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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

#71

Post by losteric »

_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 experts. Opinions which may not be widely held, or even popular, but supported by people who are vetted as being knowledgeable on the subject.

Traditional media could be regulated because they were largely centralized, but centralization also creates an establishment that regulated counter-culture ideas. In contrast, the internet is anarchic. Online anonymity impairs delegation of trust... any idea can be published so every individual must rationally evaluate what they consume. Attempting to regulate away undesirable behavior on the anarchic internet is just cat-herding. At best, you create a walled garden for a select few.

As I see it, the paths forward are either:

* public education, emphasizing civics/rationality, to support distributed self-regulation

* centralizing with state regulations

I want the former but the latter seems most likely, considering how the underlying networks are consolidating, and increasing awareness of how amplified public ignorance creates political/economic instability that hurts those with power.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#72

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

_m8fo wrote: post #65
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.

I complete agree. My premise is that you can only remove two out of the four -- echo chamber, trolling, toxicity, community. If you accept this premise the only logical conclusion is to remove trolling and toxicity. Without community the point is moot, after all. So really you're removing two out of echo chamber, trolling, toxicity.

Hmm, I think I would choose to remove toxicity and echo chamber. I don't mind a certain degree of bad faith behavior if removing it comes at the cost of having discussions with people different from me

I think maybe a good solution would be to (1) pay mods and (2) make everything they do transparent. This will give you better mods to start out with but also gives users the power to notice mod overreach before it spirals out of control.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#73

Post by [deleted] »

minimaxir wrote: post #22

It's worth noting that instead of community management, Reddit has been soft-pivoting to become a new Facebook with features like group chat, new profile designs, and a News Feed-esque view on the official mobile apps. Incidentally, Facebook itself hasn't solved the problem of its community/fake news, hence the recent algorithmic changes to the News Feed to surface more content from friends, and a public push toward…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#74

Post by ralusek »

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.

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 reddit...it's honestly one of the last places left that gives me the feeling of exposure to different bubbles.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#75

Post by oflannabhra »

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.

I agree. There are strong psychological and sociological inhibitions that the internet strips away. Turns out those inhibitions are a good thing, and likely evolved for a reason.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#76

Post by joshuata »

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…

I wish this were true, but the amount of fake news spread by trusted news networks, such as newspapers spreading Russian propaganda bots, implies that education isn't sufficient. If a professional cannot discriminate between truth and lies on twitter how can an average person?

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#77

Post by unethical_ban »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #60
_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…

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.

Within a narrow community, a little bit of "echo chamber" is worth the quality of commenting online. I'd rather get downvoted a little and have to debate my minority opinion than it be drowned out with spam and bots here.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#78

Post by Slansitartop »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #60
_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…

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.

It just occurred to me that that forum moderation is essentially politics, and the failure modes of web-forums follow the failure modes of the political systems their moderation emulates.

The most common form anarchic moderation (i.e. no moderation). When a forum's small, unwritten social rules keep things under control. However, as forum grows, that breaks down, and things become more chaotic.

Metafilter essentially has an authoritarian moderation culture, the rules of discussion are both made and enforced (selectively or not) by the same group on another subject group. There's a wall to keep outsiders out (the paywall). It avoids chaos, but its failure mode is ossification, devolution into an echo chamber, and eventually desertion; as public forum behavior comes to more-or-less rigidly reflect the opinions and preferences of the moderators.

Reddit's somewhere in the middle of the above two forms. There are anarchic hordes in the less moderated reaches, and little authoritarian kingdoms without the walls to keep the hordes out.

I don't think anyone's tried real democracy in a forum (with elections, politics, checks and balances, and the time investment that all entails). It'd be interesting to see how such a forum would fare, and if it could avoid chaos without become an echo chamber. Democracy isn't the public-opinion-style voting we see in forum's today, but instead actual accountability of the moderators to the users.

Not claiming this is a novel insight, but it's new to me.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#79

Post by TAForObvReasons »

joshuata wrote: post #76
losteric wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wish this were true, but the amount of fake news spread by trusted news networks, such as newspapers spreading Russian propaganda bots, implies that education isn't sufficient. If a professional cannot discriminate between truth and lies on twitter how can an average person?

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://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/

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