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Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

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Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#301

Post by somecontext »

wizardforhire wrote: post #216
InvisibleCities wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is why emergency exit doors must open outwards. People have died in fires in theaters trying to push on doors that said “Pull”. The crash bar on an emergency exit door is what’s known in design as an affordance. Is this true? I always assumed it was because it's pretty much impossible to pull open a door when you are being crushed by people pressing against one another trying to escape.

Yes and recent. >An inward-swinging door - three times cited as a code violation by West Warwick inspectors and three times replaced by club managers - was blocking the exit closest to the stage. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/02/15/series-errors-s...

For some context in case anyone is curious, two sentences later the article reports that "Bouncers opened it immediately after the fire broke out".

The door in question's main problem appears to have been that bouncers wouldn't let people use it, not its orientation.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#302

Post by bluGill »

shaki-dora wrote: post #134
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic incentives are misaligned. Fake news helps with page views and other KPI. If there was an actual enforcable cost associated with misrepresenting the truth, we'd see a slowdown in fake news. The restoration of the Fairness Doctrine would also help stymie some of the biggest promulgators like Fox News * * you can search for "fox news viewers misinformed" and encounter studies and results like http://public…

The analogy of food nicely shows that some sort of race-to-the-bottom does not necessarily occur: there’s still organic or other high quality fresh food even though McDonald’s has been around for a while. Similarily, there are still excellent news sources. The Economist is often cited in these discussions, and the New York Times is also vigilant in their reporting and the correction of errors when they occur[0]. What…

Organic food is not higher quality. Organic just means they cannot use some arbitrary list of farming practices, (some good some bad).

Sure McDonalds is not good, but there is also plenty of organic that equally bad (or worse).

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#303

Post by egypturnash »

_m8fo wrote: post #46

So we've tried: - Real identities (Facebook comments) - Voting and self moderation (Reddit, HN, etc.) - Strong moderation (Reddit, HN) They all result in toxic comments, trolling, an echo chamber,or worse, a complete lack of participation. There's no real solution to this problem. However, if you create consequences or a cost to commenting you'd eliminate toxic comments and trolling at the cost of less participation…

We’ve tried real identities plus serving as many ads against user conversations as possible (Facebook), and “algorithms” designed to keep users on as long as possible regardless of the cost to their mood, or the world around them. Perhaps “social media” should stop trying to be a way to make lots of money.

Naaah. Gotta monetize every inch of everyone’s life. It’s the American way.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#305

Post by chillwaves »

gknoy wrote: post #169
keepper wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We haven't really tried "real identities". We've come close. Real identities would require verification, which sites like FB only do after the fact. I fear that a huge repercussion of the election issues is that we will get there. A real ID may be required for you to post comments in all websites. And i'm not sure how I feel about that. Reality is that it would drastically reduce comment trolling, if your real identi…

> A real ID may be required for you to post comments in all websites. [I]t would drastically reduce comment trolling, if your real identify was viewable and searchable by all you know. But at what cost? The cost is that it would prevent people from anonymously reporting abuses, which means that fear of retaliation will have a chilling effect. We've already seen this where people get death threats, houses burned down,…

People should be allowed to be anonymous but only explicitly so. The problem now is we have people lying about who they are and using multiple accounts and other forum moderation abuse to push viewpoints, often paid to do so.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#306

Post by douglaswlance »

losteric wrote: post #71
_m8fo wrote: post #46

So we've tried: - Real identities (Facebook comments) - Voting and self moderation (Reddit, HN, etc.) - Strong moderation (Reddit, HN) They all result in toxic comments, trolling, an echo chamber,or worse, a complete lack of participation. There's no real solution to this problem. However, if you create consequences or a cost to commenting you'd eliminate toxic comments and trolling at the cost of less participation…

We really just need better public education, as well as clearer separation between information and entertainment. Facebook/Reddit/Twitter/etc promote a regression towards the mean understanding... viral content reflects and amplifies the "average user's" sentiment and values. Acceptable for entertainment, but inherently prone to misinformation, propaganda, and demagoguery. Education requires valuing subject matter ex…

Why not support private education? Are you against diversity?

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#307

Post by ralusek »

fatbird wrote: post #250
ralusek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that is a perfectly reasonable objective for a site to be a mostly impartial, user-moderated forum, right? I don't consider any view I encounter on reddit to be endorsed by the platform. If people want content moderated with a specific slant, just subscribe to the subreddits that suit your tolerance, there are plenty that are heavily moderated. Personally, I love seeing things that I disagree with on redd…

The problem with Reddit is that, while it's not endorsing the content, it is facilitating it. You can let the white supremacists in your neighbourhood use your garage for their weekly meetings and plausibly claim that you're just being neighborly while disagreeing with their purpose. But I'm still going to judge you for helping them out, for making their organizing easier and cheaper, and for smoothing the road for t…

Letting white supremacists use my garage for weekly meetings is not the same as me building an establishment for the explicit purpose of facilitating conversations of all kinds, and then not kicking out a white supremacist minority for using the facility.

My concern with censorship is always 2 fold:

1.) You have to always assume the person who is in control of censorship is the person who doesn't agree with you. Donald Trump has on multiple occasions indicated that he would like to restrict the press's capability to criticize the president, since he has been in power. Kim Jong Un shares a similar sentiment. Would we like that, because there are many Trump supporters who would see absolutely nothing wrong with that. There was a moral majority in the US for a long time that would have preferred to restrict the capability for others to talk about what they considered to be sinful things, such as homosexuality or communism.

2.) You have to realize how quickly things become conflated. Ben Shapiro, a conservative pundit, went to Berkeley to speak, where student groups attempting to ban him from speaking had strung up a huge sign reading "We say no to your white-supremacist bullshit." It's important to note that Ben Shapiro is an Orthodox Jew who is harassed daily by white supremacists online...and has never said a single thing advocating for racial supremacy. In fact, he is hugely opposed to racial, gendered, or national identity politics of any kind. Students wanted to ban him for hate speech simply because they associated him with what they perceived to be hate speech.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#308

Post by douglaswlance »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #173
randyrand wrote: post #80

Does detoxify mean getting rid of mean speech?

There was a post on /r/The_Donald not long ago calling for shooting all refuges in the US on sight. Do you feel that is just "mean speech"?

People would downvote them or argue it out.

If that person were never able to share that opinion, they would never get feedback that it is an unacceptable opinion; and might therefore act on it.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#309

Post by gurkendoktor »

prepend wrote: post #191
ranie93 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm guilty of often seeking out comments before or soon after viewing an article or video online. As social creatures I think its reasonable to want, even need, others opinions. The effects of receiving these opinions may not always be positive, but I think they are necessary. Pragmatically, comment sections can have bots, ads, instigators. I think there is a better solution than outright getting rid of on…

Similarly, I use comments as a quick screen to filter through the PR/targeted journalism of stories. Not perfect and will eventually stop working as media companies wise up. Similarly, I will frequently check Wikipedia before the company/film/whatever. Flaws, but frequently better than official channels.

It doesn't even have to be targeted journalism, sometimes people write junk because they make mistakes or aren't aware of counter-arguments...not even scientific papers are safe from this. Cunningham's Law[1] to the rescue :)

I can feel that hostile internet comments take a toll on my overall happiness, but I don't want to be ignorant of valid counter-arguments to the content I read.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#310

Post by egypturnash »

gowld wrote: post #279
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your suggestion would lead to an echo chamber. Take a look at metafilter and how samey they've gotten. One thing to remember is that even small barriers implicity give mods much more power.

MetaFilter is more of a non-forum than an echo chamber. There's almost 0 discussion; people go there for the links, not the conversation.

Have you ever... looked at the comments on MeFi? Some posts get lengthy, complex discussions, on subjects related to the link at hand; some do not. There is also Ask MeFi, where you can ask questions and get answers from other users (ads shown against this section to visitors without an account used to be a major portion of MeFi’s revenue until Google did some stuff that lowered MeFi’s search ranking). And there’s MetaTalk, which is for talking about the site and has its fair share of “hey let’s hang out and talk” posts.

I mean, yeah, it’s structured mostly around links, and you can certainly use it as a source of Interesting Links. But there’s conversation and community there if you look around a little.

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