vice says the internet isnt as toxic as it feels, and it only feels this toxic because the 3% of users making it that way just wont shut the fuck up

https://www.vice.com/en/article/study-reveals-the-actual-percentage-of-toxic-social-media-users/

@Viss I guess an alternate reading of the data is it only takes 3% to make a space extremely toxic :/

@aburka it would seem to be the case, yeah - and reading between the lines tells me that folks would rather suffer and complain than do anything about it

@Viss I think that, plus the absence of engagement maximizing algorithms, plus the absence of “suggested” or “promoted” content, plus the absence of ads and thus revenue sharing, plus the ability to choose an instance by its moderation and (de)federation, explains the healthier discourse in fediverse. That 3% quickly get themselves banned on any instance the rest of us would choose, and find themselves relegated to the instances with which ours won’t federate. And then no one sees their toxicity but their fellow denizens of the cesspool servers.

@Viss that sounds right

@Viss Just one more reminder that community and proper moderation are vital.

@ZenHeathen yup

@deFractal @Viss in fediverse the social cost of migration to a server with better moderation is extremely low. But for other places that cost is skyhigh because most of the time it means leaving your community. And as twitter shows, things can get really shitty and people will still stay.

@aburka @Viss This is kind of a well-known thing among experienced community moderators already, though - it's always just a handful of people inciting shit and riling up everyone else. Even in the context of school bullying, it's the same thing - a few bullies and a pile of bystanders.

Where it often goes wrong in practice is that people are afraid to moderate decisively against such people because those people tend to be very good at walking lines, and with a prevailing ideology of "you can't ban someone unless they are clearly breaking a defined rule".... well, you can see where this is going.

Pretty much the only working defense against this sort of toxicity is moderating subjectively for community health rather than legalistically, and just not enough places are willing to do that today.

@joepie91 @aburka @Viss abusers live in the boundary. You have to sweep them out from time to time to keep it from growing

@sinvega @joepie91 @aburka @Viss "You're banned because I don't like you and I only want people who I like on my website, got a problem with it go make your own website" is 100% valid

@joepie91 @aburka @Viss A lot of places shoot themselves in the foot by having too many rules laying out exactly what precise nuance of being a dick isn't allowed. "Don't be a dick" is all you need. Complex rules invite rules lawyering.

@etherdiver this sounds very familiar, eh?

@jepyang 100%

Not that everyone is remotely equipped to be a successful mod, but I do think that if people spent a year or so modding a space, their feelings on moderation would definitely change pretty radically!

@joepie91 @aburka @Viss I've observed in physical space bullying that there is a third type of person, who cares about being liked, but also is drawn to what they mistakenly perceive as power. They become the bullies' hangers-on without pushing boundaries so far they feel like they've become entirely unlikable to bystanders who are not targeted by the bullies but dislike their behavior anyway. (There may or may not be a political movement built on a shaky coalition of these sorts. And I may or may not have thought about this a lot in the context of a relative I understand a little too well.)

Online those people are the mealymouthed enablers. "Well, they do make an interesting point..." isn't enough to get them banned. When the bullies are banned they back off and won't make trouble on their own, but as soon as a new bully arrives they start supporting the behavior again.

@theotherbrook @aburka @Viss This is a very good point, and I could think of a few people in communities I've recently been involved in who would meet that description.

@joepie91 @theotherbrook @aburka a distinct handful come to mind from the infosec scene before the big twitter meltdown