8 ms·

It's been years, and people are still confused about what causes online hostility. This study seems to be a good step in the right direction. A number of people

It's been years, and people are still confused about what causes online hostility. This study seems to be a good step in the right direction. A number of people believe that anonymity alone is to blame, and this just incorrect. People are even more hostile in cars, where the salient points seem to be: - Lack of direct proximity (ie, you're not face-to-face with someone.) - Inability to read body language cues correctly. (again, not face-to-face) - Probably something to do with the inherently competitive nature of driving. (eg, many people see being "behind" as losing and being in "front" as winning) In any case, people are immediately identifiable and culpable in a vehicle -- there are cameras everywhere, and everyone has a mandated government ID on the car. Twitter seems to be another obvious example. People are horrible all over the platform, but many of the worst people aren't anonymous whatsoever. It seems to be the format more than the anonymity.

loceng 3y ago
There can be 1000s, if not 1,000,000s of paid shills by bad actors present online media - whether industrial complexes or domestic-foreign enemies being paid to cause problems, to be divisive - to divide and conquer; and what % will be AI bots that can have their own unique personalities and behaviour? I think we're going to have to be very careful-intentional in the near future of who we decide to interact with, though an ideological mob won't likely particularly care if they're being manipulated by nefarious actors who aim to weaponized a mob.
- everdrive 3y ago
  This is a good point that I hadn't considered. How can you trust mutual cooperation over time if you can't be sure you're even talking to a person? And crucially, if the ratio of malicious actors drowns out the cooperators, it may not matter how altruistically the remaining cooperators act.
  - causal 3y ago
    Doesn't even need to drown out cooperators - one in a hundred interactions can be enough to ruin your day.
    - loceng 3y ago
      We're in a global war and most don't even realize it because it's 5th generation psychological warfare; followed by a second incognito economic attack by purposefully weakening societies from within by purposeful mismanagement, going more and more into debt, increasing costs of goods and services, and where the West has been ideologically driven - consent manufactured - to eliminate CO2 or tax CO2 like in Canada, meanwhile in China - where most of our products come from, their CO2 emissions are skyrocketing; look at the incongruences and follow the money to see a fairly clear pattern.
      - HKH2 3y ago
        Is China responsible for Western corruption and impractical ideologies that make people blind to reality?
        loceng 3y ago
        I don't know who's all directly or indirectly involved-responsible: it's a system of corruption where many different parties, bad actors, are aligning for a common goal - where there is a synergy with the line they are toeing. Do you think CO2 is an issue? If yes, do you think it's a problem that China's CO2 emissions are skyrocketing, whereas the Western countries have been following an ideology fuelled by climate alarmism-fear mongering? What are the consequences in your mind, of China being able to increase how much cheap energy they are able to use because they're not constrained by CO2-related policy, whereas the West's energy costs are increasing due to CO2-related policy? How does that positively or negatively effect China and the West?
        PeterisP 3y ago
        Interestingly, China's CO2 emissions seem to have stopped skyrocketing - they are set to stabilize this year, and they are currently undergoing a massive growth in manufacturing solar capacity, and as all PV that's currently being manufactured gets installed, their CO2 emissions are expected to significantly decrease already within 2-3 years. It looks like we have passed the tipping point where switch to renewables happens not because of policy constraints but simply because it's cheaper now.
  - layer8 3y ago
    By their behavior? The same way you assess trustworthiness in real life. I might not actually care if a forum member is human or an AI, depending on the topic of conversation, if they behave usefully.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  I'm a big proponent of clusters of invite-only communities combined with tracing the invite tree. It's the sweet-spot for community building: the growth rate is limited, so people get acclimated to the community. Moderation becomes easy, because good faith actors tend to invite good faith actors, and are incentized to do so by effectively staking their reputation by vouching for their invitees, and when a bad faith actor slips through the cracks their invitees tend to be suspect, too. This also heavily addressed the bot issue: if a bot is identified, it is highly likely that most if not all of their invitees are bots, too, and there's a good chance whoever invited them is not a good faith actor, either. Communities without barriers to entry are always going to be low trust. The trick is striking a balance between trust and isolationism.
  - loceng 3y ago
    Another way to counter bot accounts - arguably allowing inherently at least a slightly higher default trust possible - are paid subscription fees. Even at $1/month for an account, 5 bots would cost $60 per year, and for most that is arguably increasing the cost too much to run a sophisticated bot net - though there certainly will be domestic and foreign bad actors wanting to infect a system for their censorship-suppression-narrative control apparatus and will be willing to spend $ billions if not $10s of billions annually - as a war-invasion-infiltration cost - but at least then they are paying into the system that their adversary controls. This is a problem I am going to face system design wise in the next few years as I'll want to launch my solution to many problems. A core value for the network of platforms and central platform with many feature sets, is that it will not have advertising - no ads - as I believe cheap-shallow advertising is very harmful and dangerous to society. Not only do ads capture our attention that has already been, for many if not most, been compromised, it also increases the costs of goods and services - because you're funding their advertising budget when you are manipulated to purchase from them, paying for yourself to be manipulated and perpetuating that system, it also influences design decisions. It's going to be a very challenging and ongoing cost to strike a balance, as you say, between trust and isolationism - determining what limited "Free" accounts get access to do functionality wise vs. providing a low enough cost and a high enough value to sooner than later have the masses signup, with having a large enough % of paying subscribers to cover or subsidize the cost of the free accounts holders. I'm most torn at whether free accounts will have any ability to publicly comment, post, etc - but my current intuition is telling me that in most circumstances, no. Doing proper moderation for posts and comments from paid subscribers alone, which will include bad actors-paid shills or uncritical indoctrinated-misguided ideologues party to a mob believing and parroting propaganda-narrative talking points, that will certainly be the most important and overwhelming task from my estimation. I think we need to rally the awake and most conscious people of the world, who arguably will also be successful in their own right, where say paying $5/month for general access is pocket change in comparison to the importance of a well-designed and desperately needed system for our security-safety and leading the charge or holding the line for peace. Likewise, I wonder then if a version of Reddit's forum, at least one method that can be enabled to limit interference, are introducing mechanisms like say $0.25 to $1/month to be part of that forum. That could then help subsidize the cost of paid moderators, who arguably would be less likely to be bad actors attempting to inject bias, etc. My greatest concern though is that as the tyrant wannabes with global totalitarian state wet dreams start to lose their grip, as they appear to be in certain parts of the world, that they will go "full tyrant" with major false flag attacks including manufacturing consent to have censorship capabilities for not only internet but private communications; and so then an online platform is moot.
- godshatter 3y ago
  Another option, as opposed or in addition to being careful of who we interact with, is to be less reactive if our buttons are pushed. If a paid shill (or just a random Joe) says something inflammatory about a group we identify with, it would be in our best interest not to immediately lash out in response. Shrugging it off might be the better solution, especially if there is reason to suspect that there are mobs of paid shills out there with the express intention of dividing us. We seem to have lost the ability to "live and let live", to any reasonable degree. That's what they are actually weaponizing in this case. Not to say that doing this is easy, but I think it's something we should aspire to.
ytx 3y ago
Anonymity isn't the underlying cause of hostile behavior, it's the expectation that you will not interact or need help from the person with whom you are having a negative interaction. Cooperation is evolutionarily successful because of repeated, mutually beneficial interactions. This is antithetical to much of the internet, and anonymity is definitely a factor, but it's also just what happens when you interact with a much larger amount of people, since the chances of repeated, meaningful interactions is much lower. I would posit that road-rage would decrease if you knew that you would be driving behind/next to the same people every day - in fact, you would probably end up with some form of cooperative driving!
- everdrive 3y ago
  I think it's important to define what anonymity means with regard to cooperation. Reciprocal altruism usually requires an ongoing relationship -- ie, the two individuals will meet again, and either 1) good behavior will rewarded additional times in the future, or 2) bad behavior will be punished effectively in the future. Large enough groups of people break this down. There's a sense in which you're anonymous in a city. The people you pass by will likely never see you again. If you treat them well, they often have no later chance to reciprocate. (unless they can reciprocate on the spot) If they "defect," you have no chance to punish them later because you don't know who they are, and have no chance seeing them again. But they're not anonymous. They're not wearing a mask, they (probably) have government ID. What they are is transient from the perspective of the individual. Someone who will never be seen again, and someone for whom you never have to develop a relationship with. This is also key to the claims of study in the linked article -- it is the persistence of the pseudonyms which promotes more cooperative behavior. Parties are likely to build up a reputation, and that reputation carries consequences, and of course those consequences inform the behavior of someone trying to maintain the reputation.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    >Large enough groups of people break this down. I think an interesting addendum to that is that it doesn't necessarily break down. If it breaks down or not depends on cultural values and individual philosophy. Ideas like Kantian ethics, karma, honor, or religion can all act as a counter balance. Sometimes I think that the cultural spread of hedonistic utilitarianism is eroding cooperation. People know just enough game theory to justify bad behavior.
mc32 3y ago
Cars are different. When people lose their cool in their cars it’s often due to other semi immediate pressures such as getting to work on time, picking someone up on time, etc. Mostly a time pressure. Other times it’s because of perceived slights to driving etiquette, or to their person. Why is someone weaving in and out of traffic and violating etiquette and causing potential dangerous situations? Are they just speed demons, or are they trying to “get somewhere in a shorter time”? Online discourse is not subject to the same pressures. Yes, people get offended and some people like taking offense, and that triggers some similar reactions, but I think the dynamic is different. I could be wrong.
- robbrown451 3y ago
  There are differences but there are also similarities. I think the similarities are more important, both when you're driving and interacting online, you have conflicting agendas, which could be a simple as when driving you're trying to get there as soon as possible, and when you are using an online message board you're either trying to get your point accepted or you trying to make yourself look good and smart. The point, though, is that if you're not gonna have to interact with these people in the future, and there are otherwise no repercussions to being nasty, you're more likely to be nasty.
pimlottc 3y ago
> - Inability to read body language queues correctly. (again, not face-to-face) That should be "cues"
- everdrive 3y ago
  Thank you, fixed.
rtkwe 3y ago
I think another thing is the size mixed with the stability of the community. Where you can 'know' someone and have multiple interactions. In larger communities where the people are less real a think I've seen a lot is the arguments become archetypal instead of actual exchanges, people tend towards arguing at a strawman they believe the other person represents.
swayvil 3y ago
When you are alone, reading text, online, you are in a kind of trance, a little bit asleep. A bit closer to your unconscious self than the usual walking-around-doing-stuff self. This unconscious self is a bit more animal, a bit less civilized.
slifin 3y ago
Speed is addictive I think the dangerous nature of it encourages adrenaline and fight or flight mechanisms If the amount of deaths are anything to go by I think we have a lot of disregulated drivers
screenothethird 3y ago
[dead]
alienthrowaway 3y ago
> Probably something to do with the inherently competitive nature of driving. (eg, many people see being "behind" as losing and being in "front" as winning) There might be something American about this specific driving attitude: I observed drivers in the US always speed-up to merge lanes, even when braking makes more sense, such as when side-by-side with another vehicle occupying an exit lane with nothing behind it, but with barely a gap with cars in front if it.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
you forgot one - people can be dicks it's as if we forget that part of raising a child is civilizing them, hostility is the default.

loceng 3y ago

There can be 1000s, if not 1,000,000s of paid shills by bad actors present online media - whether industrial complexes or domestic-foreign enemies being paid to cause problems, to be divisive - to divide and conquer; and what % will be AI bots that can have their own unique personalities and behaviour? I think we're going to have to be very careful-intentional in the near future of who we decide to interact with, though an ideological mob won't likely particularly care if they're being manipulated by nefarious actors who aim to weaponized a mob.

everdrive 3y ago
This is a good point that I hadn't considered. How can you trust mutual cooperation over time if you can't be sure you're even talking to a person? And crucially, if the ratio of malicious actors drowns out the cooperators, it may not matter how altruistically the remaining cooperators act.
- causal 3y ago
  Doesn't even need to drown out cooperators - one in a hundred interactions can be enough to ruin your day.
  - loceng 3y ago
    We're in a global war and most don't even realize it because it's 5th generation psychological warfare; followed by a second incognito economic attack by purposefully weakening societies from within by purposeful mismanagement, going more and more into debt, increasing costs of goods and services, and where the West has been ideologically driven - consent manufactured - to eliminate CO2 or tax CO2 like in Canada, meanwhile in China - where most of our products come from, their CO2 emissions are skyrocketing; look at the incongruences and follow the money to see a fairly clear pattern.
    - HKH2 3y ago
      Is China responsible for Western corruption and impractical ideologies that make people blind to reality?
      - loceng 3y ago
        I don't know who's all directly or indirectly involved-responsible: it's a system of corruption where many different parties, bad actors, are aligning for a common goal - where there is a synergy with the line they are toeing. Do you think CO2 is an issue? If yes, do you think it's a problem that China's CO2 emissions are skyrocketing, whereas the Western countries have been following an ideology fuelled by climate alarmism-fear mongering? What are the consequences in your mind, of China being able to increase how much cheap energy they are able to use because they're not constrained by CO2-related policy, whereas the West's energy costs are increasing due to CO2-related policy? How does that positively or negatively effect China and the West?
        PeterisP 3y ago
        Interestingly, China's CO2 emissions seem to have stopped skyrocketing - they are set to stabilize this year, and they are currently undergoing a massive growth in manufacturing solar capacity, and as all PV that's currently being manufactured gets installed, their CO2 emissions are expected to significantly decrease already within 2-3 years. It looks like we have passed the tipping point where switch to renewables happens not because of policy constraints but simply because it's cheaper now.
- layer8 3y ago
  By their behavior? The same way you assess trustworthiness in real life. I might not actually care if a forum member is human or an AI, depending on the topic of conversation, if they behave usefully.
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
I'm a big proponent of clusters of invite-only communities combined with tracing the invite tree. It's the sweet-spot for community building: the growth rate is limited, so people get acclimated to the community. Moderation becomes easy, because good faith actors tend to invite good faith actors, and are incentized to do so by effectively staking their reputation by vouching for their invitees, and when a bad faith actor slips through the cracks their invitees tend to be suspect, too. This also heavily addressed the bot issue: if a bot is identified, it is highly likely that most if not all of their invitees are bots, too, and there's a good chance whoever invited them is not a good faith actor, either. Communities without barriers to entry are always going to be low trust. The trick is striking a balance between trust and isolationism.
- loceng 3y ago
  Another way to counter bot accounts - arguably allowing inherently at least a slightly higher default trust possible - are paid subscription fees. Even at $1/month for an account, 5 bots would cost $60 per year, and for most that is arguably increasing the cost too much to run a sophisticated bot net - though there certainly will be domestic and foreign bad actors wanting to infect a system for their censorship-suppression-narrative control apparatus and will be willing to spend $ billions if not $10s of billions annually - as a war-invasion-infiltration cost - but at least then they are paying into the system that their adversary controls. This is a problem I am going to face system design wise in the next few years as I'll want to launch my solution to many problems. A core value for the network of platforms and central platform with many feature sets, is that it will not have advertising - no ads - as I believe cheap-shallow advertising is very harmful and dangerous to society. Not only do ads capture our attention that has already been, for many if not most, been compromised, it also increases the costs of goods and services - because you're funding their advertising budget when you are manipulated to purchase from them, paying for yourself to be manipulated and perpetuating that system, it also influences design decisions. It's going to be a very challenging and ongoing cost to strike a balance, as you say, between trust and isolationism - determining what limited "Free" accounts get access to do functionality wise vs. providing a low enough cost and a high enough value to sooner than later have the masses signup, with having a large enough % of paying subscribers to cover or subsidize the cost of the free accounts holders. I'm most torn at whether free accounts will have any ability to publicly comment, post, etc - but my current intuition is telling me that in most circumstances, no. Doing proper moderation for posts and comments from paid subscribers alone, which will include bad actors-paid shills or uncritical indoctrinated-misguided ideologues party to a mob believing and parroting propaganda-narrative talking points, that will certainly be the most important and overwhelming task from my estimation. I think we need to rally the awake and most conscious people of the world, who arguably will also be successful in their own right, where say paying $5/month for general access is pocket change in comparison to the importance of a well-designed and desperately needed system for our security-safety and leading the charge or holding the line for peace. Likewise, I wonder then if a version of Reddit's forum, at least one method that can be enabled to limit interference, are introducing mechanisms like say $0.25 to $1/month to be part of that forum. That could then help subsidize the cost of paid moderators, who arguably would be less likely to be bad actors attempting to inject bias, etc. My greatest concern though is that as the tyrant wannabes with global totalitarian state wet dreams start to lose their grip, as they appear to be in certain parts of the world, that they will go "full tyrant" with major false flag attacks including manufacturing consent to have censorship capabilities for not only internet but private communications; and so then an online platform is moot.
godshatter 3y ago
Another option, as opposed or in addition to being careful of who we interact with, is to be less reactive if our buttons are pushed. If a paid shill (or just a random Joe) says something inflammatory about a group we identify with, it would be in our best interest not to immediately lash out in response. Shrugging it off might be the better solution, especially if there is reason to suspect that there are mobs of paid shills out there with the express intention of dividing us. We seem to have lost the ability to "live and let live", to any reasonable degree. That's what they are actually weaponizing in this case. Not to say that doing this is easy, but I think it's something we should aspire to.

ytx 3y ago

Anonymity isn't the underlying cause of hostile behavior, it's the expectation that you will not interact or need help from the person with whom you are having a negative interaction. Cooperation is evolutionarily successful because of repeated, mutually beneficial interactions. This is antithetical to much of the internet, and anonymity is definitely a factor, but it's also just what happens when you interact with a much larger amount of people, since the chances of repeated, meaningful interactions is much lower. I would posit that road-rage would decrease if you knew that you would be driving behind/next to the same people every day - in fact, you would probably end up with some form of cooperative driving!

everdrive 3y ago
I think it's important to define what anonymity means with regard to cooperation. Reciprocal altruism usually requires an ongoing relationship -- ie, the two individuals will meet again, and either 1) good behavior will rewarded additional times in the future, or 2) bad behavior will be punished effectively in the future. Large enough groups of people break this down. There's a sense in which you're anonymous in a city. The people you pass by will likely never see you again. If you treat them well, they often have no later chance to reciprocate. (unless they can reciprocate on the spot) If they "defect," you have no chance to punish them later because you don't know who they are, and have no chance seeing them again. But they're not anonymous. They're not wearing a mask, they (probably) have government ID. What they are is transient from the perspective of the individual. Someone who will never be seen again, and someone for whom you never have to develop a relationship with. This is also key to the claims of study in the linked article -- it is the persistence of the pseudonyms which promotes more cooperative behavior. Parties are likely to build up a reputation, and that reputation carries consequences, and of course those consequences inform the behavior of someone trying to maintain the reputation.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  >Large enough groups of people break this down. I think an interesting addendum to that is that it doesn't necessarily break down. If it breaks down or not depends on cultural values and individual philosophy. Ideas like Kantian ethics, karma, honor, or religion can all act as a counter balance. Sometimes I think that the cultural spread of hedonistic utilitarianism is eroding cooperation. People know just enough game theory to justify bad behavior.

mc32 3y ago

Cars are different. When people lose their cool in their cars it’s often due to other semi immediate pressures such as getting to work on time, picking someone up on time, etc. Mostly a time pressure. Other times it’s because of perceived slights to driving etiquette, or to their person. Why is someone weaving in and out of traffic and violating etiquette and causing potential dangerous situations? Are they just speed demons, or are they trying to “get somewhere in a shorter time”? Online discourse is not subject to the same pressures. Yes, people get offended and some people like taking offense, and that triggers some similar reactions, but I think the dynamic is different. I could be wrong.

robbrown451 3y ago
There are differences but there are also similarities. I think the similarities are more important, both when you're driving and interacting online, you have conflicting agendas, which could be a simple as when driving you're trying to get there as soon as possible, and when you are using an online message board you're either trying to get your point accepted or you trying to make yourself look good and smart. The point, though, is that if you're not gonna have to interact with these people in the future, and there are otherwise no repercussions to being nasty, you're more likely to be nasty.

pimlottc 3y ago

> - Inability to read body language queues correctly. (again, not face-to-face) That should be "cues"

everdrive 3y ago
Thank you, fixed.

rtkwe 3y ago

I think another thing is the size mixed with the stability of the community. Where you can 'know' someone and have multiple interactions. In larger communities where the people are less real a think I've seen a lot is the arguments become archetypal instead of actual exchanges, people tend towards arguing at a strawman they believe the other person represents.

swayvil 3y ago

When you are alone, reading text, online, you are in a kind of trance, a little bit asleep. A bit closer to your unconscious self than the usual walking-around-doing-stuff self. This unconscious self is a bit more animal, a bit less civilized.

slifin 3y ago

Speed is addictive I think the dangerous nature of it encourages adrenaline and fight or flight mechanisms If the amount of deaths are anything to go by I think we have a lot of disregulated drivers

screenothethird 3y ago

[dead]

alienthrowaway 3y ago

> Probably something to do with the inherently competitive nature of driving. (eg, many people see being "behind" as losing and being in "front" as winning) There might be something American about this specific driving attitude: I observed drivers in the US always speed-up to merge lanes, even when braking makes more sense, such as when side-by-side with another vehicle occupying an exit lane with nothing behind it, but with barely a gap with cars in front if it.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

you forgot one - people can be dicks it's as if we forget that part of raising a child is civilizing them, hostility is the default.