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Toxicity on Social Media

thenoisyroom.com

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Re: Toxicity on Social Media

#61

Post by krige »

wffurr wrote: post #43
hermitcrab wrote: post #7

New social trends and technologies frequently cause some level of moral panic. Moral panics of the past have been caused by all sorts of things, that now seem rather quaint: novels, bicycles, comics, television, videos, heavy metal, dungeons and dragons etc. But social media feels very different. It really does seem to be causing major societal disruption.

Social media is more like the printing press than any of those things. It radically changed the economics of distributing information. The printing press brought down the Catholic church and the Kings of Europe. The disruption caused by social media and disintermediated free distribution is just getting started.

You may notice that both the european kings and the church coexisted with the printing press for centuries. No, what did the kings in was the great war, and what broke the Catholic Church's stranglehold on Europe (because it's still around and hardly powerless) was either the french revolution or the great war again.

Re: Toxicity on Social Media

#62

Post by paganel »

How the hell does he define “toxic” discourse? I suppose, and I might be wrong on that, that it involves the millennial-liberal definition of it, which is why I stopped reading this about two paragraphs in.

Anyway, social media is dead, has been dead for quite a few years now, the majority of us are out back there touching grass, it’s only the fringes (on both the political left and right) who’re still obsessed about it.

Re: Toxicity on Social Media

#63

Post by doginasuit »

Platform algorithms are a big part of the problem but I think this misses another important part. I don't think it is simple as a passive silent majority being drowned out by a few loud voices.

For most of its history, Reddit didn't have an algorithm that promoted stories beyond upvotes and time since posting, that might even still be the case. Despite this, we have still seen a steady trend toward extreme views on the platform. To be fair, it has the reputation (at least in some circles) of being the most redeemable of the major social media platforms, probably thanks to the simplicity of its algorithm. Unfortunately, that's not saying much, it's a low bar to clear. What explains the polarization of Reddit in the absence of a bouncer amplifying extremism?

I think there is a significant percentage of users that do not initiate extreme content but participate in amplifying it. They may even find it problematic, but they really don't like the extreme views they hear on the other side. Or maybe it is the content they came to see out of morbid curiosity, something I am guilty of sometimes. The bar is so crowded because people find it preferable to the empty one down the street that has the expectation that people behave respectfully.

Incredible presentation, but I think the awareness we need to spread is a movement away from social media in general. As a social outlet it is generally incompatible with healthy social functioning and individual wellbeing. Face-to-face interaction has inherent guardrails for avoiding these problems and supporting the kind of social experience that we are really looking for.

Re: Toxicity on Social Media

#64

Post by tipsytoad »

doginasuit wrote: post #63

Platform algorithms are a big part of the problem but I think this misses another important part. I don't think it is simple as a passive silent majority being drowned out by a few loud voices. For most of its history, Reddit didn't have an algorithm that promoted stories beyond upvotes and time since posting, that might even still be the case. Despite this, we have still seen a steady trend toward extreme views on t…

As someone who basically only hangs out on HN, what are the trends on Reddit? I thought it would vary by channel

Re: Toxicity on Social Media

#65

Post by funimpoded »

tolerance wrote: post #57
funimpoded wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you strip social media down to its essential parts it's simply a multimedia communications and networking paradigm. Nothing ontologically good or evil about it. “The medium is the message”. This stuff’s been around long enough we’ve got a pretty good idea of what its “message” is.

> “The medium is the message”. What's this mean?

It’s a famous phrase coined by McLuhan. He means that the form of a medium determines the kind of overall message it delivers. A case of scrolls carries a different message from a bound codex collecting those same scrolls, and so on. Whatever the hypothetical ability to deliver the same messages over books, TV, silent films, talkies, YouTube shorts, tweets, radio, handwritten letters, emails, et c., in practice the media themselves shape the messages that they deliver, so the broader “message” they effect in the form of shaping society and public life are very different.

Re: Toxicity on Social Media

#67

Post by thin_carapace »

doginasuit wrote: post #63

Platform algorithms are a big part of the problem but I think this misses another important part. I don't think it is simple as a passive silent majority being drowned out by a few loud voices. For most of its history, Reddit didn't have an algorithm that promoted stories beyond upvotes and time since posting, that might even still be the case. Despite this, we have still seen a steady trend toward extreme views on t…

if existed a term less crass than 'reddit circle jerk', I would use it. people love it for a reason, bipolar thinking in a herd is natural, we are networked XOR cells by design.

id be seperating social media for any related analysis, as two major milestones demarcate distinct usage patterns (first algorithms, then LLMs). imo those factors would influence the discussion about as much as a platforms inherent construction.

toxicity has evolved over time, we have progressed from mere keyboard warriors, to nation states delivering propaganda campaigns with a click, now finally half the internet is bot activity.

Re: Toxicity on Social Media

#68

Post by dwa3592 »

I liked the article and I also sympathize with a lot of the concerns around this topic because I am from the group that became silent after a while. Popular social media does not have any appetite for nuance. By design it cannot have that. Community checks are alright but I would rather spend an hour on hacker news trying to understand the nuanced perspective of 40 people than looking at very diluted opinion (4 choices) of 40000 people on twitter.

Also someone once told me - "To get your voice heard in a loud room, you either need to be very tall or extremely loud." Tall in this context are rich and influential people. Basically money and influence buys you height in a loud room

Re: Toxicity on Social Media

#69

Post by hermitcrab »

tardedmeme wrote: post #50
hermitcrab wrote: post #7

New social trends and technologies frequently cause some level of moral panic. Moral panics of the past have been caused by all sorts of things, that now seem rather quaint: novels, bicycles, comics, television, videos, heavy metal, dungeons and dragons etc. But social media feels very different. It really does seem to be causing major societal disruption.

So did all those other things. And many of them did cause major societal disruption. And most of those were for the worse.

>And many of them did cause major societal disruption.

Which ones?

Re: Toxicity on Social Media

#70

Post by dwa3592 »

doginasuit wrote: post #63

Platform algorithms are a big part of the problem but I think this misses another important part. I don't think it is simple as a passive silent majority being drowned out by a few loud voices. For most of its history, Reddit didn't have an algorithm that promoted stories beyond upvotes and time since posting, that might even still be the case. Despite this, we have still seen a steady trend toward extreme views on t…

I personally feel Reddit is extremely polarized and toxic. It really depends on the community.
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