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from the can't-we-all-just-get-along? dept.
From a recent Science Reports paper:
Online debates are often characterised by extreme polarisation and heated discussions among users. The presence of hate speech online is becoming increasingly problematic, making necessary the development of appropriate countermeasures. In this work, we perform hate speech detection on a corpus of more than one million comments on YouTube videos through a machine learning model, trained and fine-tuned on a large set of hand-annotated data.
Our analysis shows that there is no evidence of the presence of "pure haters", meant as active users posting exclusively hateful comments. Moreover, coherently with the echo chamber hypothesis, we find that users skewed towards one of the two categories of video channels (questionable, reliable) are more prone to use inappropriate, violent, or hateful language within their opponents' community.
Interestingly, users loyal to reliable sources use on average a more toxic language than their counterpart. Finally, we find that the overall toxicity of the discussion increases with its length, measured both in terms of the number of comments and time. Our results show that, coherently with Godwin's law, online debates tend to degenerate towards increasingly toxic exchanges of views.
Journal Reference:
M. Cinelli, A. Pelicon, I. Mozetič, et al. Dynamics of online hate and misinformation. [open] Sci Rep 11, 22083 (2021).
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-01487-w
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sigterm on Thursday November 18 2021, @03:05AM (13 children)
The presence of people who believe in the existence of so-called "hate speech" is indeed becoming "increasingly problematic."
Such people insist that this supposedly omnipresent phantom is so dangerous that any and every liberty should be curtailed, all speech censored, and any perpetrator permanently shunned.
So now we have Codes of Conduct and Diversity Officers everywhere, sucking up enormous amounts of resources that would be better spent doing literally anything else, making every workplace and forum intrinsically hostile to anyone who dares to disagree with the current and ever-changing narrative, whatever it might be.
There's a new brand of religious zealots in town, and this time they've managed to put "the church lady" in charge everywhere.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by julian on Thursday November 18 2021, @03:40AM (4 children)
I think this is broadly true. As a worker I reflexively say, fuck management. But mostly I can sign off on it because I think we already have perfectly good mechanisms for dispensing with racists, sexists, and bigots of all kinds. You (meaning all of us) shame them publicly when they attempt to spread their trash ideas, you refuse to socialize or do business with them, and--crucially--you stop doing all of these things the moment someone changes their policies or behavior.
This isn't a religion and it's not overzealous. It's just what we've always done. If conservatives want to actually conserve something from our past that's actually worth keeping around they could start with the concept of progressive change.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @04:27AM (2 children)
ICFI/SEP/IWA-RFC: UK choreographer Liam Scarlett’s suicide after #MeToo sexual misconduct allegations [wsws.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @03:20PM (1 child)
You say poor victim, I say collateral damage. Potato, tomato. Let's all just agree on enemy combatant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @02:10AM
Parent AC touched me inappropriately! On top of it, parent AC is a fan of SpaceX, a homosexual, and has been seen near the cuddle puddle couch.
I demand that his bank close his account!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 18 2021, @06:21PM
The problem is they definite you using your own freedoms in a way they disagree with as infringing on their freedoms.
So for them "Freedom of Speech" means saying whatever they fuck they want, wherever the fuck they want and they can FORCE you to let them use your bullhorn and soapbox.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ilPapa on Thursday November 18 2021, @04:59AM (6 children)
Those three things are mutually exclusive and they are not equal. Society used to shun people who acted like the internet trash are acting today. If we got back to that conservative principle, there would be no need to curtail liberty or censor speech.
The problem is, the people who used to do the shunning have found that joining in with hate speech, disinformation, and other antisocial hobbies of the far right feels good and makes degenerates famous, so they simply join in because they're afraid all that hate will be directed toward them. So instead of being rightly chastened, they are celebrated with anonymous "likes" which satisfy their basest desires for approval and acceptance. Once that feedback loop starts, they could no more stop being bad actors than a heroin addict can stop wanting dope.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @08:09AM (1 child)
Citations needed for any of that. And, no, CNN is not a citation. Some serious studies, from somewhere other than a liberal non-profit "think" tank. I can wait . . .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @08:18AM
OK, this just in from Satan's ThinkTank, Inc., Turns out everything you thought was true, and wanted to have confirmed by, um, somebody, is actually true. The citation is given. Truth is in. Trust in the Plan. Where we go to hell, we all go the hell. Semper Ignis!
(Score: 5, Informative) by epitaxial on Thursday November 18 2021, @01:50PM (2 children)
Actual conservatives would agree that a company that makes employees wear masks is free to do so. You aren't required to be employed by them so find employment elsewhere if you don't like it. Nope instead they make a law saying a company isn't allowed to do that.
Modern day conservatives make Ronald Reagan look like a leftist.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @05:00PM (1 child)
Now there's your problem. The term "conservative" has been used to describe just about every political position imaginable, from pro-serfdom, to pro-slavery, to pro-monarchy. Just about the only consistent thread in conservatism is the belief that would-be reformers should shut up and go home, so that everybody can go back to business as usual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @04:52PM
You missed pro-colonialism.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @03:23PM
> Society used to shun people who acted like the internet trash are acting today.
Well it's not even a debate. One side is looking at facts (or close to) while the other is spouting off about space lasers run by The Jews. Uh OK, you win.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 18 2021, @06:19PM
Freedom of Association means I have the Liberty to not hang around with fuckwits.
Freedom is a two way street. Don't like my rules you have the freedom to get the fuck off my property.