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.
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.
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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 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
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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.