5 ms·

One potential outcome here -- social media platforms start _more actively_ banning users to prevent potential liability issues, thus fracturing the market. High

One potential outcome here -- social media platforms start _more actively_ banning users to prevent potential liability issues, thus fracturing the market. Highly doubt it will work out that way, but it would be nice (well, maybe...).

microcolonel 6y ago
That would be a spectacular outcome, especially for anyone who likes ActivityPub and blogs, and wants to see them get a fresh shot of juice. I'm just glad the prevailing call isn't to delete Section 230 altogether, which I think would cause a bit of pandemonium (though maybe that would be a social good as well, and maybe Section 230 was the mistake that made the social media monster).
- Goronmon 6y ago
  That would be a spectacular outcome, especially for anyone who likes ActivityPub and blogs, and wants to see them get a fresh shot of juice. Wouldn't this harm any of these activities, aside from situations where people are directly hosting their own content, because anyone hosting could be held liable for what gets posted?
  - cdubzzz 6y ago
    That's the rub. The fantasy seems great initially for the prospect of breaking up the far too large (in my opinion) social media behemoths but maybe also ruins things for all the potential little guys as well.
DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
Hopefully it will lead to what happened on reddit: the worst go off to a competitor which then fails to gain mainstream attention (e.g. Voat, Gab, etc). While they’ll be in an echo-chamber (which isn’t a good thing at all), at least they won’t ruin other communities.
- joeyrideout 6y ago
  > the worst go off to a competitor which then fails to gain mainstream attention (e.g. Voat, Gab, etc). Or, HN :)
- glennvtx 6y ago
  The problem there is that these sites have become echo-chambers, where they breed extremism. These kinds of ideologies (E.G. Nazism) need to be exposed to the light, like a bacteria, in order to be shamed and debunked.
  - paulgb 6y ago
    This is a nice theory but are there any instances of Nazis being converted to normies because someone told them they were wrong on the internet? Instead what seems to happen is that normies get pulled into Nazi content because the recommendation algorithms on these sites see heated discussions as engagement and try to feed it.
    - Izkata 6y ago
      The only study I'm aware of on that is on Youtube's recommendation algorithm, which found the opposite is true - it tends to steer people away from radicalization.
  - davidw 6y ago
    How does that work out though in practice? If I go to a bar and there's some guy screaming about his Nazi ideology and the owners don't kick him out, I'm going to just move on. If some social media platform is full of trolls and hatred and such... people are just going to go away. It becomes a 'race to the bottom'.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Doesn’t that just lead to an echo chamber on the site they left also? When Trump supporters were banned from the political subreddits, they formed /r/The_Donald. And it’s an anti-Trump-criticism, anti-anything-left-leaning echo chamber. But that left /r/politics to become a left leaning echo chamber itself. Now, one can’t have a civil discussion about anything because /r/politics will ban anything saying Trump did anything remotely good, and /r/The_Donald will ban anything remotely critical of Trump.

microcolonel 6y ago

That would be a spectacular outcome, especially for anyone who likes ActivityPub and blogs, and wants to see them get a fresh shot of juice. I'm just glad the prevailing call isn't to delete Section 230 altogether, which I think would cause a bit of pandemonium (though maybe that would be a social good as well, and maybe Section 230 was the mistake that made the social media monster).

Goronmon 6y ago
That would be a spectacular outcome, especially for anyone who likes ActivityPub and blogs, and wants to see them get a fresh shot of juice. Wouldn't this harm any of these activities, aside from situations where people are directly hosting their own content, because anyone hosting could be held liable for what gets posted?
- cdubzzz 6y ago
  That's the rub. The fantasy seems great initially for the prospect of breaking up the far too large (in my opinion) social media behemoths but maybe also ruins things for all the potential little guys as well.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago

Hopefully it will lead to what happened on reddit: the worst go off to a competitor which then fails to gain mainstream attention (e.g. Voat, Gab, etc). While they’ll be in an echo-chamber (which isn’t a good thing at all), at least they won’t ruin other communities.

joeyrideout 6y ago
> the worst go off to a competitor which then fails to gain mainstream attention (e.g. Voat, Gab, etc). Or, HN :)
glennvtx 6y ago
The problem there is that these sites have become echo-chambers, where they breed extremism. These kinds of ideologies (E.G. Nazism) need to be exposed to the light, like a bacteria, in order to be shamed and debunked.
- paulgb 6y ago
  This is a nice theory but are there any instances of Nazis being converted to normies because someone told them they were wrong on the internet? Instead what seems to happen is that normies get pulled into Nazi content because the recommendation algorithms on these sites see heated discussions as engagement and try to feed it.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    The only study I'm aware of on that is on Youtube's recommendation algorithm, which found the opposite is true - it tends to steer people away from radicalization.
- davidw 6y ago
  How does that work out though in practice? If I go to a bar and there's some guy screaming about his Nazi ideology and the owners don't kick him out, I'm going to just move on. If some social media platform is full of trolls and hatred and such... people are just going to go away. It becomes a 'race to the bottom'.
colejohnson66 6y ago
Doesn’t that just lead to an echo chamber on the site they left also? When Trump supporters were banned from the political subreddits, they formed /r/The_Donald. And it’s an anti-Trump-criticism, anti-anything-left-leaning echo chamber. But that left /r/politics to become a left leaning echo chamber itself. Now, one can’t have a civil discussion about anything because /r/politics will ban anything saying Trump did anything remotely good, and /r/The_Donald will ban anything remotely critical of Trump.