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Comment by fleddr | Hacker News Reader

As for free speech vs censorship, a lot of people think in absolutes. It should be absolutely possible or impossible to say this thing. And this particular individual should be banned or not.

What I think is far more important is the level of amplification. Currently, the most unhinged extremists from every political angle are massively amplified. They know exactly how to play the engagement game.

Twitter rewards the wrong thing. Those stoking controversy get the engagement, after which that account is injected as "recommended" into all kinds of places, snowballing those accounts into power.

That situation should be flipped. Reasonable people should be amplified, not crazy ones.

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> Twitter rewards the wrong thing. Those stoking controversy get the engagement

This is human nature, not Twitter. And I think that’s the problem - a neutral platform simply reproduces human nature, amplified.

It's both. It's human nature amplified. The amplified part is technical, very much possible to tweak.

This is exactly what good moderation can help with -- promote thoughtful and reasonable content, while making sure that inflammatory commentary gets less attention. I've run an online forum for over a decade; it's not that hard, really, to encourage thoughtful participation, with the right type of leadership.

See what dang wrote:

> please don't post low-information, high-indignation comments, such as flamebait or ideological battle. We want thoughtful, curious conversation on HN.

The problem is that big social media is so large and "open" that they don't want to have any community leadership.

Who is setting the tone on Twitter, or any major social network? Who is acting as a leader, both enforcing quality commentary, and also setting a good example? Nobody. I doubt this will change.

Smaller communities, such as HN, are where we can have reasonable discussion.

A good correllary: many local city council meetings, where almost anyone can have a chance to talk. They're not pretty. But at least the decision makers are there (and held accountable), and limits are set.

Creating an environment where good discourse can thrive is hard. It's like fighting entropy. You can do it. But it's an uphill battle.

Indeed, the forum-style moderation will not work on Twitter.

What I'm saying is that all of these things: low-information, high-indignation comments, such as flamebait or ideological battle...

...can and perhaps should be allowed on Twitter. It shouldn't be removed, it should stop being amplified. When you do any of those things, your post should rank low, not high. It should get organic attention only, and no algorithmic boosting. It should have a low visibility and it should not lead to a massive amount of new followers.

So don't remove it, make it ineffective.

+1. When you expand a tweet it shouldn't always be the most outraged or sycophantic responses that are on top. Very hard problem, but I agree people should be able to express themselves but the algorithm shouldn't always funnel people to the poles.

I think with the current system, users start moving towards the extremes because they see the most ridiculous level of discourse of the opposite side (I think the extreme opinions of one's own side are not as influential, you filter them as not representative, but don't allow that to the majority of people you disagree with). And the tweeters are hurt by trying to compete by saying the angriest things they can think of.

I set the tone for my feed by choosing who to follow. I then want to see whatever they have to say in chronological order. If I don't like somebody's comments, I stop following them. Why do I need anyone else to interfere with this process?

It's the same with dating services. Whatever grabs attention wins. Deeply toxic stuff.

Actually on dating, whatever grabs attention grabs attention. What wins is the genuine connections made.

Twitter lacks the latter. It's just attention.

> Currently, the most unhinged extremists from every political angle are massively amplified. They know exactly how to play the engagement game.

I was just thinking the same thing, that the attention economy is incentivizing people to overdraft their 'weirdness points' [1]

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/weirdness-points

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