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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

#441

Post by moduspol »

mistermann wrote: post #420
moduspol wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you teach critical thinking?

I would start with someone who is skilled in both critical thinking and education, or am I misunderstanding the question? Logical fallacies would be one place to start, you can see examples of this all day long on reddit for example.

Well, my understanding is that "critical thinking" is already very commonly considered to be part of various course curricula. If it's not being taught, then we'd need to do something differently.

I've been hearing claims of the need to teach "critical thinking" since I was in high school. To me it always came across as one of those things that can't easily be taught, particularly in a traditional academic setting. Everyone agrees it should be taught, but if there were a clear way of doing it, we would.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#442

Post by moduspol »

Retra wrote: post #425
moduspol wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you teach critical thinking?

By giving people things to think critically about, and ensuring that they respond in an appropriately thoughtful manner. Of course this doesn't work when politics is taboo.

I guess I'm just not sure what the curriculum would look like. Is there something you could point to as an example of a course doing this well?

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#443

Post by Torwald »

sbarre wrote: post #243
prepend wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s surprising how much social media bullshits on this issue. RSS had the standard and solution a decade ago. Being able to filter even by simple regex would be so much better than Facebook/Google’s “algorithm.” But it would allow us to filter out ads. It would also allow for community-driven white/black lists. But again, wouldn’t allow Coke and HBO to make you look at stuff.

Indeed.. Social media users don't get those tools because they are not the customers, they are the product.

The people who downvoted you are idiots.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#444

Post by AnimalMuppet »

cpncrunch wrote: post #130
_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…

HN generally works very well. The echo chamber problem is due to allowing downvotes IMO. In my experience that simply leads to minority viewpoints being downvoted. Instead, downvotes should be removed, and people should be allowed to flag abusive comments.

Well... downvotes are definitely abused. They're not supposed to be used to express disagreement, and they are. All. The. Time. And it stinks to be on the receiving end of that.

But I'm not sure that they should be eliminated. The alternative is to leave moderation as the only way to deal with bad (abusive, off-topic, trolling, unintelligible) posts. I'm not sure that having people flag every bad post they think they see, and letting the moderators sort it out, is really the optimal way to do things.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#445

Post by Reedx »

KirinDave wrote: post #192
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.

It's the same sort of myth as "why are manhole covers round?" and there are lots of attributions for why that ignore history for a just-so story.

What's the myth? There are good reasons for round manhole covers.

Also fun fact: That used to be a Microsoft interview question.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#446

Post by enraged_camel »

newen wrote: post #361
mulmen wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you got banned after a couple of days that means you broke the rules in a big way.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#447

Post by verylittlemeat »

switch007 wrote: post #365

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" -…

- moral panic over video games in the news again

- florida legislature declares porn a health risk rather than debate guns after school shooting

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#448

Post by dragonwriter »

adamrezich wrote: post #415
mancerayder wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Hackernews' "echo-chamber-ness" is extremely exaggerated. It only feels like that if you're in the minority viewpoint in a thread (which happens to me, too). However, it's not echo-chambery if dissident viewpoints live side-by-side dominant viewpoints, even if the latter are 80% of the thread replies and upvotes. An echo chamber is arguably more when we actively suppress dissident viewpoints. Reddit is in…

I've seen a lot of very interesting, usually quite short comments on politics-related threads in the past few weeks, that were posted less than ten minutes prior and already grayed out and marked "[dead]". In each instance, the user was not using inflammatory language at all, yet HN was implicitly saying "yeah we're not going to allow discussion on this topic." I'm sure there's Very Good Reasons(TM) for this but it a…

> In each instance, the user was not using inflammatory language at all,

Downvotes are not only for inflammatory language; a comment can be a negative contribution to the signal-to-noise ratio, and even violate the commenting guidelines, without using inflammatory language.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#449

Post by allthenews »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #383
allthenews wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't seem to understand that terms like "toxic" are as arbitrary and subject to abuse as the word "obscene". In fact, I'm not even sure as to what you're getting at. Are you seriously suggesting that what is toxic is somehow universal? It does not bother you that dozens of serious contemporary, controversial topics, with severe consequences for our society, are regularly censored on websites like reddit under th…

"It does not bother you that dozens of serious contemporary, controversial topics, with severe consequences for our society, are regularly censored on websites like reddit under the guise of so called toxicity?" I think you're gonna have to provide an example for this. An example of something that is being labeled as toxic, but wouldn't appear to be.

The problem is not that the topics themselves are toxic, but that only one point of view is identified as such. I only mention these "flamebait" topics as examples, not to discuss them or choose a side.

Gamergate

Gender Equality/Equity

Affirmative Action

White Privilege

The various subjects in James Damore's recent memo [note, he was fired for honest, sourced feedback that was explicitly requested of him]

Politics in general (especially anything remotely pro-Trump or pro-Republican)

If you pay attention to dynamics on reddit, for example, certain sides tend to be stifled, regardless of any potential merits. I am not choosing sides, just offering examples where certain opinions are immediately identified by communities as toxic, and no discussion is even attempted.

Hell, there is a growing movement among feminists, at least a vocal minority online, which claims that our modern concept of masculinity is "toxic."

The very word is turning into a catch all for "opinions I don't like," which seems to happen any time one attempts to censor information.

Finally, consider this: if the topics I've brought up are so clearly, as you claimed, not merely "differences in opinion," then why do they attract such heated discussions, with contributors on both sides, even on HN?

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#450

Post by white-flame »

mwfunk wrote: post #438
white-flame wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Giving a massive benefit of the doubt that their complaints can be non-partisan, some alternative terms that might be more correct to their concerns might be: - Polarizing - Extremist/Fundamentalist/Zealotry - Trolling However, these sorts of things are legitimately "toxic" to a welcoming discussion environment (ie a large social site's revenue stream), but it's being conflated as being "toxic" to society in…

I would say that all of those things are toxic to society in general. Those behaviors just tend to be more muted out in the real world where acting shitty is more likely to have immediate consequences. I can't think of any non-contrived situations where those behaviors aren't equally damaging to social bonds in any situation, whether it's an online community or a government or a family or an organization. They all re…

Yes, you agree that they're "toxic" to communication, which I stated. But I wouldn't say they, for example, reduce "enlightenment"; they're a product of not being "enlightened" (for whatever measure you use).

All of these are products of the failings/weaknesses of humanity, not causes of them. Their presence is to be expected and crops up in everybody, not just in some "toxic" subset of people that can be excluded.

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