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Add a downvote button so the rabid folks of either extreme will downvote each other into oblivion.

• talideon 5y ago
  No, because voting in the form of likes and retweets are part of the problem.
  • hackinthebochs 5y ago
    The issue is about what is rewarded by the algorithm in terms of increased visibility. A downvote could act to reduce visibility, rather than as another dimension to engagement that adds to visibility. This could fix the incentive people have to post politically extreme content.
    • gameman144 5y ago
      My worry with this is that it snowballs the hivemind effect. If downvotes reduce visibility and Twitter is composed of 60% A's and 40% B's, I will expect to see vastly more A content than B content, since the like-to-dislike ratios will differ by a factor of more than 2 (over twice as much A content). In my mind, Reddit is a prime demonstration that voting to say "I find this content objectionable" and voting to say "I disagree with this content" are often indistinguishable.
• fleddr 5y ago
  Downvoting is to desperately needed that Twitter users invented their own way: a ratio. To those that don't know, an unpopular tweet will have many more comments than likes, which is considered downvoting.
  • Graffur 5y ago
    Thanks for explaining. I always thought it was that a reply to the comment got more likes than the main comment.
    • skulk 5y ago
      It's also that. In general, getting "ratiod" is when two metrics about any given online posting have a ratio that is on the (perceived) wrong side of 1.
  • BbzzbB 5y ago
    It was added like two weeks ago.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• tablespoon 5y ago
  > Add a downvote button so the rabid folks of either extreme will downvote each other into oblivion. Downvoting just adds fuel to the fire. It's a classic technical "solution" to a social problem. We've known it doesn't work since the early 2000s, but people keep trying it because it's cheap.
  • doubleunplussed 5y ago
    Works pretty well on Reddit. It's not perfect, but reddit threads sorted by "best" are a sight better than threads sorted by "new". Upvotes-only wouldn't get you the same effect, since "best" is about the ratio. Honestly twitter should implement downvotes and just copy reddit's thread-sorting system verbatim. Finally, I swear I saw downvotes on the Twitter app some time in the last few months. Unless it was an April fools joke, it was briefly a real feature! What happened?
    • tablespoon 5y ago
      > Works pretty well on Reddit. Reddit doesn't actually work that well, and it only works as well as it does because of human moderation outsourced to people volunteering for a for-profit company. > Finally, I swear I saw downvotes on the Twitter app some time in the last few months. Unless it was an April fools joke, it was briefly a real feature! What happened? They did some A/B tests. I don't use Twitter, but it was in the news.