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This seems prone to trouble to me. Twitter is already very groupthink heavy, and I can only see this amplifying that problem. You see it in Reddit all the time

This seems prone to trouble to me. Twitter is already very groupthink heavy, and I can only see this amplifying that problem. You see it in Reddit all the time - people don't actually read the comments, just upvote the upvoted ones and vice versa. I worry this will just make an already very narrow set of acceptable opinions even narrower.

user3939382 5y ago
> Twitter is already very groupthink Just like all social platforms including this one. Here on HN if you have a controversial opinion the site literally fades your comment away until it disappears.
- rightbyte 5y ago
  And it is bad. The concept of hiding what you don't agree to is really bad for discussions. I wish the fading was only due to flagging not votes.
  - hackinthebochs 5y ago
    Fading a comment helps to signal that it has already been downvoted enough. This is to avoid going -100 because no one can see how far you're down already.
- otippat 5y ago
  HN has a downvote system as well. What you describe happens when a comment gets downvoted enough times, which makes it another good example of downvotes amplifying groupthink.
  - eybbus 5y ago
    I kinda like that I only have upvote button currently here since I haven't hit the karma threshold. I do feel like the HN crowed doesn't downvote comments unless its spam or way out of the current topic. It happens but not like reddit where it acts like a disagree button.
    - krapp 5y ago
      People downvote for disagreement here all the time, it's a cultural norm.
- bopbeepboop 5y ago
  If it’s controversial enough, they shadowban you on HN.
Kiro 5y ago
Is this not a problem on HN? I think it is but if it's not, what makes it work here?
- alpaca128 5y ago
  On HN the moderation is better and the community smaller (and I guess also united by at least one common interest). Another important difference I see is that the score of comments is hidden, at least to some degree. Seeing how "the community" has already judged a post is greatly influential to future votes. It also creates a bias on the way the comment is interpreted by the reader. I don't know what would be the ideal system. But I am certain adding downvotes to Twitter in its current state will only make it worse.
  - nosianu 5y ago
    There also is this problem I had (have?) on HN: I no longer dare try to go against downvotes and upvote downvoted comments that I think are perfectly fine. I did that quite a bit - and my voting rights where removed. When I asked by email my voting behavior was cited as trying to be controversial by upvoting already downvoted comments (I don't remember the exact words any more, it was well over a year ago or even much more). I'm not complaining, the HN site owner can do whatever and has to deal with many emails and decisions every day, but it did leave a sour taste.
    - unishark 5y ago
      Maybe more options would work in a savvy place like this to separate out important versus trivial reasons for a vote. I often feel like the most upvoted comments are the most worthless as they just tell everyone what they already think. Whereas downvoted moments are often the ones that simply challenge people and make more interesting discussion.
    - alpaca128 5y ago
      > I did that quite a bit - and my voting rights where removed. When I asked by email my voting behavior was cited as trying to be controversial by upvoting already downvoted comments That's disappointing. I do the same actually. Not to cause controversy but, well, because sometimes I agree and try to vote honestly. Maybe there are malicious attempts that look the same from the server's perspective, but it's still weird.
skohan 5y ago
I think up and down voting could actually help the discourse on twitter if it's implemented correctly. Currently every way to interact with a tweet drives its engagement score: likes, retweets and replies all result in more visibility for a tweet. So if you think a tweet is unproductive or wrong, you can express that in a reply, but even that is resulting in more visibility for the original tweet. This incentivizes bad behavior, because even if someone does is get a lot of people upset or outraged, this is going to result in more attention and prominence on the platform. But if you have a button which is essentially saying: "twitter, please de-rank this", it allows a way to respond to comments which are not worthy of engaging with but you don't want them to stand uncontested. Also with up/down votes, it's much healthier if the numbers are hidden. Otherwise the incentive becomes to win the game rather than to have a discussion.
- 34679 5y ago
  Mute works fine.
  - skohan 5y ago
    Mute is fine if you personally don't want to hear from someone. Downvote is to prevent an outsized influence of bad actors on the platform as a whole.
- pjc50 5y ago
  This is far from guaranteed: "The company also said it’s not currently using this vote information to rank the replies at this time"
- lifthrasiir 5y ago
  I too think negative signaling is valuable, but I doubt Twitter will ever correctly implement that. This is evident from the state of "report tweet" menu. Reporting can be thought as a strong negative signal that happens to be also ToS violation, but its implementation is far from working; not just political figures, but I've seen even direct death threats against minorities with numerous reports ignored multiple times. Twitter seems to have no incentive to fix reporting and I don't think downvotes will be different.
oncilogical 5y ago
You see it on hn all the time. Office workers, pink died hair and obnoxious will downvote anything not conforming to the group mindset. It works just fine it seems.
jules 5y ago
Twitter has a few subgroups. They discuss and some tweet with the dominant opinion on that issue will get 1100 likes and a tweet from the minority opinion will get 400 likes. After this change you might get 800 net votes for the dominant opinion and -300 votes for the minority opinion. I think this will drive minority opinions out of Twitter and consolidate into one dominant opinion.

user3939382 5y ago

> Twitter is already very groupthink Just like all social platforms including this one. Here on HN if you have a controversial opinion the site literally fades your comment away until it disappears.

rightbyte 5y ago
And it is bad. The concept of hiding what you don't agree to is really bad for discussions. I wish the fading was only due to flagging not votes.
- hackinthebochs 5y ago
  Fading a comment helps to signal that it has already been downvoted enough. This is to avoid going -100 because no one can see how far you're down already.
otippat 5y ago
HN has a downvote system as well. What you describe happens when a comment gets downvoted enough times, which makes it another good example of downvotes amplifying groupthink.
- eybbus 5y ago
  I kinda like that I only have upvote button currently here since I haven't hit the karma threshold. I do feel like the HN crowed doesn't downvote comments unless its spam or way out of the current topic. It happens but not like reddit where it acts like a disagree button.
  - krapp 5y ago
    People downvote for disagreement here all the time, it's a cultural norm.
bopbeepboop 5y ago
If it’s controversial enough, they shadowban you on HN.

Kiro 5y ago

Is this not a problem on HN? I think it is but if it's not, what makes it work here?

alpaca128 5y ago
On HN the moderation is better and the community smaller (and I guess also united by at least one common interest). Another important difference I see is that the score of comments is hidden, at least to some degree. Seeing how "the community" has already judged a post is greatly influential to future votes. It also creates a bias on the way the comment is interpreted by the reader. I don't know what would be the ideal system. But I am certain adding downvotes to Twitter in its current state will only make it worse.
- nosianu 5y ago
  There also is this problem I had (have?) on HN: I no longer dare try to go against downvotes and upvote downvoted comments that I think are perfectly fine. I did that quite a bit - and my voting rights where removed. When I asked by email my voting behavior was cited as trying to be controversial by upvoting already downvoted comments (I don't remember the exact words any more, it was well over a year ago or even much more). I'm not complaining, the HN site owner can do whatever and has to deal with many emails and decisions every day, but it did leave a sour taste.
  - unishark 5y ago
    Maybe more options would work in a savvy place like this to separate out important versus trivial reasons for a vote. I often feel like the most upvoted comments are the most worthless as they just tell everyone what they already think. Whereas downvoted moments are often the ones that simply challenge people and make more interesting discussion.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    > I did that quite a bit - and my voting rights where removed. When I asked by email my voting behavior was cited as trying to be controversial by upvoting already downvoted comments That's disappointing. I do the same actually. Not to cause controversy but, well, because sometimes I agree and try to vote honestly. Maybe there are malicious attempts that look the same from the server's perspective, but it's still weird.

skohan 5y ago

I think up and down voting could actually help the discourse on twitter if it's implemented correctly. Currently every way to interact with a tweet drives its engagement score: likes, retweets and replies all result in more visibility for a tweet. So if you think a tweet is unproductive or wrong, you can express that in a reply, but even that is resulting in more visibility for the original tweet. This incentivizes bad behavior, because even if someone does is get a lot of people upset or outraged, this is going to result in more attention and prominence on the platform. But if you have a button which is essentially saying: "twitter, please de-rank this", it allows a way to respond to comments which are not worthy of engaging with but you don't want them to stand uncontested. Also with up/down votes, it's much healthier if the numbers are hidden. Otherwise the incentive becomes to win the game rather than to have a discussion.

34679 5y ago
Mute works fine.
- skohan 5y ago
  Mute is fine if you personally don't want to hear from someone. Downvote is to prevent an outsized influence of bad actors on the platform as a whole.
pjc50 5y ago
This is far from guaranteed: "The company also said it’s not currently using this vote information to rank the replies at this time"
lifthrasiir 5y ago
I too think negative signaling is valuable, but I doubt Twitter will ever correctly implement that. This is evident from the state of "report tweet" menu. Reporting can be thought as a strong negative signal that happens to be also ToS violation, but its implementation is far from working; not just political figures, but I've seen even direct death threats against minorities with numerous reports ignored multiple times. Twitter seems to have no incentive to fix reporting and I don't think downvotes will be different.

oncilogical 5y ago

You see it on hn all the time. Office workers, pink died hair and obnoxious will downvote anything not conforming to the group mindset. It works just fine it seems.

jules 5y ago

Twitter has a few subgroups. They discuss and some tweet with the dominant opinion on that issue will get 1100 likes and a tweet from the minority opinion will get 400 likes. After this change you might get 800 net votes for the dominant opinion and -300 votes for the minority opinion. I think this will drive minority opinions out of Twitter and consolidate into one dominant opinion.