Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

Yeah, I think this is close to the right interpretation.

Much of internet usage is, essentially, a giant slot machine. We've studied the things that make gambling addictive and intentionally incorporated them into social platforms to keep eyeballs on. The goal is to generate a reflexive subconscious impulse to check for new inputs with specific relation to the platform. A good high-level overview of this is the book Hooked, about how to build addictive computer interfaces. As we've "gamified" and "optimized for engagement", we've created an apparatus that many have difficulty understanding or overcoming.

This concept cemented more for me as I watched an Amazon FBA seller just impulsively hit "Match Price" over and over again, despite the fact that it was leaving him with margins of less than 25c per unit. He couldn't be reasoned out of this and insisted he had to match price with the lowest seller, even though his units would've sold for much higher margins over the ensuing weeks if he hadn't.

I realized then that really, he was simply gambling. He hits the button, sees a corresponding spike in sales, and sees a corresponding increase in his "income", despite the fact that letting it increase at a slightly more moderate rate would've easily netted 3x-4x more money (not talking years here -- just a few weeks to sell out as non-cheapest). He does it because he likes the impulse. He likes pressing the button and correlating that action with numbers that say he increased his money.

Facebook is the slot machine; Likes and Comments (broadly "engagement") are the currency; Your Posts are the input. You drop in a post and find that bland, mature, predictable posts don't generate a bright animation or engagement. You respond by posting more and more stuff that has high-engagement quality, which is, of course, the more controversial things like religion, politics, and identity.

The check on this is one's own identity is tied back to it, but that generally just means that you take the things you conceptualize as positive self-image to an extreme that warrants reaction, in particular in these controversial fields that generally have high-yield output from the slot machine.

So Republicans are put on a path toward cartoonish Republicanism, Democrats on a path toward cartoonish Democratism, and so forth. It has a distorting, reinforcing echo-chamber quality on everyone. It encourages people who are more moderate on certain issues to disengage, it encourages us to select them out and weaken our bonds, it makes it easier for our own little world to become all-consuming and feel all-encompassing. It has an overall corrosive effect on public discourse and relationships in general.

The more I think about it, the more I think the physical constraints of "real life" on dialogue and relationships, like being in a room with someone who can punch you if you sink too low, or making instinctive reactions and adjustments based on a conversation partner's body language, are much more valuable than we've assumed.

I think this is the real solution. Instead of giving people useable, client-side filters, we've let companies push us to using shitty, broken website filters so that they can control the flow of information. Client-side filters work great, and they are how we generally solve these types of problems with other communication methods, and do so relatively successfully.

Most of the problems of the Internet are mimicked in real life. That's why I don't think "real identities" would solve much, to be honest. Before trolling, for instance, there was the art of the prank (some harmless, and some downright mean -- just like trolls!), and the term "rabble rouser" seems to date back at least a couple hundred years. Some people in real life interact with others in rather toxic manners, in one form or another.

I mean, you get toxic behavior even on something like Nextdoor, where you pretty much know it's the neighbors across the street. Technology has just made things more convenient -- social media removes any curation, and technology also has made some means of harassment much easier to execute.

Myself, personally, I avoid social media that encourages toxic behavior (which usually means, smaller, special interest type sites; social circles that you know; etc.). This involves some degree of moderation or self-selection.

I don't see a good way around limited moderation for Reddit either, which is unfortunate in that it is hard to moderate something that size well (it's usually inconsistent and often arbitrary-ish).

It actually doesn't. Example: Did OJ kill anybody?

Judicial system engages in determining whether someone is guilty based on the evidence that it itself filters.

What about more complex things? Like what if I say "P = NP"? Is that a lie?

And then, do you want a trial for every comment? That will not work even for a fraction of comments.

I run a Reddit post scheduler (https://laterforreddit.com/), and I have noticed a substantial bias towards posting in various adult subreddits.

I suspect in my case that this has a lot to do with how people who are browsing porn use Reddit, versus how people use the rest of the site at large. Most subs moderate posts and discussion actively and have norms (and moderators) that act against posting frequently, cross-posting and self-promotion. On the other hand, most porn subreddits are quite happy to accept x-posts, self promotion, etc, because their goal/approach is to provide more porn faster.

This seems to be an emergent property of Reddit rather than a deliberate strategy, but they seem happy enough to keep the revenue coming (as am I).