[HN Gopher] De-escalating social media conflict
___________________________________________________________________
De-escalating social media conflict
Author : npunt
Score : 122 points
Date : 2020-07-04 19:59 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nickpunt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nickpunt.com)
| dbbljack wrote:
| ok what happens when the president says something like
|
| "the sky is red, dems are better off dead (marked as mistake
| made, replies disabled)"
| remexre wrote:
| article actually uses one of his tweets as an example --
| twitter already blocks comments on ones they judge to be over
| the line.
|
| there's also mention later about how to deal with bad actors.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Not worth it. Most people have zero value. Write for your
| audience that has non zero value. Issue corrections to them.
| Apologies are pointless. Just issue updated information.
|
| Truth seekers will simply update the coefficients they have for
| you. It's just information interchange. If you don't issue
| errata, your coefficients will just drop.
| noobermin wrote:
| I think this work is great and interesting, and I respect it. One
| of the things I feel like it lacks is a discussion of the broader
| context: we all sort of suspect that one of the reasons Twitter
| does not generally allow for de-escalation (like FB not censoring
| misleading news articles) is that such escalation is in fact part
| of their revenue stream (escalation=more engagement), so while I
| think ideas like this would be great if Twitter decided to
| incorporate it, the issue of course is that Twitter wouldn't want
| to as they actually love the cancel culture mill, it generates
| engagement.
|
| I genuinely however like the ability to admit guilt such that
| replies are disabled because as the author notes, it explicitly
| ends all engagement. Any following engagement would require more
| work (subtweeting, screenshotting) but actively put a damp on the
| first derivative. But that said, reducing engagement is in fact
| not in Twitter's interest, as I said, so I don't see them doing
| it without some outside pressure.
| dgfitz wrote:
| The earth is still flat, the moon landing never happened,
| Darwin denied evolution.
|
| What I mean is, when a thing is said, a recant usually doesn't
| matter. Even if the recant is from a subject matter expert.
|
| (Not debating truths of the above examples, they're just
| examples)
| [deleted]
| ponker wrote:
| This only highlights that any substantive discussion of anything
| controversial should be pseudonymous.
| Fellshard wrote:
| How will this play when a mea culpa acts as blood in the water
| for some groups of bad actors?
| tomrod wrote:
| Precisely my concern.
|
| When social media channels are new, the bad faith actors are
| small and legitimate discussion can occur. As they age, people
| get burned more often and a higher proportion engages in the
| contagion.
| [deleted]
| photoGrant wrote:
| This is precisely the discussions and issues we need to be
| solving to better the social media death trap we're already in.
| Not only that, they supplied some really solid ideas on how,
| also. Kudos
| adjkant wrote:
| There's a lot that would need to be solved for in the "Culture of
| Use" section, but true props to the author for thinking outside
| the box of normalcy.
|
| As far as I can see, the only way we can get these types of
| things implemented is to have a company that cares to design and
| spend time with them in the first place. Does anyone know/have
| thoughts on/have any ideas on how to make things like this a
| reality?
| netsharc wrote:
| Slightly off-topic (talking about the psychology and not this
| UX), but I also feel like people are yelling "You f __*ing
| idiot(s)! " online to feel better about themselves, e.g. if
| someone wrote "How can you not see [insert politician's name
| here] is saving the world, you idiot!", they'd feel a bit better
| about themselves for getting it and being smarter than the person
| behind the wall of text they just read.
|
| We need to take care of the loneliness epidemic as well, and this
| addiction to the Ersatz-Socialising which is just staring at
| screens and thinking you have a social life...
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| Even increasing the content limit will go a long way towards
| deescalation. I find that, on Twitter, one often has to resort to
| oversimplified hyperbole and sarcasm because it's very difficult
| to fit more thoughtful and nuanced messages in the content limit.
|
| Yes it's possible to write multiple tweets. But that takes
| significantly more effort.
| umvi wrote:
| Then you'll just get increasingly large walls of text as each
| person refutes every single sentence + adds a few more zingers
| of their own
| scollet wrote:
| It doesn't take an essay to convey nuance.
| hirundo wrote:
| The oversimplified hyperbole is also a primary key to twitter's
| success. If you remove that feature it just creates a vacuum
| for some other aggregated micro-blog to fill.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Both of these things are probably true, and a good argument
| for why it can't be fixed at all.
| Funes- wrote:
| There's no viable solution at this point other than leaving _all_
| social media behind. The internet should 've never intertwined
| with our real life identities. In fact, what we have now is the
| vast majority of people living most of their lives exclusively
| online, unfailingly to the detriment of their immediate
| environment.
|
| Do not try to de-escalate, but to remove once and for all.
| anonms-coward wrote:
| This is very old but feels as relevant as ever
|
| http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
| snicker7 wrote:
| Simpler solution: repeal Section 230. Social media thrives on
| strife and harassment (or "engagement"). It is fundamentally
| broken.
| geofft wrote:
| Section 230 in no way prevents social media sits from
| moderating strife and harassment. I'd encourage you to read
| about the Prodigy and CompuServe cases that inspired Section
| 230, or alternatively
| https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've always had a policy of promptly admitting when I'm wrong.
|
| It worked great, when I worked at a Japanese company. The
| Japanese respected it.
|
| The Americans, on the other hand, looked at it as a sign of
| weakness, and tended to "go for the jugular" _(Carpe Jugulum)_.
|
| I think that explains why so many folks "double down," when asked
| to correct statements.
|
| Also, lawyers.
|
| A standard piece of advice at American accident scenes, is "
| _NEVER_ say "I'm sorry!""
| gpm wrote:
| > is "NEVER say "I'm sorry!""
|
| Unless it's followed by "that you're an idiot" ;)
|
| Joking aside, I think in American culture it's often more
| important to say "I did $x badly" than "I'm sorry about $x". I
| feel like many American's (especially in white collar work)
| assume a certain cut throat mentality and don't believe that
| you are actually sorry, but they do agree you fucked up.
| Generally when talking to people you want them to be mentally
| agreeing with you and not thinking that you're lying to them.
|
| And the car crash thing is just litigation, it doesn't apply to
| 99% of screwups.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| The same goes for the Japanese.
|
| Empty apologies are empty. They need to know that the issue
| is "owned," regretted, a solution/amend is offered, and it
| won't happen again. Not a fun time.
|
| Americans, in my experience, don't care. They just find
| satisfaction in being a bit "better than" I am, and their
| reactions are purely emotion-driven. They usually would try
| to pile extra transgressions (that I was not responsible for)
| onto my apology. Lots of shaming involved.
|
| It was annoying, but I got used to not reacting. Since most
| of my bosses were Japanese (not really a fun bunch to work
| for), I didn't need to face the music with Americans too
| often.
|
| I will say that the end result was that I was given an
| _awesome_ level of trust and respect. It was the kind very
| few foreigners ever have.
| ptero wrote:
| I think the reasoning behind advice for accidents (in the US)
| is completely separate because after the accident, there are
| big implications of who is at fault. As the lawyers and
| insurance on both sides would often battle on technicalities
| and sometimes appearances, the advice is to let the
| professionals do it and not give the opponents' side extra
| ammunition.
|
| This has nothing to do with human emotions or reducing pain for
| the other side, this is just the nature of the (gov't regulated
| insurance) beast. My 2c.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > this is just the nature of the (gov't regulated insurance)
| beast.
|
| It's cultural for it to even go to lawyers. In the UK, in
| most cases the person at fault would just admit it and give
| the other person the contact details for their insurance
| company.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This is precisely what is going on. You can see that dynamic at
| work here on HN on a daily basis.
| noobermin wrote:
| I have apologized before on HN and people vote it up, so no I
| do not see it. It feels much more like people just dig in
| their heels due to selfish reasons.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Exceptions, rules and so on.
| ptato wrote:
| this is a great idea, and that's precisely why twitter would
| never implement it
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The problem isn't just the people but the fact that social
| media platforms encourage outrage because it's how they make
| money. We can't fix "cancel culture" as long as it benefits the
| social media companies.
| mikedilger wrote:
| It's the same reason that news media is so enraging.
| rvz wrote:
| > By admitting a mistake, the poster stops the runaway train of
| replies and amplifications of their mistake, and the reputation
| damage that follows.
|
| No matter the apology of the mistake, those who demand them to
| apologise will still reject it and push further for calls for the
| accused to be cancelled. The replies and amplifications will
| divert into real life instead of Twitter.
| npunt wrote:
| It certainly won't work for all cases of conflict, but don't
| you think it would work for some? The goal was not a complete
| solution but a step towards changing community norms.
| ptero wrote:
| Apology can go a long way, but in my experience (USA) all the
| successful ones that I have seen were done from a position of
| strength. That is, the person apologizing felt that after
| apology his opinions would still be respected and listened
| to, not dismissed as "another stupidity from that fool". In
| this case, it could be very powerful. It is also seen as
| voluntary.
|
| On the flip side, I have never, ever seen an impactful
| apology that was extracted by _demands_. Such demanded
| apology is usually a punishment. Call it by what it is --
| flogging (that strong inflict on the week). My 2c.
| npunt wrote:
| To be fair, in the language section I point out this is
| explicitly not using the language of apology (for some of
| the reasons you bring up), but is instead a more neutral
| admission of mistake.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The nice thing about this proposal is precisely how it replaces
| the problematic "apology" dynamic with a neutral retraction.
| Apologies may or may not be rejected as insincere, but a
| retraction is simply a factual statement that the user no
| longer stands behind what they wrote, while preserving the
| content itself (unlike tweet deletion, which in practice tends
| to _escalate_ reposts) for the sake of transparency.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Well, if you have someone determined to go after someone
| else, the most nuanced approach is not going to get you much.
| The attacker just rephrases it as they wish.
|
| Which is to say, when you have a medium like Twitter, where
| the entire world can march in and get involved with
| conversation X, a proposal for de-escalation seems futile and
| a bit absurd. Among other things, a lot of media
| personalities have built their engagement by not letting go
| of opportunities for kicking whoever when they are down -
| giving this up would literally cost them money.
|
| It seems like plans for de-escalation would do much better in
| situations where the participants are actually building a
| community, a group sharing values, a part of a reasonable
| forum/medium, not a stand-alone thing.
| noobermin wrote:
| Think not in terms of black and white (there exists / for all)
| and how in aggregate, this would put a hamper on further
| escalating toxicity.
| TeaDrunk wrote:
| Depending on how severe the mistake is, part of apologizing may
| be removing onesself from places of power where they made the
| error. For example, a hiring manager who is found to
| discriminate against gay people should no longer get to hire
| anyone and may no longer get to manage people for a period of
| time. The internet has a relatively short memory, so I expect
| once an apology and suitable make-up-fors have been doled out
| the amount of anger is much less.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Exactly. From what I have seen an apology only makes things
| worse.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| A badly-executed apology divorced from change makes things
| worse.
| antepodius wrote:
| Apologising to people who would consider it an acceptable
| political outcome if you lost your job and killed yourself
| tends to embolden those partifluar people.
|
| Appeasing bullies doesn't work. They want to see you squirm
| and beg, because it's fun make someone grovel before you.
| The object-level discussion is secondary.
|
| Some people call this dichotomy good and bad faith, right?
| TeaDrunk wrote:
| I think at the same time there are circumstances in which
| the acceptable outcome is indeed a loss of job. (And to
| some moral codes, a loss of life- see advocates for the
| death penalty.)
|
| EG. A Manager who pressured people into sexual favors for
| promotions should lose the job of being a manager.
| adventured wrote:
| It always emboldens the mob. They aren't after an apology,
| they're pursuing harm against the target and typically won't
| stop until they get it - unless you can show strength to the
| bully behavior and can stand-off against them (which not
| everyone can do). If you can, they'll give up and pursue
| another easier target. The mobs have weaponized job firings,
| which puts most people in a position of immediate weakness
| where they're afraid to stand their ground.
| geofft wrote:
| Usually I don't actually see this, but I _do_ seem to see a
| pile of "You shouldn't have apologized! They'll make you
| apologize for everything else once they know you're weak!"
| comments (which certainly don't help anything).
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| I think there is a disconnect between people in different
| communities because reasonable people naturally avoid the
| places where extremists congregate, so you only encounter
| them if you either venture into their den (which reasonable
| people rarely have any incentive to do) or you become one of
| their targets. If neither of those describes you, you may
| scarcely be aware of their existence.
|
| This also explains why both sides commonly feel victimized.
| Each only sees reasonable people on their side and not
| vicious extremists because they don't hang out with the
| vicious extremists and the extremists on their side are out
| victimizing the other side and not them. But the extremists
| on the other side they can see when they come to attack.
| koolba wrote:
| Damn straight. Never pay the Dangeld.
| jfk13 wrote:
| For the benefit of any who may not know the reference:
| http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_danegeld.htm
| ve55 wrote:
| The idea that a feature like a 'forgive' button to forgive
| someone for acting out of line is so important that it's being
| suggested is..harrowing, in my opinion. I see how these features
| can seem like a good idea, but my issue is that these seems like
| patches onto a broken system instead of trying to fix things that
| have contributed to the brokenness.
|
| Instead of creating outrage and then trying to patch it later, we
| should try to stop the outrage from occurring to begin with,
| which means the nature of virality-promoting algorithms has to
| change.
| im3w1l-alt wrote:
| I think the mockup emphasises the original tweet too much and the
| apology too little.
|
| Suggestion: put the apology first. Use black color for apology,
| faint gray for original.
| npunt wrote:
| Good idea, I was trying to use existing Twitter designs as much
| as possible but agree emphasis is lost. See the top image in
| the Follow-ups section where the mistake is represented atop
| the tweet for something more along what you're thinking.
| momokoko wrote:
| The only winning move is not to play.
| tomrod wrote:
| A game theorist has emerged! :)
|
| I loved that movie.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Social Media is increasingly becoming a major source of power
| for political movements and political organization.
|
| Both Obama and Trump campaigns were signified by a major
| online, social-media presence. I'd expect that many future
| Presidents will be determined by their command of Social Media.
|
| Social Media is the new television, the new Radio. Its the new
| media that is most significantly consumed by the population.
|
| By "not playing", you resign your power to others who take
| advantage of this new form of media.
| [deleted]
| taborj wrote:
| I disagree. By not playing, you're protecting yourself from
| future retribution, deserved or (more commonly) not. And not
| being on social media - or more precisely, not _posting_ on
| social media - doesn 't mean you're out of touch or lacking
| in influence. Not by a long shot.
| koluna wrote:
| To that, genuinely curious - what is the alternative you
| see to social media to build influence and visibility? One
| of the key benefits of Twitter is that you can make your
| work, be it in the arts, software or literally anything
| else, visible to a large audience. What's the alternative
| if one is not to use Twitter? How do you publicize your
| findings or insights to a broad population?
| adventured wrote:
| > What's the alternative if one is not to use Twitter?
| How do you publicize your findings or insights to a broad
| population?
|
| If you can, you do it behind the shield of a faceless
| corporate entity (that you own) doing the promoting,
| rather than tying statements to your own personal
| identity. You don't stop using Twitter or Instagram et
| al., you stop using them to project your personal
| opinions out into the world. Your opinionated discussions
| are reserved to people you trust and to smaller in-person
| environments where you can have a real dialogue of
| understanding and exchange.
|
| If you want to build value in your own identity, you take
| on the risks to chase the rewards. I'd suggest strictly
| talking about work, and never deviating from that. If you
| leave that lane, these days everyone knows the risks
| they're taking, it's blatantly obvious.
|
| You publicize your findings, you don't spout off about
| such and such highly charged partisan social cultural
| revolution topic that is just begging to get you in
| trouble if you twitch the wrong way. I think that's
| really plainly obviously the way you handle it. What's so
| hard about that? Oh I just couldn't help throwing out my
| meaningless 2cents on BLM while discussing my work on
| using machine learning to recognize giraffes standing
| next to stop signs; I just had to get my opinion about
| black-white relations out there in the open, because what
| I have to say about BLM is super important and could
| change the world. No, just publicize the findings.
| noobermin wrote:
| I think that is indeed true on the individual level, but when a
| large percentage of people are on Twitter such that
| cancellations lead to actual real world circumstances, it in
| fact matters that people who are not you do in fact play
| because it might affect you.
| xg15 wrote:
| I mean, maybe that is a sign that _Twitter_ should be
| cancelled.
| FailMore wrote:
| This is excellent. Great thinking
| zuhayeer wrote:
| Really like the ideas here, but I think the underlying problem is
| the mindset behind attacks and cheap dunks. People who are
| determined will find a way, they'll screenshot and flame you if
| they can't do anything else.
|
| Right now it feels like more of a way for attackers to cheaply
| drive engagement and get likes. I think we need a broader
| cultural shift of making it not cool to attack someone without an
| intent to genuinely educate.
|
| Also, at the same time, fundamentally, people use social media
| for different reasons and you can't necessarily dictate what
| people should do
| TheBobinator wrote:
| Joe Rogan had an excellent podcast up on this which is well worth
| your time to listen to IMO.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtNW3I1FZ5o
|
| What you have is a significant portion of people with c-ptsd due
| to the abuses western cultures' political experimentation has
| created who believe western culture was a mistake and tearing
| everything down it stands for is a lofty moral goal.
|
| These people are angry, and IMO, they have a right to be angry;
| they've been through some terrible, terrible things. They
| believe, strongly, that engaging in pyschological warfare and
| using tactics to build cults or go get orgs to "go woke" that
| eventually culminate in killing people is a reasonable method of
| running what can be defined at this point as an insurgency.
|
| I think it is manditory reading for people to read books like The
| body keeps the Score by Van Der Kolk if they want to really
| understand this movement and how these people have been marinated
| in bad situations. I think it is important to give them
| opportunities and show them patience in their recovery and to
| allow them to decide what their culture should be going forward.
|
| Their tactics and logic do not stand up to scientific riguer but
| are complex enough to entrap the normal minimally educated
| individual and get them into an emotional trap; Much like the
| Seattle CHAZ\CHOP, the correct way to manage this is as an
| emotional discussion. Eventually the movement will hit a
| political peak, the emotions will die down, and an unruly
| minority is left over.
|
| I think it is incredibly important for us to not ignore this
| minority, but to recognize, especially after reading that book,
| that these people exist and need to be given opportunities and
| space to decide for themselves what they want their culture to
| be.
|
| We need to set strong boundaires of pride in western culture and
| its accomplishments, but not engage in debates about how western
| culture needs to be torn down or we need to self-harm as an act
| of solidarity. We need to not engage in political discource and
| when they do come, give them acts of virtue signalling which are
| a fascade. Over time, the emotions will dissipate and the healing
| can begin.
|
| Western people are learning and we need, I think, to learn to pay
| for our mistakes a little better instead of ignoring people as
| detritus from failed systems.
| jennyyang wrote:
| It's actually a simple solution.
|
| Have a flamewar detector similar to HN, and then for that thread
| and those users, have it look like the other people in the thread
| respond "Ok, I'm sorry." Obviously randomized using machine
| learning so that people will think that it's a real apology.
| Everyone on the thread will think the other person apologized and
| will simply move on. Or, if they respond, no one except the
| writer will see the responses.
| meowfly wrote:
| I'm very much convinced that one should never admit a mistake on
| social media after a dogpile. I think there is too much bad faith
| for a Mea Culpa option to even work. Apologies work well in
| smaller circles because an apology implies a correction in
| behavior that's necessary for those around you to trust you
| again.
|
| In social media people are signalling they don't like your
| behavior but they don't actually care about you individually.
|
| If Twitter really wants to fix this they should make it against
| the rules to screenshot or share deleted tweets. It will be much
| harder to dogpile after someone deletes their tweet if people
| can't just keep resharing the offending tweet for likes.
| watwut wrote:
| Apology in personal contact does not imply correction. It is
| just about closing conflict so we can continue working
| together.
| bt4u3 wrote:
| Dogpile is a great word as it works much like animals. Any sign
| of weakness is a trigger for them to go for the kill. Apologies
| are seen as a weakness, they've managed to get through to you
| and now they want more. The long term effect of teaching people
| never to apologize for anything is gonna be sad
| dcow wrote:
| I don't see how the stance that you should never admit a
| mistake after a mob dog pile means the feature described here
| would never work. There are plenty of cases where people just
| straight up make real mistakes and don't feel pressured to
| apologize out of desire to appease the mob but rather simply
| have aggregated additional input, and reassessed their original
| statement in light of new information, and decided it needs
| correction.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-07-04 23:00 UTC)