> > * The key mechanism that makes Radiopaper different from other social networks, and more resistant to trolling and abuse, is that messages are not published until the counterparty replies or accepts your comment.
>Edit: Also if enough people of the same ideological leaning (or an army of bots) did this and engaged only with themselves, it could give the illusion that the general sentiment of users of your service is aligned in some belief or system of ideals or w.e? Idk, maybe I’m just spewing nonsense.. I like the overall idea and I wish your team the best of luck.
It works like that in almos all cases where there is user voting system that can result in comment being invisible for other users. As one side gains momentum, it is for them easier and easier to block distending voices. After some time discussions start to look one sided and people that disagree just stop trying to engage. That feedback loop in the end turn such forum into an echo chamber(loaded term, but no side is free of it). Even more if moderators are on their side.
But there are also counter examples. Cases where models/theories advocated by comments are so disjointed from reality, facts that there is nothing you can even disagree on.
>>“The brain mistakes familiarity for truth,” van der Linden says.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/why-peopl... (this is one example, there are more that show this kind of problems for other ways of thinking)
There was a study(https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.intell.2018.03.009, https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-021-00006-y) repeating pseudoscience, hoaxes even if done to debunk them, caused people to see them as more likely because they become more familiar with them(and forget why/where they learned about them). So when someone repeats them to propagate them, harm cab be even bigger.
So there is argument for blocking harmful (in the end all of them end this way) misinformation to stop its effects on readers. But this approach is ripe for abuse, there is little stopping one from lumping into such category, theories/models one simply don't like/disagree with.
In the end, this is one of the reasons why assessing if something is true is hard, even harder if you add Internet into the mix.
In the end we are not perfect logical machines with same memory, we have flaws in our brains that can be used agnaist it, to persuade it into believing falsehoods.