Reddit slowly became filled with hate
Reddit slowly became filled with hate
I have been on reddit for just about 12 years now. Something I've noticed over time is just how hateful the place has become. A complete outrage machine. Every single sub became filled with it. I've filtered so many subreddits over the last few years, it's insane. I don't know enough about this place to be sure, but I do hope it doesn't become the same type of echo chamber of anger.
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Strong emotions drive participation, which in a For-Profit Social Media site means more eyeballs for more time, hence more money from advertisers.
As it happens adversarial hate (i.e. two sides, pitches against each other, humans hating humans rather than just a hate for something generic like "poverty" or "light beer") is amongst the strongest and certainly one of the easiest to create.
My hope is that in the absence of a profit motivation and of popularity-score-keeping in the form of karma, the fediverse won't turn into that specific kind of swamp. That said, only time will tell.
Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram...their default content (your frontpage, your personal feed, etc) show you the content their algorithms have determined will make you most engaged and remain there longer to 1. Generate more free content for them to sell, 2. command your attention so they can sell that attention to advertisers. Corporate "social" media is technically "social exploitation" and has effects that reach into the real world. The behaviors they feeds spill into our interactions in real life.
I think there is only one affective way to deal with this. Shit stirrers are looking for negative engagement. Downvotes are engagement, they show them people are reading their tripe and are "triggered". Correcting/arguing same thing. On lemmy I have zero tolerance for bigotry, both sidesism, just asking questions, etc. Immediately blocked. If everyone just refused to engage and blocked they would move on without the attention they so crave. It honestly does wonders for mental health not dealing with people being intentionally provocative.
For anyone who would like to be all " Yea but freeze peach, discourse across the aisle, safe space, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Id be happy for you to stick your head up so I can ignore and block you. See above.
So, are you saying that "reaching across the aisle" and hearing alternative views are bad things? I get avoiding hate speech and excessive negativity but is think a happy medium would be more healthy.
I think that hearing alternative views isn't necessarily a bad thing, but humoring insane takes is. I feel like there's a difference.
They're definitely not saying that "hearing alternative views" is a bad thing. But here is a great comment I saw on Beehaw that identifies the practical flaws in this line of thinking, as it relates to online discourse:
The problem with these discussions is that we seldomly use common definitions, which creates more heat than light. There was a strain of late 20th Century American conservatism that was rooted in fiscal restraint, loosely regulated free markets, and a privileged place for the nuclear family, civic duty, and the church as the glue holding (small) communities together. I’d vehemently disagree with most of these as policy anchors, but none of them are beyond civil discussion per se.
But here’s the problem: this late 20th-Century old school conservative thinking has been thoroughly hollowed out and co-opted to the point it is now completely meaningless. (The last administration was neither fiscally restrained, family oriented, nor in any way tied to any recognizable New Testament ‘love thy neighbor’ teaching. Yet, modern ‘conservatives’ can’t get enough).
Into these conceptual containers has been smuggled a toxic strain of (white) (Christian) (popular) nationalism … some may use the ‘F’ word … that is fundamentally anti-democratic, anti-science, intolerant, and is now emerging as violent - not just to vulnerable groups, which is a show stopper in itself - but to the whole damn country and democratic process. You don’t debate people like that. You crush them at the ballot box (or at Gettysburg or the beaches of Normandy if it comes to it).
So (pardon the TED talk), I think if someone wants to show up and debate whether we should be running budget deficits in excess of 3% of GDP, or whether we are regulating nuclear power too tightly, or whether industry X should be privatized/nationalized, they are probably good (at least by me - I can’t speak for others). But there is an understandable level of suspicion around the whole ‘conservative’ discourse, and if someone tries to smuggle ethno-nationalism, economic Darwinism, or bigotry toward vulnerable groups into the discussion under the guise of ‘traditional family values’ and ‘fiscal restraint’ … they are going to have a tough time.
All this ends up meaning is that the words we use don’t mean the same things, so we can’t talk about anything productively
And that having traditional values are a smoke screen for fascism
It’s ridiculous
If you say a teenager shouldn’t invert their penis in an attempted cosmetic surgery to feel more like a girl, that’s ‘hate’
It’s not hate at all, it’s saying that we care about these kids and making decisions about your body is something you could live to regret. There’s no controversy about not allowing 16yo’s to walk into a tattoo parlor and ink up their flesh. No matter how true to their inner self it might make them feel at the time
This person is spreading misinformation, anti-trans propaganda, and using false equivalences, all of which have been established and disseminated by known hate groups.
But was he being hateful for simply saying them? He wasn't calling anyone hateful things, calling for anything to be banned, calling for anyone to have rights taken away. He was making meta-commentary on how discussion of this stuff or anything adjacent to it is forbidden and tend to get conversation just completely shut down.
Like this shit is some sort of high grade SCP style cognito-hazard.
I can't see how anyone can expect to make inroads against these beliefs if they aren't willing to engage with the people who hold them as if they're a reasonable person with some bad takes (until they prove themselves otherwise). I think most people have just given up and just lump people who say shit like this in with the legitimately hateful, earned or not.
I get that most of us don't have the energy for trying to talk people out of harmful beliefs and it's easier to just cut things off at the pass to be safe, but I fear the proliferation of this sort of action is eliminating opportunities to bridge these idealogical gaps.
Surely you don't slash the tires of every car you see with some dumbass Trump bumper sticker right? Run every NRA bumper sticker off the road? You ignore it, at most you glare and get on with your life. Maybe you make a mental note of who has those stickers to avoid them.
I fully respect the admins/mods rights to say "we aren't having this discussion here", your rights to speak against that sort of post and block it, etc. No one should have to interact with shit they don't want to, or give platform to shit they don't want to.
I just get so tired of this argument that if you say shit that bad people have said then you're a bad person, instead of maybe just someone otherwise reasonable with some shit beliefs (until proven otherwise).
If that's a wrong take, some sort of "hateful person in the closet" statement, then do what you need I guess. I'm just tired man.
I think most people have just given up and just lump people who say shit like this in with the legitimately hateful, earned or not.
You're absolutely correct. From where I sit, I wasn't put on this earth to educate settlers and those who sound like them who should know better by now with the entirety of the Library of Alexandria at their fingertips. There's other people with less skin in the game than me who can stick their necks out and catch those rounds when they come. I've seen no definitive proof that 'the other side of the aisle' even sees me and mine as human, across about a hundred sixty years; so why take that chance anymore in a climate that slides closer and closer to civil war?
I agree with you and I feel like I should have taken the time to discuss the post before I removed it. Misinformation is against the sitewide rules so I jumped on it, but you're right. It was a lost opportunity to educate someone.
See what I mean? ^^^
Insanity
I was very block-happy for half a year or so, anyone who was unnecessarily rude or aggressive (or participated in pun comment chains...) was immediately gone. Sadly you could only block 1000 accounts and you didn't get your blocks back if an account was banned/deleted. With the entire list full I could never go and delete the old ones because 9 times out of 10 the page would take too long to load and crash, then if I did make it in the only way to tell if an account still existed was to open it in a private tab. Ignoring with RES was better and hid posts/comments completely instead of still showing them with "blocked user" replacing the username, but it didn't carry over to mobile. Hopefully the system will work better here.
Hopefully so. I feel that our time and attention are the most precious things we have and happiness largely depends on being careful who and what we give our time and attention.