this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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You're not shy, you're just a normally adjusted human.
It's normal to want to avoid being abused and insulted for, say, having an opinion which is marginally different to the in-group consensus. But unfortunately that's what happens when we post on text-based social media. Apparently the medium does something to people's minds, turning them into nasty vindictive unpleasant versions of themselves.
I'm a pretty self-confident person in real life and even I think twice about posting anything here that contradicts the prevailing groupthink. The inevitable insults and abuse and mockery are sometimes just not worth it.
There's a lot more aggressive unpleasant people. Or bots. That's the scary things these days, we don't know what's real anymore. People we talk to online or see. If it's fake trumped up hysteria.
Or even takes pictures of videos.
And I don't see it getting any better.
If we can ensure that all bots are always identifiable as such, i.e. that none of them are successfully passing themselves off as people, then this problem is mitigated quite a lot. In theory that's feasible. We're hardly even trying right now.
How'd you tell if you're chatting to a bot?
Ai a pretty convincing now
Regulation, of course. Unlabeled bot on your platform? $100,000 fine. We're not completely helpless.
It's this the law or something you'd hope would happen?
It's a suggested solution
How would they police it?
How would anyone know who's a bot?
Prove it or you get a fine. Where the political will is there, this is all easy-peasy.
Prove what? That they're bots, you mean companies would have to just admit it?
If there were a fine I think it would put some people off, or they would just try harder to hide it.
The whole point is that bots are hard to discover. If companies don't want to state that they use bots, I don't know how they will know who is using bots.
It seems like you're just counting on people being honest or some how finding out. And I don't know how they will find out or even if they can unless someone in the company whistle blows
In that case let's just give up because obviously it will all be far too hard.
You are underestimating the resources that big companies already devote to complying with regulations and avoiding fines. To stipulate that every non-human voice on a social platform must be labeled as such or else, right now, that regulation does not even exist. It's an obvious place to start and I am not the first person to say this.
Anyway, the conversation has moved on here, nobody else is listening, that's enough from me. Good night.
That's the point. It will be secret companies trying to persuade the general population.
I'm different companies, maybe out of jurisdiction.
I just don't know i think we've crossed the Rubicon. It's out the box now.
Maybe with worldcoin, we can scan retina's and provide proof of humanity.
Otherwise. I think it's pretty much really hard to control. And people/companies will get some regulations. Might hamper it a bit. But won't stop it. Ie it could be from Russia or China. So it would only work if all cooperated and banned bot accounts. Which seems unlikely
Sadly, I see that irl as well - perhaps text social media enhances the effect, maybe by virtue of being anonymous, but it's definitely not an effect solely restricted to here.😢
Source: me who it just happened to an hour ago.😑
Yep. Not letting abuse get to you is really hard. I'm constantly surprised by this, being a fairly resilient person and not very sociable (to put things politely). I can only imagine what it must be like for more gregarious people. Hardly surprising that people are scared to speak up. So good for you for saying what you wanted to say, there was value in that.
Personally, I have hope that if a larger variety of people are posting and commenting (typical lurkers and such) then hopefully the echo chamber aggression will weaken a little, and hopefully foster a positive and friendly community. I'm trying to lead by example :)
Refreshing optimism!
Unfortunately I'm not sure the hope is warranted. Putting a lot of people with different views in front of each other, over text, does not, in general, by default, seem to go that well. At least not going by the experience of the first 30 years of the social internet. You tend to get the worst aspect of human group dynamics and speech-policing without the self-moderation that comes with in-person contact - i.e. the effect of audible voices, and visible faces and body language.
I'm not a complete pessimist or I wouldn't be here. But I think these issues can only be solved by activist moderation that enforces rules with a light touch while remaining tolerant and always assuming good faith. And, of course, that kind of moderation is time-consuming and very, very hard. It's a skill that hardly any communities have access to. But it is at least a reasonable goal.
I see where you're coming from, historically the internet and large communities tend to foster that kind of aggression. I, for one, will be striving to build a positive environment though, and just maybe, we'll see those fruits lead into a brighter future :). I myself am applying for some moderator positions to help take up that effort!
That's great news. Good luck.
I’ve had abuse for posting a short story that validated the group think. Several times.