
The Damage of Social Media - tfordifference
http://www.travelfordifference.com/damage-social-media/
======
brandur
There's something about the text-based medium in particular that encourages
the total dissolution of empathy. If you took any two users flaming each other
on Twitter and put them on a phone call, you'd see a quick return to civility
(i.e. just voice without even going to video is probably enough in most
cases).

These platforms should be modern mediums for sophisticated public discourse.
Instead, the inclination to daemonize, defame, and bully is so strong that you
get the opposite effect -- there's a total shutdown of public discourse as
most people won't go on record to say anything that might not be consistent
with the party line.

This doesn't change anyone's mind -- it just has the effect of normalizing
discourse to the lowest common denominator and driving anyone with a deviant
opinion behind closed doors. Soon enough, everyone is screaming into an echo
chamber.

~~~
unclebucknasty
> _there 's a total shutdown of public discourse as most people won't go on
> record to say anything that might not be consistent with the party line._

> _...driving anyone with a deviant opinion behind closed doors. Soon enough,
> everyone is screaming into an echo chamber._

Funny, I've always thought downvotes on HN encouraged the same, albeit to a
lesser degree. It's one thing to use downvotes as a moderation tool,
submerging comments from others with whom you don't agree. It's another thing
to "penalize" (FWIW) a person because you disagree with him/her. That it seems
acceptable is a smaller symptom of the bigger problem.

Reminds me of the Black Mirror episode #1 this season.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/)

~~~
grzm
Maybe you mistyped, or maybe it's just too late and I'm not parsing things
right, but I'm having a hard time distinguishing between the two options here:

 _" It's one thing to use downvotes as a moderation tool, submerging comments
from others with whom you don't agree. It's another thing to "penalize" (FWIW)
a person because you disagree with him/her."_

Regarding how down votes are used on HN, there are those who use them to
express disagreement (PG weighed in a while ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171)),
though there are others who think this isn't the best use of down votes.

Maybe we need "non-substantive", "don't agree", and "flag/uncivil". I can see
how that could overcomplicate things, though.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Yeah, it was too late...for me. Sorry, I wasn't very clear.

By "punishing people", I meant the whole "karma" thing. So, using downvotes to
score comments is considered a form of thread moderation. Ok, that's one
thing. However, also assigning a score to _people_ based, in part, on whether
others frequently agree with them really encourages group-think. There is at
least some perceivable utility in downvoting comments, but what's the value of
scoring whether people frequently agree with someone?

BTW, I'm not going meta here, as I think it's very relevant to this thread.

> _there are others who think this isn 't the best use of down votes._

Yeah, I am also one who believes that, even with comments, downvotes for
disagreement have a similar--though perhaps lesser--effect of discouraging
diversity of ideas. I guess the heart of it is that disagreement is considered
a legitimate reason for downvoting, whether it's comments or karma that is
impacted.

Upvotes plus the current flags for incivility/inappropriateness should be
enough for moderation, and would remove the disincentive for the expression of
diverse ideas.

------
obj-g
If you can't take the heat, etc. It's silly to say "think about whether you
would say this to someone in person or not" \-- that's the whole point, you're
NOT saying it to someone in person, you can say what you want without the
usual repercussions. It's ultimately a good thing, even if some people get
hurt. And since when do you have a right not to be upset? But you do have a
right to keep off the internet if you can't handle it, not to post pictures of
yourself and your real name, not to base your life completely around the
internet and social media. I keep it anonymous, like the old days of the
internet. I have pretty bare social media profiles, mostly as a big rolodex.
If I post something else, opinions, what have you, I do it anonymously. Why
does everyone need everybody else to know exactly who and where they are and
everything about themselves? Because they think they're special and that
others care. And then they get trolled. And so it goes.

~~~
jhayward
This is about as sociopathic a view as one would expect from SV-oriented
people. The impact of what you do, as a person, on other people is of
paramount importance. Abstract statements like the above do not acknowledge,
much less value, the actual impact of online behavior.

I hope you grow out of these views. You may find life to be more rewarding.

~~~
obj-g
Sorry, SV-oriented?

~~~
jhayward
Silicon Valley, as a generalized concept.

~~~
obj-g
I think you've really misjudged me and what I'm saying. I think freedom on the
web is more important than hurt feelings and that people ought to have a bit
thicker skin in general or else stop making themselves so available to others.
If a site wants to ban people or purge messages, that's their prerogative and
they're welcome to do so. I don't need any cliche life lessons and sentiments
from someone calling me a sociopath for it, lol.

------
intopieces
This is nothing that has not been said before, and does not illuminate
anything about "the damage of social media." Yes, lack of real-world speech
consequences allows people who lack empathy to amplify their voice. Yes, kids
spend a lot of time on the Internet.

But this article lacks anything for us to do about it. The subset of
"travelfordifference.com" readers probably has little overlap with the people
who post in /b/.

This article lacks focus, lacks a clear audience, and lacks a clear path to
action.

As well, there are some misconceptions in this article.

>You do have the right to say what you please and your opinion certainly is
valid.

You don't always have the right to say what you please and just because you do
say it doesn't make your opinion 'valid'. There are plenty of invalid
"opinions."

>But there is a time and place for everything, and upsetting someone through
your words is not achieving a thing.

There is not a time and place for everything. For example, there is no time
and no place for slander. And upsetting someone validates the speaker's
ability to affect another person -- thus, the 'upsetter' is accomplishing
their goal.

>If someone is demonizing you, attacking you or upsetting you.. they are not
worth your time, your emotions or your words. Your life is better than theirs.
Be the bigger person and show social media how it should be done.

Just because someone is attacking you verbally does not mean your life is
better than theirs. In fact, if you are severely, adversely affected by online
hate-speech, your life is not better than theirs, and you need to change that.
"Being the bigger person" does nothing. Social media very, very rarely rewards
calm discourse on its own.

~~~
projektir
> You don't always have the right to say what you please and just because you
> do say it doesn't make your opinion 'valid'. There are plenty of invalid
> "opinions."

The First Amendment, at least in the US, protects the right of the people to
say what they please. It is a very important right, because it prevents that
form of power from being concentrated in a small group, and certain topics
never being brought up.

You may perceive many opinions as invalid, but you don't know how people
arrived at them - from their perspective, they're perfectly valid. This is
true for all humans, as we do not possess perfect information. Effectively all
of our opinions are invalid. This is not useful, and we're saying other
peoples' opinions are valid not because they're 100% factually correct, but as
a sign of respect and understanding that information processing is difficult
and that we acknowledge that the opinion is reasonable from their end.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
>You may perceive many opinions as invalid, but you don't know how people
arrived at them - from their perspective, they're perfectly valid.

Of course. But this has no relationship at all with their actual validity.

>a sign of respect and understanding that information processing is difficult
and that we acknowledge that the opinion is reasonable from their end.

But it's not about opinion, it's about the effect of those opinions on other
people.

I don't really care if some people think the EU is an organisation of Satanic
Communists who plan to take over the world, and that Britain has been cheated
out of its empire and self-respect by EU membership.

They're perfectly entitled to their opinion, even if I think it's nuts.

I most certainly do care if those people have the political effect of
depriving me of my right to travel and work in neighbouring countries. Then
it's no longer just about opinions, but about someone imposing a crazy world
view on other people and having a real effect on their lives.

The opinions can be dismissed. The political effects can't.

And that's the real problem. Free speech doesn't just mean the freedom to
criticise the government - it also means the freedom to try to persuade others
of the validity of a point of view, and to convert that persuasion into
political power.

Which is a problem, because it allows bad faith actors. Currently as a voter I
have more legal redress if I buy a toaster and it stops working than if a
politician wilfully and knowingly lies to me during a campaign of persuasion.
Similarly, there is very little redress against media outlets that lie or make
up content to further a political agenda.

I'd suggest both of those need to change. The action of deliberately and
knowingly misleading the public should be not be protected by free speech
laws. Politicians and media companies that do it should be held accountable.

The rationale is simple - professional liars benefit no one except themselves.
There is no case to be made for allowing wilful, deliberate dishonesty in
public discourse.

~~~
marklgr
The assumptions behind "unlimited full free speech" is that 1) speech is just
speech and has no consequences, and 2) it is all or nothing, either anyone can
say anything they want, anywhere, or there's no free speech.

Another point is that both politics and consumerism is about swaying people to
make them do what is profitable for the candidate or the seller, so all in all
it's better to have a very malleable population. Strong individualism, a mark
of many Western societies, significantly contributes to the general lack of
empathy and solidarity; as a consequence, the "losers" of the individualistic
competition are just ignored ("they must be stupid, or lazy"), and this makes
them all the more prone to being manipulated.

When you are in the business of selling little stories to people, you don't
want to face a well-educated community with strong ties.

------
exDM69
The OP mentions that the spark that caused the outrage they faced was an
incident involving their pets. I'm not surprised at all.

It's a very incendiary topic because people have _very_ strong opinions about
animal wellbeing and animal rights. Discussion forums (and Facebook groups,
etc) that concentrate on pets and animals also tends to draw in a crowd of
crazy cat ladies and other individuals with very polarized opinions.

I never discuss my pets, especially issues related to their health and
wellbeing (or other "incidents") on the internet. You will get mean responses
from people and you may get straight up harrassment from SJWs and other
"activists". If you are a public figure (even slightly), this may ruin your
life or your career.

This gets much worse on international forums, because different cultures have
different ideals of animal wellbeing. E.g. some americans consider declawing
cats to be alright, a lot of british people think that cats shouldn't be kept
indoors at all, some americans breed white tigers because they're "rare" (and
even run a "charity" to support them) and the british don't eat horse meat at
all. And then there's a bunch of people who think that animals should not be
"owned" at all. Mention any of these three things on a public, internationally
attended forum on animals and you are going to get a flame war.

Just don't mention your pets (or other activities related to animals) on
public internet forums. Nothing good can come out of it.

------
aaron695
Given they are sharing this vile post

[https://www.facebook.com/SavionMusic/posts/1261727890587736](https://www.facebook.com/SavionMusic/posts/1261727890587736)

of total incendiary bullshit, they really are calling the kettle black.

This is a prime example of fake stories that serve no purpose other than to
make people feel bad, make minorities feel worse and create divides.

~~~
makomk
We're meant to accept _those_ fake viral stories on social media because they
fit the narrative. For example, take this tweet from a senior reporter at CNN
attacking famed right-wing news cesspit Breitbart for covering the fakery:
[https://twitter.com/DylanByers/status/798263162508177410](https://twitter.com/DylanByers/status/798263162508177410)
The FBI actually said there was a surge in hate crimes _in 2015_. This in no
way confirms the post-election surge of social media stories as he pretends it
does. (Which makes his tweet a fake viral claim that a story about fake viral
hate crime claims is fake. Confusing, I know.)

~~~
obj-g
Not to mention if you actually look at the number of hate crimes per year they
are almost incredibly low. Something like (you can google yourself for exact
numbers) 500 hate crimes against Muslims in 2015 (400 in 2002, I think).
Considering how many people live in the United States, it's kind of amazing.
And hate crimes against Jews are always the highest. But now, just days after
the election, we're supposed to believe that the number has tripled,
quadrupled, whatever, in just a matter of days. It begs one to really think
about the veracity of some of the claims. As if people only suddenly became
openly racist. I think the type of person who would call someone a nigger is
gonna do it no matter who runs for president or who wins. And I wager a large
percentage of the reports are well-meaning (from an SJW perspective) BS.

~~~
dao-
There's no reason to think that the number of reports about low-threshold hate
speech and similar incidents on social media and the number of incidents on
FBI record should be the same. They can be vastly different and still true for
what they count, because they count different things. They are related,
though, and if one number goes up I'd expect the other number to go up as
well.

~~~
obj-g
No, you're right. I just wanted to point out how low the numbers are according
to the FBI. It's actually surprising to me, I would expect more. I didn't mean
to say that because the number of recent reports on social media seemingly
quadruples those numbers that they're not true -- I didn't word my comment
properly. I'm not making any truth claims, just that the amount of reports and
the content of the claims feel suspicious to me.

------
gtirloni
_Your opinion does not need to be a personal attack and it certainly does not
need to upset anyone in any way. If it does, you and I are clearly doing
something wrong._

I agree with this article in general but this particular statement stands out
for me because I can't imagine a world where everything we say has to be
carefully worded as not to upset anyone. Maybe I'm missing something here.

~~~
obj-g
But SJWs can imagine it perfectly. And that's the future they want for us.

------
partycoder
As the cost of publishing goes down, barrier of entry goes down, and you have
a flood of unverified content.

Where I come from, people started pranking on Twitter about incoming tsunamis
and all sort of mischief.

------
known
Unlike traditional media, social media spreads free opinion
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West)

~~~
kordless
Speaking for what someone thinks or feels is NOT an opinion. It's
untrustworthiness!

------
troopkevin
The real damage occur last week on the presidential election if you can say
so.

