Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. We try to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are highly encouraged as no-discussion downvotes don't help anyone learn anything valuable. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
We’re back! Instead of putting a neutral topic in the introduction, I'm placing a bit of opinion on an issue to see if it helps spur discussion. We are also actively seeking moderators and people who enjoy discussion (and understand that being wrong is an important part of being a better person)! Send me a message if you’d like to help out.
This week, I'd like to discuss something that's been a bit of an issue for me personally.
Lemmy (and Reddit before it) appears to have a problem with overly-aggressive bannings for perceived slights. In the topic linked above there were people permanently banning users from multiple communities (any they moderate - dozens in some cases) for single downvotes, 4 downvotes across a ten-month period, and bannings because a moderator thought they maybe sorta kinda read that a user may have had a negative thought about their pet issue.
I've personally been banned from Communities (and sent some pretty vile PMs) for posting in our weekly threads here playing devil's advocate where I state hard questions that I do not necessarily feel are correct. They think they've discovered some secret agenda by finding posts I've made here and use them as "receipts" in order to dismiss anything they think they're reading that may be contrary to their opinion. Any context provided for the post falls on deaf ears.
I'm someone who operates on the idea of "If you can not defend an opinion from scrutiny, you should probably not hold that opinion."
To quote myself:
It’s pretty tragic that people can't handle opposing opinions. I think the activist nature of Lemmy is kind of a self-destructive spiral and people need to learn how to live with each other again. But I guess that’s the issue with modern social media as a whole… Nobody has any idea how to convince anyone else, only to yell at them louder.
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- Are niche Communities correct for banning anyone who downvotes?
- Do downvotes represent a "disagree" button for you (this Community notwithstanding)?
- Most importantly, what would it take to change this?
- Does it help build the Community? What about the platform as a whole?
- Is there a way to build a "safe space" without building an echo chamber online? Is that even a valuable thing to build?
The upvote/downvote system was always meant to be in relation to one agreeing/ disagreeing or liking/disliking with what one is interacting with, and I do believe that it is the inescapable function of it, regardless of how much thought one puts into it or not. One would have to find a bizarre thought process that could result in one avoiding that inevitability. Like someone who chooses to upvote what they disagree with or downvote what they agree with. Doesn't sound conceivable. Maybe in an algorithm driven platform one could use this as a thought experiment to find the opposite of oneself or one's own opposition in suggested content, but here without an algorithm to drive it, not even that is conceivable.
In regards to people piling on and using downvotes in a form of a brigade attack, similar to review bombing pieces of media... While I dislike this profoundly and find it enormously toxic, it is still within the realm of public expression. If one means to silence it, one means to suppress the freedom for others to express themselves as both individuals and as a group. As much as I find it despicable or toxic in a lot of contexts, I can't bring myself to justify the act of banning this form of expression in showing discontent. As I'm sure we've all found moments in which we agreed with a form of public outrage expression such as this one. But we're still all being baited into pack mentality which is an essential feature to maximise engagement in algorithmic platforms. And it is why it is a key requirement for me now that if I'm to join any platform that this feature needs to be non-existent. No algorithm driven platforms for me, thanks. If the user is not driving the experience, I find it repulsive, and so should anyone else.
As to banning in general... The user as an individual can block whomever they so desire, including entire instances. That is the control that anyone should be allowed to have as an individual. But not banning. Moderating or not, I find banning a suppression tool that can be used to suppress legitimate criticism, and it does happen all the time. Everywhere. So, I'm opposed to banning. Even in extreme cases of crude language and abhorrent and toxic behaviour. As I find that banning is sweeping the problem under the rug and not allowing it to be seen, identified, analysed and to further uncover the root causes of that said problem. Be that of an individual or any type of mob mentality. Back when I left reddit, I didn't leave because there were too many shitty users, I left because they were being rewarded with attention without examination. And the algorithm there was what did that and still does. There and everywhere else.
I'm 40. Even recently someone here reminded me of the concept of "Eternal September". I hadn't heard it in a long time. But I've seen it happen many times. The absence of an algorithm alone is enough to build a fence to stave off some of the largest problems of modern online spaces.
For anyone who doesn't know, not even the incel community was a toxic one when it started. In the late 90's it was just people sharing their insecurities in those forums. And it was composed of both male and female users seeking to find connection through the act of sharing their insecurities in an attempt to find a way out of loneliness. Cut to now and what the hell happened? I was too young back then to parse through the nuances and complexities of what was going on those forums. But one thing that I always pondered was if whatever happened there was the prelude to Gamergate. Because I think Gamergate was what "trained" algorithms to reinforce toxicity because it tracked the maximising of engagement that occurred, and then reinforced it because maximising engagement was what it was supposed to do. And just like people swept under the rug the incel community gone terribly wrong by dismissing it as some trivial internet phenomena, people did the same with Gamergate as they dismissed it as some trivial dumb gamer thing. And now look at where we are. But the fact is that this was and has been growing for a long time, people just didn't bother to assess it, and banning this to the outer margins was one of the reasons it grew. And then the algorithms came and rewarded and emboldened it all.
If I had to sum it up I would say... Modern civilization isolates people, which generates loneliness, which generates resentment for others and an enormous need for connection, which then finds connection in resemblance in the loneliness and resentment of others online, with the internet not solving the loniless that is seething underneath of it all and even reinforcing it. It's a loop. And it is not secular to men or young men, it's everyone without a social life and real connections that gets caught in this loop. And the algorithimc influence only accelerates it.
This all to say that banning people is another one of the contributors that leads people down darker and darker paths to find somebody that will listen to them. As uncomfortable as it might be to encounter this, I want all this in plain sight, and I want everyone of sound mind to try to engage and try to disarm what is causing the people in question to spiral down.
I know it's not pleasant nor easy, but if we avoid it, the result will be even more unpleasant and harder to deal with.
Just take a look at the world now... Loneliness was weaponized by the indecent, because the decent refused to engage. And it is still going on and on.
And the antidote can't be the continuous matching of resentment nor to allow the conditions that set this in motion to remain unacknowledged.
As a moderator of computer security forums (cryptography specifically) who deal with both cranks and aggressive spammers - you just can't do without bans.
The only long term solution is to ensure there's always more than one community with separate leadership, so there's accountability for mods through pressure from the users. The threat to leave must feel credible.
Yeah, I agree that the complexity is larger in practice than just saying no bans. And I've even commented recently that I've heard directly from coders that it is easier to code and built the platforms than it is to manage the user base. I also said I'm not a coder so I can't make that claim. But I've heard it first hand.
But I still can't agree in principle with the blank nature of banning. I have to say that I've never been banned from any online space. Not once. Not on reddit, not on Lemmy, and I hope that continues now on Piefed. So, I'm not defending this principle on a basis that I've experienced a ban in its true opressive form like some people are sharing in this thread. Because I haven't. But I have in the past taken a stand in defence of people that I vehemently disagreed with, because I believe however heinous their comments or choice of words were, I want them to be out in the open. That is how the accountability can actually occur. And that is how they get to be challenged. Not cast out without reasoning. If they leave to set up shop somewhere where only the heinous will follow, that's how we allow this wound to fester and spread its putrefaction. And no form of accountability or consequence actuality took place. None whatsoever.
And it was extremely bad news when I saw the freedom of speech starting to become a proud talking point of conservative and retrograde outlets more than a decade ago. Which was in my impression at the tail-end of Gamergate. ( But did it ever end though? SJW versus Anti-SJW just got rebranded as Woke versus Anti-Woke) But sill, I think back then was when all the grifters that are now famous spotted this great online grift : Say something obnoxious or questionably dubious, then let in the brigade that want to tell them they can't say that, so that they can sound the horn and call the free speech absolutists and cry out that freedom of speech is under threat and nearly gone. All while they have the freedom to recycle and repeat this nonsense over and over.
This type of political play has been around for a long time...
But here, online, it's truly the same method of the old online Troll. I mean, I even found some trolling in the past absolutely ingenious and even hilarious in some cases. But I guess a lot of people didn't learn the old ungated ways of the internet, where we would spot the Troll and know not to feed it. As the online spaces became more deranged it became harder to distinguish and we went from playing "spot the troll" to playing "is this satire?" really quickly.
But still, anyone perceptive knew these rising grifters only wanted to defend this right so they could get to opress the rights of others and control the narrative all while cashing in on furthering the protective barrier for the wealthy class to keep hoarding more wealth and control. I believe some were even being sponsored to do so. And there's been some evidence uncovered of some extreme far right groups even directly funding this type of bait in Europe. I mean, it was always clear as day, but they managed to garner a lot of suppport from gullible people who thought they were being virtuous in the defense of freedom. But they were surrendering control to the faction and people who want to control speech the most. Because they always have wanted to control it the most all along.
But this was only possible because some people really intended on policing speech instead of disarming the nonsense with facts through the same freedom. As righteous as their motivations might've been, this was a truly misguided step.
The righteous path cannot mimic the behaviours and practices of oppression and tyranny. It will only bring about the same cycles of resistance. As it obviously has.
Nothing that is merely enforced is ever truly learned, and this way true progress is never achieved.