I have been on the net since the 80s. There has always been one rule above the others: Do not feed the trolls.
Others include moderate, and take the good and leave the rest.
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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It doesn't matter where you go, you will run into assholes. Assholes are a part of life. The great thing about social media, though, is you can ignore them/block them and never see them again. You can't really do that IRL, despite the commonly given advice against bullies (at least that I got growing up) is to ignore them.
You don't need to do anything more than what you've already mentioned. Report them if they are breaking rules, and block them so even if they aren't you don't have to deal with them anymore.
Stick to subscriptions and don't join instances that are havens for trolls like hexbear and lemmygrad.
Odd thing is I’ve had more bad LW and ML interactions then those two.
ml is definitely a tankie instance but I remember .world being kinda center right/left to liberal for the most part. I'm on Mbin these days because I like the interface better, but blocking people and sticking to subs definitely helps IMO
Personally I would prefer a tankie over a reddit-style neolib but I get your point. I'll have to checkout the interface!
I'd prefer neither lol
I prefer echochambers for pretty niche ideologies.
Especially if I get to immerse myself into them to the point I forget it's niche.
I'm sure nothing bad will ever come from such practices!
I am also completely certain of this. The revolution starts next Thursday. The monarcho syndicalists will reign with beneviolence and wisedom and spunk.
One of the easiest things to do to avoid this is selecting communities and sticking with "subscribed." Despite the federated nature of Lemmy, I just hang out on Beehaw, because it's predictably not going to irritate me.
That's a good choice. I'm rarely on beehaw, maybe I should change that.
I'm rarely out of Beehaw, works like a charm.
Also only really lurk around beehaw, and maybe(e) it really is nicer here. Haven't had any complaints.
I believe that most of what some call "toxic" online behaviour boils down to people who treat the unknown as if it was certain.
That’s kind of how it is but the other way. I’ve noticed people just assume really quickly then write some rude reply and the clearly forming hive mind jumps in… not fun
Following this logic, it's human behaviour that predates the internet. And social media catalyses it - what you write is exposed to more people, who know even less about you than RL people would, with access to even less of the context necessary to take conclusions about you and what you say. The "let's fill holes with shit we just made up!" process is still the same, but now there are even more holes to fill.
And the dogpiling you mentioned (forming hive mind jumps in)? Well, it's still that "treating the unknown as if it was certain", but on steroids. Instead of treating what people say as potentially true/false, they treat it as certainly true/false and good/bad and anyone disagreeing/agreeing with you must be picking the right/wrong side.
Perhaps that's a sign that our human nature leans towards tribalism, not towards rationality.
I don't know a good solution for that. What I've been doing is
- pre-emptively blocking
- disregarding intentions - so I don't become part of the problem (or, if I am part of the problem, become less of)
- going "old man screams at cloud" style when I see this sort of assumption online, in the hopes that it changes something
- removing egregious examples of people who behave like this, specially in an accusatory way, from communities that I moderate.
I liberally use that block button. Even to whole communities & instances. Worrying about blocking a toxic user's speech from anyone's view but your own is not worth the effort (unless you happen to be a mod).
That's helped me a lot as well :) but I wish the block wasn't one sided. It's an odd choice that the other user can still see our content.
whatever we post is public... you can't stop someone from seeing public things. (Even if it worked the way you would like, they could browse anonymously or on a different account to see it). Blocking makes it convenient for you (so you don't have to look at public things that you don't want to see).
Good point but typically blocking is two way not a one way mirror.
Back in my day, one-way used to be the norm. Two-way is a more recent thing on some newer platforms, and I'm of the opinion that it does more harm than good. Especially in a public forum like this, it can be abused by bad actors as a way of hiding misinformation from those that would push back against it.
I know this because when Reddit changed their block system from one-way to two-way, that's exactly how it ended up getting abused.
For 2-way blocking, check Threads. It has more trolls and spam, but also more options like:
- User "Mute": 1-way block, like Lemmy
- User "Block": 3-way block, you don't see them, they don't see you, nobody sees their replies to your comments
- Reply "Hide for everyone": hide replies to your comments
- Comment "Limit who can reply": Anyone / only Followed / only Mentioned
Although it's a Meta spawn, it ends up being relatively clean since users can "ban" each other from discussions, which works as a de-escalation mechanism.
I mean, maybe a de-escalation, but also rife for it's own forms of abuse.
IE... someone wants to spread misinformation... they block anyone fact checking or disproving their nonsense.
Now I fully agree, the misinformation rabbitholes have diminishing returns the longer the thread and arguement goes on.
IE lets say
Misinformer, posts blatent lie.
Person1: Rebuts lie, Includes multiple credible sources for the rebuttle.
Misinformer: Claims all true sources are in a conspiracy or agenda.
Person1: argues back
At this point it's just wasting everyones time... but IMO the initial fact check is important for people approaching.
So in the lemmy method.
Person 1 can debunk the claim. Block the person... leave it up to others if they actually want to bother engaging etc...
Sounds to me like the threads method on the other hand.... Fake claimer can go... and either whack a mole block comments that disagree... or shut off discussion altogether leaving the claim unchecked. To me that seems a bigger problem. Fact is there's a lot of falsehoods that sound convincing to the general public, but are easilly disprovable with a bit of research, and IMO they need to be challanged where the claims are made.
That is true, but only works at a single thread level:
- Mallory posts some misinformation - A
- Alice replies with a rebuttal - B
- Bob replies to Alice with further fact-checking - C
- Mallory hides Alice's comment B, leaving Bob's C only visible to Alice
- Eve adds a supporting reply - D
- Charlie replies to Eve with a rebuttal - E
- Eve can hide Charlie's E, but Mallory can't
Now Mallory has to decide whether to:
- Hide D+E, losing Eve's support D
- Hope for Eve to hide E
- Leave Eve's support D with Charlie's rebuttal E visible
If Mallory keeps hiding replies, her post A will have less engagement, with a notification of "Some additional replies are unavailable".
Meanwhile... Alice doesn't need to stop rebutting A:
- Alice reposts Mallory's A as a quote with her own comment - B(A)
- Mallory can do nothing about B(A) since it's under Alice's control
- Alice replies to her own B(A) with a quote of Bob's C - C2
- If Alice got to see Charlie's E, she can also quote it - E2
If people like Alice's rebuttal, then it can get more engagement than Mallory's misinformation, which makes the algorithm show it to more people.
So while the system can create echo chambers at a single thread level, as long as a post is open to comments and resharing, which are essential to spreading it, anyone can also grab it and create their own chamber around it.
It's usual to see these kinds of reposts, with separate discussions, sometimes linking to each other and creating larger discussion pools.
I think there's the problem though, so Alice posts it on her page.
Now there's 2 ways people will see it... Either the algorythm is looking. So that's a popularity contest, assuming the algorythm is going based on engagement etc... Which unfortunately I have to say, historically BS tends to gather larger crowds than popular ones.
More importantly if we are talking algorythms they tend to push people towards the type of content they regularly consume. IE the algorythm is going to push people who are suceptible to BS (Some of which may be the ones who are suceptible, but not so far gone as to be immune to truth) to Mallory's page. Meanwhile alice's page will be drawing the skeptics, the ones who would like to push back against it... but can't. I see the mallory page like the /r/conservative subreddit. A fucking cespool, and most importantly very very determined to push out any views that disturb the narrative... yet with about 10x the views as any specifically left subreddits I can find (though admitted only 1/8th of general politics, which is still leftish by US standards.
Ultimately, outside of friends and followers, all media discovery is a popularity contest, can't really discover the least popular content... and it's usually for a good reason.
Threads is not a perfect solution, but I think it does have elements going in the right direction. Mallory doesn't have a "page" like a subreddit, there is no group of mods with power over the whole conversation; even if multiple people were to share an account, even if they added an "automod" bot... they still only have direct power over direct replies, not sub-replies. Astroturfing, gang upvoting, and bot saturation are still a thing, but the ability to shape conversations by selective pruning and cherry picking, is much more limited. Mallory's options are: either to let people disagree, or to create multiple fake accounts, or to fall off the popularity contest.
Then, each comment/post/repost is its own ecosystem, the only common mod ruleset is from "daddy Meta"... which has its own issues, but not nearly the issues of a subreddit.
At the end of the day, all communication platforms fall somewhere between "single person dictatorship" (static web pages) and "anything goes" (4chan). There is no magic bullet, so far.
IMHO, right now Threads is more chaotic than Reddit or Lemmy, but has the tools to avoid becoming a 4chan or even a Facebook (somewhat ironically).
People using somewhat anonymous accounts feel that they can get away with behavior that would otherwise not be tolerated in real life. If someone doesn’t want to be subjected to such behavior, then there are few options. One of them being refraining from using online forums.
Facebook has a "real name" policy. It doesn't work, some people create plausibly sounding fake accounts, while others get banned for not sounding plausible enough. Chinese social networks require official ID registration, they're still full of trolls, bullying, and fake accounts. The EU is working on an expanded Digital ID service suite... theoretically it could be done well, but based on past experiences, I remain somewhat skeptical.
It wouldn't accept my real name as apparently I had an account. I had to use a fake one. It was perfectly happy.
That was a couple of years ago though.
I keep wondering, if forums and social media platforms required ID verification (probably through a third party with policies against retaining PII) and each account was linked (but not necessarily publicly) to a real ID, would that help? For example, being banned from a platform would be permanent since the ban would be tied indirectly to your ID, meaning that consequences would be real for abuse.
I feel like the core problem is that people can post without consequences. It's both a good thing and a bad thing ofc, but maybe the downsides are too big.
Could also maybe be a more robust "verified" system I guess where all platforms verify identities of businesses/people through a common provider, and even a platform like Lemmy could show who is verified (which would require tying the identity to the account publicly). This would still allow for anonymous accounts, but those who are verified would be able to be held accountable to what they post online in exchange for higher credibility. I don't think the verification systems we've seen already really help that much though, considering how toxic twitter has been basically throughout its entire existence.
We choose our levels of anonymity. You responded to Chris, who uses his full name as a handle, and I'm responding to you as literally the only person in the world with my name. ID verification is an unnecessarily onerous requirement that just adds more PII to the insatiable maws of tech firms.
You can self-select being open about your identity, and that seems a good middle ground. Facebook has had a real-name requirement for quite some time, and it didn't exactly settle into civil discourse as a result of that policy change.
I think what I was more hoping that would address are anonymous (and sometimes fake) personas spreading hatred and misinformation publicly and loudly. I guess the problem though is that even without anonymity, people still do it anyway, and Facebook and Twitter are great examples of that. I think having control over your own anonymity is important. I just wish there was less of a feeling that you can harm and disrespect others without consequence.
That's taken rather seriously on Beehaw, but we of course have no control over what happens on other instances.
I think the issue is people just want a drop-in Reddit replacement via Lemmy, which is easily enough done to a certain degree on other instances. Having control over your Web presence takes effort. Choosing not to put that effort in is a personal decision.
Good on you for using your real name. Just as some criticize wikipedia for anonymitity, I wonder if a forum with real names would cause people to be more respectful.
Your an admin here, can I ask which com is best for selfhosting?
which com is best for selfhosting?
Not sure what you mean. Would you, please, elaborate?
I wonder if a forum with real names would cause people to be more respectful.
Permies.com requires people to use their real name (at least something that sounds real) and there's very little toxicity there. Although how much that affects things I don't know, as the mods are very active, and quick to ban.
Society tried that for a bit. It was called Facebook and most people just found ways to be jerks on there too!
Because that's what social media generates and all social media was a mistake.
You can also leave.
Beyond reporting and blocking I'll usually take a break or depending on the amount of toxic people I may just leave the platform altogether.
If you find yourself surrounded by assholes it may best just to leave and find a new spot.
Spaceballs: The Comment Thread
Taking a break is a good idea but I came here from reddit because I enjoy selfhosting and believed in this alternative. I don't know where else I'd go. I enjoy the forum style community.
The beauty of this kind of platform (Lemmy) is you can leave one instance that has affiliations you don't like and move to one that has affiliations you like.
For example I have alts on other instances that aren't federated the same so particular instances I see as quite problematic I never see their comments or posts. It makes the whole thing more pleasant.
There's also having multiple accounts that are focused on different things, like one that's focused on memes, one that's focused on news, one that's focused on hobby things, so that you can keep them all separated and isolated from each other. That way, if the account you have for news is going to be particularly in a knee-deep-of-dread situation (like political content) afterwards you can switch to your hobby account and not see that content until you're ready again.
IMO it's good for your mental health as you can take breaks from the dread.
That’s a good idea! Also gets people off your back when they’re rude.
Exactly!
Compartmentalizing your online presence is always a good thing.