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> First, the lack of a real threaded comment system. > Second, the lack of a dislike/downvote, particularly an anonymous one. I don't know. I agree that Faceb
by chrisallenlane 9y ago
> First, the lack of a real threaded comment system.
> Second, the lack of a dislike/downvote, particularly an anonymous one.
I don't know. I agree that Facebook's commenting mechanism is ill-suited to deep discussion, but isn't the mechanism you're describing more-or-less exactly what exists on Reddit? And people are certainly able to self-segregate into bubbles on Reddit.
And for that matter, at least anecdotally I'd say that most of the political "discussion" that occurs on Reddit is low-quality, in that it tends to devolve into users shouting "fascist" or "cuck" at each other. (Some subreddits are better than others, admittedly.)
I suppose that Reddit users typically don't know each other in meatspace, though, and that Facebook is (mostly) different in that regard. Maybe that would make a difference. I don't know.
- utexaspunk 9y agoYes, the anonymity (most) users enjoy on Reddit is interpreted by some as freedom to be assholes or trolls. Even then, especially in the more heavily moderated or off-the-beaten-path subreddits, you get some very high quality conversations. It's not uncommon to see threads of multi-paragraph comments going back and forth many comments deep. I think Facebook's lack of anonymity already goes a long way toward keeping things civil there, and what little shitposting does happen there would probably get downvoted and possibly hidden by default when below a certain threshold if FB had that capability.