Toxic is subjective.... looking into the abyss you might need a break from time to time. There is no changing, just freespeech and no freespeech. Now some platforms incourage ganging up on people and blocking you from anonymity. I believe forums should be pro free speech and anonymous. The anonymous aspect would deal with the vanity and narsisim which plagues our societies also I am not against hug boxes for like support groups... there is a time and place also. I also believe some of you need to toughen up... or pull back. We should be allowed to cuss for pizzacrust sake. Also people can be passive in their violence. Some can't handle honesty. The lion with the thorn in his paw. By "fixing" the problem you might become the thing you hate. I say run a little wild and don't take yourself or what you see online too seriously. The answer is not a point but a spectrum.
Ask Lemmy
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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.
I like what you have to say, but I will be honest. Hate radio is what started this journey for me back in the 1980s and there was no mythical time you could have a polite conversation in the US about politics. The whole politics ruining Thanksgiving has been going on since the Vietnam War and the concept probably dates back to before the Revolutionary War in the US.
Before Vietnam the US literally purged everyone that was too left with McCarthyism. Before engagement algorithms there was constant propaganda on all TV channels, radio, and print designed to do everything from break up unions to reinforce the Christian Nationalist movement. Think adding In God We Trust to all money in 1955.
I see where you are coming from as I was once there long ago. When you unravel the propaganda/lies you begin to see the bigger picture and understand why the forces that control us work so hard to misinform and create an alternative reality where America is the good guy.
The reckoning of what the US has done and continues to do is truly insurmountable for a typical human being. Mutual understanding easily becomes a tool of oppression where we are expected to forget all of history and culture to compromise with people who are selfish and misinformed.
You can give someone who wants to destroy you all the respect in the world and it won't change that they want to destroy you and will given the chance. This is the reality we face and harkening back to an imagined time of mutual respect is not the panacea we would like to think it is.
You're so right with all that you say. Except your admirable self deprecating US exceptionalism. US peeps shouldn't beat themselves up about the crimes or horrible acts their countrymen are/have done. Where and when any other country is in the same position individuals of those places act in the same ways. Cue every powerful and not so powerful civilisation in history. The rest of us it seems have to clean up their messes as best we can. It seems its a natural animal response that we as a species haven't been able to adequately address socially or civilisationally.
I don't really know enough about the subject and how it relates. But these awful group dynamics aren't confined to humans alone, i feel like this article, Chimpanzees in Uganda's Kibale National Park wage lethal 'civil war', relates in an important way to the point you make in your comment.
I can't really speak to other countries but from my understanding the entire world is varying degrees of fascism at this point.
The US is exceptional, just not in the way most people think. No nation comes close to the suffering the US has caused and will cause in the future.
You can see parallels to modern US imperialism like with Britain costing countless lives in places like India. Also, a little further in the past with the Spanish treatment of Native Americans which the US then repeated.
We of course have the privilege of looking at this through a modern lense. What really strikes me is the level of enlightenment in Europe in regards to native rights and the practice of slavery before the US was formed.
It is clear that people knew better at this point and this shows the malfeasance that defines America. The people that went on to found America knew better than to do what they did. This animus against humans is what makes people in the US arguably unique. A kind of modern day barbarian if you will bringing back what was supposed to be lost.
The heart of the US is a republic founded on deception, terrorism, greed, and murder. Even our first President was a murderous land baron well on his way to becoming the world's first billionaire adjusted for inflation.
I think your point centers around if anyone else would have done it the way these depraved manipulators did. I really don't think so. The ruling class of the US are really in a league of their own.
Exceptionally depraved, cruel, and greedy amongst their peers around the world with near limitless resources at their finger tips. Imagine any single European country having access to the empty landmass that is the United States.
This is the real reason behind the myth of American Exceptionalism. It is like having near limitless wealth compared to everyone else who has a fixed income. The US is the equivalent of a trust fund baby. A psychotic mass murdering nepo baby that spread its shit all over the world.
Remember all that land, well you see it wasn't really empty. Que the first genocide which the US still carries out to this day with boarding schools. There was of course plenty of room for the Native Americans and the whites to coexist. Hell, most of the US is still pretty damned empty to this day.
It was never even about the land. It was about a desire for systematic extermination. This ties in with your point about chimpanzees and also back to your original point that anyone else would have done the same thing.
Have you ever heard of the bonobos? They are another Chimpanzee that doesn't fight and kill each other. If a male gets too aggressive the females hold him down and have sex with him until he chills.
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.
Given that instance admins do not run communities on their instances necessarily, and that they don't control other instances - I don't know how you would expect to do this. Nor appreciate of the negatives of embedding such power into the threadiverse structure.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
Post nice comments under good posts. It really makes a difference to the active posters and generally lifts the mood of this place.
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.
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.
How do we fix/improve this culture of toxicity?
We don't because:
- it's a wider issue than 'the Internet'. Haven't you noticed how even politics in general, which was supposed to be the epitome of our democratic societies, has morphed into an hate-filled shit show at best, when it's not effing openly celebrating murders and assassinations of people we don't like?
- we're part of the issue. It's not a 'them' vs 'us'. It's us. And most of us, no matter what we believe in, are acting like morons, at best.
but Lemmy seems to have gotten worse alongside the rest of internet culture, proving me wrong.
Lemmy has not "gotten worse" in my opinion. It was worse to begin with and when I arrived a few years ago, the first thing I had to urgently learn is how to filter out what I call its 'noise': that constant (and self-celebrating) hatred for 'the other camp', the hatred for those who dare not think like 'us' (I certainly don't put myself in that group). I then moved from Lemmy to Piefed, mostly because back then at least it offered me simpler/more efficient ways to filter out that noise.
How do we fix/improve this culture of toxicity?
Like mentioned in other comments, the only way is through changing (civil) society itself. Aka through education.
As long as our respective public educative systems (I'm from France, but I know it's as shitty in the USA if not worse) are allowed to not do their job of actually educating and teaching kids some common values and principles (next to some actual knowledge and know-how), toxicity will thrive.
It thrives because it has been normalized and because those who benefit from it are being regarded as role models. But it's even worse than that: just publicly discussing this issue and its causes would expose anyone to being... punished by an angry toxic crowd of people that don't want to hear they're being toxic (or that their 'ideology' they want so hard to believe in have morphed them into assholes). That is a huge loss for any freedom respecting society, and a huge win for those benefiting from that hate/toxicity.
edit: clarifications.
2 reminded me of a saying. You're not stuck in traffic, you ARE traffic.
I don't buy this narrative that toxicity is inevitable. That's the narrative pushed by Reddit/Xitter/Meta because toxicity causes engagement which makes them rich. They don't want to delete it. It's only inevitable if admins allow it to be.
That "rule" don't apply on Fedi where we can simply join an instance that actively bans all the bs.
I don’t buy this narrative that toxicity is inevitable.
You're more than welcome to buy what you fancy, I don't recall saying it was unavoidable. I even think I mentioned why we somehow manged to make it as... present as it is, and how we should try to get rid of most of it (hint: through education).
Can we get rid of all of it? Nope, unless one is to pretend we're perfect? Don't know about you but I'm certainly not perfect.
Actually do downvote posts if you would have preferred not to read that and it isn't of note.
I.e. downvote the 3rd post about the same tragedy when nothing has changed and not much time has passed. Downvote negativity. A neutral vote is for things that are mid and don't matter.
downvote the 3rd post about the same
Isn't the problem with this that there are different communities which might have valid reasons to post very similar things, and the order they're displayed to you may result in you downvoting the original?
The first rule of the internet I ever encountered back in the mid-90s was "don't feed the trolls". We've lost that piece of philosophy along the way, and now we all actively engage with cunts instead of just blocking them and moving on. Oblivion is the ultimate tool for dealing with anonymous people who behave like fuckheads. It's a win for them if you respond to their provocations, so just don't. Don't be posting shit like "I know you're trolling, but..." just don't even acknowledge them. Block/report/move on. It's really that simple. The simplest remedy is also the most effective. How cool is that? We just have to tell our limbic systems, because the urge to engage is overwhelming sometimes. But take pleasure in sending these bastards into the abyss, enjoy hitting that block button and growing your blocklist. Look at your blocklist from time to time, and bask in the glory of it. Delight in how many people have been stopped dead in their tracks from ever bothering you again. Get excited when you see a new cunt emerge, and how much fun it will be to add them to the list.
As for 'reply guys' and general pissiness from curmudgeons (that is, people who are dickish but not actually harassing you) you can simply think of whatever anger or displeasure they're expressing as being very much their problem. If they talk to you like you're stupid, just know that they're struggling with their own issues and that's why they're behaving like a stone in everyone's shoe. Talk to them normally and without emotional language (if you need to talk to them at all), and keep in mind that anyone else who happens upon this interaction will see that you're a reasonable and cool person and the other guy is a wanker.
If you knew the other person had a brain tumour that made them behave like a prick, you'd be much less bothered by them, but the thing is, that "brain tumour" exists in everyone. No one is really the master of their own behaviour, we're all dragging millennia of other people's genetic shittiness behind us, and our individual capacity to introspect and reflect on our shittiness and try to do better is also something we don't create within ourselves, we're all pretty much stuck with what we have, with our wiggle room for improvement being as preordained as our circulatory systems. So think of everyone as a tumour-riddled victim of circumstance and they won't be able to hurt or annoy you anywhere near as much. Be happy that your particular tumours aren’t making you behave like a dickhead in public. It's all about framing, just don't let the other guy do the framing and you're good.
"Don't feed the trolls" can be good advice; I recently (one or two comments back!) made such a suggestion myself.
But it seems like there are times when we have to engage. Trollish behavior is behind phenomenons like fake news, incel culture, etc. - clearly those need addressed wherever they come up. The correct response seems to be situational.
clearly those need addressed wherever they come up.
I agree with this, I usually talk past the trolls, so to speak. I start with "this is not a response to you, but to anyone who might be reading" or something like that. Bonus points if I can ignore/mute the person I'm replying to, I'll mention that as well in the response so that they also know that I wont be hearing whatever they want to scream at me.
- Shun the toxic people. Block them and don't look back.
- Seriously, block them. They're still gonna toxic whether you're there to observe it or not.
- Find a well moderated instance that isn't afraid to show toxic people the door
- Block
.ml,grad,hexbear,dbzer0, andquokk.au - Block any other instance or person that centers itself around identity politics
- Block all the news/politics communities. Just get your news from actual news services. The comment section for most news/politics posts here is worse than an entire garbage dump on fire.
And you'll end up with like 3 federated users left which is basically my /all feed now 😑
Seriously, just block them. It’s not a punishment, it’s a curation tool; you’re allowed to block people who haven’t done anything wrong just because you don’t want to see their content. If you don’t like women’s sports, block me! It’s fine — you should have the social media experience you want, and you can use the block button to get it.
dbzer0, and quokk.au
What's your issue with those instances, he asked quizzically.
Oh yeah? Well your finger looks like a finger. Boom, take that sucka.
You don't, the internet has always been this way.
You can't. It's driven broadly by human stupidity, which has been exploited by the rich to make us hate each other over nothing.
This is of course by design so the dissatisfaction people have with society/life/etc gets attributed to each other, instead of the actual source.
The problem is, you can't make stupid people think.
I would warn that you can see different results across language barriers. Some games actually have much nicer communities in other languages.
It shows you there are different circumstances leading to the vein of toxicity, but the causes might be much larger than a moderation team could tackle.
block em. make the experience you want.
it consists of people too mad to be on reddit, sad trans people, and people who try to deal with linux everyday, and me...so this stress will eventually come down as toxicity with the lack of moderation. im not saying moderation is the solution, im saying this is how we are, let us be.