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> they... compartmentalize And that's the key problem. People are more divided than ever, especially in politics, to the point where rational discussion is nea
by beatgammit 8y ago
> they... compartmentalize
And that's the key problem. People are more divided than ever, especially in politics, to the point where rational discussion is nearly impossible.
Instead of letting people separate into echo chambers, it seems much better to force everyone to be in the same space, which should result in people hearing each side of an argument. Use moderation to punish people who don't act civilly, which should eliminate the worst offenders.
I prefer things to be self moderated as much as possible, but not to the point where echo chambers can form. Some ideas:
- content gets removed after N reports
- users with N reported posts get shadow-banned for some period (exponential scale)
- users get N reports, which get replenished faster if reports result in content removal
- users that brigade get their reports silently nixed (e.g. you consistently report content along with the same users)
Or something along those lines. Just having an open forum leads to one group out-shouting other groups, which leads to echo chambers. There must be some moderation, but not so much as to recreate the problem a different way.
- the8472 8y agoI think you want to narrow the overton window. My preference is to keep the overton window wide but have multiple subgroups along the continuum so that the outer percentiles only form small subgroups that don't dominate. In other words echo chambers are only a problem when they are large and even worse when you have to choose one of two chambers dominated by either extreme. The political analogue would be the 2 party system in the US vs. the multi party parliaments with coalitions and fringe parties that you can find in europe.
- fbender 8y agoI disagree. The small groups, especially the ones with self-amplifying „high echos“ in their groups are the ones (groups or individual members of that group) that easily radicalize. That‘s how terrorist cells, guerillas, and „lone wolf“ aggressors arise (left and right, political and social, agnostic and religious, whatever-you-can-think of extremists). Just check the news of the last months, I mean weeks…er, days! And I‘m not saying your point about large echo chambers is wrong, it’s quite true (again, see recent news). But the problem is with any kind/size of echo chamber. And „echo chamber“ is a different thing than domain-specific groups like HN – it‘s only an echo chamber when HN is your only source of (tech/entrepreneurial) news/discussions. Note that even where you live can easily become an echo chamber if you rarely break out of it.
- aluren 8y agoWhat? No, we should not force people to share the same space as fascists and racists. It seems ridiculous to have to say it. If I were to encounter neo-nazis in real life, I would not engage in a civil discussion, confident that the police is there to make sure everyone is civil. I would walk away. Online, it's pretty much the same thing. I'm not sure why it's so hard to fathom that most people have more productive uses of their time than hearing what racists and fascists have to say.
- fbender 8y agoYou can still walk away, but the key point is that those who do not want to walk away will still hear differing (to theirs) opinions.