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The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric. Speaking up used to be something you do to c

The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric. Speaking up used to be something you do to change someone's mind or yours. What's the point in speaking up if nobody does anything with what you said? The like button reprogrammed people. They started getting positive feedback for speaking in an echo chamber, for saying and doing things their audience already agrees with. They started getting negative feedback for doing the thing language was designed for. Normal purposeful speech makes different opinions closer, while speech under the feedback of the like button makes similar opinions even closer and different opinions further apart. If the interaction stays the same of course fragmentation is inevitable - but that's not a good thing. This fragmentation extends to the real world and has real consequences. It will blow up. Even with Twitter being internally fragmented the polarization in society grew. Nobody wants to listen to the other side anymore, while there's always the most to be learned from listening to the other side. The core of the problem needs to be addressed: that social media has reprogrammed people to the purpose of speech. One of the reasons I'm even bothering with websites like HN as opposed to social media is because it still feels like there's a slight chance of making people change their minds here.

amadeuspagel 4y ago
Everything you say about the like button also applies to votes, so if the like button is what makes social media bad, I don't see why HN should be better.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  HN's vote count is not public, and negative count is capped at -4 so you can't downvote someone into oblivion.
  - amadeuspagel 4y ago
    Most social networks don't have an equivalent to downvotes at all.
    - mikrl 4y ago
      I think this might be structurally related to our political ideology of liberal democracy. We assume that bad takes die out or are overcome by good takes in the marketplace of ideas. Therefore, the ‘magnitude’ of a bad take should intuitively be close to 0, and the magnitude of a good take should be positive and nonzero. Allowing negative scores permits bad takes to become large in magnitude. Allowing or disallowing downvotes is basically just scaling the distribution of magnitude of takes since bad takes will sit closer to zero than good takes in general, even if they cannot be downvoted.
      - ilyt 4y ago
        But lack of downvotes mixes "just average takes not worth a upvote" with "this guy is obviously a moron, why I'm even seeing his comments together with other competent people?"
        amadeuspagel 4y ago
        That's why upvotes and downvotes should be shown separately.
        doublerabbit 4y ago
        I feel the better approach would be where if you wish to downvote you must give a reason for the downvote. This would eliminate the snowball effect.
        ilyt 4y ago
        ...that nobody would read. I think the usual "just don't show score for few minutes"/"don't show score that's only a bit negative" does the job well enough.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    When -4 pushes you to the very bottom of the page in text so grayed-out that it's not even readable unless you highlight it first, I'd still call that oblivion. Also, flags from just two (?) people remove your comment entirely.
    - poszlem 4y ago
      Yeah, as much as I don't want it to be true, HN algorithm is one of the harshest I've seen in terms of allowing people to hide/remove unpopular opinions. Some people think it's a feature not a bug though. I am not one of those people. It's definitely "an elegant system for a more civilized age". Not for whatever you call the internet in 2023.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
      I've seen my comments come back from -4, and being flagged. Apparently, 'unflag' action cancels one 'flag' action. Thus, local oblivion is not irrecoverable.
      - crazygringo 4y ago
        As far as I know, there is no such thing as an 'unflag' option. I've heard of the existence of a 'vouch' option, but supposedly it only appears on [dead] comments, not the merely downvoted/flagged-into-oblivion. And of course [dead] comments are hidden entirely by default.
        Zak 4y ago
        Does your account not have vouch? It has enough karma that I would expect it to.
    - Zak 4y ago
      I think the weight of flags varies by account. I'm not sure if it's just karma that affects it, or some other information that's not visible to us.
paulryanrogers 4y ago
Speech is also about comfort and venting where echo chambers shine. And those chambers predate the social media. IME even IRL people tend to congregate mostly with like minded individuals. And if the congregation turns out to have too many views in contrast to ones own then folks tend to leave.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  > even IRL people tend to congregate mostly with like minded individuals Historically, forming these tiny niche communities wasn't possible. Sure you had different social groups but they were geographically limited. You are also stuck to a degree when there is conflict. > if the congregation turns out to have too many views in contrast to ones own then folks tend to leave. Sure and it tends to be moderate people who leave first. Groups become more dogmatic and cultish, more extreme over time as they demoderate.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > Historically, forming these tiny niche communities wasn't possible. Friends?
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      Your friends were your church, schoolmates, etc. You can't pick "People who are X, Y, Z and support only A and B" because the pool of potential friend candidates just wasn't large enough. On Twitter, I can choose to only be friends with conservative libertarian furries who believe in crypto. That doesn't scale to real life.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        > Your friends were your church, schoolmates, etc. You can't pick "People who are X, Y, Z and support only A and B" because the pool of potential friend candidates just wasn't large enough. It seemed to work well enough for me. One thing worth noting is that people who live in the same geographical location already tend to be somewhat like-minded, for obvious reasons. But you seem to be talking about a "perfect match", which is an impossible, unnecessary standard. > On Twitter, I can choose to only be friends with conservative libertarian furries who believe in crypto. You're not friends with people on Twitter. If you think you are, try leaving Twitter, and see how many of your "friends" still talk to you afterward.
prox 4y ago
First, I agree with the reprogramming. But in my experience, the goals shouldn’t be to as you state “to change their minds.” , it should be to listen and respond. If I disagree with you, I want to know how you came to that conclusion , I am not interested in your talking points you had recycled from somewhere. This also makes discussions way more interesting. Now, this principle should extend to anyone, and the problem is that in online debates discussions often become asymmetrical. Say if your debate partner has no interest in listening, or argues with bad faith. Online communication should promote that mindset (something HN does in a form, but surely not perfected yet)
- chrisweekly 4y ago
  "Seek to understand before seeking to be understood."
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  I said change theirs or yours. Not necessarily change it completely but at least learn where the difference comes from, and either move my position to account for new information or logic, or try to convince the other side. But I do see it as a goal to get the opinions closer. I prefer listening while having a clear picture of what I'm currently thinking about it because only then you can realize where's the difference, and the difference is what you want to learn. If the other side doesn't listen to statements, they might listen to questions. Asking what they think about X might get a better response than just stating X. Works in real world too against these types. Many times it's not because it's online, it's just narcissistic personality. Many people won't acknowledge when something moves their opinion.
lapcat 4y ago
1) "Speaking up" is just one of many forms of speech. Why is speaking up "the purpose of speech", or even the purpose of social media speech? 2) There are many reasons to speak up. One may be to organize like-minded people into an effective advocacy group. Another may just be to lament something that you can't change. 3) I'm not trying to be snarky, but do you have any examples of changing people's minds on HN or social media? I personally don't feel like I ever change anyone's mind.
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  Speaking is meant to exchange information. You're not exchanging any information when the other side agrees with you and knows everything you're saying. An advocacy group is ineffective if all its members have this mindset. With signaling mindset you have no chance to convince anyone of anything. I'd rather get someone thinking differently a little bit confused than lament something with people who think the same. It doesn't reinforce helplessness. I have many anecdotes with somewhat low chance of moving opinions. Few people will admit changing their minds, but sometimes they will agree with you but still offer a weaker counterpoint of the opposing narrative. You can't flip someone's opinion 180° on the internet, but you can get someone on the other side to acknowledge a counter point.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > Speaking is meant to exchange information. Speaking has many purposes. Why do you keep trying to "limit speech", so to speak? > You're not exchanging any information when the other side agrees with you I disagree. Is there not a difference between facts and opinions? Why do I have to "change my mind" in order to learn a new fact? What if the new fact actually supports my opinion? > and knows everything you're saying Confirming that another person knows what you know can be useful. > An advocacy group is ineffective if all its members have this mindset. To the contrary, advocacy groups are most effective when the members agree with each other, and most ineffective when they fight among themselves. > Few people will admit changing their minds, but sometimes they will agree with you but still offer a weaker counterpoint of the opposing narrative. This gives the appearance to me that you're telling yourself you've changed other people's mind and that they now agree with you, despite evidence to the contrary. > You can't flip someone's opinion 180° on the internet, but you can get someone on the other side to acknowledge a counter point. What does this mean? To me it sounds kind of like debate club, a game with scoring.
jmyeet 4y ago
The like button or upvote or whatever has the same meaning: the viewer is signalling most of the time "I agree with this". Once you factor in other things like quotes and replies you're no longer measuring "engagement". You're measuring and optimizing for "outrage". Thing is, social media didn't invent this. Outrage-as-engagement existed on TV long before social media existed. For decades, local news has pushed the "crime is out of control" narrative because it gets viewers and readers. Car chases, wall-to-wall coverage of violent and property crime, etc. To do this, local news needs to cooperation of the police so the net effect is local news becomes the propaganda arm of the police. Cable news has been on this bandwagon since at least the 1990s. > ... that social media has reprogrammed people to the purpose of speech. I disagree. We have this high-minded view of what speech used to be only because we weren't there. Go back and look at segregregation-era (let alone slavery-era) newspapers, speeches, etc.
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  I agree with you on mass media, in fact I think the problem already started there, and it's even worse because it's not even a conversation, it's one sided. When I'm speaking in person it's still similar to what I'm describing. I could have political discussion in highly polarized family with different opinions and people listening, and with friends too. It's not "used to be", unless somehow you stopped talking in the real world.
Mistletoe 4y ago
This is one of the more astute things I’ve read in a while. The like button has become what an angry mob yelling to one another while holding pitchforks use language for. And this is what using the internet feels like now.
zajio1am 4y ago
> The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric But there is a real need for some kind of post rating/ranking (like like/dislike button, or explicit point rating). Once you got to thousand-post threads the without ranking mechanisms interesting posts are lost in noise. I guess that effectiveness of these mechanisms is an important part of why people prefer one forum before others.
- postalrat 4y ago
  Maybe AI is the answer. It can be be the better judge of comments in a conversation.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    "Ah sorry the magic AI has decided only comments aligned with <X> political party are good. It must be correct!" AI is just an algorithm. It's not a magic truth knower.
- ilyt 4y ago
  The problem is no system is immune to incompetent/uncooperative users. If in reddit/hn-like sites users use up/downvote as "okay, this is interesting discussion"/"this adds nothing to the topic" it works reasonably well. If they decide that it is just same as like/dislike button (as is common on many bigger subreddits), then we get back to promoting echo chambers
falcolas 4y ago
Why does someone’s position need to change? That implies that somebody is wrong, and that’s not necessarily the case. More often, the “wrongness” comes from having a different point of view. For example, it’s easy to say “fuck cars” when you live in the city and they are only polluting, noisy nuisances that are, at best, optional for living your life. But when you live where I do, not having a car means a significant number of unreasonable changes to your life.
- hattmall 4y ago
  It's not a binary. The position doesn't have to change from one to the other. It's that with more information from each side, both positions should evolve. That's where progress can be actualized. Echo chambers don't get results, they just echo.
- ehnto 4y ago
  Great example, because people saying "fuck cars" probably aren't talking about your cars or your situation. They mean the cities. They too have a different point of view. What discussion is good at is allowing us to talk about topics even with differing points of view, but a like/dislike button only rewards or disuades what you said. There is no opportunity for the meeting of minds, and it makes an echochamber. Had you seen a video titled "Fuck cars" and disliked it, Youtube would a stop showing you that content, and now you only get pro-car content. Or someone who loves bikes sees the video, they like it, they would never get pro-car content, and would never see your point of view. No one is challenged, no one is brought closer together in understanding.
  - feet 4y ago
    Generally from my experience, people saying "fuck cars" aren't just talking about cars alone. They're talking about all poorly designed towns, cities, and infrastructure that completely cater to cars while disregarding the necessity of human movement, transportation, and health.
  - TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
    So get rid of pre-fabbed "individualization" by the platform, and allow individuals to choose what they do&don't want to see. This usually cuts ads way down, so I see why they don't do it, but it would fix the issues of bubbles. (Assuming bubbles and division is not what they wanted in the first place).
zackees 4y ago
[dead]
airstrike 4y ago
> The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric. Upvoted for this
- mypetocean 4y ago
  For me it was this: > Normal purposeful speech makes different opinions closer, while speech under the feedback of the like button makes similar opinions even closer and different opinions further apart. But there is another aspect to the complexities here. Years ago, I started thinking of the LIKE/UPVOTE button as an "increase visibility" button. I don't upvote just because I like it (humor perhaps being an exception). Often, I'm not upvoting just the comments I like: I'm upvoting the whole containing _thread_, including the conflicting views if they seem to have been made in good faith. Because when good quality discourse takes place, I want the whole instance to be seen. In these cases, the intended audience of my upvotes is most immediately the algorithm (in a way), rather than human viewers. Sometimes I've found myself wishing my upvotes could be made invisible to humans since I know many of them will interpret my upvote differently than intended. There is no nuance. It gets me wondering how feedback mechanisms might be diversified to add nuance back into these systems (while still moderating complexity). Emoticons (as on Slack) do add nuance, but every emoticon pack I've seen lacks nuance most in neutral and critical responses. Of course, no technology we have now can compare with verbal discourse for nuance. But you and I are more likely to be able to influence feedback features on social media than to succeed in eliminating them.
  - idatum 4y ago
    > Years ago, I started thinking of the LIKE/UPVOTE button as an "increase visibility" button. I think Mastodon tries to make that distinction with like vs boost. Boost seems to be about making a post more visible ("hey look at this!") and like is more about "thanks for posting". At least on the server I use.
dayvid 4y ago
The biggest problem is that you can make money from the internet. The internet was more about self-expression and fun. Then people realized they can sell things or themselves (being a "content-creator", "thought-leader", etc.). As a result the most active people are tailoring their actions towards increasing engagement, getting you to buy something, getting you to think a certain way, etc. and we have a divide between "content-creator" influencers/producers and passive consumers who like or retweet things they haven't thought through but sound catchy and provide the same opinions. It's not 100% bad; content is more polished and organized, but you have to be discerning in order to get good value and a lot of people don't have those abilities.
- hinkley 4y ago
  The Internet is television with lower production value and longer commercials.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I spend far less time subjected to advertisements on the internet than when I used to watch TV. Near zero time, actually. Now it is a game of figuring out the shills that are advertising, but trying to disguise their content as not advertising.
    - hinkley 4y ago
      That is exactly what “spending your time dealing with advertising” means. See also cigarettes and food products with the labels turned out. Soap operas are literally named after advertising. At least they’re honest about it.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        TV is minimum 1/3 time advertising, 2/3 content, but that is ignoring shilling and product placement in the content. I do not spend anywhere near 1/3rd of my time on the internet figuring out what is and is not advertising. Mostly by avoiding content with images and video.
mikewarot 4y ago
>The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric. ANY single metric is going to be unfit for purpose. We need to have a continuum of responses, tags or perhaps a vector for votes instead of a scalar. It's like trying to force everything into a single hierarchy, it never works. You always end up at Matthew 6:24[1]: No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Any single vote/rank/option range ends up serving mammon [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_6:24 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_6:24
ROTMetro 4y ago
Finally, big geek brains are going to get applied to this problem. Maybe we can come up with some algorithms to improve this experience! I was hoping this demographic would do something to fix the problems created... the last time this demographic tried to fix this and created these problems. ( glad to see such humility and self awareness on what made internet toxic in this discussion).
hinkley 4y ago
Once in a while I’ll say something snarky and get downvoted. I usually delete those because I’m not really adding to the dialog. But the world is full of uncomfortable truths, software doubly so (or at least, I can see more of them). It’s humbling when people agree, irritating or amusing when they don’t. Confusing when I say the same thing in two replies in one thread and one gets 25 downvotes while the other gets 35 upvotes. My fake internet points go up every week whether I say something controversial or not so since they’re fake anyway what do I care? I know some people do but get a grip. At the end of the day if you understand something that other people don’t, I figure that’s a way to stay gainfully employed. I don’t like cleaning up other people’s messes for long though. It’s fun at first and on some teams I get copycats and everything goes well, more or less. I’ve maybe made the world a better place by teaching some people something new. On others I become the janitor and end up leaving. Getting “downvoted” at work does matter.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  I leave my stuff up, since most people downvote based on what they think I am trying to say, not based on what I am actually saying, at least seeing from responses I get.
swayvil 4y ago
I've caught myself being sensitive to the popular narrative when uttering my opinions, fearful of my "citizenship score". Shameful, yes. To a degree, here (yes!) but much moreso elsewhere (might be unavoidable). Feedback is divine. Convenience is king. So let's go with the vote button. This distributed god-king is our best way to control this stuff (moderation, filteration etc). We should not only be voting but looking at our peer's votes too. Weight votes by the voter. Stuff like that
pkdpic 4y ago
I'm pretty sure I agree with you 100% but as I write this I'm wondering how different an upvote is from a like button... Also wondering if there was a pre-internet social equivalent of a like button. Maybe there wasn't one. It's probably dangerous to assume there was always some version of a like button. But it's probably just as dangerous to assume there wasn't?...
nunez 4y ago
I think the like button is fine. There have been ways of expressing agreement or disagreement long before that idea came along. (See also: "This") In my opinion, infinite scrolling is substantially more damaging. If you have poor self control, which I think many people do, using an app that does nothing to tell you when to quit is an open invitation to addiction.
culi 4y ago
Imo there's dimensions to which different systems let users express themselves. 1. The like button (e.g. Twitter) [1 dimension, discrete] 2. Clapping (e.g. Medium) [1 dimension, (kinda-)cotinuous] 2. Upvote/downvote (e.g. Reddit) [1 dimension, 2 directions, discrete] 3. Preset reactions (e.g. iMessage) [multiple dimensions, discrete] 4. Any emoji reaction (e.g. Slack) [(kinda-)infinite dimensions, discrete] 5. User-defined tags (e.g. Steam) [infinite dimensions, discrete] 6. Tags you can agree/disagree with (e.g. Kongregate) [infinite dimensions, bidirectional, discrete] I could go on, but my point is that maybe the reason the like button is so bad is because it's literally the simplest possible implementation of user interactions to content. Perhaps a system that allowed for more nuance would make users consider their interaction more
- harvey9 4y ago
  The maximum amount of nuance is here: the Reply button. But I agree with your point. We need something short of the Reply button because reading large numbers of replies just to get a sentiment analysis is not practical.
  - culi 4y ago
    Right, I generally agree. But even comments can be agree/disagreed with or voted on or saved to lists or... etc. We're back to where we started Imagine hackernews or stackexchange if there was absolutely no upvote/downvote mechanism
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  The simplest possible implementation of user interaction is writing a response. It's already as rich as it can be. It gives less power to bots because bots are incoherent. I feel like the internet devolved us from eloquent human speakers back into monkeys making few noises for communicating. Emoji is similar. Speak. Write text. Formulate your position. We're humans not apes. Get feedback from speaking. The video format in some cases is the same - ape like reaction movies, no content. Assume you're interacting with someone intelligent who isn't convinced by the funny number of likes on your post, but by the content of what you say.
neilwilson 4y ago
The dislike button is worse than the like button. You may as well say get lost. The Orville episode “Majority Rules” allegorises the concept wonderfully
barbariangrunge 4y ago
What about upvoting and downvoting in hn? Do you find that to be positive? Personally, I find I have to work to not write striking statements because I know they give me chance of getting a ton of upvotes. If I’m tired, the temptation is harder to resist
- yawnxyz 4y ago
  On Reddit, sometimes it's fun to sort by "most controversial", e.g. posts with most upvotes AND downvotes. That's where some of the most "edgy takes" lie. I kind of wish you could do that here, too
greggman3 4y ago
It's not the "like" button. It's the "likes" number. Hide the number and the like button is signal to the system. So "likes" and it's a signal to the poster. That IMO is the problem, not the button itself, the "score" you see visually. I've hidden the score here on HN for myself and on StackOverflow. Two places where score has a negative effect on myself.
innocentoldguy 4y ago
I agree. I also think the downvote button is a bad metric since it can be interpreted as, “this comment is wrong,” when often times it just means, “I don’t like this point of view,” “I disagree,” or even “I didn’t like something you said a month ago, so I’m going to be vindictive and downvote everything you say in the future.” Even on Hacker News, I think it would improve the experience if you had to explain why you were downvoting (or upvoting) a comment before being allowed to do so. It would let everyone else know whether your reasoning justified the action.
themitigating 4y ago
I upvoted you since I want others to see your opinion which I agree with.
weakfortress 4y ago
[dead]
ckvjdonee 4y ago
[flagged]

amadeuspagel 4y ago

Everything you say about the like button also applies to votes, so if the like button is what makes social media bad, I don't see why HN should be better.

Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
HN's vote count is not public, and negative count is capped at -4 so you can't downvote someone into oblivion.
- amadeuspagel 4y ago
  Most social networks don't have an equivalent to downvotes at all.
  - mikrl 4y ago
    I think this might be structurally related to our political ideology of liberal democracy. We assume that bad takes die out or are overcome by good takes in the marketplace of ideas. Therefore, the ‘magnitude’ of a bad take should intuitively be close to 0, and the magnitude of a good take should be positive and nonzero. Allowing negative scores permits bad takes to become large in magnitude. Allowing or disallowing downvotes is basically just scaling the distribution of magnitude of takes since bad takes will sit closer to zero than good takes in general, even if they cannot be downvoted.
    - ilyt 4y ago
      But lack of downvotes mixes "just average takes not worth a upvote" with "this guy is obviously a moron, why I'm even seeing his comments together with other competent people?"
      - amadeuspagel 4y ago
        That's why upvotes and downvotes should be shown separately.
        doublerabbit 4y ago
        I feel the better approach would be where if you wish to downvote you must give a reason for the downvote. This would eliminate the snowball effect.
        ilyt 4y ago
        ...that nobody would read. I think the usual "just don't show score for few minutes"/"don't show score that's only a bit negative" does the job well enough.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  When -4 pushes you to the very bottom of the page in text so grayed-out that it's not even readable unless you highlight it first, I'd still call that oblivion. Also, flags from just two (?) people remove your comment entirely.
  - poszlem 4y ago
    Yeah, as much as I don't want it to be true, HN algorithm is one of the harshest I've seen in terms of allowing people to hide/remove unpopular opinions. Some people think it's a feature not a bug though. I am not one of those people. It's definitely "an elegant system for a more civilized age". Not for whatever you call the internet in 2023.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
    I've seen my comments come back from -4, and being flagged. Apparently, 'unflag' action cancels one 'flag' action. Thus, local oblivion is not irrecoverable.
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      As far as I know, there is no such thing as an 'unflag' option. I've heard of the existence of a 'vouch' option, but supposedly it only appears on [dead] comments, not the merely downvoted/flagged-into-oblivion. And of course [dead] comments are hidden entirely by default.
      - Zak 4y ago
        Does your account not have vouch? It has enough karma that I would expect it to.
  - Zak 4y ago
    I think the weight of flags varies by account. I'm not sure if it's just karma that affects it, or some other information that's not visible to us.

paulryanrogers 4y ago

Speech is also about comfort and venting where echo chambers shine. And those chambers predate the social media. IME even IRL people tend to congregate mostly with like minded individuals. And if the congregation turns out to have too many views in contrast to ones own then folks tend to leave.

vorpalhex 4y ago
> even IRL people tend to congregate mostly with like minded individuals Historically, forming these tiny niche communities wasn't possible. Sure you had different social groups but they were geographically limited. You are also stuck to a degree when there is conflict. > if the congregation turns out to have too many views in contrast to ones own then folks tend to leave. Sure and it tends to be moderate people who leave first. Groups become more dogmatic and cultish, more extreme over time as they demoderate.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Historically, forming these tiny niche communities wasn't possible. Friends?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Your friends were your church, schoolmates, etc. You can't pick "People who are X, Y, Z and support only A and B" because the pool of potential friend candidates just wasn't large enough. On Twitter, I can choose to only be friends with conservative libertarian furries who believe in crypto. That doesn't scale to real life.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > Your friends were your church, schoolmates, etc. You can't pick "People who are X, Y, Z and support only A and B" because the pool of potential friend candidates just wasn't large enough. It seemed to work well enough for me. One thing worth noting is that people who live in the same geographical location already tend to be somewhat like-minded, for obvious reasons. But you seem to be talking about a "perfect match", which is an impossible, unnecessary standard. > On Twitter, I can choose to only be friends with conservative libertarian furries who believe in crypto. You're not friends with people on Twitter. If you think you are, try leaving Twitter, and see how many of your "friends" still talk to you afterward.

prox 4y ago

First, I agree with the reprogramming. But in my experience, the goals shouldn’t be to as you state “to change their minds.” , it should be to listen and respond. If I disagree with you, I want to know how you came to that conclusion , I am not interested in your talking points you had recycled from somewhere. This also makes discussions way more interesting. Now, this principle should extend to anyone, and the problem is that in online debates discussions often become asymmetrical. Say if your debate partner has no interest in listening, or argues with bad faith. Online communication should promote that mindset (something HN does in a form, but surely not perfected yet)

chrisweekly 4y ago
"Seek to understand before seeking to be understood."
machina_ex_deus 4y ago
I said change theirs or yours. Not necessarily change it completely but at least learn where the difference comes from, and either move my position to account for new information or logic, or try to convince the other side. But I do see it as a goal to get the opinions closer. I prefer listening while having a clear picture of what I'm currently thinking about it because only then you can realize where's the difference, and the difference is what you want to learn. If the other side doesn't listen to statements, they might listen to questions. Asking what they think about X might get a better response than just stating X. Works in real world too against these types. Many times it's not because it's online, it's just narcissistic personality. Many people won't acknowledge when something moves their opinion.

lapcat 4y ago

1) "Speaking up" is just one of many forms of speech. Why is speaking up "the purpose of speech", or even the purpose of social media speech? 2) There are many reasons to speak up. One may be to organize like-minded people into an effective advocacy group. Another may just be to lament something that you can't change. 3) I'm not trying to be snarky, but do you have any examples of changing people's minds on HN or social media? I personally don't feel like I ever change anyone's mind.

machina_ex_deus 4y ago
Speaking is meant to exchange information. You're not exchanging any information when the other side agrees with you and knows everything you're saying. An advocacy group is ineffective if all its members have this mindset. With signaling mindset you have no chance to convince anyone of anything. I'd rather get someone thinking differently a little bit confused than lament something with people who think the same. It doesn't reinforce helplessness. I have many anecdotes with somewhat low chance of moving opinions. Few people will admit changing their minds, but sometimes they will agree with you but still offer a weaker counterpoint of the opposing narrative. You can't flip someone's opinion 180° on the internet, but you can get someone on the other side to acknowledge a counter point.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Speaking is meant to exchange information. Speaking has many purposes. Why do you keep trying to "limit speech", so to speak? > You're not exchanging any information when the other side agrees with you I disagree. Is there not a difference between facts and opinions? Why do I have to "change my mind" in order to learn a new fact? What if the new fact actually supports my opinion? > and knows everything you're saying Confirming that another person knows what you know can be useful. > An advocacy group is ineffective if all its members have this mindset. To the contrary, advocacy groups are most effective when the members agree with each other, and most ineffective when they fight among themselves. > Few people will admit changing their minds, but sometimes they will agree with you but still offer a weaker counterpoint of the opposing narrative. This gives the appearance to me that you're telling yourself you've changed other people's mind and that they now agree with you, despite evidence to the contrary. > You can't flip someone's opinion 180° on the internet, but you can get someone on the other side to acknowledge a counter point. What does this mean? To me it sounds kind of like debate club, a game with scoring.

jmyeet 4y ago

The like button or upvote or whatever has the same meaning: the viewer is signalling most of the time "I agree with this". Once you factor in other things like quotes and replies you're no longer measuring "engagement". You're measuring and optimizing for "outrage". Thing is, social media didn't invent this. Outrage-as-engagement existed on TV long before social media existed. For decades, local news has pushed the "crime is out of control" narrative because it gets viewers and readers. Car chases, wall-to-wall coverage of violent and property crime, etc. To do this, local news needs to cooperation of the police so the net effect is local news becomes the propaganda arm of the police. Cable news has been on this bandwagon since at least the 1990s. > ... that social media has reprogrammed people to the purpose of speech. I disagree. We have this high-minded view of what speech used to be only because we weren't there. Go back and look at segregregation-era (let alone slavery-era) newspapers, speeches, etc.

machina_ex_deus 4y ago
I agree with you on mass media, in fact I think the problem already started there, and it's even worse because it's not even a conversation, it's one sided. When I'm speaking in person it's still similar to what I'm describing. I could have political discussion in highly polarized family with different opinions and people listening, and with friends too. It's not "used to be", unless somehow you stopped talking in the real world.

Mistletoe 4y ago

This is one of the more astute things I’ve read in a while. The like button has become what an angry mob yelling to one another while holding pitchforks use language for. And this is what using the internet feels like now.

zajio1am 4y ago

> The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric But there is a real need for some kind of post rating/ranking (like like/dislike button, or explicit point rating). Once you got to thousand-post threads the without ranking mechanisms interesting posts are lost in noise. I guess that effectiveness of these mechanisms is an important part of why people prefer one forum before others.

postalrat 4y ago
Maybe AI is the answer. It can be be the better judge of comments in a conversation.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  "Ah sorry the magic AI has decided only comments aligned with <X> political party are good. It must be correct!" AI is just an algorithm. It's not a magic truth knower.
ilyt 4y ago
The problem is no system is immune to incompetent/uncooperative users. If in reddit/hn-like sites users use up/downvote as "okay, this is interesting discussion"/"this adds nothing to the topic" it works reasonably well. If they decide that it is just same as like/dislike button (as is common on many bigger subreddits), then we get back to promoting echo chambers

falcolas 4y ago

Why does someone’s position need to change? That implies that somebody is wrong, and that’s not necessarily the case. More often, the “wrongness” comes from having a different point of view. For example, it’s easy to say “fuck cars” when you live in the city and they are only polluting, noisy nuisances that are, at best, optional for living your life. But when you live where I do, not having a car means a significant number of unreasonable changes to your life.

hattmall 4y ago
It's not a binary. The position doesn't have to change from one to the other. It's that with more information from each side, both positions should evolve. That's where progress can be actualized. Echo chambers don't get results, they just echo.
ehnto 4y ago
Great example, because people saying "fuck cars" probably aren't talking about your cars or your situation. They mean the cities. They too have a different point of view. What discussion is good at is allowing us to talk about topics even with differing points of view, but a like/dislike button only rewards or disuades what you said. There is no opportunity for the meeting of minds, and it makes an echochamber. Had you seen a video titled "Fuck cars" and disliked it, Youtube would a stop showing you that content, and now you only get pro-car content. Or someone who loves bikes sees the video, they like it, they would never get pro-car content, and would never see your point of view. No one is challenged, no one is brought closer together in understanding.
- feet 4y ago
  Generally from my experience, people saying "fuck cars" aren't just talking about cars alone. They're talking about all poorly designed towns, cities, and infrastructure that completely cater to cars while disregarding the necessity of human movement, transportation, and health.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  So get rid of pre-fabbed "individualization" by the platform, and allow individuals to choose what they do&don't want to see. This usually cuts ads way down, so I see why they don't do it, but it would fix the issues of bubbles. (Assuming bubbles and division is not what they wanted in the first place).

zackees 4y ago

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airstrike 4y ago

> The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric. Upvoted for this

mypetocean 4y ago
For me it was this: > Normal purposeful speech makes different opinions closer, while speech under the feedback of the like button makes similar opinions even closer and different opinions further apart. But there is another aspect to the complexities here. Years ago, I started thinking of the LIKE/UPVOTE button as an "increase visibility" button. I don't upvote just because I like it (humor perhaps being an exception). Often, I'm not upvoting just the comments I like: I'm upvoting the whole containing _thread_, including the conflicting views if they seem to have been made in good faith. Because when good quality discourse takes place, I want the whole instance to be seen. In these cases, the intended audience of my upvotes is most immediately the algorithm (in a way), rather than human viewers. Sometimes I've found myself wishing my upvotes could be made invisible to humans since I know many of them will interpret my upvote differently than intended. There is no nuance. It gets me wondering how feedback mechanisms might be diversified to add nuance back into these systems (while still moderating complexity). Emoticons (as on Slack) do add nuance, but every emoticon pack I've seen lacks nuance most in neutral and critical responses. Of course, no technology we have now can compare with verbal discourse for nuance. But you and I are more likely to be able to influence feedback features on social media than to succeed in eliminating them.
- idatum 4y ago
  > Years ago, I started thinking of the LIKE/UPVOTE button as an "increase visibility" button. I think Mastodon tries to make that distinction with like vs boost. Boost seems to be about making a post more visible ("hey look at this!") and like is more about "thanks for posting". At least on the server I use.

dayvid 4y ago

The biggest problem is that you can make money from the internet. The internet was more about self-expression and fun. Then people realized they can sell things or themselves (being a "content-creator", "thought-leader", etc.). As a result the most active people are tailoring their actions towards increasing engagement, getting you to buy something, getting you to think a certain way, etc. and we have a divide between "content-creator" influencers/producers and passive consumers who like or retweet things they haven't thought through but sound catchy and provide the same opinions. It's not 100% bad; content is more polished and organized, but you have to be discerning in order to get good value and a lot of people don't have those abilities.

hinkley 4y ago
The Internet is television with lower production value and longer commercials.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I spend far less time subjected to advertisements on the internet than when I used to watch TV. Near zero time, actually. Now it is a game of figuring out the shills that are advertising, but trying to disguise their content as not advertising.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    That is exactly what “spending your time dealing with advertising” means. See also cigarettes and food products with the labels turned out. Soap operas are literally named after advertising. At least they’re honest about it.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      TV is minimum 1/3 time advertising, 2/3 content, but that is ignoring shilling and product placement in the content. I do not spend anywhere near 1/3rd of my time on the internet figuring out what is and is not advertising. Mostly by avoiding content with images and video.

mikewarot 4y ago

>The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric. ANY single metric is going to be unfit for purpose. We need to have a continuum of responses, tags or perhaps a vector for votes instead of a scalar. It's like trying to force everything into a single hierarchy, it never works. You always end up at Matthew 6:24[1]: No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Any single vote/rank/option range ends up serving mammon [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_6:24 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_6:24

ROTMetro 4y ago

Finally, big geek brains are going to get applied to this problem. Maybe we can come up with some algorithms to improve this experience! I was hoping this demographic would do something to fix the problems created... the last time this demographic tried to fix this and created these problems. ( glad to see such humility and self awareness on what made internet toxic in this discussion).

hinkley 4y ago

Once in a while I’ll say something snarky and get downvoted. I usually delete those because I’m not really adding to the dialog. But the world is full of uncomfortable truths, software doubly so (or at least, I can see more of them). It’s humbling when people agree, irritating or amusing when they don’t. Confusing when I say the same thing in two replies in one thread and one gets 25 downvotes while the other gets 35 upvotes. My fake internet points go up every week whether I say something controversial or not so since they’re fake anyway what do I care? I know some people do but get a grip. At the end of the day if you understand something that other people don’t, I figure that’s a way to stay gainfully employed. I don’t like cleaning up other people’s messes for long though. It’s fun at first and on some teams I get copycats and everything goes well, more or less. I’ve maybe made the world a better place by teaching some people something new. On others I become the janitor and end up leaving. Getting “downvoted” at work does matter.

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
I leave my stuff up, since most people downvote based on what they think I am trying to say, not based on what I am actually saying, at least seeing from responses I get.

swayvil 4y ago

I've caught myself being sensitive to the popular narrative when uttering my opinions, fearful of my "citizenship score". Shameful, yes. To a degree, here (yes!) but much moreso elsewhere (might be unavoidable). Feedback is divine. Convenience is king. So let's go with the vote button. This distributed god-king is our best way to control this stuff (moderation, filteration etc). We should not only be voting but looking at our peer's votes too. Weight votes by the voter. Stuff like that

pkdpic 4y ago

I'm pretty sure I agree with you 100% but as I write this I'm wondering how different an upvote is from a like button... Also wondering if there was a pre-internet social equivalent of a like button. Maybe there wasn't one. It's probably dangerous to assume there was always some version of a like button. But it's probably just as dangerous to assume there wasn't?...

nunez 4y ago

I think the like button is fine. There have been ways of expressing agreement or disagreement long before that idea came along. (See also: "This") In my opinion, infinite scrolling is substantially more damaging. If you have poor self control, which I think many people do, using an app that does nothing to tell you when to quit is an open invitation to addiction.

culi 4y ago

Imo there's dimensions to which different systems let users express themselves. 1. The like button (e.g. Twitter) [1 dimension, discrete] 2. Clapping (e.g. Medium) [1 dimension, (kinda-)cotinuous] 2. Upvote/downvote (e.g. Reddit) [1 dimension, 2 directions, discrete] 3. Preset reactions (e.g. iMessage) [multiple dimensions, discrete] 4. Any emoji reaction (e.g. Slack) [(kinda-)infinite dimensions, discrete] 5. User-defined tags (e.g. Steam) [infinite dimensions, discrete] 6. Tags you can agree/disagree with (e.g. Kongregate) [infinite dimensions, bidirectional, discrete] I could go on, but my point is that maybe the reason the like button is so bad is because it's literally the simplest possible implementation of user interactions to content. Perhaps a system that allowed for more nuance would make users consider their interaction more

harvey9 4y ago
The maximum amount of nuance is here: the Reply button. But I agree with your point. We need something short of the Reply button because reading large numbers of replies just to get a sentiment analysis is not practical.
- culi 4y ago
  Right, I generally agree. But even comments can be agree/disagreed with or voted on or saved to lists or... etc. We're back to where we started Imagine hackernews or stackexchange if there was absolutely no upvote/downvote mechanism
machina_ex_deus 4y ago
The simplest possible implementation of user interaction is writing a response. It's already as rich as it can be. It gives less power to bots because bots are incoherent. I feel like the internet devolved us from eloquent human speakers back into monkeys making few noises for communicating. Emoji is similar. Speak. Write text. Formulate your position. We're humans not apes. Get feedback from speaking. The video format in some cases is the same - ape like reaction movies, no content. Assume you're interacting with someone intelligent who isn't convinced by the funny number of likes on your post, but by the content of what you say.

neilwilson 4y ago

The dislike button is worse than the like button. You may as well say get lost. The Orville episode “Majority Rules” allegorises the concept wonderfully

barbariangrunge 4y ago

What about upvoting and downvoting in hn? Do you find that to be positive? Personally, I find I have to work to not write striking statements because I know they give me chance of getting a ton of upvotes. If I’m tired, the temptation is harder to resist

yawnxyz 4y ago
On Reddit, sometimes it's fun to sort by "most controversial", e.g. posts with most upvotes AND downvotes. That's where some of the most "edgy takes" lie. I kind of wish you could do that here, too

greggman3 4y ago

It's not the "like" button. It's the "likes" number. Hide the number and the like button is signal to the system. So "likes" and it's a signal to the poster. That IMO is the problem, not the button itself, the "score" you see visually. I've hidden the score here on HN for myself and on StackOverflow. Two places where score has a negative effect on myself.

innocentoldguy 4y ago

I agree. I also think the downvote button is a bad metric since it can be interpreted as, “this comment is wrong,” when often times it just means, “I don’t like this point of view,” “I disagree,” or even “I didn’t like something you said a month ago, so I’m going to be vindictive and downvote everything you say in the future.” Even on Hacker News, I think it would improve the experience if you had to explain why you were downvoting (or upvoting) a comment before being allowed to do so. It would let everyone else know whether your reasoning justified the action.

themitigating 4y ago

I upvoted you since I want others to see your opinion which I agree with.

weakfortress 4y ago

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ckvjdonee 4y ago

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