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>Almost everyone on here has completely given up or is giving up on a lot of social media and news feeds. In fairness, HN itself is actually a social media new

>Almost everyone on here has completely given up or is giving up on a lot of social media and news feeds. In fairness, HN itself is actually a social media news feed, and is also filled with it's share of clickbait outrage porn. The reality is that no user sourced digital medium is going to be free of these kinds of issues. If you could figure out a way to actually create a system that is free of these issues, you could probably make a billion dollars.

im3w1l 7y ago
There is an easy solution but you are not going to like it... require real names. And verify them. And keep track of their reputations. Edit: Proposed this as a solution for disinformation agents. Guess I picked the wrong sub-thread to place that. Sorry for the confusion.
- killface 7y ago
  this is exactly right. folks could likely get by anyway, but it would be dramatically reduced. until there are consequences for lying online, and as long as there's money to be made by lying, enough people will be assholes and do it.
  - pixl97 7y ago
    Politicians lie in real life and suffer few consequences.
- tomc1985 7y ago
  Yeah, now if you state an opinion that's too controversial or against the grain you get blacklisted by anyone with enough time to feed your name into a database. Real names: no, no, no, no, no
  - pixl97 7y ago
    Even better as real names are stolen and traded, you can find out via identity theft that you're a real jerk online.
- lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
  Have you seen the lowest common denominator facebook feed? Plenty of people will post plenty of garbage of their own volition even if you ignore just sharing other sources of clickbait and that's under their own name and face most of the time. Reputation tracking is most useful for detecting bad faith actors (ie the person "just asking questions" but regular participates in extremist forums), but doesn't seem to be enough to promote any sort of self moderation.
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  > require real names. And verify them. Facebook does this and even requires some users to upload a photo ID to prove their identity[1], and that site is a cesspool. A side effect is that people like me, who have no desire to create a public index of everything they've ever said or done on the internet, will not use those products in any capacity. [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/183000765122339 https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/183000765122339
  - divbzero 7y ago
    In reality, Facebook has been quite unsuccessful at verifying accounts. [1] [1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebooks-fake-accounts-doubled-in-6-months/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebooks-fake-accounts-doubled...
    - n4r9 7y ago
      Hah, I deleted my account months ago and made a new account with a made-up name that literally has the word "Fake" in it, just to keep tabs on one or two groups whose events I'm interested in. Didn't even know that there was a risk they'd try to verify it.
      - larnmar 7y ago
        Counteranecdote: I made a fake account for work purposes (needed to look at certain things on Facebook that you can only see while logged in, and didn’t want to use my personal account) and it got deleted pretty quickly.
        mindv0rtex 7y ago
        My wife tried to create a new FB account a month ago after many years of not having one. Entirely genuine, real name, photo and cell phone number. Rejected as deemed to be fake.
- coruscae 7y ago
  YouTube implemented real names and that was an absolute shitshow. Not only did it fail to meaningfully reduce toxic content, by removing the protection of anonymity it enabled cyberbullying based on demographics: "Oh, now I know who you are I can more effectively harass you based on your sexuality/gender/ethnicity/etc." They rolled it back for many reasons, but that was a big one.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Even for disinformation that wouldn't work very well. Reputations are made to be gamed even without it being a concrete thing, proxies exist, and it in itself is something exploitable for misinformation. There is no easy epistemological shortcut to the truth (barring say mathematics and other verifiables), let alone the grey area of deliberately misleading truths.
cptaj 7y ago
Or at least a nobel peace prize
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

im3w1l 7y ago

There is an easy solution but you are not going to like it... require real names. And verify them. And keep track of their reputations. Edit: Proposed this as a solution for disinformation agents. Guess I picked the wrong sub-thread to place that. Sorry for the confusion.

killface 7y ago
this is exactly right. folks could likely get by anyway, but it would be dramatically reduced. until there are consequences for lying online, and as long as there's money to be made by lying, enough people will be assholes and do it.
- pixl97 7y ago
  Politicians lie in real life and suffer few consequences.
tomc1985 7y ago
Yeah, now if you state an opinion that's too controversial or against the grain you get blacklisted by anyone with enough time to feed your name into a database. Real names: no, no, no, no, no
- pixl97 7y ago
  Even better as real names are stolen and traded, you can find out via identity theft that you're a real jerk online.
lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
Have you seen the lowest common denominator facebook feed? Plenty of people will post plenty of garbage of their own volition even if you ignore just sharing other sources of clickbait and that's under their own name and face most of the time. Reputation tracking is most useful for detecting bad faith actors (ie the person "just asking questions" but regular participates in extremist forums), but doesn't seem to be enough to promote any sort of self moderation.
heavyset_go 7y ago
> require real names. And verify them. Facebook does this and even requires some users to upload a photo ID to prove their identity[1], and that site is a cesspool. A side effect is that people like me, who have no desire to create a public index of everything they've ever said or done on the internet, will not use those products in any capacity. [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/183000765122339 https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/183000765122339
- divbzero 7y ago
  In reality, Facebook has been quite unsuccessful at verifying accounts. [1] [1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebooks-fake-accounts-doubled-in-6-months/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebooks-fake-accounts-doubled...
  - n4r9 7y ago
    Hah, I deleted my account months ago and made a new account with a made-up name that literally has the word "Fake" in it, just to keep tabs on one or two groups whose events I'm interested in. Didn't even know that there was a risk they'd try to verify it.
    - larnmar 7y ago
      Counteranecdote: I made a fake account for work purposes (needed to look at certain things on Facebook that you can only see while logged in, and didn’t want to use my personal account) and it got deleted pretty quickly.
      - mindv0rtex 7y ago
        My wife tried to create a new FB account a month ago after many years of not having one. Entirely genuine, real name, photo and cell phone number. Rejected as deemed to be fake.
coruscae 7y ago
YouTube implemented real names and that was an absolute shitshow. Not only did it fail to meaningfully reduce toxic content, by removing the protection of anonymity it enabled cyberbullying based on demographics: "Oh, now I know who you are I can more effectively harass you based on your sexuality/gender/ethnicity/etc." They rolled it back for many reasons, but that was a big one.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Even for disinformation that wouldn't work very well. Reputations are made to be gamed even without it being a concrete thing, proxies exist, and it in itself is something exploitable for misinformation. There is no easy epistemological shortcut to the truth (barring say mathematics and other verifiables), let alone the grey area of deliberately misleading truths.

cptaj 7y ago

Or at least a nobel peace prize

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]