De-escalating social media conflict • Hacker News Board

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#21

Post by remexre » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

dbbljack wrote: post #19

ok what happens when the president says something like "the sky is red, dems are better off dead (marked as mistake made, replies disabled)"

article actually uses one of his tweets as an example -- twitter already blocks comments on ones they judge to be over the line.

there's also mention later about how to deal with bad actors.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#22

Post by taborj » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #17

momokoko wrote: post #11

The only winning move is not to play.

Social Media is increasingly becoming a major source of power for political movements and political organization. Both Obama and Trump campaigns were signified by a major online, social-media presence. I'd expect that many future Presidents will be determined by their command of Social Media. Social Media is the new television, the new Radio. Its the new media that is most significantly consumed by the population. By…

I disagree. By not playing, you're protecting yourself from future retribution, deserved or (more commonly) not. And not being on social media - or more precisely, not posting on social media - doesn't mean you're out of touch or lacking in influence. Not by a long shot.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#23

Post by adjkant » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:08 PM UTC

There's a lot that would need to be solved for in the "Culture of Use" section, but true props to the author for thinking outside the box of normalcy.

As far as I can see, the only way we can get these types of things implemented is to have a company that cares to design and spend time with them in the first place. Does anyone know/have thoughts on/have any ideas on how to make things like this a reality?

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#24

Post by TeaDrunk » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

rvz wrote: post #9

> By admitting a mistake, the poster stops the runaway train of replies and amplifications of their mistake, and the reputation damage that follows. No matter the apology of the mistake, those who demand them to apologise will still reject it and push further for calls for the accused to be cancelled. The replies and amplifications will divert into real life instead of Twitter.

Depending on how severe the mistake is, part of apologizing may be removing onesself from places of power where they made the error. For example, a hiring manager who is found to discriminate against gay people should no longer get to hire anyone and may no longer get to manage people for a period of time. The internet has a relatively short memory, so I expect once an apology and suitable make-up-fors have been doled out the amount of anger is much less.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#25

Post by netsharc » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

Slightly off-topic (talking about the psychology and not this UX), but I also feel like people are yelling "You f*ing idiot(s)!" online to feel better about themselves, e.g. if someone wrote "How can you not see [insert politician's name here] is saving the world, you idiot!", they'd feel a bit better about themselves for getting it and being smarter than the person behind the wall of text they just read.

We need to take care of the loneliness epidemic as well, and this addiction to the Ersatz-Socialising which is just staring at screens and thinking you have a social life...

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#26

Post by anonms-coward » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

This is very old but feels as relevant as ever

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#27

Post by snicker7 » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

Simpler solution: repeal Section 230. Social media thrives on strife and harassment (or "engagement"). It is fundamentally broken.

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#28

Post by geofft » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

rvz wrote: post #9

> By admitting a mistake, the poster stops the runaway train of replies and amplifications of their mistake, and the reputation damage that follows. No matter the apology of the mistake, those who demand them to apologise will still reject it and push further for calls for the accused to be cancelled. The replies and amplifications will divert into real life instead of Twitter.

Usually I don't actually see this, but I do seem to see a pile of "You shouldn't have apologized! They'll make you apologize for everything else once they know you're weak!" comments (which certainly don't help anything).

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#29

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

I've always had a policy of promptly admitting when I'm wrong.

It worked great, when I worked at a Japanese company. The Japanese respected it.

The Americans, on the other hand, looked at it as a sign of weakness, and tended to "go for the jugular" (Carpe Jugulum).

I think that explains why so many folks "double down," when asked to correct statements.

Also, lawyers.

A standard piece of advice at American accident scenes, is "NEVER say "I'm sorry!""

Re: De-escalating social media conflict

#30

Post by ve55 » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

The idea that a feature like a 'forgive' button to forgive someone for acting out of line is so important that it's being suggested is..harrowing, in my opinion. I see how these features can seem like a good idea, but my issue is that these seems like patches onto a broken system instead of trying to fix things that have contributed to the brokenness.

Instead of creating outrage and then trying to patch it later, we should try to stop the outrage from occurring to begin with, which means the nature of virality-promoting algorithms has to change.