“Did We Create This Monster?” How Twitter Turned Toxic(fastcompany.com)
fastcompany.com
“Did We Create This Monster?” How Twitter Turned Toxic
https://www.fastcompany.com/40547818/did-we-create-this-monster-how-twitter-turned-toxic
97 comments
The iron law of the internet is that, in the absence of constant high-quality moderation, all discourse eventually becomes toxic. This has been true since the days of usenet.
> in the absence of constant high-quality moderation, all discourse eventually becomes toxic
Sounds like life in general. I think People restrain themselves more than we realize. Especially when there are consequences for actioning out. Remove those and things go south quick.
The last 100 years of humanity has had some moments that make the internet look pretty caring.
I mean, we're talking hundreds of millions of killings, plus untold numbers of rape and kidnappings across every convenient.
Sounds like life in general. I think People restrain themselves more than we realize. Especially when there are consequences for actioning out. Remove those and things go south quick.
The last 100 years of humanity has had some moments that make the internet look pretty caring.
I mean, we're talking hundreds of millions of killings, plus untold numbers of rape and kidnappings across every convenient.
> Sounds like life in general. I think People restrain themselves more than we realize. Especially when there are consequences for actioning out. Remove those and things go south quick.
Hobbes would have gotten a kick out of the internet to be sure. It's about closest to the mythical 'state of nature' we're ever likely to observe.
Hobbes would have gotten a kick out of the internet to be sure. It's about closest to the mythical 'state of nature' we're ever likely to observe.
About to be regulated within a decade or a half, and I'm surprised/shocked by the fact that I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
The difference is that, while evading the rapist and the killer in front of you is sometimes difficult, evading a post in any platform is easy: ignore it. The platform is overloaded with them? Ignore the platform.
The parallel with real life abuse has to end.
The parallel with real life abuse has to end.
I think you misunderstand. The parallel isn't with the acts - it's with the source.
People are selfish and therefore very prone to being evil.
Being bad online is expected.
People are selfish and therefore very prone to being evil.
Being bad online is expected.
On the other hand I have never found that big of an issue with said "toxicity". Getting backstabbed in guild environments in MMOs, hurling insults at each other in counterstrike or on IRC, flamewars over irrelevant technical points or many flavors of personal attacks on 4chan have always just been background noise to me.
Experiences may differ, but having grown up in the wild west of the internet this is normal to me and therefore I just don't get how it could stress someone out all that much or why people would voluntarily expose themselves like that.
Of course over the years I have also learned to wear many hats and not stick my real life identity to everything. Data hygiene is important for your sanity.
In that case of twitter I have 3 different accounts. One just for following artists where I harvest their images. One for occasionally having a conversation about tech things and one for video games. None of them are directly associated with my real identity, although with some sleuthing you could notice to which github account my tech one corresponds.
Experiences may differ, but having grown up in the wild west of the internet this is normal to me and therefore I just don't get how it could stress someone out all that much or why people would voluntarily expose themselves like that.
Of course over the years I have also learned to wear many hats and not stick my real life identity to everything. Data hygiene is important for your sanity.
In that case of twitter I have 3 different accounts. One just for following artists where I harvest their images. One for occasionally having a conversation about tech things and one for video games. None of them are directly associated with my real identity, although with some sleuthing you could notice to which github account my tech one corresponds.
> Experiences may differ, but having grown up in the wild west of the internet this is normal to me and therefore I just don't get how it could stress someone out all that much or why people would voluntarily expose themselves like that.
Most people didn't grow up in the wild west of the internet. Most people carry their intuitions about social interaction over from the real world. Tech people seem to chronically underestimate just how monumentally ill-prepared society was for the ubiquity of smartphones and always-on communication.
Most people didn't grow up in the wild west of the internet. Most people carry their intuitions about social interaction over from the real world. Tech people seem to chronically underestimate just how monumentally ill-prepared society was for the ubiquity of smartphones and always-on communication.
>In that case of twitter I have 3 different accounts.... None of them are directly associated with my real identity
So, you don't have close friends of business contacts on Twitter, but you wonder why you don't feel stress when twitter is used to attack you? I think if you were a more serious user, you would feel the pinch more when the network gets hostile.
So, you don't have close friends of business contacts on Twitter, but you wonder why you don't feel stress when twitter is used to attack you? I think if you were a more serious user, you would feel the pinch more when the network gets hostile.
I value doing those things in private.
How do you connect with people in private?
I think it's more complicated than that.
Github isn't toxic. Dreamwidth isn't toxic.
The orientation towards microblogging has a lot to do with the toxicity.
Github isn't toxic. Dreamwidth isn't toxic.
The orientation towards microblogging has a lot to do with the toxicity.
GitHub has high-quality moderation in the form of repo owners who have a vested interest in punishing bad actors.
That's built in to the medium in question, rather than a tacked on addon.
Twitter could easily adopt some clique-based management where people could see public conversations between members of the clique but would require an invite to reply to such a conversation or show up in related timelines.
Of course this wouldn't stop direct attacks or people talking indirectly about other people, but at least it would stop randos from sealioning.
Of course this wouldn't stop direct attacks or people talking indirectly about other people, but at least it would stop randos from sealioning.
Please look at this thread and see what people can do even on github https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/issues/15345
GitHub has its moments.
Github isn't quite "discourse" though, at least (I suspect) not in the sense that cirgue meant. That distinction may matter.
Would forcing users to verify their identities and post with their full names have any effect on the toxicity? What if filters were used to prevent the most egregious words of hatred? My questions are driving towards this: is it at all possible to have something like twitter that isn't as toxic, given the right features?
If Nextdoor is any indication, posting your name and verified home address next to your comments still won't stop toxicity.
What you've described is Facebook, and it has its own toxicity.
Auto-moderation is a useful start, but strong community moderation is built on empathy and soft skills, which for the moment is still best handled by people.
Auto-moderation is a useful start, but strong community moderation is built on empathy and soft skills, which for the moment is still best handled by people.
Real names policies don't result in friendlier communities. In places where I've seen people use both pseudonyms and real names, they are sometimes much worse behaved where they are using real names. Facebook groups are full of people using real names who are behaving very badly.
Companies can't tell users, "we're forcing you to use your real names so we can conspire with other companies to track you wherever you go against your knowledge", so they say it's to encourage better behavior.
Companies can't tell users, "we're forcing you to use your real names so we can conspire with other companies to track you wherever you go against your knowledge", so they say it's to encourage better behavior.
"Would forcing users to verify their identities and post with their full names have any effect on the toxicity?"
Probably not. Often time people are just as terrible in person and social media just gives them more reach.
"What if filters were used to prevent the most egregious words of hatred?"
It's too easy to come up with new (((slurs))) to get around such censorship but still spread the same message.
"Is it at all possible to have something like twitter that isn't as toxic, given the right features?"
Social media often makes people more toxic by exposing them more directly to the opinions of others and they find that intolerable. A lot of the time, the nuances of certain kinds speech are different in different communities and those nuances are lost on social media and people become more toxic as a result.
I suspect that carefully considered features could reduce toxicity of discussion, but I don't think that it is just a matter of features. Ultimately it's a people problem and people cannot just be automated around.
Probably not. Often time people are just as terrible in person and social media just gives them more reach.
"What if filters were used to prevent the most egregious words of hatred?"
It's too easy to come up with new (((slurs))) to get around such censorship but still spread the same message.
"Is it at all possible to have something like twitter that isn't as toxic, given the right features?"
Social media often makes people more toxic by exposing them more directly to the opinions of others and they find that intolerable. A lot of the time, the nuances of certain kinds speech are different in different communities and those nuances are lost on social media and people become more toxic as a result.
I suspect that carefully considered features could reduce toxicity of discussion, but I don't think that it is just a matter of features. Ultimately it's a people problem and people cannot just be automated around.
Requiring people to identify themselves with verification before they are allowed to communicate seems orwellian to me.
Speaking of which, your papers please.
Speaking of which, your papers please.
Charging $1 per Tweet would sort it easily
The tendency is there, but that doesn't mean that all social platforms become equally toxic over time.
[deleted]
When wasn't Twitter toxic?
It is designed and implemented to breed toxicity. It is optimized for engagement, but people don't just engage when they are happy and want to share the joy they also engage when they are angry, upset, want to argue and debate. So they end up arguing in 140 character short quips and sarcastic remarks. Which gets other people angry and they respond with more short sarcastic remarks. How often has anyone said in such an exchange "Oh your witty remark and calling me an fucking idiot gave me pause, I went back, reevaluated my position and now I agree with you".
But engagement goes up, and why bother removing bots, they just add more activity and users. "Oh look we have 330M active monthly users" they can say to the shareholders. Buy more shares!
There is no mention how they went to RT, a Russian state propaganda outlet and offered them deals and access to US voters ahead of the 2016 election. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/twitter-b... . Forgot what Twitter's response was, something like "we do not comment on private pitch decks". Which pretty much acknowledges it. So they breed and encourage toxicity then turn around and blast PR how they want more civility and are protecting democracy.
It is designed and implemented to breed toxicity. It is optimized for engagement, but people don't just engage when they are happy and want to share the joy they also engage when they are angry, upset, want to argue and debate. So they end up arguing in 140 character short quips and sarcastic remarks. Which gets other people angry and they respond with more short sarcastic remarks. How often has anyone said in such an exchange "Oh your witty remark and calling me an fucking idiot gave me pause, I went back, reevaluated my position and now I agree with you".
But engagement goes up, and why bother removing bots, they just add more activity and users. "Oh look we have 330M active monthly users" they can say to the shareholders. Buy more shares!
There is no mention how they went to RT, a Russian state propaganda outlet and offered them deals and access to US voters ahead of the 2016 election. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/twitter-b... . Forgot what Twitter's response was, something like "we do not comment on private pitch decks". Which pretty much acknowledges it. So they breed and encourage toxicity then turn around and blast PR how they want more civility and are protecting democracy.
So Twitter doesn't censor enough, dunno how much more time or money Twitter could have spent trying to control the narrative. So the lesson here is that it's never enough. If you had Twitter completely sanitized there'd be people who don't understand 'changing the channel' complaining about too many meat-eaters on the platform.
censorship basically allowed for trolls, memelords, bots, eggs and shitposters to thrive because of how they censored wrong-thinkers willing to have a rational discussion. only those who have nothing to lose are left in the conversation.
The article argues that it wasn't so much censorship as poorly-implemented censorship.
For example:
> Internally, Costolo complained that the “abuse economics” were “backward.” It took just seconds to create an account to harass someone, but reporting that abuse required filling out a time-consuming form.
And of course the larger story of a vigilante censor being blocked. Twitter doesn't want outside forces policing it, but that means it has to police itself, which it has failed to do at critical moments.
For example:
> Internally, Costolo complained that the “abuse economics” were “backward.” It took just seconds to create an account to harass someone, but reporting that abuse required filling out a time-consuming form.
And of course the larger story of a vigilante censor being blocked. Twitter doesn't want outside forces policing it, but that means it has to police itself, which it has failed to do at critical moments.
Twitter could start at home by doing something about the sewer that is "Moments". It ignores words in the "muted" list; it's full of celebrity crap and the sort of click-bait stuff I loathe.
The whole thing seems to set the tone for the sort of garbage that they talk about wanting to eliminate.
The whole thing seems to set the tone for the sort of garbage that they talk about wanting to eliminate.
>Contentiousness grew common: Bhatnagar’s team would want to suspend users it found abusive, only to be overruled by Gadde and Harvey. “That drove Tina crazy,” says a source familiar with the dynamic. “She’d go looking for Jack, but Jack would be at Square, so the next day he’d listen and take notes on his phone and say, ‘Let me think about it.’
Is it feasible for one person to be an effective CEO of two companies at the same time? Particular ones that are at the stages Twitter and Square are at?
Is it feasible for one person to be an effective CEO of two companies at the same time? Particular ones that are at the stages Twitter and Square are at?
Not when decisions like this are funneled through the CEO.
You can be effective if both startups are in fundraising mode: you’ll be having a lot of the same conversations with the same people. That’s a relationship game.
You can be effective if both startups are in fundraising mode: you’ll be having a lot of the same conversations with the same people. That’s a relationship game.
Musk
I'd say this is an example of poor workflow. If you have millions of users of your product, the CEO must be abstracted far above such mundane decisions. With someone like Elon Musk, you have a nitty-gritty focused CEO who wants to get onto the engineering/production floor and tackle the toughest bottlenecks. If you don't have a dual CEO at his level of expertise, though, I think you're setting yourself up for problems, especially with aforementioned crappy workflow.
I don't agree. This was about censorship, an issue absolutely vital to the core Twitter experience. Choosing how/what to censor is absolutely not mundane.
This is true. I know of someone who has had their real name and email address posted on Twitter by someone to harass them and Twitter finds nothing wrong with it and says it doesn't violate their rules. However don't say a curse word or you might get a 24 hour / 7 day time out.
Im trying to pinpoint when it started going wrong. I think it was when they changed the third party API usages etc which lead to solutions by others being cut off - they had to do everything themselves.
But I also think it was the move towards threads and conversations. For a few years Twitter was mostly one directional . You would post your status, similar to how you would update your instant messaging away status. Twitter became a way to follow everyone's posts. Threads didn't exist and replying was not built in.
After these two changes the company became blind drunk with growth and celebrity. Oprah moment.
But I also think it was the move towards threads and conversations. For a few years Twitter was mostly one directional . You would post your status, similar to how you would update your instant messaging away status. Twitter became a way to follow everyone's posts. Threads didn't exist and replying was not built in.
After these two changes the company became blind drunk with growth and celebrity. Oprah moment.
I like your second theory. I'm thinking about how you can easily avoid absurd alt-right conspiracy drivel by, for example, never reading Breitbart. But because NBC articles have a comment section, all the bullshit finds its way through anyway.
Somebody could make an echo chamber argument at me I guess, but I should be allowed to filter out absolute falsehoods without being called "unfair and unbalanced."
Somebody could make an echo chamber argument at me I guess, but I should be allowed to filter out absolute falsehoods without being called "unfair and unbalanced."
In essence, it's simple: the moment they started adding more social features. Seeing how every network eventually spreads to the same directions (comments, reactions, stories, media elements, etc. ) the problem is they don't stick to core motives. Twitter: sharing 140 char (the 280 change was based on data, but still, it's a significant change) TEXT. It should never have grown into threads, images, videos, etc. Somewhere when it was still text only, but @mentions and #hastags already existed it should have stopped. Unfortunately this system wouldn't have the exponential growth in it, only to be a good system, an infrastructure.
With free speech, come idiots that abuse it and say hateful things.
These are sacrifices necessary in order to live in a free society.
You can't just take freedom of speech from the people you don't like to listen to; you would be taking it away from everyone.
These are sacrifices necessary in order to live in a free society.
You can't just take freedom of speech from the people you don't like to listen to; you would be taking it away from everyone.
> You can't just take freedom of speech from the people you don't like to listen to; you would be taking it away from everyone.
Good
Good
Sure, but you don't have to design your platform to incentivize making people angrier.
I really wish more people would recognize this. Freedom of speech only exists if it protects speech that people disagree with.
One problem is for people to be noticed they have to offer something compelling, maybe novel, but most of all something which will cause nods or outrage,
Since most people have nothing significant to say (notable discovery) they signal which ever way they can. So they dig up nonsense molehills and let their friends build it into a mountain.
Oh, look, this restaurant is sourcing from this place that my friend just told me secretly underpays their workers-- most foul. Don't patronize the restaurant, boycott! (No, I didn't confirm, I don't know if it's true, but boycott , for justice NAU!!! (Oh I feel a righteous human now))
Since most people have nothing significant to say (notable discovery) they signal which ever way they can. So they dig up nonsense molehills and let their friends build it into a mountain.
Oh, look, this restaurant is sourcing from this place that my friend just told me secretly underpays their workers-- most foul. Don't patronize the restaurant, boycott! (No, I didn't confirm, I don't know if it's true, but boycott , for justice NAU!!! (Oh I feel a righteous human now))
Twitter was designed to be toxic and all of the incentives driving product development led them inexorably to that goal. (Hint: what do flamewars and harassment look like to your engagement metrics?)
It's just human nature, people are awful in general, and the internet allows them to bring it to the masses easily, with very few repercussions.
People are generally good, they just tend not to be very vocal about that.
Twitter and Facebook, on the other hand, tend to give a megaphone to bad people, allowing them to spread their message wider and louder. That is inherently bad, because thanks to network effect more people would behave in a way they would never allow in real life.
My take away is that, after ten years, we can say that Facebook and Twitter have a negative impact on contemporary society.
My take away is that, after ten years, we can say that Facebook and Twitter have a negative impact on contemporary society.
I think anyone read decent amount of history book can agree that "people are bad in general".
What are the evidences for "People are generally good"?
What are the evidences for "People are generally good"?
Most of the stuff that isn't selected for inclusion in a history book.
History books only talk about the extreme actions of the most extreme people of any time period. Beyond "most people follow anyone who is charismatic" history books don't tell you much about humanity at large
People are naive and easy to manipulate. Often (in history) they are manipulated into killing other people against their own interests. Few people are wilfully "good" or "bad".
[deleted]
"some people are bad in general". FTFY
I hear this argument a lot, and let me just make one point:
Human nature is really shapeable — and we (as a former product manager in this space) designed algorithms and product experiences to maximize certain outcomes that benefit social network bottom lines. Regardless of how good or bad human nature is, the algorithms prize engagement however they can get it — I personally believe it surfaces a certain side of humanity, and pushes people in a certain direction.
If you're a news editor, you actually have a choice to sensationalize all day because it maximizes short-term profits. After bad things happened (see yellow journalism, the newspaper circulation wars) — newspapers did cut back a fair bit. (We can debate whether that was the risk of regulation, or their own respect for the role they had)
This clearly isn't the social networks' fault alone, but their product choices do partially influence on how we all behave. On HN, you hear a lot of anger at journalists for being so click-baity, and the sad part is that every incentive many journalists face encourages this (from user behavior to profit)
There are tons of examples how bad incentives can warp how people behave, far beyond "humanity is good" or "humanity is bad". For example, see Hannah Arendt's Banality of Evil or the Stanford Prison Experiment. More regularly, see architecture, urban planning, or product management in the Valley, as disciplines that think deeply about the outcomes they want to encourage.
A more accurate statement I would say is: humanity has certain predilections, and design choices can influence these dramatically.
(And now I will shill my media literacy for engineers guide — contributions welcome: https://github.com/nemild/hack-an-engineer )
Human nature is really shapeable — and we (as a former product manager in this space) designed algorithms and product experiences to maximize certain outcomes that benefit social network bottom lines. Regardless of how good or bad human nature is, the algorithms prize engagement however they can get it — I personally believe it surfaces a certain side of humanity, and pushes people in a certain direction.
If you're a news editor, you actually have a choice to sensationalize all day because it maximizes short-term profits. After bad things happened (see yellow journalism, the newspaper circulation wars) — newspapers did cut back a fair bit. (We can debate whether that was the risk of regulation, or their own respect for the role they had)
This clearly isn't the social networks' fault alone, but their product choices do partially influence on how we all behave. On HN, you hear a lot of anger at journalists for being so click-baity, and the sad part is that every incentive many journalists face encourages this (from user behavior to profit)
There are tons of examples how bad incentives can warp how people behave, far beyond "humanity is good" or "humanity is bad". For example, see Hannah Arendt's Banality of Evil or the Stanford Prison Experiment. More regularly, see architecture, urban planning, or product management in the Valley, as disciplines that think deeply about the outcomes they want to encourage.
A more accurate statement I would say is: humanity has certain predilections, and design choices can influence these dramatically.
(And now I will shill my media literacy for engineers guide — contributions welcome: https://github.com/nemild/hack-an-engineer )
True in general, but the only thing I see about how Twitter is designed, that has any significant effect of shaping behavior in a negative direction, is the anonymity, which it inherits from the internet itself. It's no Stanford Prison Experiment though. Maaaayyybe it's the guards' mirrored sunglasses if you want to make the analogy. But since the same feature is available to everyone, including as a protective feature for any would-be "prisoner" or victim, even that analogy breaks down. I'm just not seeing any power-unbalancing features that are inherent. As with most things, its best features are its worst.
[deleted]
Why did this person expect anything else? That's what happens when you connect everyone in the world and let them shout at each other. It's the reason that Usenet readers had kill-files since the 1980s. He had the solution right in his hands:
> “For the most part I found them rather laughable and easily ignored,” he says.
> “For the most part I found them rather laughable and easily ignored,” he says.
censorship happened and the platform taking sides with one side made the other side even more nasty and cryptic in their actions.
Probably the best explanation. Besides, our youth is getting used to censorship workarounds. Most people have two accounts per network. It really reminds me of a friend from Iran telling me about the underground bar culture in his country. It’s worrying that we have so much a problem with the opinions of others that our teenagers routinely rely on Iran-level techniques to navigate their world.
Can we learn more about the Iran underground bar culture? Or does putting that here violate that culture? Just curious.
I think the architecture of social media spaces affects their culture. I wrote up some observations here:
'Twitter, Reddit, and Conway's Law'
https://michaelfeathers.silvrback.com/social-media-architect...
'Twitter, Reddit, and Conway's Law'
https://michaelfeathers.silvrback.com/social-media-architect...
If you allow the unwashed masses to communicate with you, you'll be communicating with the unwashed masses.
No, its toxic by design.
All the big social networks exist to serve advertisers. They sell users attention to marketers. This means that their profit is directly dependent on how much attention they can harvest. So the systems that emerge (consciously or not) propagate attention grabbing content. This means that trolling and toxicity which exist to get a reaction get systematically supported. It also means that the novel and affirming fake news get magnified. It also means that the lowest common denominator cruelty does best (hey Logan Paul and your 'prankster' cadre).
None of this changes if you want tech and services paid for by your attention and mind-share. If users actually become customers then the question becomes what might they spend money on, not just what can we get them to pay attention to. And that can lead to much more sophisticated behavior. Behavior that actually reflects our conscious choices as opposed to subconscious impulses.
Check out oalrus.com for my proposal to implement something like that.
All the big social networks exist to serve advertisers. They sell users attention to marketers. This means that their profit is directly dependent on how much attention they can harvest. So the systems that emerge (consciously or not) propagate attention grabbing content. This means that trolling and toxicity which exist to get a reaction get systematically supported. It also means that the novel and affirming fake news get magnified. It also means that the lowest common denominator cruelty does best (hey Logan Paul and your 'prankster' cadre).
None of this changes if you want tech and services paid for by your attention and mind-share. If users actually become customers then the question becomes what might they spend money on, not just what can we get them to pay attention to. And that can lead to much more sophisticated behavior. Behavior that actually reflects our conscious choices as opposed to subconscious impulses.
Check out oalrus.com for my proposal to implement something like that.
furicane(3)
For me, twitter is the least toxic and 'monstrous' of all social platforms that I've been on.
I'd say the trend of articles on news sites using hyperbole and inflammatory language in every other headline to bait people into clicking is a far more serious issue. People on twitter do as they please - journalists need a hard look in the mirror before throwing stones at entire platforms.
I'd say the trend of articles on news sites using hyperbole and inflammatory language in every other headline to bait people into clicking is a far more serious issue. People on twitter do as they please - journalists need a hard look in the mirror before throwing stones at entire platforms.
For me it's the most toxic. I quit before they expanded the character limit, but the limited format almost completely annihilates the ability to express nuance. Combine that with everybody else assuming bad faith, it just devolves into people screaming at each other, often even when they agree.
Having the ability to build a whole thread of tweets now would go a long way towards providing the nuance that has so far been missing, but almost nobody even knows it's there, never mind uses it.
Let this be a lesson to others, the more censorship and the more draconic your allowed speech rules are, the worse you're off. The quality of overall discussion is negatively correlated with the amount of censorship.
[deleted]
HN is the most moderated platform I currently use, but despite its rules and frequent mod intervention, it seems to have a higher overall quality of discussion compared to what I can find on Reddit or Twitter.
There is definitely a hive mind that is reinforced by the mods here. Reddit is far worse, but realize that Ycombinator has certain goals as an organization and if your comments stray into direct opposition, they will delete things. I don’t think this is an indictment of HN, just highlighting that there is an implicit bias in every discussion forum.
Discussion is of high quality as long as it remains aligned, which is true 99% of the time.
Discussion is of high quality as long as it remains aligned, which is true 99% of the time.
[deleted]
> Reddit is far worse,
I would re-characterize it as "some Reddit subreddits are far worse" - because your experience can vary widely. All the subreddits I subscribe to (hobby and interest related, not news/politics) are actually self-policed very well. I tend to think the toxic subreddits are actually in the minority even though they get all the attention.
I would re-characterize it as "some Reddit subreddits are far worse" - because your experience can vary widely. All the subreddits I subscribe to (hobby and interest related, not news/politics) are actually self-policed very well. I tend to think the toxic subreddits are actually in the minority even though they get all the attention.
I also like the subreddits I subscribe to, and the volunteer mods generally do a great job. But I do think that HN mods (who are paid, I assume) have a more difficult job in content filtering, in that HN is ostensibly a general discussion forum. Even as it skews towards tech and startups, just about every topic is eligible for discussion, including political debate. In r/netsec, for example, submitted links and discussions are generally good, but the mods are also very strict about the content -- technical posts, only. I suspect the quality of discussion would change drastically if they allowed anything remotely political or even just non-technical, such as various Troy Hunt posts [0]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16636453
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16636453
Reddit is far worse in reinforcing subconscious self-moderation to adhere to the majority opinion. It's present on Hacker News too, since most people use the downvote as a "I disagree" button.
I think it depends on the subreddit. The ones I subscribe to aren't that bad with respect to downvotes.
>> HN is the most moderated platform I currently use, but despite its rules and frequent mod intervention, it seems to have a higher overall quality of discussion compared to what I can find on Reddit or Twitter.
I find Reddit to be pretty good in general. All the subreddits I subscribe to (none are political or hot topics, they're all around my hobbies and interests, etc) are pretty civil. I am sure there are toxic subreddits, but my Reddit feed is higher quality than my Facebook feed by a mile, and the discussions might have a few corny jokes, but they're generally fine.
I find Reddit to be pretty good in general. All the subreddits I subscribe to (none are political or hot topics, they're all around my hobbies and interests, etc) are pretty civil. I am sure there are toxic subreddits, but my Reddit feed is higher quality than my Facebook feed by a mile, and the discussions might have a few corny jokes, but they're generally fine.
Reddit is a marketing platform, not a discussion platform. If a website has tools like shadowbanning and rules that govern the allowed range of opinions that read like something you'd need a law degree to understand, you're on a platform that serves only advertisers and is only useful for promotion and marketing, not discussion.
Kind of like HN?
On the contrary, disallowing low-effort garbage to drown out all attempts at discourse is a type of censorship that makes room for quality discussion.
Abstracting all communication as "speech" and therefore "free speech" and therefore "censorship" means not differentiating between discussing local traffic policy with a group of informed people, and having everyone listen to the loud smelly drunk who sat down at your table to tell jokes about negroes.
Abstracting all communication as "speech" and therefore "free speech" and therefore "censorship" means not differentiating between discussing local traffic policy with a group of informed people, and having everyone listen to the loud smelly drunk who sat down at your table to tell jokes about negroes.
Once you start perceiving people whose opinions you don't like as "loud smelly drunks" you're already too far down the rabbit hole to understand the importance of keeping moderation to the absolute minimum (which means keeping out spammers, illegal content and people behaving destructively towards the platform only).
The best forums I've ever been on were those where there were no ratings whatsoever, a linear structure of discussion, and that allowed any range of opinions as long as they were not in the aforementioned groups.
The best forums I've ever been on were those where there were no ratings whatsoever, a linear structure of discussion, and that allowed any range of opinions as long as they were not in the aforementioned groups.
Yes, I'd say that free speech—like many things—gets harder with scale.
When a small number of trolls can derail a conversation, you get denial-of-service attacks against civil discourse and democracy.
> having everyone listen to the loud smelly drunk who sat down at your table to tell jokes about negroes
For example, the article talks about a mismatch between moderation tools and trolling:
> Internally, Costolo complained that the “abuse economics” were “backward.” It took just seconds to create an account to harass someone, but reporting that abuse required filling out a time-consuming form.
When a small number of trolls can derail a conversation, you get denial-of-service attacks against civil discourse and democracy.
> having everyone listen to the loud smelly drunk who sat down at your table to tell jokes about negroes
For example, the article talks about a mismatch between moderation tools and trolling:
> Internally, Costolo complained that the “abuse economics” were “backward.” It took just seconds to create an account to harass someone, but reporting that abuse required filling out a time-consuming form.
Can you elucidate how you come to that conclusion from this article?
I don't get the "Imposter Buster" thing. Does Twitter verify the user images somehow? If not, then what extra responsibility do they have to police pictures over equally misleading text?
Spam is spam. If they were actually spamming then Twitter had every right and obligation to shut their operation down. Spamming for a good cause does not make it right.
In general, Joe jobbing against race only works against racists. Who cares about racists anyway?
Spam is spam. If they were actually spamming then Twitter had every right and obligation to shut their operation down. Spamming for a good cause does not make it right.
In general, Joe jobbing against race only works against racists. Who cares about racists anyway?
They change the conversation, driving division and influencing opinion. Propaganda is very powerful, especially when a message appears to be coming from dozens/thousands of voices.
Look at any controversial tweet these days and the reply thread is full of inflammatory comments from users with numeric usernames (@Joe154354), blurry photos (that can't be reverse image searched) and that seem to ONLY post about political topics and retweet similar voices. Heuristically they are highly likely to be bots or provocateurs but it's hard to prove as Twitter doesn't expose much information.
Twitter has a serious bot/troll problem that they are choosing to ignore, and it is making the discourse on there toxic and untrustworthy. I find myself avoiding the platform these days as it just leaves me feeling stressed and sad.
Look at any controversial tweet these days and the reply thread is full of inflammatory comments from users with numeric usernames (@Joe154354), blurry photos (that can't be reverse image searched) and that seem to ONLY post about political topics and retweet similar voices. Heuristically they are highly likely to be bots or provocateurs but it's hard to prove as Twitter doesn't expose much information.
Twitter has a serious bot/troll problem that they are choosing to ignore, and it is making the discourse on there toxic and untrustworthy. I find myself avoiding the platform these days as it just leaves me feeling stressed and sad.
>Propaganda is very powerful, especially when a message appears to be coming from dozens/thousands of voices.
Well it shouldn't be on an anonymous forum. The only things that count in such a environment are ideas. Only the first one counts. The same ideas over and over again just count as a poor signal to noise ratio (which would be the root problem).
I suspect that we are in some sort of eternal september[1] phase here where people are being exposed to such environments for the first time. If this sort of thing is going to be a social problem perhaps we need to teach anonymous forums in school.
I personally have no interest in Twitter because I have passed the phase in my life where such a thing would be interesting. That doesn't mean that I think it is worthless but it seems that there are people who are taking it more seriously than it deserves.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
Well it shouldn't be on an anonymous forum. The only things that count in such a environment are ideas. Only the first one counts. The same ideas over and over again just count as a poor signal to noise ratio (which would be the root problem).
I suspect that we are in some sort of eternal september[1] phase here where people are being exposed to such environments for the first time. If this sort of thing is going to be a social problem perhaps we need to teach anonymous forums in school.
I personally have no interest in Twitter because I have passed the phase in my life where such a thing would be interesting. That doesn't mean that I think it is worthless but it seems that there are people who are taking it more seriously than it deserves.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September