. suppose nobody paid attention to such content in the first place, would it really be a problem in that case? I think the tricky part is that if I ignore it, but no one else does, the problem is still there.
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I think one of the things with HN compared to FB et al is that HN isn't a for-profit company. It's essentially a public service of YC. They don't make a dime off of this, as far as I can see. Because of that, they don't have to do evil engagement-boosting tricks to try to make more dimes.
>They don't make a dime off of this, as far as I can see. Maybe not directly, but every YC company advertises themselves and their projects here, and HN is known as the hub for the SV tech and startup scene, which gives YC an automatic amount of "street cred" and visibility in all of the discussions had here. I'm sure Hacker News has made YCombinator more than a few dimes indirectly from all of that.
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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…
This is akin to an argument that you shouldn't fire your nazi-sympathizing coworker when they discuss their support for an ethnonationalist state because they may join neo-nazi groups and "radicalize" as a result. Yes, they may. But while they do the workplace where most people interact is a livable place for the rest of us. We shouldn't make it easier to be heard if you have despicable views just because of the impl…
Progressives think that the alt right is toxic, and vice versa. So then the question is: whose view of toxicity is right? The answer we have so far is: whoever protests the loudest or whoever controls the medium. Although it's the answer we've got, it's far from obvious that it's the right answer. Progressives seem to have gained the upper hand at this point.
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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.
well to be fair r/thedonald exists because this exact thing happens to trump supporters in r/politics people love echo chambers it turns out. It's no surprise that all the big platforms are evolving to provide them. I think the market for well reasoned argument is smaller than OP thinks.
Your well thought long essay should be posted on R/ask the Donald.
Solution: K-means clustering of accounts, with long term effect. Everyone starts out as a “noob”, seeing the unfiltered cesspool, and nobody with significant grouping weight sees their comments (except other noobs, and people who’ve categorized themselves as “noobs” by Liking inflammatory nonsense and Disliking reasoned debate. In the year or so it takes for your identity to begin to develop weight toward your cluste…
That fared poorly for physical health, we learned.
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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 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…
sure, in person i think treating people politely will often allow you to come to some kind of middle ground or the very least help you to understand each other.
the anonymity of the internet makes it impossible. this isn't even taking into account people are actively just trolling or state sponsored/bots/whatever people trying to muddle a discussion.