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<< As casual users disengage and polarized partisans remain vocal, the online public sphere grows smaller, sharper, and more ideologically extreme. It.. feels

<< As casual users disengage and polarized partisans remain vocal, the online public sphere grows smaller, sharper, and more ideologically extreme. It.. feels accurate. I don't frequent FB or other mainstream social spots, but even on HN, the pattern is relatively clear. Vocal minorities tend to drive the conversations to their respective corners, while the middle quietly moves to, at most, watch at a safe distance. Part of me is happy about it. The sooner we get out of the social media landscape, the better the society as a whole will be.. in my opinion anyway. Still, we have already lost so much of the original internet. That loss makes me sad.

hdgvhicv 9mo ago
The problem with “the middle” is that’s relative to the Overton window. Federal troops assassinating kneeling protesters didn’t used to be “one side” with “the middle” suggesting they should simply arrest them and lock them up.
- iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
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  - rozal 9mo ago
    [dead]
  - nozzlegear 9mo ago
    > edit: and to all the lazy downvoters. argue with me ye bums ( name calling very much intended here ). if you cant even manage that, what are you doing here? Is this irony? You literally just posted about arguments from vocal minorities on HN and other social media driving people away.
    - iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
      In the immortal words of the elder Elaine Benice: it means whatever you want it to mean. What I want is for someone to respond to my message as opposed to a lazy button press. But I dream.
  - assimpleaspossi 9mo ago
    [flagged]
  - hobs 9mo ago
    You say socially approved catch phrases and yet people are being shot in my city by federal agents, and I carry a passport knowing that it will do me no good if they decide to crack my head in. When do words have meanings that connect to reality for you personally?
    - iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
      Thank you. This is more reasonable way of phrasing this. That said, it is almost completely irrelevant to the subject at hand. Is it acceptable for you if I simply do not engage or am I obligated to offer a personal value statement as if I were an embassy representative? I am not making fun of you. I treat words very seriously. I also treat them seriously enough to not direct every conversation to my pet cause ( whatever it may be ).
      - hobs 9mo ago
        You can ignore or whatever, but the framing of this as a vitriolic outburst from people instead of what should be an obvious call to action for their countrymen is the problem, when you choose not to engage you effectively endorse the outcome of totalitarianism.
        iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
        May I suggest that what may appear obvious to you, is anything but obvious to others? May I suggest that other people may not share your values, your priorities, your constraints, or your willingness to engage. Just from those alone, you should be able to gather that telling people something is obvious is not the most endearing way to capture their attention. You might capture it, but not in the way you might imagine. And all this is before we even to get to the meaty part as to whether the people you are trying to convince are convinced something is a problem. So far, all I really see is posture and hand-wringing. You wanna say something? Say it.
    - kortilla 9mo ago
      People are being shot that are interfering with said federal agents. Absolute excessive use of force but it’s stupid to present this as if there isn’t an easy way to avoid it.
  - idle_zealot 9mo ago
    > and to all the lazy downvoters. argue with me ye bums ( name calling very much intended here ). Sure. You can guess the "camp", but so what? Must we all use value-neutral language when discussing an issue? I take issue with centrism for centrism's sake. If your goal is to take two points of view and treat them as equals then that grants a systemic advantage to whoever has the more insane view. By not calling something what it is you legitimize atrocities. Fuck centrism. Believe in something, you coward.
    - iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
      << Believe in something, you coward. :D I appreciate it. I truly do. I am somewhat aghast that someone would suggest that centrism, as a whole, is a not, in itself, a belief system. If anything, centrists seem to believe in actual principles ( and thus sides with whoever seems to embody those best at any given time ). On the other hand, it really are those pesky zealot believers that are causing all that ruckus.. << By not calling something what it is you legitimize atrocities. Oh man. Please, share with me the unsaid truth that must not be spoken. I am not joking. Speak whatever is in your heart and I will personally carry it far and wide in the cities near me.
      - idle_zealot 9mo ago
        > If anything, centrists seem to believe in actual principles ( and thus sides with whoever seems to embody those best at any given time ). What principles could a person have that would put them in the center of US politics right now? > Please, share with me the unsaid truth that must not be spoken. I am not joking. Speak whatever is in your heart and I will personally carry it far and wide in the cities near me. Sure. My principles are that those with power must be held to higher, not lower, standards of conduct and accountability. When you act like maybe there's something to the obvious and boldfaced lie that the two recent killings by ICE* were done in self-defense then you are shifting the scope of acceptable conduct towards lawlessness. Playing both sides makes you an enemy of civil society. The "liberal" media has their version of events, largely blaming "insufficient training." The killers had 10+ years of experience in their roles. When interviewing administration officials reporters refuse to call them liars or question their motivations, instead suggesting that they are simply mistaken. And of course the official right-wing line is that the murdered civilians were extremist terrorists who attacked law enforcement officers and deserved what they got. Full-throated endorsement of street executions. Where is your centrism? What is the center between these two positions? I align myself more with the former because it's at least not totally deranged. I'm not a partisan because I don't think the Democrats or media agree with my values, but I'm also not going to equivocate between them and Republicans and act like I'm stranded in the middle of two positions. The solution isn't in the middle of two wrong answers, it's something else entirely. *: (or was it CBP? They all blend together all of a sudden)
- deleted 9mo ago
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- treis 9mo ago
  Right on cue
  - Loughla 9mo ago
    What is the point of your three words here? Legitimately I don't get it.
    - nearbuy 9mo ago
      The parent comment was about how the most partisan users post the most on social media and sure enough, the first response was by a partisan user.
      - lazide 9mo ago
        They have the most to win/lose. The rest are just going ‘WTF is this shit?!?’
      - _9za9 9mo ago
        And you are replying to a partisan user.
        nearbuy 9mo ago
        Not sure why this is relevant. The paper says partisanship is strongly correlated with frequency of posting. Are you also pointing out that the commenters here are very partisan and this shows the paper is correct?
        denuoweb2 9mo ago
        It is relevant, reread it.
        nearbuy 9mo ago
        Best I can tell, you're indicating that more partisan users post more, as the paper found.
- greenavocado 9mo ago
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  - jasonlotito 9mo ago
    Jan 6 suggests those are merely tourists, not terrorists, even if they are trying to assassinate the VP.
    - _9za9 9mo ago
      All of the people there were trying to assassinate the VP? How come no one's been charged for assassination attempt?
      - jasonlotito 9mo ago
        > All of the people there were trying to assassinate the VP? Sure seemed like it. All those people chanting to kill the VP? Sure seems like it. > How come no one's been charged for assassination attempt? Corruption? Doesn't change the facts. They were trying to kill the VP. Pretend what you want, there were 1500+ that day that certain people said were just tourists.
        _9za9 9mo ago
        [flagged]
        jasonlotito 9mo ago
        That's 100% not what I'm saying or claiming and you are 100% lying and making stuff up. At best you are a troll. At best. I do agree with what you, denuoweb, said though, you are a mentally ill person. Edit: Oh, I see, you are trying to circumvent a ban or something and creating multiple sock puppet accounts or something? No.
        denuoweb3 9mo ago
- FiniteField 9mo ago
  >Federal troops assassinating kneeling protesters didn’t used to be “one side” This is factually not true. Levels of violence by the state against citizens in the United States is at near historic lows. The state killed dozens of children in Waco in the 90s, bombed domestic buildings in Philadelphia in the 80s, shot protestors Kent State University in the 70s, going back to the early years of the USA where protests and rebellions were put down with private militias and bounties. The shooting by one officer of one protester in a scuffle with officers wouldn't have reached the history books in any other time.
  - jmyeet 9mo ago
    US law enforcement kill over 1000 people every year, way more than any comparable country [1]. The raw data of incidents on Wikipedia has to be broken down by month [2]. And here's a chart showing the number has been going up basically every year for at least a decade [3]. What "historic lows" are you talking about? [1]: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/policekillings_total.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/policekillings_total.htm... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enfor... [3]: https://www.consumershield.com/articles/how-many-people-are-killed-by-police-each-year https://www.consumershield.com/articles/how-many-people-are-...
    - int_19h 9mo ago
      OP is saying that this is a historical low for US, not in the grand scheme of things.
- belorn 9mo ago
  It is a major simplification to put the political spectrum on a single line (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum). If we put it as a triangle, the Overton window can be as far from left to right as left/right is to the middle. The Overton window is not involved in defining the middle, and the middle definitively do not need to agree 50% with any specific decision done by the left or right.
- noosphr 9mo ago
  I would usually keep quiet and ignore post like this because they are extreme timesinks, but to give a perfect example: Waco. It happened under the other side. The official story is bunk and half the country that is supposedly anti-authoritarian cheered it on. I don't care to have the conversation or change anyone's mind but your post is the perfect example why people in the middle disengaged from the loud minority that takes over online spaces.
  - jmyeet 9mo ago
    I'm old enough to remember Waco and there was widespread criticism of Janet Reno's handling of Waco. This idea that the Dems "cheered it on" is ahistorical post facto justification for a position you likely already held. I see this all the time. It's some combination of "X was hypocrditical" or "X was mean to me", which leads to "and that's why I support [the opposite of X] as [a centrist, a moderate, someone with common sense]". And reaching for a ~30 year old siege is the reachiest of reaches. This is the Myth of the Moderate. There is no such thing a "moderate" or a "centrist" in the modern day. Ask them about issues and they're just conservatives who are embarrassed about it.
    - dlivingston 9mo ago
      Hi, I consider myself a moderate. Feel free to ask me any questions. Happy to knock your silly strawman down. :)
- tejohnso 9mo ago
  Federal troops assassinating kneeling protesters is still not within the Overton window though.
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- deleted 9mo ago
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engineer_22 9mo ago
YC does have brakes ... Accounts are rate limited for engaging in conversations that are determined to be beneath the dignity of the platform. It's not clear if the rate limiting is biased against certain perspectives. FB and Twitter seem to drive heavy political ideological content at the slightest hint of engagement. I think a problem with loud poles and a quiet middle is the political class takes its queue from the internet discourse. The algorithms drive content, but in a reverse fashion they also poll the electorate, providing signal the political scientists use to calibrate messaging.
- antonvs 9mo ago
  > It's not clear if the rate limiting is biased against certain perspectives. This is unavoidable. "The dignity of the platform" is a euphemism for moral cowardice masquerading as reason and civility. Someone like Charlie Kirk - a bigoted troll who used "debate" as a weapon - would have fitted right in here, because he couched his bigotry in a civil manner. MLK is relevant here, in his description of "moderates": > more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice. Some other references: "Stop glorifying ‘centrism’. It is an insidious bias favoring an unjust status quo": https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/centrism-insidious-bias-unjust-status-quo https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/centri... "Can the Center Hold Any Meaning?": https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/political-centrism-by-jan-werner-mueller-2021-11 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/political-centr... "A Critique of Pure Tolerance": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Critique_of_Pure_Tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Critique_of_Pure_Tolerance
  - iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
    Is that the current approach that is being sold? Status quo and its increasingly damaged institutions are some of the few things that keep events from spiraling out of control. And I would personally abstain from spitting on Kirk's grave. At the rate things are going, it is hardly a given a newcomer will be willing to talk at all. [edit: overtly antagonizing section removed]
  - 9mo ago
etrvic 9mo ago
I don't think the social media landscape is inherently bad, but the ways in which it evolved. And I think the shift in social media towards consuming content instead of connecting with others is a direct reflection of the era we live in; one of abundant information. Social media will stop becoming relevant when we stop treating each person as a mini corporation that needs to provide value, trying to optimize every aspect of your life in a life-long marketing campaign.
- iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
  You may be onto something. It is a little bit like google when it first started showing ads. Initially, the ads were clearly marked and were promised to be relevant to the user, but that line has been moved slowly in a way to extract more and more value from the user.. while removing value that user already had. I know social media had some real use cases. CL and FB marketplace are probably one good example of that. But the rest of it.. best I can say, my overall happiness jumped up after first month of going on a media diet.
  - deleted 9mo ago
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geremiiah 9mo ago
The article uses the word "partisan", the opposite of which I think is "independent", not "centrist" or "middle", but to be fair the article seems to conflate the two as well and never uses the word "independent". However to me there is a big difference between being a centrist and being independent. One could be independent with views that are at times deemed extreme right and at times extreme left. Similarly, some people are "centrist" yet somehow deeply partisan in the sense that their party can do no wrong and everything is the fault of the other party.
- reactordev 9mo ago
  This. Partisanship is going along party lines (agreeing with the Party) where independence is thinking of your own free will. We desperately need more of those people in charge.
  - lazide 9mo ago
    Why would the party support them?
    - reactordev 9mo ago
      For the team? For the influence? There used to be a time when people could work across the aisle. You can have beliefs, but you also must have heart and a brain to open your world view to other perspectives. This is what being an adult is all about. Not this crap that we see today.
      - XorNot 9mo ago
        I would suggest that at those times it's when the structure of achieving the same common goal was at stake. Disagreements on the best day to provide services to the public are still attempting the same common objective. Disagreements on which people will have their rights removed are not a "let's agree to disagree" sort of thing.
    - bluGill 9mo ago
moffkalast 9mo ago
There is some slight irony talking about a vocal minority in a top comment, heh.
frankdenbow 9mo ago
What do you mean exactly by lost so much of the original internet?
- hsuduebc2 9mo ago
  To use internet lingo, no normies.
- hsuduebc2 9mo ago
  But to be more broad I'll present you the romantic version which is at least partly true. I miss that. It used to feel like the internet was a place you went to explore and learn. It was harder to use and navigate, so most ordinary people did not spend much time there. Back then, a lot of people believed it would make the world better because everyone could access information and educate themselves. That optimism did not survive contact with reality. Today you can carry essentially all human knowledge in your pocket, yet much of the internet is funneled through a handful of corporations whose business model is advertising and attention. Instead of helping people discover things, the dominant platforms optimize for keeping you scrolling with outrage, dopamine hits, and low value content. Worst thing is of course politics which moved in here. The joy of exploring is done, but honestly I think that it atleast partly that the og users got older. Hackernews somehow reminding me the "old Internet", somehow alike people with desire to explore and have honest discussion on genuinely interesting topic.
  - rabf 9mo ago
    Bring back webrings!
  - input_sh 9mo ago
    What makes you think that great stuff still doesn't exist, but you're the one stuck in those 5 corporations bubble that makes it impossible for you to find it? There's still great stuff out there, it's still as hard to find and navigate as it has always been. It's still as shady and as illegal (if you care about copyright) as it has always been. Most people still don't bother to do it, you just became a part of that category. Here, let me try snapping you out of that bubble a little bit and make you one of the today's lucky ten thousand: find a category that interests you on fmhy(.)net (SFW, I promise), see how long it takes you to spot something you had no idea existed outside your bubble.
zx8080 9mo ago
> Part of me is happy about it. The sooner we get out of the social media landscape, the better the society as a whole will be.. in my opinion anyway. Still, we have already lost so much of the original internet. That loss makes me sad. While I share the hope, it's probably not going to happen: most folks have moved from FB to use AI chats. Now it's the tool to manipulate opinions and habits. And it's working very well and nuanced. With AI, the society will be more divided, more polarised, and less happy than before. And there's no way back already! Even if the web search works well one day, the folks desire (and habit!) to outsource thinking is too strong, especially among younger.
- BLKNSLVR 9mo ago
  > the folks desire (and habit!) to outsource thinking is too strong, especially among younger. The 'younger' only because they're forming habits in the time of AI. Most all humans tend towards minimising cognitive load; the making hard decisions and consideration of complex topics and situations. It's all about the tools that were available to you at the time you started to need those tools. The core is the same. Low-level, essentially sub-conscious, human behaviour change doesn't happen on a noticeable time frame^. ^ my opinion, not based on research. ie. feel free to critique. What has changed is the awareness of the hacks that work on the human lizard brain, and therefore pandering to all that makes us weak and powerless in exchange for money and convenience. That's the part that makes it feel, for me, more likely that there's no way back. Those hacks will only get more refined and more streamlined into exploitation.
- lugu 9mo ago
  > With AI, the society will be more divided, more polarised, and less happy than before. While I agree for less happy, I am not seeing AI chatbot been more divisive and polirised than social media in general. Am I missing something?
  - zx8080 9mo ago
    A personal information bubble for anyone. All deviations from reality are normalised with "hallucinations is OK for AI". It's devisive as much as it can be.
kkfx 9mo ago
That's the result of excess censorship and PRs on those platform, you can play with people more or less easily but you can't re-program them at such speed. They understand and start rejecting the narrative. Vocal minorities vary but tend just to excite the others, not to affirm any point.
beloch 9mo ago
It's worth questioning how much of the polarized rhetoric out there is rooted in reality, and how much of it is just social media selecting and promoting extreme views. The answer seems to be that it really depends on where you are. As a Canadian, I feel that people on opposite ends of the spectrum, although they might literally call for the deaths of those on the other end, have a huge amount in common with each other. Canada has problems, but its still a pretty great country. If people would step outside of the hyper-partisan identities they've been constructing for themselves online and try to see the concerns of the other side, they'd probably find they're not as horrible or misguided as they might think while reading facebook or reddit. If the reasonable centre that dominates public policy can continue to ween itself off of American social media, there's hope for a strong, unified country that's capable of having adult political discourse between people who disagree on finer points. We clearly have some challenges to face (e.g. separatism) in getting there though. If you're in the U.S. though, things appear very different. While both political parties seem to have been co-opted by billionaire interests, one party has fallen into what can be described as, if we're being charitable, a cult of personality. Unfortunately, that personality has been doing things that are impossible to dismiss as the online hysteria of the other side. Threatening allies with military invasion. High seas piracy. Kidnapping of a foreign leader (admittedly a not very nice one) from his nation. Betraying allies to cozy up to dictators like Putin. Torching global markets with constantly changing tariffs. The list goes on. Then there's what's going on within U.S. borders. If you're in the U.S., the polarization isn't just online. It's something very real. I feel that somebody opposing what ICE is doing in Minnesota and a die-hard Trump supporter really don't have a lot in common and I don't think removing them from online social media will result in civil discourse between the two. There are very real differences there that are coming to a head.
esseph 9mo ago
> Still, we have already lost so much of the original internet. Hyper-monetization killed it all
eitally 9mo ago
I think a lot of what's happening is that individuals and their in-groups are replacing social media for comms with chat apps, leaving much of the remaining social media use being either reposting crap or for opinion blasts... or in the worst case, thoughtlessly reposting other people's [extreme] opinion blasts. One thing is true: actual, active socializing is happening in chat apps (and Discord), not FB, X, or IG.
phendrenad2 9mo ago
I feel like this misses what's actually going on. The "small, sharp, ideologically extreme" discussions aren't going away, they're just happening elsewhere. From the abstract, the reason for the decline is: "the youngest and oldest Americans increasingly abstaining from social media". The young people are talking in private Discord groups, and the old people are talking in private text groups. These private groups don't show up in social media studies. The paper even states this directly: "everyday communication increasingly migrates from large, open networks to semi-private spaces such as group chats and messaging apps".
arjie 9mo ago
Amusingly I've solved this problem of polarized partisans personally. I have an extraordinarily large blocklist of users (including an auto-hide on the top 1000 commenters by word-count). Annoyingly this has created a new problem: reading HN is a lot more enjoyable so I use it more.

hdgvhicv 9mo ago

The problem with “the middle” is that’s relative to the Overton window. Federal troops assassinating kneeling protesters didn’t used to be “one side” with “the middle” suggesting they should simply arrest them and lock them up.

iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
[flagged]
- rozal 9mo ago
  [dead]
- nozzlegear 9mo ago
  > edit: and to all the lazy downvoters. argue with me ye bums ( name calling very much intended here ). if you cant even manage that, what are you doing here? Is this irony? You literally just posted about arguments from vocal minorities on HN and other social media driving people away.
  - iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
    In the immortal words of the elder Elaine Benice: it means whatever you want it to mean. What I want is for someone to respond to my message as opposed to a lazy button press. But I dream.
- assimpleaspossi 9mo ago
  [flagged]
- hobs 9mo ago
  You say socially approved catch phrases and yet people are being shot in my city by federal agents, and I carry a passport knowing that it will do me no good if they decide to crack my head in. When do words have meanings that connect to reality for you personally?
  - iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
    Thank you. This is more reasonable way of phrasing this. That said, it is almost completely irrelevant to the subject at hand. Is it acceptable for you if I simply do not engage or am I obligated to offer a personal value statement as if I were an embassy representative? I am not making fun of you. I treat words very seriously. I also treat them seriously enough to not direct every conversation to my pet cause ( whatever it may be ).
    - hobs 9mo ago
      You can ignore or whatever, but the framing of this as a vitriolic outburst from people instead of what should be an obvious call to action for their countrymen is the problem, when you choose not to engage you effectively endorse the outcome of totalitarianism.
      - iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
        May I suggest that what may appear obvious to you, is anything but obvious to others? May I suggest that other people may not share your values, your priorities, your constraints, or your willingness to engage. Just from those alone, you should be able to gather that telling people something is obvious is not the most endearing way to capture their attention. You might capture it, but not in the way you might imagine. And all this is before we even to get to the meaty part as to whether the people you are trying to convince are convinced something is a problem. So far, all I really see is posture and hand-wringing. You wanna say something? Say it.
  - kortilla 9mo ago
    People are being shot that are interfering with said federal agents. Absolute excessive use of force but it’s stupid to present this as if there isn’t an easy way to avoid it.
- idle_zealot 9mo ago
  > and to all the lazy downvoters. argue with me ye bums ( name calling very much intended here ). Sure. You can guess the "camp", but so what? Must we all use value-neutral language when discussing an issue? I take issue with centrism for centrism's sake. If your goal is to take two points of view and treat them as equals then that grants a systemic advantage to whoever has the more insane view. By not calling something what it is you legitimize atrocities. Fuck centrism. Believe in something, you coward.
  - iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
    << Believe in something, you coward. :D I appreciate it. I truly do. I am somewhat aghast that someone would suggest that centrism, as a whole, is a not, in itself, a belief system. If anything, centrists seem to believe in actual principles ( and thus sides with whoever seems to embody those best at any given time ). On the other hand, it really are those pesky zealot believers that are causing all that ruckus.. << By not calling something what it is you legitimize atrocities. Oh man. Please, share with me the unsaid truth that must not be spoken. I am not joking. Speak whatever is in your heart and I will personally carry it far and wide in the cities near me.
    - idle_zealot 9mo ago
      > If anything, centrists seem to believe in actual principles ( and thus sides with whoever seems to embody those best at any given time ). What principles could a person have that would put them in the center of US politics right now? > Please, share with me the unsaid truth that must not be spoken. I am not joking. Speak whatever is in your heart and I will personally carry it far and wide in the cities near me. Sure. My principles are that those with power must be held to higher, not lower, standards of conduct and accountability. When you act like maybe there's something to the obvious and boldfaced lie that the two recent killings by ICE* were done in self-defense then you are shifting the scope of acceptable conduct towards lawlessness. Playing both sides makes you an enemy of civil society. The "liberal" media has their version of events, largely blaming "insufficient training." The killers had 10+ years of experience in their roles. When interviewing administration officials reporters refuse to call them liars or question their motivations, instead suggesting that they are simply mistaken. And of course the official right-wing line is that the murdered civilians were extremist terrorists who attacked law enforcement officers and deserved what they got. Full-throated endorsement of street executions. Where is your centrism? What is the center between these two positions? I align myself more with the former because it's at least not totally deranged. I'm not a partisan because I don't think the Democrats or media agree with my values, but I'm also not going to equivocate between them and Republicans and act like I'm stranded in the middle of two positions. The solution isn't in the middle of two wrong answers, it's something else entirely. *: (or was it CBP? They all blend together all of a sudden)
deleted 9mo ago
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treis 9mo ago
Right on cue
- Loughla 9mo ago
  What is the point of your three words here? Legitimately I don't get it.
  - nearbuy 9mo ago
    The parent comment was about how the most partisan users post the most on social media and sure enough, the first response was by a partisan user.
    - lazide 9mo ago
      They have the most to win/lose. The rest are just going ‘WTF is this shit?!?’
    - _9za9 9mo ago
      And you are replying to a partisan user.
      - nearbuy 9mo ago
        Not sure why this is relevant. The paper says partisanship is strongly correlated with frequency of posting. Are you also pointing out that the commenters here are very partisan and this shows the paper is correct?
        denuoweb2 9mo ago
        It is relevant, reread it.
        nearbuy 9mo ago
        Best I can tell, you're indicating that more partisan users post more, as the paper found.
greenavocado 9mo ago
[flagged]
- jasonlotito 9mo ago
  Jan 6 suggests those are merely tourists, not terrorists, even if they are trying to assassinate the VP.
  - _9za9 9mo ago
    All of the people there were trying to assassinate the VP? How come no one's been charged for assassination attempt?
    - jasonlotito 9mo ago
      > All of the people there were trying to assassinate the VP? Sure seemed like it. All those people chanting to kill the VP? Sure seems like it. > How come no one's been charged for assassination attempt? Corruption? Doesn't change the facts. They were trying to kill the VP. Pretend what you want, there were 1500+ that day that certain people said were just tourists.
      - _9za9 9mo ago
        [flagged]
        jasonlotito 9mo ago
        That's 100% not what I'm saying or claiming and you are 100% lying and making stuff up. At best you are a troll. At best. I do agree with what you, denuoweb, said though, you are a mentally ill person. Edit: Oh, I see, you are trying to circumvent a ban or something and creating multiple sock puppet accounts or something? No.
        denuoweb3 9mo ago
FiniteField 9mo ago
>Federal troops assassinating kneeling protesters didn’t used to be “one side” This is factually not true. Levels of violence by the state against citizens in the United States is at near historic lows. The state killed dozens of children in Waco in the 90s, bombed domestic buildings in Philadelphia in the 80s, shot protestors Kent State University in the 70s, going back to the early years of the USA where protests and rebellions were put down with private militias and bounties. The shooting by one officer of one protester in a scuffle with officers wouldn't have reached the history books in any other time.
- jmyeet 9mo ago
  US law enforcement kill over 1000 people every year, way more than any comparable country [1]. The raw data of incidents on Wikipedia has to be broken down by month [2]. And here's a chart showing the number has been going up basically every year for at least a decade [3]. What "historic lows" are you talking about? [1]: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/policekillings_total.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/policekillings_total.htm... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enfor... [3]: https://www.consumershield.com/articles/how-many-people-are-killed-by-police-each-year https://www.consumershield.com/articles/how-many-people-are-...
  - int_19h 9mo ago
    OP is saying that this is a historical low for US, not in the grand scheme of things.
belorn 9mo ago
It is a major simplification to put the political spectrum on a single line (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum). If we put it as a triangle, the Overton window can be as far from left to right as left/right is to the middle. The Overton window is not involved in defining the middle, and the middle definitively do not need to agree 50% with any specific decision done by the left or right.
noosphr 9mo ago
I would usually keep quiet and ignore post like this because they are extreme timesinks, but to give a perfect example: Waco. It happened under the other side. The official story is bunk and half the country that is supposedly anti-authoritarian cheered it on. I don't care to have the conversation or change anyone's mind but your post is the perfect example why people in the middle disengaged from the loud minority that takes over online spaces.
- jmyeet 9mo ago
  I'm old enough to remember Waco and there was widespread criticism of Janet Reno's handling of Waco. This idea that the Dems "cheered it on" is ahistorical post facto justification for a position you likely already held. I see this all the time. It's some combination of "X was hypocrditical" or "X was mean to me", which leads to "and that's why I support [the opposite of X] as [a centrist, a moderate, someone with common sense]". And reaching for a ~30 year old siege is the reachiest of reaches. This is the Myth of the Moderate. There is no such thing a "moderate" or a "centrist" in the modern day. Ask them about issues and they're just conservatives who are embarrassed about it.
  - dlivingston 9mo ago
    Hi, I consider myself a moderate. Feel free to ask me any questions. Happy to knock your silly strawman down. :)
tejohnso 9mo ago
Federal troops assassinating kneeling protesters is still not within the Overton window though.
- deleted 9mo ago
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engineer_22 9mo ago

YC does have brakes ... Accounts are rate limited for engaging in conversations that are determined to be beneath the dignity of the platform. It's not clear if the rate limiting is biased against certain perspectives. FB and Twitter seem to drive heavy political ideological content at the slightest hint of engagement. I think a problem with loud poles and a quiet middle is the political class takes its queue from the internet discourse. The algorithms drive content, but in a reverse fashion they also poll the electorate, providing signal the political scientists use to calibrate messaging.

antonvs 9mo ago
> It's not clear if the rate limiting is biased against certain perspectives. This is unavoidable. "The dignity of the platform" is a euphemism for moral cowardice masquerading as reason and civility. Someone like Charlie Kirk - a bigoted troll who used "debate" as a weapon - would have fitted right in here, because he couched his bigotry in a civil manner. MLK is relevant here, in his description of "moderates": > more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice. Some other references: "Stop glorifying ‘centrism’. It is an insidious bias favoring an unjust status quo": https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/centrism-insidious-bias-unjust-status-quo https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/centri... "Can the Center Hold Any Meaning?": https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/political-centrism-by-jan-werner-mueller-2021-11 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/political-centr... "A Critique of Pure Tolerance": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Critique_of_Pure_Tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Critique_of_Pure_Tolerance
- iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
  Is that the current approach that is being sold? Status quo and its increasingly damaged institutions are some of the few things that keep events from spiraling out of control. And I would personally abstain from spitting on Kirk's grave. At the rate things are going, it is hardly a given a newcomer will be willing to talk at all. [edit: overtly antagonizing section removed]
- 9mo ago

etrvic 9mo ago

I don't think the social media landscape is inherently bad, but the ways in which it evolved. And I think the shift in social media towards consuming content instead of connecting with others is a direct reflection of the era we live in; one of abundant information. Social media will stop becoming relevant when we stop treating each person as a mini corporation that needs to provide value, trying to optimize every aspect of your life in a life-long marketing campaign.

iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
You may be onto something. It is a little bit like google when it first started showing ads. Initially, the ads were clearly marked and were promised to be relevant to the user, but that line has been moved slowly in a way to extract more and more value from the user.. while removing value that user already had. I know social media had some real use cases. CL and FB marketplace are probably one good example of that. But the rest of it.. best I can say, my overall happiness jumped up after first month of going on a media diet.
- deleted 9mo ago
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geremiiah 9mo ago

The article uses the word "partisan", the opposite of which I think is "independent", not "centrist" or "middle", but to be fair the article seems to conflate the two as well and never uses the word "independent". However to me there is a big difference between being a centrist and being independent. One could be independent with views that are at times deemed extreme right and at times extreme left. Similarly, some people are "centrist" yet somehow deeply partisan in the sense that their party can do no wrong and everything is the fault of the other party.

reactordev 9mo ago
This. Partisanship is going along party lines (agreeing with the Party) where independence is thinking of your own free will. We desperately need more of those people in charge.
- lazide 9mo ago
  Why would the party support them?
  - reactordev 9mo ago
    For the team? For the influence? There used to be a time when people could work across the aisle. You can have beliefs, but you also must have heart and a brain to open your world view to other perspectives. This is what being an adult is all about. Not this crap that we see today.
    - XorNot 9mo ago
      I would suggest that at those times it's when the structure of achieving the same common goal was at stake. Disagreements on the best day to provide services to the public are still attempting the same common objective. Disagreements on which people will have their rights removed are not a "let's agree to disagree" sort of thing.
  - bluGill 9mo ago

moffkalast 9mo ago

There is some slight irony talking about a vocal minority in a top comment, heh.

frankdenbow 9mo ago

What do you mean exactly by lost so much of the original internet?

hsuduebc2 9mo ago
To use internet lingo, no normies.
hsuduebc2 9mo ago
But to be more broad I'll present you the romantic version which is at least partly true. I miss that. It used to feel like the internet was a place you went to explore and learn. It was harder to use and navigate, so most ordinary people did not spend much time there. Back then, a lot of people believed it would make the world better because everyone could access information and educate themselves. That optimism did not survive contact with reality. Today you can carry essentially all human knowledge in your pocket, yet much of the internet is funneled through a handful of corporations whose business model is advertising and attention. Instead of helping people discover things, the dominant platforms optimize for keeping you scrolling with outrage, dopamine hits, and low value content. Worst thing is of course politics which moved in here. The joy of exploring is done, but honestly I think that it atleast partly that the og users got older. Hackernews somehow reminding me the "old Internet", somehow alike people with desire to explore and have honest discussion on genuinely interesting topic.
- rabf 9mo ago
  Bring back webrings!
- input_sh 9mo ago
  What makes you think that great stuff still doesn't exist, but you're the one stuck in those 5 corporations bubble that makes it impossible for you to find it? There's still great stuff out there, it's still as hard to find and navigate as it has always been. It's still as shady and as illegal (if you care about copyright) as it has always been. Most people still don't bother to do it, you just became a part of that category. Here, let me try snapping you out of that bubble a little bit and make you one of the today's lucky ten thousand: find a category that interests you on fmhy(.)net (SFW, I promise), see how long it takes you to spot something you had no idea existed outside your bubble.

zx8080 9mo ago

> Part of me is happy about it. The sooner we get out of the social media landscape, the better the society as a whole will be.. in my opinion anyway. Still, we have already lost so much of the original internet. That loss makes me sad. While I share the hope, it's probably not going to happen: most folks have moved from FB to use AI chats. Now it's the tool to manipulate opinions and habits. And it's working very well and nuanced. With AI, the society will be more divided, more polarised, and less happy than before. And there's no way back already! Even if the web search works well one day, the folks desire (and habit!) to outsource thinking is too strong, especially among younger.

BLKNSLVR 9mo ago
> the folks desire (and habit!) to outsource thinking is too strong, especially among younger. The 'younger' only because they're forming habits in the time of AI. Most all humans tend towards minimising cognitive load; the making hard decisions and consideration of complex topics and situations. It's all about the tools that were available to you at the time you started to need those tools. The core is the same. Low-level, essentially sub-conscious, human behaviour change doesn't happen on a noticeable time frame^. ^ my opinion, not based on research. ie. feel free to critique. What has changed is the awareness of the hacks that work on the human lizard brain, and therefore pandering to all that makes us weak and powerless in exchange for money and convenience. That's the part that makes it feel, for me, more likely that there's no way back. Those hacks will only get more refined and more streamlined into exploitation.
lugu 9mo ago
> With AI, the society will be more divided, more polarised, and less happy than before. While I agree for less happy, I am not seeing AI chatbot been more divisive and polirised than social media in general. Am I missing something?
- zx8080 9mo ago
  A personal information bubble for anyone. All deviations from reality are normalised with "hallucinations is OK for AI". It's devisive as much as it can be.

kkfx 9mo ago

That's the result of excess censorship and PRs on those platform, you can play with people more or less easily but you can't re-program them at such speed. They understand and start rejecting the narrative. Vocal minorities vary but tend just to excite the others, not to affirm any point.

beloch 9mo ago

It's worth questioning how much of the polarized rhetoric out there is rooted in reality, and how much of it is just social media selecting and promoting extreme views. The answer seems to be that it really depends on where you are. As a Canadian, I feel that people on opposite ends of the spectrum, although they might literally call for the deaths of those on the other end, have a huge amount in common with each other. Canada has problems, but its still a pretty great country. If people would step outside of the hyper-partisan identities they've been constructing for themselves online and try to see the concerns of the other side, they'd probably find they're not as horrible or misguided as they might think while reading facebook or reddit. If the reasonable centre that dominates public policy can continue to ween itself off of American social media, there's hope for a strong, unified country that's capable of having adult political discourse between people who disagree on finer points. We clearly have some challenges to face (e.g. separatism) in getting there though. If you're in the U.S. though, things appear very different. While both political parties seem to have been co-opted by billionaire interests, one party has fallen into what can be described as, if we're being charitable, a cult of personality. Unfortunately, that personality has been doing things that are impossible to dismiss as the online hysteria of the other side. Threatening allies with military invasion. High seas piracy. Kidnapping of a foreign leader (admittedly a not very nice one) from his nation. Betraying allies to cozy up to dictators like Putin. Torching global markets with constantly changing tariffs. The list goes on. Then there's what's going on within U.S. borders. If you're in the U.S., the polarization isn't just online. It's something very real. I feel that somebody opposing what ICE is doing in Minnesota and a die-hard Trump supporter really don't have a lot in common and I don't think removing them from online social media will result in civil discourse between the two. There are very real differences there that are coming to a head.

esseph 9mo ago

> Still, we have already lost so much of the original internet. Hyper-monetization killed it all

eitally 9mo ago

I think a lot of what's happening is that individuals and their in-groups are replacing social media for comms with chat apps, leaving much of the remaining social media use being either reposting crap or for opinion blasts... or in the worst case, thoughtlessly reposting other people's [extreme] opinion blasts. One thing is true: actual, active socializing is happening in chat apps (and Discord), not FB, X, or IG.

phendrenad2 9mo ago

I feel like this misses what's actually going on. The "small, sharp, ideologically extreme" discussions aren't going away, they're just happening elsewhere. From the abstract, the reason for the decline is: "the youngest and oldest Americans increasingly abstaining from social media". The young people are talking in private Discord groups, and the old people are talking in private text groups. These private groups don't show up in social media studies. The paper even states this directly: "everyday communication increasingly migrates from large, open networks to semi-private spaces such as group chats and messaging apps".

arjie 9mo ago

Amusingly I've solved this problem of polarized partisans personally. I have an extraordinarily large blocklist of users (including an auto-hide on the top 1000 commenters by word-count). Annoyingly this has created a new problem: reading HN is a lot more enjoyable so I use it more.