> Why don’t real cities see millions of citizens fall into cults in a manner of months? How can they have conferences without (Gamergate-scale) harassment, or c

> Why don’t real cities see millions of citizens fall into cults in a manner of months? How can they have conferences without (Gamergate-scale) harassment, or clubs that don’t turn people into propaganda-spewing automatons? If I remember correctly Gamergate was a shitstorm on the internet. It primarily rejected certain media narratives around discrimination, racism and sexism, some of which can certainly be classified as propaganda. You might expect better behavior, or that proponents distance themselves from the worst of the worst, but I don't think that is realistic and appropriate given the indignation in the first place. There were enough shitstorms for worse causes in my opinion. > If we are urban planners, then content moderators on the platforms are cops, judges, and juries rolled together I believe some would like that very much. > These people, who are typically underpaid and over-traumatized contract workers, have been given the impossible task of reviewing millions of potentially problematic posts Correct, that has to be one of the worst jobs imaginable. > As a society, we’ve evolved a combination of rules, norms, and design patterns that work, more or less, to rein in some kinds of terrible behavior. The worst kind of propaganda that leads to foreign interventions with hundreds of thousands of dead people comes from legacy media outlets. Sorry, but no twitter thread ever had the significance of that. Comparing the danger of propaganda by random youtube personalities to this is an insult itself. I hope some moderator deletes the article. All of the suggested features require user profiling and I would argue that providing safety is not the goal at all. I expect most platforms to profile users to the largest degree sadly, but I certainly don't want such a platform to be able to connect my account to any real persona. Why? Because of safety. Real one, with tangible benefits. Not these safety garden for children the author wants to promote that also subject the same kids to the most predatory forms of advertising and content baiting that is only slightly better than penis enlargement ads or promises of Nigerian princes. First safety rule for online interaction should be to turn of your computer, make yourself a coffee and read a book. Then the world will look different already. > either pressure the companies to do the right thing or persuade their workers, advertisers, or lawmakers to force them. I don't want the government to provide the author with a job to be honest and influence the exchange of ideas at all. This will only end in one way and that is corporations dictating rules for public behavior. I know that some people support that and they will get hostility for that of course, because the net was better without them.