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Title is really poor compared to the content of the article. In any case, he is right. Look at the pattern, any large social network has these issues, which mo

Title is really poor compared to the content of the article. In any case, he is right. Look at the pattern, any large social network has these issues, which more or less seems like is related to how people interact. Twitter is massively toxic, Reddit is. Back in day Tumblr which was not current social media huge also used to have content Facebook gets blamed for. Give a platform for people to publish and share and every opinion has the chance to be there. It also doesn't have to be a massive broadcast platform, messaging platforms with small communities in the form of groups have these issues on a smaller scale. Though broadcast does make it worse.

carabiner 5y ago
Lol tumblr did not have much right wing boomer content that I saw.
- forgotmyoldacc 5y ago
  That misses the point of the OP. Tumblr (as a general social media platform) had incredible amounts of bullying and toxicity. Whether its from the left or right is a moot point. Example found after 10 seconds of Googling: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3da838/an-attempted-suicide-forced-a-tumblr-community-to-open-its-eyes-about-bullying https://www.vice.com/en/article/3da838/an-attempted-suicide-...
delusional 5y ago
The maker of the gun may not be held solely responsible for murder, but we surely have to consider if we want guns in the hands of murderers. Facebook isn't arguing this from a neutral standpoint. They are arguing from the position of the company that stands to lose their business if society decides murderers shouldn't have guns.
- actuator 5y ago
  But that's the exact issue no. Social media platforms create immense value as well. I might not be a user but I can see how it helps a lot of people as well. Do we enforce license on people to use social media platforms?
  - baq 5y ago
    given what i see in there, yes, please.
d0mine 5y ago
Said a person crying Fire in a crowded theater (it is a human nature to panic, but it doesn't excuse the instigator)
knuthsat 5y ago
Whenever I see toxicity, I always assume it's a young individual. I remember myself in teens, always up for some trolling on forums. Today, I just don't have a need to do such things. Whenever I encounter this weird behavior, I just stop interacting, because I have a feeling it's some 13-16 year old wasting my time.
nefitty 5y ago
I don't think that's true. HN is pretty non-toxic, from my perspective at least. Reddit is tolerable to me. I think the problem is misalignment of incentives. If I'm incentivized to increase engagement, then I can think of some pretty ridiculous shit to say that will get lots of people clicking downvote and shouting at me. I think these platforms could have been more proactive in setting those cultural norms that evolve into fruitful social interaction.
- actuator 5y ago
  Have you been to any thread which mentions say China, India or several other topics? You will see a lot of toxicity and you can find several deleted or heavily downvoted comments. As even HN front page and commenr section is algorithmic. Vote brigading happens here as well for posts and comments.
  - Ottolay 5y ago
    The HN algorithm will de-front page stories where the comment section starts looking like a flame war. If you look up the stories which were removed from the front page, there is quite a bit of toxicity in the comments. I personally like that they try to play down controversies instead of optimizing for engagement from them.
    - actuator 5y ago
      Yeah, they do and they get called out for censoring as well. People complain that their voice was suppressed. HN is a small community so this thing doesn't blow up. Imagine a big social media platform doing it. Just because some topic became a flamewar if it gets removed, one party will blow it up as them being censored. When these posts are started by your ruling lawmakers, it can even be cited as contempt. It is an extremely tricky thing for big social media platforms to moderate content. Thousands of years of tribalistic evolution can't be removed in just a few decades, this is a lot on how humans interact.
abc_lisper 5y ago
But there is demonstrable research done inside FB that indicated the harmful effects it had on society. WSJs FB Files has done a good job showcasing that research. There are knobs they can control that could reduce anger and thus engagement, but they have dialed them up. WSJ wrote about that too. FB philosophy is more engagement, however they get it.

carabiner 5y ago

Lol tumblr did not have much right wing boomer content that I saw.

forgotmyoldacc 5y ago
That misses the point of the OP. Tumblr (as a general social media platform) had incredible amounts of bullying and toxicity. Whether its from the left or right is a moot point. Example found after 10 seconds of Googling: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3da838/an-attempted-suicide-forced-a-tumblr-community-to-open-its-eyes-about-bullying https://www.vice.com/en/article/3da838/an-attempted-suicide-...

delusional 5y ago

The maker of the gun may not be held solely responsible for murder, but we surely have to consider if we want guns in the hands of murderers. Facebook isn't arguing this from a neutral standpoint. They are arguing from the position of the company that stands to lose their business if society decides murderers shouldn't have guns.

actuator 5y ago
But that's the exact issue no. Social media platforms create immense value as well. I might not be a user but I can see how it helps a lot of people as well. Do we enforce license on people to use social media platforms?
- baq 5y ago
  given what i see in there, yes, please.

d0mine 5y ago

Said a person crying Fire in a crowded theater (it is a human nature to panic, but it doesn't excuse the instigator)

knuthsat 5y ago

Whenever I see toxicity, I always assume it's a young individual. I remember myself in teens, always up for some trolling on forums. Today, I just don't have a need to do such things. Whenever I encounter this weird behavior, I just stop interacting, because I have a feeling it's some 13-16 year old wasting my time.

nefitty 5y ago

I don't think that's true. HN is pretty non-toxic, from my perspective at least. Reddit is tolerable to me. I think the problem is misalignment of incentives. If I'm incentivized to increase engagement, then I can think of some pretty ridiculous shit to say that will get lots of people clicking downvote and shouting at me. I think these platforms could have been more proactive in setting those cultural norms that evolve into fruitful social interaction.

actuator 5y ago
Have you been to any thread which mentions say China, India or several other topics? You will see a lot of toxicity and you can find several deleted or heavily downvoted comments. As even HN front page and commenr section is algorithmic. Vote brigading happens here as well for posts and comments.
- Ottolay 5y ago
  The HN algorithm will de-front page stories where the comment section starts looking like a flame war. If you look up the stories which were removed from the front page, there is quite a bit of toxicity in the comments. I personally like that they try to play down controversies instead of optimizing for engagement from them.
  - actuator 5y ago
    Yeah, they do and they get called out for censoring as well. People complain that their voice was suppressed. HN is a small community so this thing doesn't blow up. Imagine a big social media platform doing it. Just because some topic became a flamewar if it gets removed, one party will blow it up as them being censored. When these posts are started by your ruling lawmakers, it can even be cited as contempt. It is an extremely tricky thing for big social media platforms to moderate content. Thousands of years of tribalistic evolution can't be removed in just a few decades, this is a lot on how humans interact.

abc_lisper 5y ago

But there is demonstrable research done inside FB that indicated the harmful effects it had on society. WSJs FB Files has done a good job showcasing that research. There are knobs they can control that could reduce anger and thus engagement, but they have dialed them up. WSJ wrote about that too. FB philosophy is more engagement, however they get it.