An Appeal to Set Expectations Accurately: SaidIt values Fact-based Discussion more than Free Speech

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[–]zyxzevn 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I am a moderator on some science related subs. Generally I do only moderate personal attacks and notify people about moderations. And warn people if they do something edgy (like editing the meaning of the post afterwards or replying too much).

I find that personal attacks or implicit insults bring down the discussion very much. By moderation, I encourage the people to give the information that is worthwhile instead of garbage. I prefer commenting to their post/discussion as a mod, but remove personal attacks immediately. In that sense the pyramid works well against flame wars.

On reddit it is much worse, and I get lots of trolls that just try to find ways to insult people. The subs are very small, so it brings down any discussion, and it stops people from posting anything. I first banned them, but lately I remove their comments and replace them with just the informational content (and list some of the logical fallacies). This latter seems to work the best, but requires some effort.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I agree that moderation can improve discussion quality, and it's interesting to hear about what you've tried in the subs you moderate. Like I tried to explain, /r/changemyview, which has strict moderation, has allowed me to explore a variety of controversial topics and learn new things. But I think calling it "free speech" would lead people to be surprised at the breadth of content that isn't allowed.

[–]zyxzevn 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The same data can be presented in different ways and structures. Structure is also information. Some presentations can be very enlightening, and informative. Other presentations can downgrade the data or bend it towards some narrative. :-)

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yes, and I think that's a nice way to put it, but I'm not sure where we disagree. Do you think promoting SaidIt as a "free speech" platform will lead most people to have accurate expectations?

[–]zyxzevn 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I don't believe any social media platform is really free speech, because often some groups of people start dominating the discussions.

Also the internet sites need to follow certain nation laws, like copyright. These laws can be very restrictive in certain countries. Maybe the US will forbid to criticize the Israeli and Saudi military actions. Or the EU will forbid links to news sites.

I don't think we can have certain discussions on voat, because most there prefer to push certain ideas. On Minds I am called pseudo-scientist when I link to valid scientific research outside the narrative. I think that we are still learning how we can have a friendly and good discussion with freedom in ideas.

I looked at something like MIT's deliberation, but noticed that the moderator fully determines the discussion. This got me thinking about the need for different structures for different viewpoints, and how structures encapsulate information. A bit like a programmer thinks about abstractions.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Interesting. Yes, I guess these are still issues we're figuring out as a society/species/whatever. I'd never heard of MIT's deliberatorium and I think it's neat that people are trying things like this. "Collaborative software" gee I guess it's a big world of things people have tried if I want to get into it.

It's also interesting to me to hear about these kinds of problems in the scientific world, because it's not an environment I've been part of very much.

The approach I am drawn to right now is private spaces for each individual where they can design things to their own preference, whatever it is, and choose to interact with who they want when they want how they want. Like tumblr, twitter, gab, etc. I've been meaning to check out the fediverse. I just haven't yet found a platform like that that I like yet, and I do find reddit's style easier to use than gab-like style. I'll find or build something probably, SaidIt was just what I explored this time.

And I think we have different ideas about what "free speech" means. To me, free speech means I and others get to say what we want how we want, but it doesn't require anyone to listen or talk to us when we do. I would consider a platform to be "free speech" as long as it doesn't remove the content, even if that content is very unpopular, or even if one group dominates most conversation. For example, while I don't like it's interface, I would consider Gab to be acting as a free speech platform right now (though people are suspicious about it for various reasons, and there might be things going on behind the scenes that I don't know about). Does a particular flavor of alt-right tend to dominate there? Sure. Other stuff seems to have a fine time existing there though -- I've encountered a pro-Trump black conservative group of users that generally oppose the anti-black and sometimes pro-white content, various narrative-challenging flavors of conservative, muslim supremacists, and people that just don't seem so interested in partisan politics. Does everyone listen to them and engage in a constructive way? No. Can they have a place to say what they want to say? Yes, it seems so.

The issue with governments censoring content is an important one, though, and one that is harder to address than just changing platform.