Politically-engaged Redditors tend to be more toxic – even in non-political subreddits::A new study links partisan activity on the Internet to widespread online toxicity, revealing that politically-engaged users exhibit uncivil behavior even in non-political discussions. The findings are based on an analysis of hundreds of millions of comments from over 6.3 million Reddit users.
I’d imagine the same is true for Lemmy and politically engaged people (at least online) overall.
I’m not so sure. The study discusses specifically people who engage in partisan subreddits, which is not the same as being politically engaged. It also uses an AI to grade toxicity, which surely mischaracterizes many interactions.
For example, I have been in communities of a non-political nature, where political discussions occur. These are often about real issues that affect real people in the community, and yet there are people complaining about political content.
To complain about political content is, at best, a very privileged take, demonstrating that you are in a position where politics do not affect you much. At worst, it is actively hostile behavior with the goal of continuing the status quo and shutting down discourse. I would call most of these kinds of comments “toxic”, and yet the rhetoric is usually fine, so I doubt an AI would agree.
Say you don’t like Linux here and tell me how many people call you a bootlicker lol
Or even better - “piracy is theft” or “ads keep YouTube free and are thus good.”
You don’t have to believe it. Just toss it up in a thread as a test and enjoy your next 12-36 hours.
Just saying things “as a test” is indistinguishable from defending it online. Things like body language, tone and intent do not come across as easily.
That being said toxic people exist everywhere on the internet it’s a flaw in our biology, we haven’t adapted to communicating this way yet.
That being said there’s a difference between a bad take like your above examples and condoning oppression and marginalization as some political groups have do.
One deserves to be defended vehemently.
Just saying things “as a test” is indistinguishable from defending it online.
Yes this is why it works as a test.
That being said there’s a difference between a bad take like your above examples
Only one of my statements is an opinion (I like a plug and play OS I don’t need to configure because I spend all my “customize” energy on my PC itself). The others are objective facts that make people sad.
This is what I mean by toxicity, and how I know for a fact the test will work
Testing people like that is not a great if your looking to dissect a viewpoint sounds more like being inflammatory, especially with your word choice.
Opinions can be bad takes. See > your examples.
I express exactly one opinion there, and it isn’t a “take” at all. “I don’t care for Linux” is not an inflammatory statement except to an absolute zealot.
Sorry guess I should have been more clear. All of your examples are opinions as in not demonstrably fact.
I don’t particularly mind any OS one way or the other I’ll use the best tool for the job. What I’m saying is a bad take are your proposed scenarios on piracy and ads which there’s no evidence to support, in fact there’s a lot to the opposite.
This would make what you said an opinion and by my point of view a “bad take”. Does that make you wrong to express them? No and I never said as much.
So I guess I just lost the thread on your point because all of those are just opinions. I was just using a colloquialism. Which brings me back to my point that usually when I see people get heated it’s because people are being bigoted.
I’d say if you are politically engaged, the likelihood of you being in a political internet community is fairly high.
To complain about political content is, at best, a very privileged take, demonstrating that you are in a position where politics do not affect you much.
Could just be that they don’t care for politics in that community. Time and place for everything and it seems some feel the time and place for politics is everywhere all the time. It can be tiring. I don’t remember what year it was that pretty much every single place was talking about immigration politics. Important topic for sure but a meme community about funny road signs isn’t the place for heated soapboxing about closing down the border.
The thing is, what a politically engaged person thinks of as “politics” and what a disengaged one does probably has limited overlap. People probably aren’t bringing the Tories or the Republicans up in a D&D community, but bring up race portrayal or representation for disabled people and watch the sparks fly.
People probably aren’t bringing the Tories or the Republicans up in a D&D community, but bring up race portrayal or representation for disabled people and watch the sparks fly.
I wouldn’t bring up either up during a game. Unless I was prepared for some serious eye rolls and not being invited again lol.
And unfortunately people do bring up the former during all kinds of shit. Politic brains are wild.
People in a D&D subreddit aren’t playing D&D; they’re talking about playing D&D. Those are completely valid topics to bring up.
As is on Reddit, the number of non-political posts with top level comments slandering republicans, seemingly totally off topic, is disappointing. I’m not American, so I don’t understand why so many conversations are simply “republican bad”. It seems obsessive.
Political topics are also the topics that are most strongly gamed by political actors using Persona Management software to make it seem like their opinion is in the majority. The idea that people who participate in things such as “forum sliding” aren’t toxic in their interactions is absurd, so we’re left with assuming a large number of these toxic accounts aren’t actually real people.
I’m not saying people deep into politics can’t be toxic. Plenty of them are, sure. However, it’s in the interest of people with political power (especially politicians with politically unpopular ideas) to make regular people not want to participate in politics. One way you do that is to make all political people seem unhinged, angry, and just terrible. People wonder why hardly anyone votes in elections, this kind of stuff is why, and it’s not on accident that these folks seem like the majority.
I’m fully convinced the majority of them are bots trying to make politics in general seem more toxic than it actually is to dissuade more people from even wanting to be involved. The intent is to drive political apathy.
Sources:
US government developing Persona Management software in 2011: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks
Eglin Air Force Base is most “Reddit Addicted City” in 2014: https://web.archive.org/web/20160604042751/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html
One of many research papers on Persona Management and Influencing Social Networks from Eglin AFB: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1402.5644.pdf
Helpful Reading Materials:
The Gentleperson’s Guide To Forum Spies: https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
100% agree with you. The worst part is the bots are getting better and better. I have a policy that you respond once to clarify and then walk away. These are for obvious bad actors, but now they’re seeming more and more like decent people with a flawed idea until you keep talking and realize it’s a bot. I don’t know how to counteract that.
How do you know they’re actually bots? 90% of the time, when I’m debating with someone who is passionately defending their position, they’ll at some point accuse me of being a bot or a shill. I also can’t recall any time I’ve debated someone and have been convinced they are a bot.
I’m just skeptical as it’s a convenient ad hominem.
I have the same question. How do you distinguish an advanced enough bot from a genuinely dumb person?
Or “smart” person. There are almost certainly bots who espouse beliefs that align with yours too.
To be totally honest with you, I wouldn’t for one second be surprised if the bots are programmed to accuse humans of being bots.
Found a reddit mod with a dozen plus accounts. Made a new account to disagree with me, I pointed it out, and he denied it, but never used that account again.
It was probably just someone with no life, but I’d feel better about the world if he were being paid for it.
Intriguing. I don’t totally know what I think about this argument. A purposeful initiative to make politics toxic to get people to stop paying attention. It’s not one I had totally considered before. You think that’s really going on?
I have had many experiences with real people not on the internet that seem to fixate largely on politics and believe so fervently that they are right that they allow themselves to become toxic. I always thought it was a kind of inconsistent latent belief in utilitarianism combined with overconfidence.
I’m not saying those people don’t really exist, there are tons of them out there for sure, but we also have extensive evidence of governments doing this.
GCHQ in the UK had JTRIG using many forum disruption techniques.
There’s also the Five Eyes and how they use information sharing to essentially do an end-run around being able to spy on their own citizens. Technically, they’re not spying on their own citizens, a foreign nation is, they just so happen to have an agreement with that foreign nation to get info on their own citizens.
The US definitely engages in this kind of stuff on foreign nations as well. They tried to create a social media service for Cuba to influence Cuban politics and do information gathering.
Do either the UK or the US have to spy on their own citizens if they can rely on each other to run influence campaigns in each others countries? The US had to apologize to Angela Merkel for tapping her phone.
Israel has many different programs aimed at managing the PR of the state of Israel online. From paying college students to speak positively of Israel online to having “Think Tanks” use teams of people to influence Wikipedia.
We know that Hacking Team was selling their surveillance software to oppressive regimes, who were definitely using it to oppress the population. If they’re using these kind of tools, they’re using online disinformation tools as well.
So once again, there’s tons of real life absolute maniacs when it comes to politics. There’s also incentive for governments around the world to run influence campaigns for pennies on the dollar with digital tools in the digital world.
I think you’re right that there are people out there trying to manipulate and influence social media - I mean even that platforms themselves do this to a certain extent.
The idea that they purposely try to make it toxic to push the more intellectually-honest, emotionally-controlled people out of the conversation is the interesting part to me.
This particular facet feels less like intentional manipulation and more like a side-effect of our platforms and how they function.
See also: hexbear, lemmygrad.
See also: lemmy.world
No! We are the exception to all the rules. You dingus!!1!
AkA Chappo Trap House. I’ve never received so much hate from a community (expept on the_donald maybe). My crime? I think South Park is fun.
True
Cancer
Far right spaces in general.
inb4 hexbear and lemmygrad are far left
They are not. Tankies are far right.
Tankies are far left authoritarians. The left/right spectrum refers primarily to economics.
There are political traditions that see the left/right spectrum as a “How hierarchical do you think society should be” question, where being sexist or intolerant of LGBT would be inherently right-wing because they’re positions that are advocating for forms of social hierarchies, and therefore would claim that an anarcho-capitalist, even if still right-leaning, is much less right-leaning than a nazi.
But where is the basis for defining it that way?
I think a more clear and commonly excepted interpretation would be basically more collectivist vs more individualistic. The issue with that for some people is that would make Nazism left wing, and nobody wants the bad guys on their side.
It matches the historical usage of the terms. As far as I can tell the definition has barely changed in modern times; a lot of people have just tried to redefine them based on their own misunderstanding.
Tankies aren’t leftists. They defend genocidal and authoritarian regimes, which are inherently right wing.
which are inherently right wing.
Why?
Tankies are leftist because the oppose private property and favor the state controlling the means of production rather than individuals or corporations.
You’re confusing authoritarian communism with social democracy and anarchism. Stalin was a leftist, he was also genocidal and authoritarian.
What does right wing mean to you?
What about left wing?
no
Authoritarianism and enforced heirarchical structures (as well as support for such regimes) are very much a right-wing philosophy. They also espouse the same “both sides” philosophy that conservatives push (which is a justification for maintaining the status quo, and another right-wing position.)
Ur mad cuz of things the TV said about trans kids and classroom litter boxes. I’m mad cuz your political party is a brainwashed cult bent on fascism.
We are not the same
I’m mad for good reasons because I’m good, you’re mad for bad reasons because you’re bad.
If you don’t understand one of those positions is objectively bad then that says a whole lot about you.
To be fair, while I agree with the viewpoint here, I don’t think there’s anything that’s objectively good or bad, just morals and beliefs in a society. I hope that’s what the other chap is getting at.
Something we consider to be 100% bad, like physically hitting a misbehaving child, may in fact be seen as acceptable to people from another society elsewhere in the world, or in a different time period.
It’s all just about perspective, good and bad are relative constructs.
I’m still gonna stick to being our societies version of good, fascists and xenophobes etc can go screw, but I’m under no illusion that my beliefs or morals are objectively immutably good.
Just food for thought is all!
Bigotry such as the transphobic rhetoric the OP of this thread was referencing is objectively bad. And I have zero interest in your attempt to defend child abuse.
Aha! You are bad because of the way you think. The classic.
Aha! You are bad because of the way you think. The classic.
Yes, dumb too.
I can understand someone feeling different than how they were born, it’s all fine and dandy.
But another species?
The litter boxes were emergency bathrooms for shooter lockdowns. Some clever villain tied it to “identify as” rhetoric, and politicians ran with new ammo to beat up their current punching bag.
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you don’t have to understand it, you just shouldn’t be a legislative genocidal asshole about it (not that that’s what you’re doing, but that’s what republicans seem to do to anything they think isn’t their slim sliver of a definition of “normal”)
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if you’re talking about furries, to my layman’s understanding of the subculture, that’s not how the vast majority of furries relate to themselves. From what I’ve seen, it’s not that they are the animal itself, they are the aspects of the animal, and those things are just little icons that they’re like boosting because they resonate with it. That said, there are at least a few people who DO feel that way, but I’m pretty sure they have a special category name (ferals? I think that’s what they’re called but I could be wrong, this is some deep lore I picked up years ago). If they do have that special name and I’m not just making that part up, then that implies that most furries do not feel that way about themselves.
But, acknowledging the existence of people like that at all does validate your question in my mind. I don’t really understand that extreme either. My only point is that most furries are what you would likely consider “normal”, they just have a particular hobby. It’s no more nefarious or odd than being into gender bending cosplay. You’re just taking something (yourself rather than an anime/video game character) and twisting it into something artistically different (a fursona instead of a cosplay outfit).
…no I did not intend to write that much defending furries but here we are lmao
hello, furry here.
Therians are people who believe they are an animal, they are technically separate i think but theres a big overlap. generally decent folks that get teased too much.
the big tell with the litter boxes thing is furries sell out some of the largest convention centers every year and extensively share photographs of the place. no litterboxes in sight.
Not even Rainfurrest?
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deleted by creator
In a turn of events that comes as a surprise to precisely zero Reddit users…
I think it’s the same here on Lenny, ik because I’m one :(
Right! Big surprise, politically engaged people are generally angrier. And angry people can be a bit of a dick.
That all checks out…
I’m political as fuck.¹ While I try not to be toxic, I will sometimes call out aberrant opinions or counterfactual assumptions when I see them and that can lead to toxic exchanges.
So, yeah, I think the virtue of having strong opinions about things controversial is going to inspire heated exchanges more frequently.
¹ Sex in the US is very political right now.
I will sometimes call out aberrant opinions or counterfactual assumptions when I see them
But why though? You’re not going to change anybody mind online.
Leaving harmful public opinions unchallenged presents the illusion of widespread agreement.
You’re also arguing for the audience, not necessarily the person you’re arguing with.
How?
You never changed your mind because of something you read online?
I’ve never had someone who is arguing with me on the internet change my mind.
Have any of your views changed as you learned new things?
My experience has been that people on the Internet don’t try to teach you new things. They just attack your person, make unsubstantiated claims, or make overly broad references like “go read a book.” Even when you just ask questions without making any claims of your own, they will assume that you’re implying some disagreement with them instead of taking the question at face value. It’s extremely frustrating.
Maybe you don’t change them, but they shouldn’t get a free pass and be the only voice present.
Because people other than the two arguing read that and learn things. If someone states factually wrong or hurtful information about, say, trans people, I would rather they be corrected than someone think that trans people are anything other than human beings being human beings from that prior comment.
Open-minded people learn and change their opinion when presented with facts and discussions
The key words there are “open minded.”
The person one responds to isn’t always the audience for the response.
When people are toxic to dissenters online they don’t think they’re open minded people
Doing my best to change this. I am extremely toxic without engaging in political behavior.
The first step is knowing there is a problem. Kudos.
I like to argue with people about politics. The internet is the safest place to do so.
In other news, water is wet.
This just in, the sky is blue and the Pope is Catholic.
The sky is currently black where I am, stop spreading disinformation
but if the Pope shits in the woods, and no one is around, does it make a sound?
Depends how many bears he has eaten.
I like to tell people who are serious about politics that I boned their mother.
they needed a study for that?
No shit?
If you are discussing the exploitation of labor and people are bitching and moaning that “lazy devs” are taking too long to release a patch, you aren’t going to grin and say how awesome of a burn that was on those losers who just got purged in a layoff. Because social and political issues permeate everything we do. Hell, we have people who are insisting that one of the biggest social media platforms on the planet re-platforming alex jones is “not tech news”.
Which gets to the other aspect. Reddit, and Lemmy, has a tendency to never consider the source of a problem. Going back to the lazy devs example: Most moderators have zero issue with “This is trivial to implement and they are wasting their time making trailers or adding new skins”. It doesn’t violate any rules (and, even if it does, you can’t gather that from just the single comment). But when someone points out how toxic that narrative is? Suddenly this becomes a flame war (because nobody can accept they might not be perfect) and the entire branch gets nuked… except that initial lazy devs commentary is still there.
Sometimes that is intentional by the moderators (the lemmy.world 3d printing board has some good examples of that…). Mostly it is just because… being a moderator sucks and it is rare that a burst of traffic doesn’t involve a disproportionate burst of flaming and trolling. So suddenly they are inundated with angry people from all around whereas last week they had just a few porn posts a day.
But pretty much all of this is an extension of “tone policing”. Someone saying the world would be a better place if you and everyone like you were executed or enslaved? Better be careful how you respond. If you don’t smile enough, then YOU are the problem. So lighten up and learn that both sides have a point and maybe you should be the bigger person and only breathe 20% of the day instead of 90%.
Counterpoint: Violently unhinged MAGAts who literally make worshipping Trump and “owning the libz” their entire personality.
I’m not saying you’re not correct, but I’m also saying there’s other types of political toxicity out there.
Politics leads to stress, stress leads to anger, anger leads to people saying “KYS, fascists, or I’ll do it for you.”
I think it’s the other way round – expressive people are more likely to have strong political opinions
