I don't think that was the case. I think it just so happened that people used to use forums dedicated to their niche more often and any drama was usually small in scope and contained. Nowadays...
Hey HN, I've noticed a huge uptick in the toxicity online in the last 5-7 years. Before, around 2010-2012, people who disagreed would usually leave it at that and walk away respectfully.
I don't think that was the case. I think it just so happened that people used to use forums dedicated to their niche more often and any drama was usually small in scope and contained. Nowadays social media is much more centralized and so people are exposed to drama from every community all at once which makes the landscape seem extra-toxic. Well, that's my theory, anyway.
As to the question, I think polarization is inevitable as long as there are people with strong opinions willing to engage other people with strong opinions. If it turns to nastiness...well that's on them (assuming it's a consensual nastiness) and a moderator's judgement (if they're communicating in a moderated environment). One-sided nastiness is where the problems reside, then. And, assuming a moderated environment, that's when the banhammer comes out. Centralized, unmoderated social media can get problematic, though. I suppose it's up to the users to seek greener pastures, in that case.
The problem I tend to see in online conversations is not that people engage nastily: it's that nastiness escalates slowly until it reaches the point where no part of the conversation is willing to...
If it turns to nastiness...well that's on them
The problem I tend to see in online conversations is not that people engage nastily: it's that nastiness escalates slowly until it reaches the point where no part of the conversation is willing to disengage from it.
Being righteously-angry is addictive. It gives you a shallow, strong sense of satisfaction that may be difficult to shake off, particularly when you're exposed to it (or even absorb it from others' comments) often.
Many people don't seem to realize that producing rhetoric is mostly unconscious. One does not go about their mind gather words they think suit their purpose best. Wordsmithing is momentary, and most commenters lack the sense to edit their statements afterwards because for most people, wordsmithing is merely a by-product of self-expression.
You said a thing or two about moderatorial judgement. I don't think that's enough. Moderators are humans, too, and it may be difficult to keep your head cool even if you aren't remotely involved in the argument. Ideally, moderators would be unbiased, clear-thinking, and always in the perfect mood to issue judgement. Most of the time, they aren't. Even when they are, you're entrusting a small group of people – or sometimes a single person – to pass on judgement for the sake of a larger group. This is bound to breed conflict.
All of this is why I stand behind vote systems. @Deimos proposed a trust system very early in Tildes' development, and I'm looking forward eagerly to see it finally instated. At worst, it will prove me wrong; at best, it will bring about a great positive change in the quality of discourse. It's not going to solve the problem, of course, but it may well be a good step towards such a massive goal.
Systems can be rigged, but I'd rather have ballot voting than voting through representatives.
Another aspect to consider is the fact that more people are using the internet now than in 2010. The Internet many of us so fondly remember was largely homogenous and composed of predominantly...
I think it just so happened that people used to use forums dedicated to their niche more often and any drama was usually small in scope and contained.
Another aspect to consider is the fact that more people are using the internet now than in 2010. The Internet many of us so fondly remember was largely homogenous and composed of predominantly white affluent males. The democratization of the internet in the intervening time has allowed many other voices to join the discourse, frequently against the sensibilities of the OG internet users.
There's a lot that could be said on this topic. I'll say just one thing: Somewhere along the way this simple fact seems to have been forgotten. In politics, in conversation, in humor, in academia,...
There's a lot that could be said on this topic. I'll say just one thing:
In a republic of liberties, the exchange of ideas is made possible by civility (1)
Somewhere along the way this simple fact seems to have been forgotten. In politics, in conversation, in humor, in academia, workplaces, at the store, in letters, online and all over society.
When the importance of civility is forgotten, it's incredibly satisfying not to be. The instant gratification of being uncivil is fleeting, while the consequences of pervasive incivility in discourse aren't.
I don't think making direct calls for civility is very useful anymore. It seems like a dead end. Maybe we should think harder about what's going on, or least use different vocabulary? The way I...
I don't think making direct calls for civility is very useful anymore. It seems like a dead end. Maybe we should think harder about what's going on, or least use different vocabulary?
The way I think about it is collegiality versus activism. A collegial argument happens when two people discuss an idea without having a personal stake in the matter. (Or maybe they do, but they put that aside for now?) Respect for the other people in the conversation is more important than the idea being discussed.
Activism is (at least theoretically) about getting stuff done, essentially by being pushy until you get your way. Respect is often demanded, but less often given. Pushy people get respect when they're doing something important - we say this is about being strong, being a leader. It's not my style, but sometimes it gets results. The end, if it's a good one, justifies the means.
But I think maybe activism has become almost sacred in some circles? Saying someone is an activist for a cause seems to be enough to excuse all sorts of things.The irony is when people go into activist mode as more of a habit than a well-considered tactic. Sometimes it's entirely unclear what they're trying to accomplish.
Activist mode has its costs. Whatever people were trying to do before the activist stepped in gets pushed aside. And if everyone's an activist, nothing gets done, because everyone has stopped listening. When activism becomes too popular, the result is a lot of copycats; people learn how to behave from each other.
I am in favor of making room for collegiality. I think it's part of what people are asking for when they want "safe spaces". We need to be able to get away from activism sometimes.
But in theory, at least, there is not a safe place that the activist will respect. They are not politely asking people to listen, they are demanding attention, by whatever means is effective. It's tough to say, "no, don't be an activist in here" because of all the previous examples of activists who didn't respect boundaries.
I agree this is the problem. Lately, I have a hard time finding civility in most contexts. The players in any given context aren't usually genuinely interested in being civil. Take the whole weird...
I agree this is the problem. Lately, I have a hard time finding civility in most contexts. The players in any given context aren't usually genuinely interested in being civil. Take the whole weird thing that happened last week with Mike Pompeo and Mary Louise Kelly. He literally went into it the private meeting after the interview planning to misrepresent whatever she said. Not even a veil of civility. His plan all along was to do and say deceptive things that he could trot out to supporters on Fox News, or wherever.
Unfortunately, the consequences here are that a bunch of people are taking him at his word, despite mountains of evidence that he's a liar. Pretty much exactly what he wanted. So, unfortunately, being uncivil works. And doing it repeatedly strengthens his support. It's pretty depressing.
And to add to this, why be civil to someone who has shown they have no intention of being civil with you? It feels like a negative feedback loop to the bottom. If you "take the high road" and try...
And to add to this, why be civil to someone who has shown they have no intention of being civil with you? It feels like a negative feedback loop to the bottom. If you "take the high road" and try to remain civil, you just get used by the other party.
To close the loop, this whole race to the bottom works if society as a whole is unconcerned about civility. If that's not the case, all these old systems of decency, honesty, integrity and so on...
To close the loop, this whole race to the bottom works if society as a whole is unconcerned about civility.
If that's not the case, all these old systems of decency, honesty, integrity and so on punish bad actors.
When that's stripped away, the whole foundation of a republic of liberties is under threat. I find that scary.
Because not everyone is a liar, or an asshole, or a moron. It's easy to lose hope for any value of a conversation that's been driven down by one of the parties. For your usual online foolery, that...
Because not everyone is a liar, or an asshole, or a moron.
It's easy to lose hope for any value of a conversation that's been driven down by one of the parties. For your usual online foolery, that may be excused and let go of because it bears little consequence. When things go down on a high scale – say, in political discourse where people in charge of the country actively lie and cheat to get away with their bigoted, near-sigthed, self-enriching policies – it may serve the public well when one of the parties chooses to remain civil.
Knowing that there is someone out there still willing to pursue a high standard of behavior signals that all is not lost, and there may still be a shot. There may still be place for respect, conversation, and solutions that enrich the society, not a person. Knowing that there's a party out there – whether a political party or a group of individuals not affiliated with one – shows you that productive work of positive net still matters, because in the end, chances are, it will all stand regardless of the noise and the confusion and the anger and the hatred.
Downhill is when the good people stop speaking. Enthropy is a universal constant. The fact that civilization exists to this day says something about the natural human willingness to persevere. Civility is how civilization survives.
It won't be the ultimate test. It may seem like the end of the world, but having Trump re-elected will not destroy the country or democracy. It will lead to an increase in corruption and racism...
It won't be the ultimate test. It may seem like the end of the world, but having Trump re-elected will not destroy the country or democracy. It will lead to an increase in corruption and racism and various sorts of social phobias, and those are the real stigmata of society, but the defeated are not the dead.
If anything, having had a major international interference applied and still managing to out-popular-vote Trump in the previous election should be enough of an indication that things aren't nearly as dramatic as they seemed.
I think you're not wrong. I do see how Trump being in power at all is damage to the system. That said, I do think the US will recover soon enough. With people stirred up by his cronies' bullshit,...
I think you're not wrong. I do see how Trump being in power at all is damage to the system.
That said, I do think the US will recover soon enough. With people stirred up by his cronies' bullshit, I think the repair process with be swifter and more gentle. The social media, for all their flaws, have also enabled this benevolent, positive cooperation. It will probably also serve as a stronger foundation for future efforts for the better.
That, of course, stems from the notion I have that Trump will not be re-elected.
I think you are right generally, but in certain situations 'civility' is not the problem, and it is certainly not a reasonable expectation. Mona Eltahawy articulates it better than I can, but I...
I think you are right generally, but in certain situations 'civility' is not the problem, and it is certainly not a reasonable expectation.
Mona Eltahawy articulates it better than I can, but I think the general point is that 'civility' is a white invention, and in many situations it is invoked to protect the status quo. Those who are not impacted by racism, sexism, etc. are allowed to discuss bigotry and oppression as though it's a thought exercise. Yet those who are affected by it are expected to be polite and deferential towards those who are calmly refusing to acknowledge their humanity.
Profanity is an essential tool in disrupting patriarchy and its rules. It is the verbal equivalent of civil disobedience.
Civility certainly doesn't solve all problems, but I think it's universally useful. I can be just as intimidating, direct, insistent, cold, angry, hurtful, demanding, engaging, emotive, mean,...
Civility certainly doesn't solve all problems, but I think it's universally useful.
I can be just as intimidating, direct, insistent, cold, angry, hurtful, demanding, engaging, emotive, mean, disruptive, and so on while remaining civil.
And it's much less easy to write me off because you can't just write me off as hysterical, profane or course; you have to engage with the content of what I'm saying and not the way in which I'm saying it.
I think Mona Eltahawy uses "civility" as a synonym for "not rocking the boat", where no one's feeling are offended. I think that's a corruption of the word, brought to be mild and inconsequential...
I think Mona Eltahawy uses "civility" as a synonym for "not rocking the boat", where no one's feeling are offended. I think that's a corruption of the word, brought to be mild and inconsequential – not by her, but by the zeitgeist she writes from. "Civility" needn't mean that – can't, even.
The current top-voted comment starts with this line: I don't know that I agree with the sentiment of this statement. Obviously silencing everyone who disagrees with you is not a good thing, but...
The current top-voted comment starts with this line:
I don't know if I know the solution, but I know one thing that isn't the solution: silencing everyone who disagrees with you.
I don't know that I agree with the sentiment of this statement. Obviously silencing everyone who disagrees with you is not a good thing, but the poster really appears to be saying that it was wrong to deplatform people spewing hate speech. (That's not nearly the same thing as silencing everyone who disagrees with you. This kind of hyperbole is also a part of the problem.)
If I'm understanding things correctly, it's actually the fact that these people have a platform that makes them seem legitimate to some and is increasing their numbers. Deplatforming seems to really help civility by keeping those people from recruiting more into their ranks and from toxifying other spaces. Removing them from one popular platform doesn't stop them from creating their own private forum. But it does stop them from interfering with some other people in the process. People have to seek them out rather than having it shoved at them. It does have the affect of making it harder to keep tabs on the diehards who remain when these forums move to smaller spaces because they aren't out in the open spewing their hate. So that has to be weighed, I guess.
But ultimately not giving a platform to people who's main goal is to hurt others does not strike me as a bad idea. This isn't the same as deplatforming, say, LGBT people who want a forum to discuss their day-to-day lives and things they and their partners consent to. And equating the two is harmful and ridiculous in my mind.
Commenters on Hacker News tend to have an extremely libertarian-ish mindset, and the overwhelming opinion whenever this topic comes up is always "moderation is bad and everyone should decide for...
Commenters on Hacker News tend to have an extremely libertarian-ish mindset, and the overwhelming opinion whenever this topic comes up is always "moderation is bad and everyone should decide for themselves".
It's quite weird, since Hacker News itself has a fair amount of (almost completely non-transparent) moderation, and especially enables a very small group of users to "super downvote" topics out of existence through the site's flagging system.
I've seen that attitude a lot too on HN and often on Reddit. Even ignoring HN's moderators, I find this attitude really funny there because it totally misses how post voting systems that power HN...
"moderation is bad and everyone should decide for themselves"
I've seen that attitude a lot too on HN and often on Reddit. Even ignoring HN's moderators, I find this attitude really funny there because it totally misses how post voting systems that power HN and Reddit are essentially moderation systems themselves. There's several posts in the OP HN thread that go like "There's no problem to solve. Trying to solve toxicity would be intruding on free speech!", yet they miss that a voting system is one (imperfect) way of trying to solve the problem of low-value posts including toxic ones.
I think a lot of people online operate on the unexamined myth that there's some true neutral and objective way for a site to choose what posts to show, that the system they're familiar with (Reddit/HN post voting, or "reply bumps thread to the top" systems on many classic forums and imageboards) is that true neutral system, and that the objectivity of this true neutral system makes it categorically/morally better than having trusted moderators no matter the negative consequences to it. These "objective" kind of systems come with different pros and cons, so the choice of which to use is hardly objective itself.
I've learned, from running and moderating forums before modern platforms had finished getting a foothold, and from years of social media strategy and marketing, that vitriol snowballs. Free speech...
I've learned, from running and moderating forums before modern platforms had finished getting a foothold, and from years of social media strategy and marketing, that vitriol snowballs.
Free speech is important. Really really important. But if you don't draw a line somewhere, hate will take over. Not even necessarily because of actual hate, but because trolling is a popular and addictive pastime. One that draws a crowd. When you throw in real hate on top of that, it will eat any community, the only question is how long it will take.
It's easy to support the idea that people should be able to self moderate in theory. In actual reality, on the internet, it just isn't the case. It would be great if it was, maybe someday it will be.
There are unmoderated places where interesting things happen (4Chan) so I think there's value in it. But for most types of online discussion, some level of censorship is the only option.
This comes close to one of my objections with lots of conversations about civility: it always seems to wander towards a false equivalence between civility and morality, and a focus on tone over...
I don't know that I agree with the sentiment of this statement. Obviously silencing everyone who disagrees with you is not a good thing, but the poster really appears to be saying that it was wrong to deplatform people spewing hate speech. (That's not nearly the same thing as silencing everyone who disagrees with you. This kind of hyperbole is also a part of the problem.)
This comes close to one of my objections with lots of conversations about civility: it always seems to wander towards a false equivalence between civility and morality, and a focus on tone over content. An anti-fascist could shout "fuck off, Nazi scum!", while a neo-Nazi calmly and dispassionately explains to her why he believes that she and people like her should be put to death. Neither is likely to convince the other. Both are saying things that are offensive and hurtful to the other. One, however, is being more civil than the other, and it's certainly not the one whose platform I'd consider moral.
I fuckin' went down that rabbit hole. One of the top posts of the month: "I got banned from /r/videos for suggesting that being transgender is a mental disease". Sure glad I wanted to check that...
Reddit is a textbook example of this in practice. Many of the site's popular subreddits push towards a political stance, censor comments liberally, employ bots to ban anybody who dare posts in a...
I don't know if I know the solution, but I know one thing that isn't the solution: silencing everyone who disagrees with you.
Reddit is a textbook example of this in practice.
Many of the site's popular subreddits push towards a political stance, censor comments liberally, employ bots to ban anybody who dare posts in a controversial community they don't like, and are largely moderated by insufferable power users who let the responsibility of running a community go to their head. The sad thing is that Reddit has clear guidelines against many of their actions but the admins simply don't care. They'll only intervene in a matter if it's giving them negative press or pissing off their shareholders.
Reddit is literally worse than Digg was prior to its site-killing 4.0 update. Unlike Digg where the problem was exclusively a cabal of power users who had total control over the site's content and were selling their ability to hit the frontpage for profit, Reddit has put these people in charge of curating and moderating site content.
I browse a lot of subreddits that are critical of Reddit's community moderators. A lot of the time I see people posting bans that are certainly deserved because they were major rule breaches and...
Are there specific instances that you could reference to support this comment? I ask because I do not recall ever reading a comment like this that was not written by some right-wing jerk who got mad at moderators because they were banned for being an asshole, bigot, etc.
I browse a lot of subreddits that are critical of Reddit's community moderators. A lot of the time I see people posting bans that are certainly deserved because they were major rule breaches and anybody who RTFR would know how to conduct themselves. Sometimes they lie about the reason for their ban only to have the responsible moderator appear in the comments and drop evidence to the contrary.
But sometimes there are moderator (and admin) actions posted to these subs that definitely deserve scrutiny.
It's very well known that subreddits are employing bots to ban people for taking part in subreddits they deem hateful. r/OffMyChest is a prime example of this. They do not care about context, they just deem you a right wing asshole because you "supported" the community by posting a comment or voting on a post there. One person got banned for posting a comment in r/ImGoingToHellForThis while another was banished because he posted in r/TumblrInAction. These communities have their bad apples but blanket banning people because they posted a comment there is power trippery and heavy handed censorship at its finest.
I'm against such bans because
They infringe upon Redditquette and Reddit's overall ethos of being a site for open discussion.
They further radicalise the communities they target by turning them into hateful echo chambers. Allow me to explain. More reasonable folk who can drown out problematic behaviour through their comments, voting activity and reports will be deterred from participating out of fear they'll be labelled racists/Fascists and banned from other communities; thus leaving the radicalised userbase that doesn't care.
They directly breach Reddit's Moderator Guidelines for Healthy Communities, which state that moderators should not rule through secret guidelines, should allow for appropriate discussion and appeal of moderator actions, and that they should not use another community's guidelines as a basis to ban others from their own.
These actions could also make people turn to such communities out of resentment towards your behaviour as a moderator.
Me personally? I've rarely if ever received bans from other communities and generally it's only been ones that I loathe like ShitRedditSays and OffMyChest.
I was recently unfairly banned from /r/JusticeServed (a subreddit I had never even heard of let alone participated in) quite recently because a bot dug up a comment I posted in /r/the_cabal a week prior. The message claimed that I was being temporarily banned "as a preemptive measure against raiding" when it was actually a permanent ban. The mods rudely muted me with no reply after I filed an appeal to them on the basis that they were breaching sections 8 and 10 of Reddit's moderator guidelines.
I am currently in the process of appealing this ban with Reddit's admins, not because I want to take part in their community, but moreso out of principle. As I stated in my previous comment, I seriously doubt they give a shit about upholding their own rules. It's been 10 days since I filed my mod complaint and I've had no response from Reddit staff.
I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people equating "freedom of speech" to "freedom to be an asshole without repercussion" is a contributing factor to Internet's...
I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people equating "freedom of speech" to "freedom to be an asshole without repercussion" is a contributing factor to Internet's toxicity.
In the last 5-7 years there have been a number of irreversible trends. The internet has become much more diverse. Yet those under 25 are the most active. At least according to most social media...
In the last 5-7 years there have been a number of irreversible trends.
The internet has become much more diverse. Yet those under 25 are the most active. At least according to most social media polls. And my guess is that those under 25 seem to have so much more time/energy for arguments on HackerNews.
Sites like Reddit allow like minded folks to build echo chambers which reinforces the belief that "we" are right and "they" are all idiots. I hung out with an old friend I have not seen much of in the last 8 years, and we clearly both spent far too much time on Reddit, as we had the exact same complaints about the political system.
There is increasing amounts of toxicity coming from the media and politicians, at least in America. This sets the tone for the rest of the country. I blame Fox News, but then I would, wouldn't I... because I spend too much time on Reddit's "hivemind."
I wouldn't say it's wrong to blame Fox News. To blame solely Fox News however would be. Echo chambers can pop up anywhere, and as the population grows, so do subcultures, giving even more of an...
I wouldn't say it's wrong to blame Fox News. To blame solely Fox News however would be. Echo chambers can pop up anywhere, and as the population grows, so do subcultures, giving even more of an opportunity for a network to become an echo chamber.
The reason I'm even on this site now is because I realized paying too much attention to specific toxic networks, and seeing them as "what the world was like", was really bad for my mental health. The only way to prevent toxic ideas from spreading is to have diversity in what networks you're a part of.
The more I've thought about this, the more I've realized you don't. It's a question of human nature and psychology. Beliefs are deeply rooted in the mind and it's not likely that most are open to...
The more I've thought about this, the more I've realized you don't. It's a question of human nature and psychology. Beliefs are deeply rooted in the mind and it's not likely that most are open to having those beliefs challenged. Adding to the problem is that outrage is lucrative—hence why we see Fox News and CNN, et. al. engaging in different versions of the same game.
It seems like the only real solution is time and waiting until outrage becomes a faux pas in itself and cooler heads prevail. In your own circles, it may even be worth discouraging political/sensitive discussions to curb bandwagoning.
I don't think that was the case. I think it just so happened that people used to use forums dedicated to their niche more often and any drama was usually small in scope and contained. Nowadays social media is much more centralized and so people are exposed to drama from every community all at once which makes the landscape seem extra-toxic. Well, that's my theory, anyway.
As to the question, I think polarization is inevitable as long as there are people with strong opinions willing to engage other people with strong opinions. If it turns to nastiness...well that's on them (assuming it's a consensual nastiness) and a moderator's judgement (if they're communicating in a moderated environment). One-sided nastiness is where the problems reside, then. And, assuming a moderated environment, that's when the banhammer comes out. Centralized, unmoderated social media can get problematic, though. I suppose it's up to the users to seek greener pastures, in that case.
The problem I tend to see in online conversations is not that people engage nastily: it's that nastiness escalates slowly until it reaches the point where no part of the conversation is willing to disengage from it.
Being righteously-angry is addictive. It gives you a shallow, strong sense of satisfaction that may be difficult to shake off, particularly when you're exposed to it (or even absorb it from others' comments) often.
Many people don't seem to realize that producing rhetoric is mostly unconscious. One does not go about their mind gather words they think suit their purpose best. Wordsmithing is momentary, and most commenters lack the sense to edit their statements afterwards because for most people, wordsmithing is merely a by-product of self-expression.
You said a thing or two about moderatorial judgement. I don't think that's enough. Moderators are humans, too, and it may be difficult to keep your head cool even if you aren't remotely involved in the argument. Ideally, moderators would be unbiased, clear-thinking, and always in the perfect mood to issue judgement. Most of the time, they aren't. Even when they are, you're entrusting a small group of people – or sometimes a single person – to pass on judgement for the sake of a larger group. This is bound to breed conflict.
All of this is why I stand behind vote systems. @Deimos proposed a trust system very early in Tildes' development, and I'm looking forward eagerly to see it finally instated. At worst, it will prove me wrong; at best, it will bring about a great positive change in the quality of discourse. It's not going to solve the problem, of course, but it may well be a good step towards such a massive goal.
Systems can be rigged, but I'd rather have ballot voting than voting through representatives.
Another aspect to consider is the fact that more people are using the internet now than in 2010. The Internet many of us so fondly remember was largely homogenous and composed of predominantly white affluent males. The democratization of the internet in the intervening time has allowed many other voices to join the discourse, frequently against the sensibilities of the OG internet users.
There's a lot that could be said on this topic. I'll say just one thing:
Somewhere along the way this simple fact seems to have been forgotten. In politics, in conversation, in humor, in academia, workplaces, at the store, in letters, online and all over society.
When the importance of civility is forgotten, it's incredibly satisfying not to be. The instant gratification of being uncivil is fleeting, while the consequences of pervasive incivility in discourse aren't.
I don't think making direct calls for civility is very useful anymore. It seems like a dead end. Maybe we should think harder about what's going on, or least use different vocabulary?
The way I think about it is collegiality versus activism. A collegial argument happens when two people discuss an idea without having a personal stake in the matter. (Or maybe they do, but they put that aside for now?) Respect for the other people in the conversation is more important than the idea being discussed.
Activism is (at least theoretically) about getting stuff done, essentially by being pushy until you get your way. Respect is often demanded, but less often given. Pushy people get respect when they're doing something important - we say this is about being strong, being a leader. It's not my style, but sometimes it gets results. The end, if it's a good one, justifies the means.
But I think maybe activism has become almost sacred in some circles? Saying someone is an activist for a cause seems to be enough to excuse all sorts of things.The irony is when people go into activist mode as more of a habit than a well-considered tactic. Sometimes it's entirely unclear what they're trying to accomplish.
Activist mode has its costs. Whatever people were trying to do before the activist stepped in gets pushed aside. And if everyone's an activist, nothing gets done, because everyone has stopped listening. When activism becomes too popular, the result is a lot of copycats; people learn how to behave from each other.
I am in favor of making room for collegiality. I think it's part of what people are asking for when they want "safe spaces". We need to be able to get away from activism sometimes.
But in theory, at least, there is not a safe place that the activist will respect. They are not politely asking people to listen, they are demanding attention, by whatever means is effective. It's tough to say, "no, don't be an activist in here" because of all the previous examples of activists who didn't respect boundaries.
I agree this is the problem. Lately, I have a hard time finding civility in most contexts. The players in any given context aren't usually genuinely interested in being civil. Take the whole weird thing that happened last week with Mike Pompeo and Mary Louise Kelly. He literally went into it the private meeting after the interview planning to misrepresent whatever she said. Not even a veil of civility. His plan all along was to do and say deceptive things that he could trot out to supporters on Fox News, or wherever.
Unfortunately, the consequences here are that a bunch of people are taking him at his word, despite mountains of evidence that he's a liar. Pretty much exactly what he wanted. So, unfortunately, being uncivil works. And doing it repeatedly strengthens his support. It's pretty depressing.
And to add to this, why be civil to someone who has shown they have no intention of being civil with you? It feels like a negative feedback loop to the bottom. If you "take the high road" and try to remain civil, you just get used by the other party.
To close the loop, this whole race to the bottom works if society as a whole is unconcerned about civility.
If that's not the case, all these old systems of decency, honesty, integrity and so on punish bad actors.
When that's stripped away, the whole foundation of a republic of liberties is under threat. I find that scary.
Because not everyone is a liar, or an asshole, or a moron.
It's easy to lose hope for any value of a conversation that's been driven down by one of the parties. For your usual online foolery, that may be excused and let go of because it bears little consequence. When things go down on a high scale – say, in political discourse where people in charge of the country actively lie and cheat to get away with their bigoted, near-sigthed, self-enriching policies – it may serve the public well when one of the parties chooses to remain civil.
Knowing that there is someone out there still willing to pursue a high standard of behavior signals that all is not lost, and there may still be a shot. There may still be place for respect, conversation, and solutions that enrich the society, not a person. Knowing that there's a party out there – whether a political party or a group of individuals not affiliated with one – shows you that productive work of positive net still matters, because in the end, chances are, it will all stand regardless of the noise and the confusion and the anger and the hatred.
Downhill is when the good people stop speaking. Enthropy is a universal constant. The fact that civilization exists to this day says something about the natural human willingness to persevere. Civility is how civilization survives.
The ultimate test of this for the US is the upcoming 2020 race. What do we do if civility doesn't prevail there?
It won't be the ultimate test. It may seem like the end of the world, but having Trump re-elected will not destroy the country or democracy. It will lead to an increase in corruption and racism and various sorts of social phobias, and those are the real stigmata of society, but the defeated are not the dead.
If anything, having had a major international interference applied and still managing to out-popular-vote Trump in the previous election should be enough of an indication that things aren't nearly as dramatic as they seemed.
I think you're not wrong. I do see how Trump being in power at all is damage to the system.
That said, I do think the US will recover soon enough. With people stirred up by his cronies' bullshit, I think the repair process with be swifter and more gentle. The social media, for all their flaws, have also enabled this benevolent, positive cooperation. It will probably also serve as a stronger foundation for future efforts for the better.
That, of course, stems from the notion I have that Trump will not be re-elected.
I think you are right generally, but in certain situations 'civility' is not the problem, and it is certainly not a reasonable expectation.
Mona Eltahawy articulates it better than I can, but I think the general point is that 'civility' is a white invention, and in many situations it is invoked to protect the status quo. Those who are not impacted by racism, sexism, etc. are allowed to discuss bigotry and oppression as though it's a thought exercise. Yet those who are affected by it are expected to be polite and deferential towards those who are calmly refusing to acknowledge their humanity.
Civility certainly doesn't solve all problems, but I think it's universally useful.
I can be just as intimidating, direct, insistent, cold, angry, hurtful, demanding, engaging, emotive, mean, disruptive, and so on while remaining civil.
And it's much less easy to write me off because you can't just write me off as hysterical, profane or course; you have to engage with the content of what I'm saying and not the way in which I'm saying it.
I think Mona Eltahawy uses "civility" as a synonym for "not rocking the boat", where no one's feeling are offended. I think that's a corruption of the word, brought to be mild and inconsequential – not by her, but by the zeitgeist she writes from. "Civility" needn't mean that – can't, even.
The current top-voted comment starts with this line:
I don't know that I agree with the sentiment of this statement. Obviously silencing everyone who disagrees with you is not a good thing, but the poster really appears to be saying that it was wrong to deplatform people spewing hate speech. (That's not nearly the same thing as silencing everyone who disagrees with you. This kind of hyperbole is also a part of the problem.)
If I'm understanding things correctly, it's actually the fact that these people have a platform that makes them seem legitimate to some and is increasing their numbers. Deplatforming seems to really help civility by keeping those people from recruiting more into their ranks and from toxifying other spaces. Removing them from one popular platform doesn't stop them from creating their own private forum. But it does stop them from interfering with some other people in the process. People have to seek them out rather than having it shoved at them. It does have the affect of making it harder to keep tabs on the diehards who remain when these forums move to smaller spaces because they aren't out in the open spewing their hate. So that has to be weighed, I guess.
But ultimately not giving a platform to people who's main goal is to hurt others does not strike me as a bad idea. This isn't the same as deplatforming, say, LGBT people who want a forum to discuss their day-to-day lives and things they and their partners consent to. And equating the two is harmful and ridiculous in my mind.
Commenters on Hacker News tend to have an extremely libertarian-ish mindset, and the overwhelming opinion whenever this topic comes up is always "moderation is bad and everyone should decide for themselves".
It's quite weird, since Hacker News itself has a fair amount of (almost completely non-transparent) moderation, and especially enables a very small group of users to "super downvote" topics out of existence through the site's flagging system.
I've seen that attitude a lot too on HN and often on Reddit. Even ignoring HN's moderators, I find this attitude really funny there because it totally misses how post voting systems that power HN and Reddit are essentially moderation systems themselves. There's several posts in the OP HN thread that go like "There's no problem to solve. Trying to solve toxicity would be intruding on free speech!", yet they miss that a voting system is one (imperfect) way of trying to solve the problem of low-value posts including toxic ones.
I think a lot of people online operate on the unexamined myth that there's some true neutral and objective way for a site to choose what posts to show, that the system they're familiar with (Reddit/HN post voting, or "reply bumps thread to the top" systems on many classic forums and imageboards) is that true neutral system, and that the objectivity of this true neutral system makes it categorically/morally better than having trusted moderators no matter the negative consequences to it. These "objective" kind of systems come with different pros and cons, so the choice of which to use is hardly objective itself.
Good point: HN is the comparatively civil place it is because of moderation.
Most people with an account can flag, and as far as I know all flags are equal.
I've learned, from running and moderating forums before modern platforms had finished getting a foothold, and from years of social media strategy and marketing, that vitriol snowballs.
Free speech is important. Really really important. But if you don't draw a line somewhere, hate will take over. Not even necessarily because of actual hate, but because trolling is a popular and addictive pastime. One that draws a crowd. When you throw in real hate on top of that, it will eat any community, the only question is how long it will take.
It's easy to support the idea that people should be able to self moderate in theory. In actual reality, on the internet, it just isn't the case. It would be great if it was, maybe someday it will be.
There are unmoderated places where interesting things happen (4Chan) so I think there's value in it. But for most types of online discussion, some level of censorship is the only option.
This comes close to one of my objections with lots of conversations about civility: it always seems to wander towards a false equivalence between civility and morality, and a focus on tone over content. An anti-fascist could shout "fuck off, Nazi scum!", while a neo-Nazi calmly and dispassionately explains to her why he believes that she and people like her should be put to death. Neither is likely to convince the other. Both are saying things that are offensive and hurtful to the other. One, however, is being more civil than the other, and it's certainly not the one whose platform I'd consider moral.
I fuckin' went down that rabbit hole.
One of the top posts of the month: "I got banned from /r/videos for suggesting that being transgender is a mental disease".
Sure glad I wanted to check that subreddit out! /s
Reddit is a textbook example of this in practice.
Many of the site's popular subreddits push towards a political stance, censor comments liberally, employ bots to ban anybody who dare posts in a controversial community they don't like, and are largely moderated by insufferable power users who let the responsibility of running a community go to their head. The sad thing is that Reddit has clear guidelines against many of their actions but the admins simply don't care. They'll only intervene in a matter if it's giving them negative press or pissing off their shareholders.
Reddit is literally worse than Digg was prior to its site-killing 4.0 update. Unlike Digg where the problem was exclusively a cabal of power users who had total control over the site's content and were selling their ability to hit the frontpage for profit, Reddit has put these people in charge of curating and moderating site content.
I browse a lot of subreddits that are critical of Reddit's community moderators. A lot of the time I see people posting bans that are certainly deserved because they were major rule breaches and anybody who RTFR would know how to conduct themselves. Sometimes they lie about the reason for their ban only to have the responsible moderator appear in the comments and drop evidence to the contrary.
But sometimes there are moderator (and admin) actions posted to these subs that definitely deserve scrutiny.
It's very well known that subreddits are employing bots to ban people for taking part in subreddits they deem hateful. r/OffMyChest is a prime example of this. They do not care about context, they just deem you a right wing asshole because you "supported" the community by posting a comment or voting on a post there. One person got banned for posting a comment in r/ImGoingToHellForThis while another was banished because he posted in r/TumblrInAction. These communities have their bad apples but blanket banning people because they posted a comment there is power trippery and heavy handed censorship at its finest.
I'm against such bans because
Me personally? I've rarely if ever received bans from other communities and generally it's only been ones that I loathe like ShitRedditSays and OffMyChest.
I was recently unfairly banned from /r/JusticeServed (a subreddit I had never even heard of let alone participated in) quite recently because a bot dug up a comment I posted in /r/the_cabal a week prior. The message claimed that I was being temporarily banned "as a preemptive measure against raiding" when it was actually a permanent ban. The mods rudely muted me with no reply after I filed an appeal to them on the basis that they were breaching sections 8 and 10 of Reddit's moderator guidelines.
I am currently in the process of appealing this ban with Reddit's admins, not because I want to take part in their community, but moreso out of principle. As I stated in my previous comment, I seriously doubt they give a shit about upholding their own rules. It's been 10 days since I filed my mod complaint and I've had no response from Reddit staff.
Want more evidence? Here is /r/JusticeServed openly stating that they are going to use bots to ban people who have participated in subs such as Anarchism, CringeAnarchy, ChapoTrapHouse, AgainstHateSubreddits, etc. Some of the subreddit names they threw around in that post actually surprised me because generally Reddit power mods who employ the same tactics only target the right wing subs.
I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people equating "freedom of speech" to "freedom to be an asshole without repercussion" is a contributing factor to Internet's toxicity.
In the last 5-7 years there have been a number of irreversible trends.
The internet has become much more diverse. Yet those under 25 are the most active. At least according to most social media polls. And my guess is that those under 25 seem to have so much more time/energy for arguments on HackerNews.
Sites like Reddit allow like minded folks to build echo chambers which reinforces the belief that "we" are right and "they" are all idiots. I hung out with an old friend I have not seen much of in the last 8 years, and we clearly both spent far too much time on Reddit, as we had the exact same complaints about the political system.
There is increasing amounts of toxicity coming from the media and politicians, at least in America. This sets the tone for the rest of the country. I blame Fox News, but then I would, wouldn't I... because I spend too much time on Reddit's "hivemind."
I wouldn't say it's wrong to blame Fox News. To blame solely Fox News however would be. Echo chambers can pop up anywhere, and as the population grows, so do subcultures, giving even more of an opportunity for a network to become an echo chamber.
The reason I'm even on this site now is because I realized paying too much attention to specific toxic networks, and seeing them as "what the world was like", was really bad for my mental health. The only way to prevent toxic ideas from spreading is to have diversity in what networks you're a part of.
The more I've thought about this, the more I've realized you don't. It's a question of human nature and psychology. Beliefs are deeply rooted in the mind and it's not likely that most are open to having those beliefs challenged. Adding to the problem is that outrage is lucrative—hence why we see Fox News and CNN, et. al. engaging in different versions of the same game.
It seems like the only real solution is time and waiting until outrage becomes a faux pas in itself and cooler heads prevail. In your own circles, it may even be worth discouraging political/sensitive discussions to curb bandwagoning.