Yes, this is a very natural conclusion to make. We all have definitely seen people upvoting content as a way to promote their opinion, even if the content is no

Yes, this is a very natural conclusion to make. We all have definitely seen people upvoting content as a way to promote their opinion, even if the content is not accurate or an outright lie. This happens on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit. If people behave this way on LinkLonk then we can imagine how it would connect people with the same opinions into echo chambers. But I would argue that this behaviour is the result of the incentive systems. Our likes/retweets/upvotes don't have much effect on us. The recipients of these actions are other people - they affect what other people see. And when we are given tools that can influence other people it should no surprise when we use them to do just that. The content that is good at influencing (we are clearly right and they are clearly wrong) is often sensationalized and misleading. The means justify the ends. And the other side lies too. On LinkLonk the incentives are different and therefore the behaviour would be different. Your upvotes have a limited power to affect what other people see. Instead, your upvotes primarily determine the type of content your future self will see. I believe that you would be more likely to upvote content that informed you, than content that simply says how right your side is (which usually has little new information to you). I commented some more on this topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28834278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28834278