Obviously, the internet has always been a toxic place, (the phrase “flame war” has been around for decades,) but it seems to have gotten so much worse over the last few years. I used to think decentralization of the internet would fix the worst of it, but Lemmy seems to have gotten worse alongside the rest of internet culture, proving me wrong. How do we fix/improve this culture of toxicity?
The biggest one is we have to get rid of engagement algorithms. All the major platforms show you content more like that which you interact with, which is usually things that piss you off or things you heartily agree with. This creates bubbles and prevents exposure to new ideas and different thinking people. And when you have that for a few decades, it greatly reduces empathy for your fellow man.
Go back to like the '90s or so and politics was dinner table conversation, the sort of thing that would be discussed in friendly company. Because it was understood that while you and I might disagree on what the best path for America is, we both understand that we both want America to be great.
But go forward to the early 2000s, 24-hour cable news, internet, echo chambers and bubbles started to form. And both sides politically took advantage of this, drummed up the rhetoric and no longer was it ‘we are better for America’ it became ‘the other guys don’t believe in what America stands for and anyone who supports them is not American’.
This killed the discourse. No more respectful disagreement, no more opponents shaking hands, it became a fight to the death for the future of the country in the eyes of many voters.This is not just politics. It’s every issue. It’s how we have our discourse now. Respectful debate is dying. Whatever the issue is, you either agree with me or you’re awful. And that is what we need to fix.
We need to promote empathy, mutual understanding, and respect for those we disagree with.
We stop talking about assholes and instead tell them they’re assholes and ignore them.
we learn the difference between things that can be disagreed on and things that are universal.
we stop thinking that if we just step on enough faces, we’ll eventually get to the top.
we actually give recognition to good people instead of rich people and especially show that to kids.
Don’t be afraid to block users.
Today’s internet sucks arse. 90s internet was where it was at. It was mostly just nerds and everyone had their own little section kid the web. Now it’s tiktwat this and faecesbook that. It’s so fucking commercialised now. When I was a wee kiddo, it took a week to download a movie, but at the same time I would love if we could go back to that time :(
Sorry to digress :/
Agree.
I mean, you can still hop on gophernet and use http only sites with HTML only if you wanted.
If you stay off of the corpo sites, install mullvad, use a different DNS, use ublock with waterfox, also Usenet, somehow, exists still. you can still have a good internet experience. The bots haven’t totally poisoned it yet.
Now in 5 to 10 years, it will truly be destroyed by slop. And nothing left. Thats when us nerds will start having our own underground web thats difficult to access and unknown to many.
Example. The Dreamcast is back online. The community is full of true nerds because its too complex for a normie (but it’s really not that hard actually) to get them up and running.
Also use more open source software. Youll enjoy computing far more.
I agree, everything was truly better then and mostly sucks now, but hey we can at least make the best of it.
People here in the fediverse seems perfectly happy to downvote factually correct arguments. Or to upvote blatantly invalid or false arguments. Just because they prefer the fake conclusion. It seems much worse than on Reddit.
So I think part of the solution could be to somehow enforce against people arguing in bad faith. Timeouts or blocks, or whatever.
Votes don’t really matter here. Some instances dont even have downvotes! Just don’t worry about it. If you do want to worry about it, then just accept that not everyone is bound by your ideas about the purpose of the down vote.
There’s an easy solution to that: I’m pretty sure on Lemmy (not sure about Piefed) admins can see who downvoted. So it’s just a matter of mods/admins having and enforcing rules that facilitate conversation.
Just report it when you see it happening!
Given that instance admins do not run communities on their instances necessarily, and that they don’t control other instances - I don’t know you would expect to do this. Nor appreciate of the negatives of embedding such power into the threadiverse structure.
Some things we could encourage: Design social spaces with more repeat interactions. Many toxic people feel they can just move on to another part of the crowd. But if everyone knows them, and that they’re an asshole, It’s not so easy. See the example of “beep”, a user in the comics community who repeatedly cropped out the artist of comics.
I could also envision ways to reinvent forum moderating. For instance, one idea I had for moderating toxicity in a video game is that bans would not last a very long time, but for them to be lifted, the offender must upload a video, or present themselves live on webcam, of themselves describing what they did and apologizing.
If it’s too much, there’s more subtle approaches; like that old study on DOTA 2 where they’d present a post match survey, asking people to rank their teammates - then their own level of team contribution - and it would lead to reduced toxicity in their next match.
Many people post online because they want to have an argument or bait other people into an argument. I’m not sure how you can correct a fundamental human flaw in a specific online community.
Lemmy hasn’t gotten worse. Lemmy has become more popular with all of the Reddit fuckery. When more people show up more problems come with them.
Same thing with big cities. More people = more assholes and crime, and more expensive. More people moving into my town is destroying all the land (ripping out forests for row after row of shit apartments) all built by the same company. More crime now because of more people coming in.
Never understood the lemmy circle jerk for megaopolises. I’m sure its just because most have never been out of their 13 sqft apartment and don’t realize how awesome wide open spaces are. Sad really.
Be the change you want to see in the world, online and IRL. it’s the philosophy I live by
You can’t.
Most people love it, even if you don’t. That toxicity was always there… just look at how incredibly popular day time toxic TV and reality TV was before the internet and social media…
That said, plenty of people who posted here are barking up the right tree. Be what you want to see, and block/don’t engage with shitty toxic people and their toxic ideas. Support other users by upvoting and interacting with them when you see good content, and if the mods remove those posts, then stop using that community.
Way too many mods give into the toxic BS on social media due to the pressure that toxic people create.
with a few exceptions reality tv is so bad. I don’t see the appeal except for a few (alone, ice road truckers) and even those it annoys me when they try to make the false drama.
I heard somewhere that the appeal of reality tv is that in it social norms negotiated. People always tend to “update” their understanding of what’s socially acceptable behavior and what is not. Reality tv to many people is just a means for them to rate what behavior is good and what’s bad. What they often dont unerstand, is the extent to which these shows are scripted and that the writers and media channels are the ones who predetermine the roles and morals.
So what you percieve as “bad” about reality tv might be that the framework in which norms are being discussed is extremely flat and homogenous.
Or in other words the characters and the writing just sucks.
the false drama is the point.
block em. make the experience you want.
You’re only in control of yourself. Write thoughtful and positive posts, replies. Up/downvote based on how thoughtful and positive you think posts are.
You don’t have much power but what you have you can use.
And report content you don’t like to your admins!
the best possible answer.
If we block and ban everyone that thinks differently from us, we can create a utopian paradise where everyone thinks the same. This might go on for years-decades maybe-until Elon Musk perfects his Neurolink protocol. At that point we will merge our thoughts, creating the ultimate Unity.
There will be no more hunger, no more pain. Dissent will be unthinkable. We will become…One.
You don’t, the internet has always been this way.
Post nice comments under good posts. It really makes a difference to the active posters and generally lifts the mood of this place.
