Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#361

Post by newen » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:19 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #293

enraged_camel wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a regular on Something Awful. One of the major factors that keeps it relatively clean is that user registration costs $10. That's a strong financial disincentive against trolling, bots, etc. I really believe that successful online communities of the future will have paid signups.

I believe you are correct. If I pay for something that suggests I am the customer and not the product.

Haha if you pay for SA it only suggests that you are a sucker who paid 10 bucks to post on SA for a couple of days before getting banned. They are very ban happy there.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#362

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:19 PM UTC

castis wrote: post #15

As long as there are no consequences to being a dick to people over the internet, "toxic internet" is here to stay.

If you can't be a dick to people in a virtual online world then perhaps you feel you have to test your ideas by being a dick to them IRL?

This appears to be the parallel catharsis argument to that used for why ultra-violent FPS don't encourage, provoke, increase violent behaviour.

[I don't really buy it in either case, but I'd argue it online to see what other think.]

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#363

Post by bllguo » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:19 PM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #294

bllguo wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to distinguish fact from fiction is not a skill that is near universal, and it should be. Seems like a straw man to attack "thought policing" and "indoctrination." We're talking about critical thinking and logical reasoning.

This argument is completely disingenuous. Your average person is capable of critical thinking and logical reasoning -- those who aren't are either wards under the care of another person. Normal people just think logically and critically in reference to local optima, and that's not something that we can or should try to program out of them. That quality is also known as adaptability and it's crucial to successful surv…

No, it's not disingenuous at all. It is not a cop-out to say that people who believe in conspiracy theories, people who don't understand facts, people who are highly opinionated about things they don't understand, etc. are not behaving logically. They can have valid concerns and still be behaving irrationally. You clearly think these are mutually exclusive but they aren't.

Appreciate the multiple snide attacks, though.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#364

Post by thomastjeffery » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:19 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #35

ScipioAfricanus wrote: post #8

It's not that the "trolls are winning", it's that people are allowing the trolls to bother them. Trolls have always existed; it's our heightened sensitivity and inability to just shrug them off or laugh in the face of their obscenity that's letting them "win".

No, trolls have not existed in the form they exist since the emergence of the internet. Self-censorship is a wonderful thing. And the way it works is: you say dumb things (especially as a kid), you get slapped by your parents/friends/people around you. By age 18 or 21, you know instinctively that what you can and cannot say around other folks. At least the vast majority of folks do. On the internet however, there's n…

So your answer to people you don't like is corporal punishment.

Do you honestly believe that is the best method to improve discourse?

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#365

Post by switch007 » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:20 PM UTC

Just the past week:

- New Yorker publishes this article

- Mayor of London at SXSW called for tighter tech regulation.

- UK Culture Secretary declares social media "broken", states he wants to time-limit children's access to social media and "impose stricter checks on the age limits when children can first set up a social media profile"

- Tim Berners-Lee said "we must regulate tech firms to prevent 'weaponised' web"

- The Economist prints an article "On Twitter, falsehood spreads faster than truth" (reporting on a recent study by MIT’s Laboratory for Social Machines)

- A report is delivered to European Commission: "Final report of the High Level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation"

- The House of Lords International Relations Committee concluded tech firms were negatively affecting our society

Blimey...

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#366

Post by thomastjeffery » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:22 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #53

ScipioAfricanus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so some random person is saying something you find offensive or hurtful. You can block them so you don't have to see what they post. It's a decentralized solution to a decentralized problem.

Not everyone finds the blocking option in time. Not everyone has the self control to avoid the comments in the first place. Not everything you've seen can be erased and forgotten (there's a reason NSFL exists).

In time for what?

People don't need the self control to avoid trolls, they need the self control to change their reaction to them from simply getting butthurt and offended.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#367

Post by 0x00000000 » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:22 PM UTC

siegecraft wrote: post #148

This problem is easy to solve: give users the tools to do their own filtering. But services like to pretend that it's a hard problem because they don't want to actually cede that control to their users. The whole point of controlling the communication networks is to control what and how people say and hear.

Absolutely. The internet is a tremendously powerful tool for politically motivated entities to control exactly what content and ideas hundreds of millions of people consume in a very ironically authoritarian and anti-neutral way, despite what they have done a fantastic job of convincing people.

Also that is why I enjoy playing Valve's online games and not Blizzard's or Riot's. No politics or baby sitting. Just the ability to mute everyone if you so choose. The "no BS" approach is also quite apparent in the game design itself too

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#368

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:23 PM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #47

Reddit has zero problem leaving post that threaten the lives of an entire religious group on their frontpage. If they were serious certain subs would be nuked.

Could you give examples, I've been there a lot and have never seen this (though I've been told "people like you should be killed" a few times because of my religious associations, so don't doubt it, just curious about specifics).

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#369

Post by dalbasal » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:26 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #312

dalbasal wrote: post #299

With the benefit of hindsight, I think “free-form platforms” like reddit or youtube may be the road to mediocrity. Youtube is still the major player even though twitter, Facebook & netflix grew around them. It is less opinionated on how video should be consumed. Less opinionated on what should be consumed. Anyone can post. Anyone can see it. Problem is, youtube doesn’t really have a purpose that it is trying to serve…

I don't know about youtube. There's a lot of really interesting, useful stuff from people who just want to share a bit of what they know about some niche topic. If you know what you're looking for youtube is a great resources. But if you're just trying to browse to find fun stuff in your free time, then I guess it's not as useful. I agree that a lot of the bigger channels get worse as they make videos primarily to ge…

I don't disagree, but I think we might be talking past eachother.

Youtube definitely does have a lot of really interesting, useful stuff. There's some stuff that's fantastic. That's the stuff I want them (youtube) to value more highly. Some (most) of it is interesting and useful to people who aren't me. I'm not even commenting on youtubers disingenuously leaning into controversy or whatnot to get views.

What I'm saying is that there is a lot of stuff that isn't. Youtube does not seem to have an opinion about what is good or bad, at least not beyond view count. Have a look at their homepage. Is it good? Does it give a special place to the things youtube does uniquely well? To me, it just looks like a random collection of videos and a lowest common denominator theme.

Structuring youtube as a video db, with search... that's great. I like that. It means you can narrow down to the point where the lowest common denominator is relatively high, but I feel like youtube would prefer me to just watch some scandal outrage news clip or a show clip or something.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#370

Post by castis » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:26 PM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #342

castis wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with "getting your feelings hurt". If someone is a dick to you IRL, you just go about life without them and its of zero consequence to you. Imagine if they stayed in your life outside of your own accord and just yelled dumb shit at you from the sidelines. Not everyone is built as strong as you, it bothers some people.

Being someone who choses to take offense and get upset about every little thing is their problem. Not everyone elses.

Generally speaking, you and I agree on that much.

However, we're talking about how filters and algorithms won't stop people from being dicks to each other.