| HN Mirror

i’m not trying to be dismissive of your concerns, so if this post comes across that way, i apologize in advance. im aware this will be wordy, i can't really sum this up in a more succinct way--im with the family doing easter dinner so i dont have the mental bandwidth to eloquently sum this up. i think the subjects surrounding this are super important for the future of the internet so its impossible to put the nuance it deserves into a tweet size paragraph.

also, in advance, while im gonna disagree with some of your points, i strongly agree with you regarding algorithms. im confident in saying they have played one the largest parts in the downward trend of online social. i’ll expand on it a little more below.

anyway. the reality is, the internet has pretty much always had moderation. if anyone attempts to convince you otherwise, they're wrong. irc ops banned indiscriminately, they did this so often it would make modern day internet hogs cry. bulletin boards always had various types of rules and they too would absolutely regularly ban people. forums have always banned people. etc... banning is definitely not some new internet thing.

there were/are of course places that have no moderation but they’re ghost towns entirely overrun with spam, or worse. they're absolutely not places that will ever attract a significant number of users.

this idea that we can build a large online community with no moderation, or somehow only moderate illegal content is just not based in anything resembling coherent reality. we have proven this time and time and time again. there are thousands, maybe millions of sites with little moderation that are empty other than loads of spam, nazi shit, child porn, noise spewing bots, dead internetting back and forth...

i bartended through college. a pretty good real world comparison to mods would be a bartender. for a huge number of bartenders, a much more important skill than even making drinks is to know when to remove a person from the bar. this skill is absolutely more important than mixing up a cocktail. knowing when to save someone from an uncomfortable interaction is paramount. recognizing early when a person or group is making the experience miserable for the rest of the people is so important. we don’t expect a bar or restaurant to have a written list of Every Single thing that could get someone bounced out because 1) this list would be impossible to make, and 2) people generally know how to behave socially in the real world. yet somehow we've been convinced the same etiquette doesn’t apply online. which, to be a bit terse, is kinda stupid. as the internet ages, ultimately we’ll see online users are people. people still find the same behaviors creepy. the same things weird. even tho it’s online we still think it’s weird if a random person interrupts our conversation and starts screaming weird stuff at us. while bartending, i had to remove people from the bar regularly for all kinds of weird shit, not once did i ever hear someone cry “but i have free speech” while being dragged out of the bar. not once. if someone had yelled this, the crowds would laugh at them. common sense and etiquette rules over free speech in social atmospheres. and until we realize this extremely basic thing (so basic that toddlers understand it) we’re still going to see people being metaphorically dragged out of forums, even while they're screaming “i have the free speech to unprovoked call that random stranger a fat pig! free speech!” its hilarious that people don't understand this extremely basic human issue. yes, they have the free speech to be a dickbag but somehow forget the bartender has the freedom to snap their fingers, point at the person and have the bouncers drag them out? common sense and etiquette rules in social atmospheres.

you mention “how can we talk to and convince people on controversial topics?” (again, i want to stress that i hope i don't come across as dismissive of your concerns, but…) you don’t need to convince random strangers to believe controversial topics. you don’t need to. and we need to understand, when people do this, they come across as zealots. take the real world again as an example: if random strangers approach you and start chirping controversial x, y, or z subjects, thats weird... people will treat that as weird. they will cross the street to get away from zealots who do this. if you’re on a site and it seems like people are metaphorically crossing the street to get away from you, ask yourself how you might appear if you approach a random stranger in the real world and strongly start talking about weird controversial shit? would they look at you sideways and slowly back away? would they maybe come up with excuses to leave the conversation? common sense and etiquette rules. be normal. you don’t need to “convince” random strangers to save democracy. most people find randoms bringing up controversial topics to be creepy and weird.

we’re people, we’re not random usernames you need to “save” or “convince” of anything. especially controversial shit. just like in the real world, remember, sometimes people are open to a conversation--i want to stress a conversation, not a debate--sometimes they're open to one, but more often people just aren't interested. there are so many very good reasons people may not want to have conversations at any given time. and beyond that, it’s even more rare for people to want random strangers who are trying to save or "convince" them through some weird internetDebate. that’s not normal. rarely does anyone want to be preached to (and yes, im fully aware that i am saying this as i’m preaching to you lol, sorry) if someone isn’t specifically looking for a debate, it’s absolutely offputting and creepy when people do this. sure, there are tiny little niche communities where people enjoy what these communities call "debates", but those are a tiny fraction of people compared to the massive world of normal people who find that weird.

im sure we’ve all had the “have ya heard the good news about jesus” people knock on your door? a lot of times that’s pretty annoying. imagine how much more obnoxious it is if a random were to approach you and your friends on the street: “did you know jews and gays are ruining the world?” when this happens in the real world we’re like, 'get away from me dude, wtf…' the creepy weirdo factor doesn't change just because it’s online. and it doesn't have to be that controversial... its just odd when people try to jam controversial shit onto random strangers. its just creepy.

as for algorithms, i totally agree with you, they’ve done far more to destroy social than anything. in the big picture i dont think we need to be stressed about it though. im confident we’re gonna ultimately see a rejection of algorithmic curation. i mean, algorithms are just so bad. everything from shopping algorithms to music recommendations to the conversations the algorithms choose to show us. its just bad. a fail all around.

i suspect online will go back to something closer to offline reality. in reality we are never all jammed into the same room with an algorithm strongly implying "now scream at him! now tell her shes fat! now tell him why his doctor is wrong! now yell at that group!" in the real world we have never in the past (and still don’t) need or even want to talk to random strangers in the real world. we don't scream our ideas at each other. we don't think we need to interject our personal ideas into other peoples conversations.

frankly it’s bizarre that the same group of investors keep trying to convince us to do this. trying to convince all of us to simultaneously go to the same place and listen to their curated algorithms. its super odd. the same group of investors are repeatedly trying, over and over again they've been doing this on multiple different failed social sites. "everyone listen to our algorithm! it failed on that other site we own. but you *all* need to listen to this one! no, dont go elsewhere, listen to ours, all of you! you'll hate this one idea from him, yell at him!" its super creepy.

also, this thing where a few people keep loudly trying to jam and force everyone around them into a “debate” is another piece of this thing thats got to go. more of us need to read the room. sometimes people will be interested in an actual conversation but they're rarely interested in what these guys laughable call a “debate”. we need to be normal. if a person indicates they want to have a conversation with a random strange, sure, jump on in, have that conversation. however, if they’re already in a conversation with their friends, are they open to a random chirping in? if they’re not interested, yet someone forces their way in, its not at all surprising when that group of friends metaphorically crosses the street.

anyway, go easier on yourself. you don’t need to save democracy. don’t imagine you're “making democracy work” by forcing controversial opinions on normal everyday people. especially those who aren’t interested in your controversial opinions. we’re just randoms on the internet. none of us are saving anything with our internet posts on random social sites. there are much bigger things pulling those levers. pursue interests. have fun. be normal.