this post was submitted on 30 May 2021
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What do you think about recent events on c/worldnews? Should we try to prevent such behaviors? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
19 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

so if you haven't come across it, see here , here , here and here .

in short, one side says sources are pro-imperialist, the other side believes they're legitimate sources. then there is one user thinking we have been targeted by troll farms, one accusing others of being conspiracy theorists and stuff like that. it's one of the most unproductive arguements I've seen on Lemmy, something that looks like one those downvoted-to-oblivian threads on reddit. it's just a mess.

I think we can do a few things to prevent such pointless fights in the future:

  1. my favoriate response would be creating a community of fact-checker Lemmurs. it'll function similar to a wikipedia talk page, anyone can request a trial for an article shared on c/worldnews , then they will present evidence and sources to challenge the article, while the other side attempts to do the same. personal attacks, accusing of being a troll, asking for a call on jitsi to debate face to face (like seriously?!?!) will be forbidden. both sides will debate untill they reach an agreement. trying to go off-topic, bad faith arguements etc will be forbidden as well.

each time we reach a conclusion, a positive or negative point will be assigned to news source and to the person who posted it. best contributers who show the least bias will get a point as well. overtime it will help us to see if a source is really good or not.

  1. a much easier approch would be to let downvotes and upvotes decide the fate of each post. I understand that this is the whole point of lemmy and similar platforms, but right now we have the problem of each side using downvotes and upvotes like it's a battle. posts about internet censoreship and tiny pigs are being downvoted because the person who posts them trusts the Guardian and other news outlets.

  2. we can limit the number of posts on c/worldnews to minimize the amount of personal attacks and arguements.

so what do you think? I personally think as more users come to lemmy, we'll be dealling with more diverse opinions, and people might just engage in behaviors that harms the platform and benefits no one. this will be a real problem considering that Lemmy leans far-left. in my opinion having a fact-checking community will be neccessary if we don't want fact-based communities turn into battlefields.

ps: am I going too far and overreacting? to be honest I don't know xD I just think there's no chance for productive political arguements if we can't agree on the facts, and i see no point in what's happening on c/worldnews right now.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

I agree that maybe there's something that could be done.

Fact checking is tricky

As to fact-checking, I'm not really sure what to do. On one hand I worry the 'reputation' system would be too restrictive. On the other hand, in general (by which I mean that I haven't seen this crop up in Lemmy but I wouldn't like to see) I'd hate to see anti-vax, flat-earth, or otherwise blatant fake science showing up.

Nudging cognition and affect is as well, but seems more viable

But there is something that could be done regarding the way in which the Lemmy interface nudges our thoughts and feelings. The paradigmatic example in the Fediverse is Eunomia. I wonder (and don't doubt we could find) literature on these nudges to improve interactions.

The goal could be to avoid finger-pointing as well as aggression, and to incentivize thought/understanding, kindness, and, in general, positive emotions so that we're able to be both flexible and critical. Note that the positive emotions part is not me being hippy-dippy; by now it's well established that positive emotions enhance cognition and permit a much broader set of automatic thinking habits than negative emotions. In particular, negative emotions have no desirable characteristics that positive emotions can't deliver (make sure you read p.110 ΒΆ2 sentences 4 and 5).

It would be great if we can find a way of changing interfaces in such a way as to nudge us towards positive emotions and critical thinking.

But until the heavy lifting for that is done (something that, once I feel comfortable with my CS training, I could attempt), I wonder if the minimal Democratic manifesto could be done with tricky situations like these in mind. In other words, make an explicit, clear, and widespread expectation that we're here to share, understand critically, and interact kindly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

On the other hand, in general (by which I mean that I haven’t seen this crop up in Lemmy but I wouldn’t like to see) I’d hate to see anti-vax, flat-earth, or otherwise blatant fake science showing up.

You should bet on that happening. I created /c/conspiracy because Reddit's /r/conspiracy is effectively /r/The_Donald. These people do not care about your facts, at all whatsoever. If anything they'll want their "facts" to be the only facts you ever encounter. Go there (/r/conspiracy) and look around if you do not believe me. A different approach needs to be taken. I was there when Voat was first created, before it turned to shit. Something creative needs to happen here, or IMO this place will turn to shit too.

RUSSIAN ACTIVE MEASURES CAMPAIGNS AND INTERFERENCE IN THE 2016 U.S. ELECTION

VOLUME 2: RUSSIA'S USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA:

Analysis of the behavior of the IRA-associated social media accounts makes dear that while the Russian information warfare campaign exploited the context of the election and election-related issues in 2016, the preponderance of the operational focus, as reflected repeatedly in content, account names, and audiences targeted, was on sociapy divisive issues-such as race, immigration, and Second Amendment rights-in an attempt to pit Americans against one another and against their government. The Committee found that IRA influence operatives consistently used hot-button, societal divisions in the United States as fodder for the content they published through social media in order to stoke anger, provoke outrage and protest, push Americans further away from one another, and foment distrust in government institutions. The divisive 2016 U.S. presidential election was just an additional feature of a much more expansive,, target-rich landscape of potential ideological and societal sensitivities.

A much easier approch would be to let downvotes and upvotes decide the fate of each post.

That's one of the worst ideas I can think of right now. If anything upvotes/downvotes should be disabled for a temporarily amount of time.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

Go there (/r/conspiracy) and look around if you do not believe me. A different approach needs to be taken. I was there when Voat was first created, before it turned to shit. Something creative needs to happen here, or IMO this place will turn to shit too.

I was not at Voat or Raddle or Saidit or other reddit clones for this reason. I picked Lemmy due to multiple reasons, and one of them largely was that QAnon followers could simply not flock here and spew all kinds of nonsense. I am trying to look around ways to help encounter this, because for now only vigilance of user base seems the correct answer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

I was on Voat when it was a pleasant community like Lemmy, and I tried to nudge for civility as over time every post became hateful and angry. I would still browse Voat occasionally until it shut down because I value diversity of thought, and I was curious to encounter rhetoric which contradicted my own beliefs.

Lemmy is not so different, however, instead of having a far-right bias Lemmy has a far-left bias. For now there are no far-right Lemmy instances to balance far-left instances like Lemmygrad.ml. This creates an atmosphere where right-leaning, and centrist users might take one look around and feel unwelcome.

I think it is important that left-leaning, centrist, and right-leaning users feel welcome while leaving bigotry at the door. We need for someone who is bigoted to feel welcome here by all of their other traits, and to erode their bigoted beliefs over time because bigotry is not tolerated. I think Lemmy and the Fediverse have real potential to foster a space where diverse users can share stories and form communities with users who hold very different beliefs.

Voat showed it is not enough to create an open platform with unmoderated free speech, the platform itself must have structures in place to promote civility, and the users of the platform must work hard to maintain a culture of civility. The fact that QAnon believers are not welcome here means that Lemmy has already siloed itself, and I believe that the current policy of non-federation with disagreeable instances is too strict to be a long-term viable solution.

My vision for fostering civility on Lemmy is for sublemmies to federate with one another across instances. e.g. /c/[email protected] could federate freely with /c/[email protected] and /c/[email protected] to promote relationships between users with very different beliefs. However, /c/[email protected] might want to federate much more selectively with /c/[email protected] or /c/[email protected]. Perhaps /c/[email protected] and /c/[email protected] could have a weekly debate post which is the only post that federates between them.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 years ago (2 children)

I agree that while Lemmy looks like a far-left space, you have to consider why people that escaped Reddit and r/worldnews style of Hegelian vacuums came here. Reddit provides a neoliberal space, Raddle/Gab/chans (4chan et al) provide a far right safe space, and Lemmy provides a safe space as well.

People over there mass brigade and spout racist shit and do not rely on facts to prop up their agendas. None of this happens on Lemmy, because far left is one domain that largely does not consist of uneducated hypocrites, reactionaries, warmongerers or racists and believes in critical thinking just like some of the conservatives do.

The problem is, you will not see corrupt liberals or neocons leaving their bigotry or agendas at the door for a discussion, and will use every opportunity to leverage their agendas. This is what creates such massive friction. That does not mean to say far left people are some hermits, but I have seen more humanity, collective good and peace advocacy in this political space than anywhere else. And there is no honeymoon phase in political ideologies, so I am not dreaming either.

Instances, unless agree to rules mutually, cannot and should not federate with each other. It has massive consequences of destroying peace for the composed, silent users, and whoever wants chaos is the beneficiary party of such federations (often the far right warmongerer kind or a right libertarian or a neoliberal).

From what I saw, Voat became a far right thing, and QAnon stuff has poisoned half the American voter population. Allowing these kinds of propaganda liars, while seemingly great in utopia, is dangerous on Earth today, because we do not have a utopia. Society envisioned in a vacuum is meaningless unless you live in a vacuum.

Every "free speech" platform is simply a way for contemporary fascism to flourish, which is observed evidently again and again and again and again and again. It is why Mastodon had to ban National Socialism (Nazi) people from its main instance, which most instances do prefer.

It is a tougher problem than you or I can think. I wrote a small piece on it in December 2020. https://teddit.net/r/privatelife/comments/k7vngo/2020_special_the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly_my/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

Reddit provides a neoliberal space, Raddle/Gab/chans (4chan et al) provide a far right safe space, and Lemmy provides a safe space as well.

I think you misspelt "echo chamber" as "safe space".

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

I just don't believe we can bridge divides by refusing to build bridges. It is easy to unfederate if things get out of hand, but I believe to not try at all would be a tragedy.

People [on Reddit, 4Chan, et al] mass brigade and spout racist shit and do not rely on facts to prop up their agendas. None of this happens on Lemmy, because far left is one domain that largely does not consist of uneducated hypocrites, reactionaries, warmongerers or racists and believes in critical thinking just like some of the conservatives do... you will not see corrupt liberals or neocons leaving their bigotry or agendas at the door for a discussion, and will use every opportunity to leverage their agendas.

When I read that, I felt a little put off because it stereotypes many of the people in my life and espouses a certain pretentiousness, or holier-than-thou attitude of the Left. The left can be every bit as violent and bigoted as the right: a few years ago my local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America was ransacked by disgruntled communists advocating for violent revolution who were angry with the DSA's peaceful message and reformist agenda. In fact, one of the problems I have witnessed of the left is that there is often an "all or nothing" attitude which self-defeats incremental progress, and undermines solidarity efforts.

Personally, I was raised in a deeply conservative evangelical christian community, and I was sent to radical christian camps as a kid, so I have certainly been in the belly of the beast so to speak. My grandmother is an incredibly talented organ player, a wonderful cook, and a civic minded woman with a tremendous heart, but she is also staunchly against unions and socialist government programs. I think of her, and many of my family members & friends who hold beliefs that conflict with my own, and I refuse to discard the opportunity to have relationships with them because they do not believe entirely what I do.

You are absolutely right that civility becomes more difficult to maintain with wider diversity of opinions, but I also believe the community is made more vibrant by diversity: I was once stuck in San Francisco on Christmas day (the whole city pretty much shuts down), but fortunately Chinatown was bustling because most of the residents & shop owners there do not celebrate Christmas, so I was finally able to get some food. I believe we should have more nuanced control over federation policies rather than "all or nothing". I don't think that is naive, I think it is a non-defeatist curiosity to solve problems and make things better. I'm hopeful that as Lemmy and the Fediverse grow they can help erode the perception gap by pioneering policies and practices that build bridges across divides.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

Bridges are established with those that also want to handshake with some mutual agreement. One cannot make bridges while compromising their own ideals.

You can verify when I tell about the "stereotypes", people have some common traits and elements. I never say that one should overgeneralise people or things, as they are a pet practice of the neocon or the libertarian. But there should be some identifiable behaviours nonetheless, as we are all humans with some anomalies only so many political thoughts at the end of the day.

I have been an alumni of a very famous Christian convent school, so I know Christian evangelists pretty well. And it is amazing that you did not get trapped there, o7

As for family, I have a neoliberal family with some neocon members as well. I am the only one I know who leans towards socialism, even in my distant friend circles and so on. I do not burn bridges, but I always challenge their beliefs and notions, and have been able to tilt them for some towards being less biased. I used to get called "China agent" and "Russian bot" in jest, I sometimes still do, but it has changed a lot. Some idiots still call me that online, but it takes me a couple reply exchanges to expose them.

It is not simply that civillity becomes harder to achieve amongst diversity, it is that everyone has an itch to scratch for confirmation bias. People have forgotten and discarded ideals and ethics of a genuine discussion, and it always becomes a quick race to win, or a race to the bottom using common tactics like deflection, projection, strawmen, reverse psychology, ad hominems and so on. I love this website and its articles, especially this one on this topic https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/L4HQ3gnSrBETRdcGu/philosophical-landmines (I think @poVoq shared it, grateful to them.)

There is lots, but the crux of problems to me, from experience, looks like partisan politics and overgeneralisation that keeps from having neutral, civil and fruitful discussions.

Edit: LMAO some funny people downvoting me so far down the comment chain, do they think I am discouraged from writing these thesis comments? I am a joker card.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

From what I remember Voat didn't start off as a Qanon hangout.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 years ago

Yes. I am not saying that it started as one, but any unmoderated free speech platform becomes a breeding ground for these discriminatory low lifes. Moderation is only a tool, how it is used depends on the moderator, whether it be for enforcing civillity or bias.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

I think the key here is reminding ourselves why we are on lemmy, as opposed to other social media sites. I'll speak for myself, having recently discovered lemmy on reddit while looking for alternatives to that site:

  • Lack of corporation/state control (i.e. tencent buying a stake in reddit),

  • Lack of censorship (while bearing in mind that individual communities can and should retain the right to enforce rules)

  • Privacy (lightweight interface which doesn't sell your data to advertisers)

  • A new start (ideally learning from mistakes of previous forum/social media endeauvours)

In my opinion structurally incentivising long form debate as opposed to hot takes in political/worldnews instances is one way of improving the discourse. I enjoy the r/geopolitics approach (though I am aware that many here will disagree with the political slant of that subreddit), in that submissions are heavily regulated and require an input from the OP as to why they are posting a given source.

One thing I would also say from my perspective, is that I am a novice in regards to the technical elements of lemmy as far as federalised platforms and struggle to participate in technology based privacy discussions.

Perhaps outreach from the more tech savvy elements of the lemmy community towards "tech novices" (among whom I count myself) in regards to internet privacy and the privacy benifits of lemmy and other such endeauvours would be helpful here in retaining users. It should be easy to find a simple explanation on the advantages of lemmy vis a vis other (hopefully soon to be) obsolete (heh) platforms.

Some of these points don't directly attatch to the discussion of the OP, but I feel this thread has engendered much discussion in the wider community.

tl;dr: privacy, lack of massed external interference good, outreach to less tech savvy, but privacy interested users good, dispensing with a datascraping monetisation model very good, repeating mistakes of established platforms bad bad bad

Edit: Cleanup

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago (1 children)

First of all, thanks for making this thread, I think it is important to discuss these issues in the open, rather than developing grudges.

I think what you are mainly talking about are the comments by @[email protected] and @[email protected] which are relatively aggressive. We could probably consider them violations against rule 2 ("Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here"), which we havent enforced that much so far. So enforcing that rule more strictly could already be a step in the right direction, though I am unsure where to draw the line (suggestions welcome).

That said, I think it is important to allow everyone to voice their opinion, especially if they disagree. If everyone agrees from the start, that doesnt make for an interesting discussion. This is also why I dislike the idea of fact checkers, because it likely means that one side gets excluded from the discussion, and Lemmy turns into an echo-chamber.

On the technical side, we are working on a feature that will let users block communities (so you dont see their posts anymore). That should be useful for people who simply dont care about politics (or other topics).

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 years ago (1 children)

I will admit I acted in a pervert manner, and with a tinge of assholery. No defense for that. However I planned to possibly generate this discussion as a chain reaction resultant.

If I had not acted aggressively, confronting the absolutely bizarre mass posting of particular kind of news articles like this, it would have continued, a behaviour which started to ramp up in the last few days.

I have been one of the people that do not want to see Lemmy as that same bigoted toxic narrow echo chamber as Reddit or other social media, and I had to act like a pervert for it for the greater good.

The last thing I will accept, as an old adopter of Lemmy, is it getting trashed by handful users with a bias of their own, even if it requires engagement, a bit of confrontation and reforms.

Moreover, the narrative bring thrown around of discouraging critical thinking, and promoting some fact checker groups, is anti intellectual and encourages degrading quality of posters and conversations.

I have a ton of experience with forums and hence can explain this stuff. Anyone may discuss this with me, now that the dust has settled (hopefully). I will be relatively calm here.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

βœ… Self-awareness

βœ… Being prosocial (although I wonder if people would see the "I had to do it" as prosocial, but still)

Thanks for those two things.

I'm sure you'll be able to discuss your genuinely interesting views in an effective way (apart from continuing posting interesting stuff!)

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 years ago

Do not worry, I came here not for a sprint but a marathon ;)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

I came to Lemmy because I'm sick of the nonstop corporate interference in internet communications. I support open source and the movement towards decentralization. That's why I'm excited about this platform.

Like any community, we're going to have growing pains. But this site could easily descend into extremist echo chambers that many reddit alternatives have. Look how quickly a site like Voat turned into a Nazi / alt-right propaganda site. I don't believe it's civil to completely discredit an article because it's from a "Western" or "European" source without credible citations. A comment such as "Another pro-imperialist post I see!" is nothing more than a shitpost. An informative post that brings to light some hypocrisy is fine, sometimes a reality check is needed. But we should be civil.

I would support a fact based curation system, but I don't know how we could scale that. Not to mention you'd be in a "who watches the watchmen?" kind of situation.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

So people discredit articles based on continent they were written on?...

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 years ago

No, they are discredited based on who funds the narratives and news outlets and what political tilt they have.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 years ago

To prevent the mouse, hire a cat. Then to hinder the cat, hire a dog. To stop the dog, hire a lion. To stop the lion, hire a shotgun man. To prevent the shootings, bring in police. To protest against the police, create chaos.

To prevent the chaos, nip the problem in the bud.