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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?

#591

Post by watwut »

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…

Do not feed the trolls made Kathy Sierra go out of Internet. It blames victims for daring not to be silent. It is like telling bullied kid to "avoid attackers" or "not be shy" or "do what they want".

Ultimately, it rewards trolling behavior.

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

#592

Post by matthewmacleod »

djsumdog wrote: post #472
matthewmacleod wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not everyone leads hard left/right. Most people are centrists. So say you want to be a progressive left, but on issue "x" you don't stand with the left. You can't vocalize this because doing so will have people call you "not really left" or "a bigot" or "not seeing past your privilege." You can go two ways. You can not want to leave your political home and double down and go harder left ... or you find dissenting voi…

I’m generally pretty respectful of the idea that people are entitled to make their views public. This is healthy. I don’t think this means that everybody is entitled to have their views broadcast on every platform. Presumably we could agree there’s a line somewhere, at which point it’s acceptable for me, as a company, to refuse to allow views which I consider to be over that line to be broadcast on my platform?

It’s a position of some security to be able to complain that “people on the left who refuse to be friends with or hand out with people who have different beliefs about certain things .. and that's insane”. I belong to at least one minority group. I’m not even what you’d call “left”, but I’d certainly refuse to be friends either someone whose belief was that a group to which I belong should be denied some rights. I’d probably refuse to be friends with people who had certain other views I find particularly offensive too. Is that strange or unhealthy? I’d find it really weird to be friends with someone who held beliefs I find to be grossly offensive.

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

#594

Post by ar_lan »

tptacek wrote: post #513
kerkeslager wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Reddit is where all the people are. All the people in your echo chamber, that is.

If what you mean to say is that "the subset of spaces that does not include Voat and Gab is an echo chamber", you are probably saying something about your own views that you might not mean to say.

It's blatantly true that Reddit still holds echo chambers though, and the majority are far-left leaning. r/politics is as much of an echo chamber as r/The_Donald (but one is a default sub, with a deceptive name).

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

#595

Post by Pxtl »

kerkeslager wrote: post #531
marbletiles wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your stat on the reach of InfoWars is based on claims from 2017, before the de-platforming. More recent reports point to considerable slumps, eg: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-inf... Voat is discussed elsewhere here, too. In short, the point was precisely to get the speech off Reddit because it was poisoning Reddit. People said it wasn’t worth them trying because it would move to other subr…

> Your stat on the reach of InfoWars is based on claims from 2017, before the de-platforming. More recent reports point to considerable slumps, eg: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/alex-jones-inf... . Thank you for responding with actual data. I'll have to read the article. > De-platforming worked for Reddit. OP asked for tech contributions to reducing the amount of polarised speech in online spaces. The…

Reddit also delisted the Chapo Trap House subreddit, it's not exclusively conservatives that are toxic. And Reddit's clean up wasn't about liberal vs conservatives, it was about teen-ogling perverts, overt racism, and threats of violence.

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

#596

Post by watwut »

tengbretson wrote: post #68
iso1631 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We found a lot of lies during the UK election last month. Not difference in opinions, not beliefs about whay may or will happen, easily proven lies, posted across community forums, copied and pasted to other ones, and repeated in an increasing cresendo People then believe those lies, they repeat them, and even if they don't those lies sink into their subconcious and change their behavior, not necessarily today or tom…

You might find that the people you see posting and repeating these lies see the things that you post and repeat as lies.

In the root, there are people who knowingly lie. Hitler knowingly lied. Stalin knowingly lied. Many many people lie being fully aware they lie.

The hell, average maanger lies.

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

#597

Post by ceres »

eanzenberg wrote: post #559
potatoz2 wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, and for truly horrendous viewpoints it's ok to ban them outright. But society isn't black and white, and when you start lumping non-extremists into the same bucket and banning them all you end up where we are today: distrust of MSM but a big chunk of society.

You keep talking about "non-extremists" but you are not telling us what you mean by that.

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

#598

Post by anigbrowl »

banads wrote: post #565
anigbrowl wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it is rather effective. Your immune system doesn't rely on tact once a particular foreign body proves to be hostile or dangerous; rather tt initiates inflammation and countermeasures.

We must be careful when using microbiological metaphors to propose solutions for macro social problems; such language has often been used to justify genocide (i.e.: "hygenic cleansing of parasites"). Besides, what we're talking about here is more akin to autoimmune disfunction, and not healthy immune function.

Besides, what we're talking about here is more akin to autoimmune disfunction, and not healthy immune function.

No it isn't. Responding to toxicity or an external insult is precisely what the immune system does. An autoimmune disorder would be an activation of the immune system against some other bodily system that is healthy and functioning.

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

#599

Post by tptacek »

ar_lan wrote: post #594
tptacek wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you mean to say is that "the subset of spaces that does not include Voat and Gab is an echo chamber", you are probably saying something about your own views that you might not mean to say.

It's blatantly true that Reddit still holds echo chambers though, and the majority are far-left leaning. r/politics is as much of an echo chamber as r/The_Donald (but one is a default sub, with a deceptive name).

That's why I was particular about what I was taking them to be saying. I'm not looking to litigate whether there are echo chambers on Reddit. There clearly are. The question, now tacitly answered, is whether the person I replied to believes any space that excludes Voat and Gab is definitionally an echo chamber.

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

#600

Post by tboyd47 »

What we calling polarization and toxicity is actually 2 problems. Disagreement and bad manners.

Disagreements are always solved the same way. Either by coming to an agreement or agreeing to disagree.

Bad manners is a much bigger problem that has a variety of solutions that may or may not work, and are totally up to the individual. Bad manners also prevents problem #1 (disagreements) from being resolved.

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