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Did you even follow the original parent's argument? He didn't just bring up "clickbait media" as a non-sequitur while defending reddit comments. He highlighted

Did you even follow the original parent's argument? He didn't just bring up "clickbait media" as a non-sequitur while defending reddit comments. He highlighted how everything in this whole mess so far can be explained through the lens of questionable media, and literally none of his analysis+critique has been addressed so far, all that's been done is point out how he sounded like some angry mob person. Please explain to me how that is a logical way to respond to a legitimate argument.

dasil003 11y ago
Saying that online activists are equally to blame as misogynists and racists for the devolution of civil dialog online is sort of like insisting on creationism getting equal media coverage to evolution on the basis of fairness.
- axlprose 11y ago
  One person's "freedom fighter" is another person's "terrorist". For matters like these, it's better if we stick to the few objective observations we can make, such as deconstructing how arguments are made, and when/where they're propagated, which is exactly what the original comment tried to do.
- douche 11y ago
  If your plan to get rid of the trolls is to feed them by bringing their trolling out of the dark confines of message boards and trying to shame them in public, congratulations, you've fed the trolls, and inspired other proto-trolls (goblins, kobalds, I need a D&D person here...) to snicker in their caverns and sling their troll arrows at you. If you start trying to troll the trolls, you're laying on a feast of HGH-laden troll-bait. People have always been shitty to each other. The internet tends to act as a force multiplier for shittiness, allowing people to be shitty to each other at extreme distances, and with much improved protections from the immediate consequences. Once was a time, I hear, where if you insulted somebody in the public square, you had to be ready to drop the gloves if the insultee took it harshly. I dunno, I came in just at the very end of when it was considered acceptable for children to wrassle, and not grounds for throwing them, or maybe their parents, too, in jail.
magicalist 11y ago
> He highlighted how everything in this whole mess so far can be explained through the lens of questionable media What "everything" are you referring to here? That's the problem with addressing this "analysis+critique". There's almost nothing being analyzed or critiqued. This was a pretty minor story even in the tech blogs, let alone major news outlets.
- axlprose 11y ago
  > This was a pretty minor story even in the tech blogs, let alone major news outlets. This is currently the #1 post on HN. It might not be the biggest community, but it is influential, and many people bypass visiting blogs/sites and come directly here for their news. Things don't have to be on the front page of Time magazine to leave an impact on interested communities. And here, clearly people are interested enough in this matter to make it the most highly commented submission on the front page right now. So to try and paint a popular HN item as pointless chump change is quite disingenuous.
  - magicalist 11y ago
    > It might not be the biggest community, but it is influential, and many people bypass visiting blogs/sites and come directly here for their news. So then what does this have to do with "questioning ethics in any kind of journalism"?? I am a commenter on HN and a redditor and am in no way related to the "clickbait media", so how are my contributions to this thread "explained through the lens of questionable media"? The problem is the deflection. It started as a discussion about the actual situation, but apparently "everyone needs to be much more sceptical about what they read in the press and there motivations", and is now about...biased HN posts? I really have no idea. If you were worried about that, you should have discussed the actual situation and addressed what you thought were misrepresentations, not going off on some tangent about media ethics.
    - axlprose 11y ago
      > I am a commenter on HN and a redditor and am in no way related to the "clickbait media", so how are my contributions to this thread "explained through the lens of questionable media"? Herein lies the problem: there is increasingly less of a difference between you or I, some "random strangers on the internet", and 'trusted' news sources like the New York Times. So it's not so much that we're not related to the 'clickbait' media, it's that the media is now mirroring us, unfiltered, and many don't realize that this is basically the modern MO of 'news reporting'. The lines are blurring as a side effect of the influence social media has, that's the danger. > It started as a discussion about the actual situation, but apparently "everyone needs to be much more sceptical about what they read in the press and there motivations", and is now about...biased HN posts? I really have no idea. Yeah, I agree. It's certainly hard to follow, but we are on a platform that makes misinformation incredibly easy to produce. Technology is unfortunately a double-edged sword like that. > If you were worried about that, you should have discussed the actual situation and addressed what you thought were misrepresentations, not going off on some tangent about media ethics I agree, it would be nice, but at this point it'd be like playing whack-a-mole, with changing definitions of what it means to be a 'mole'. It's unfortunate, but it'd be pretty difficult to keep up with every possible distortion even if we tried, so the best I can do is just remind people that "hey, even when I'm not around to remind you, you should probably try to question things that you believe and might've picked up from somewhere".

dasil003 11y ago

Saying that online activists are equally to blame as misogynists and racists for the devolution of civil dialog online is sort of like insisting on creationism getting equal media coverage to evolution on the basis of fairness.

axlprose 11y ago
One person's "freedom fighter" is another person's "terrorist". For matters like these, it's better if we stick to the few objective observations we can make, such as deconstructing how arguments are made, and when/where they're propagated, which is exactly what the original comment tried to do.
douche 11y ago
If your plan to get rid of the trolls is to feed them by bringing their trolling out of the dark confines of message boards and trying to shame them in public, congratulations, you've fed the trolls, and inspired other proto-trolls (goblins, kobalds, I need a D&D person here...) to snicker in their caverns and sling their troll arrows at you. If you start trying to troll the trolls, you're laying on a feast of HGH-laden troll-bait. People have always been shitty to each other. The internet tends to act as a force multiplier for shittiness, allowing people to be shitty to each other at extreme distances, and with much improved protections from the immediate consequences. Once was a time, I hear, where if you insulted somebody in the public square, you had to be ready to drop the gloves if the insultee took it harshly. I dunno, I came in just at the very end of when it was considered acceptable for children to wrassle, and not grounds for throwing them, or maybe their parents, too, in jail.

magicalist 11y ago

> He highlighted how everything in this whole mess so far can be explained through the lens of questionable media What "everything" are you referring to here? That's the problem with addressing this "analysis+critique". There's almost nothing being analyzed or critiqued. This was a pretty minor story even in the tech blogs, let alone major news outlets.

axlprose 11y ago
> This was a pretty minor story even in the tech blogs, let alone major news outlets. This is currently the #1 post on HN. It might not be the biggest community, but it is influential, and many people bypass visiting blogs/sites and come directly here for their news. Things don't have to be on the front page of Time magazine to leave an impact on interested communities. And here, clearly people are interested enough in this matter to make it the most highly commented submission on the front page right now. So to try and paint a popular HN item as pointless chump change is quite disingenuous.
- magicalist 11y ago
  > It might not be the biggest community, but it is influential, and many people bypass visiting blogs/sites and come directly here for their news. So then what does this have to do with "questioning ethics in any kind of journalism"?? I am a commenter on HN and a redditor and am in no way related to the "clickbait media", so how are my contributions to this thread "explained through the lens of questionable media"? The problem is the deflection. It started as a discussion about the actual situation, but apparently "everyone needs to be much more sceptical about what they read in the press and there motivations", and is now about...biased HN posts? I really have no idea. If you were worried about that, you should have discussed the actual situation and addressed what you thought were misrepresentations, not going off on some tangent about media ethics.
  - axlprose 11y ago
    > I am a commenter on HN and a redditor and am in no way related to the "clickbait media", so how are my contributions to this thread "explained through the lens of questionable media"? Herein lies the problem: there is increasingly less of a difference between you or I, some "random strangers on the internet", and 'trusted' news sources like the New York Times. So it's not so much that we're not related to the 'clickbait' media, it's that the media is now mirroring us, unfiltered, and many don't realize that this is basically the modern MO of 'news reporting'. The lines are blurring as a side effect of the influence social media has, that's the danger. > It started as a discussion about the actual situation, but apparently "everyone needs to be much more sceptical about what they read in the press and there motivations", and is now about...biased HN posts? I really have no idea. Yeah, I agree. It's certainly hard to follow, but we are on a platform that makes misinformation incredibly easy to produce. Technology is unfortunately a double-edged sword like that. > If you were worried about that, you should have discussed the actual situation and addressed what you thought were misrepresentations, not going off on some tangent about media ethics I agree, it would be nice, but at this point it'd be like playing whack-a-mole, with changing definitions of what it means to be a 'mole'. It's unfortunate, but it'd be pretty difficult to keep up with every possible distortion even if we tried, so the best I can do is just remind people that "hey, even when I'm not around to remind you, you should probably try to question things that you believe and might've picked up from somewhere".