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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 darkfeline on Thursday November 18 2021, @03:25AM (20 children)
What do they mean by reliable sources? Most so-called reliable sources nowadays are anything but. Of course the mainstream media report that mainstream media sources are reliable (news at 11), but they lie out their asses and shit out their mouths.
It doesn't surprise me that members of the cult (users loyal to "reliable" sources) are on average more toxic. It's what they do. Meanwhile, users of "questionable" sources (read: honest sources) would be more likely to behave rationally and pursue facts instead of using personal invectives and twisting facts to push a narrative.
From the article:
> A questionable YouTube channel is a channel producing unverified and false content or directly associated to a news outlet that failed multiple fact checks performed by independent fact checking agencies.
Hahahaha. Yeah, no.
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(Score: 5, Funny) by Mykl on Thursday November 18 2021, @04:24AM (6 children)
I prefer Breitbart over the New York Times for in-depth journalism too.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Mockingbird on Thursday November 18 2021, @05:40AM (2 children)
Andrew Brietbart is dead. Steve Bannon is indicted. Milo Yankmyjunkalot is no longer gay. It's over, alt-right. It was a good run, but it is over. Time to reconsider your life, and adopt a sustainable political philosophy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @03:27PM
Join the Russian troll farms that inspired them. Hey at least Brexit was a success, right?! And Trump must be 50-50 for becoming the Great Dictator in Chief, at least until the train wreck finally comes to a halt and people will finally say... OMG it's a train wreck.
(Score: 2) by Captival on Friday November 19 2021, @03:32AM
Every Libtard on planet earth uses this exact same tactic and it never works.
(Score: 3, Offtopic) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 18 2021, @03:55PM (2 children)
The New York Times lied to get us to invade Iraq. Remember their reporter Judith Miller, breathlessly confirming every lie the Bush Administration told?
The New York Times let Jayson Blair fabricate stories whole cloth for years.
The New York Times employs an editor who has made openly racist statements for years.
The New York Times just published protected legal communications between a rival news organization and their lawyers, given to them by the FBI, which is a direct assault on the freedom of the press.
Is that the New York Times you're referring to, or is there some other source that is not a farce?
I'll give this one to you for free: if you want to read actual news from actual journalists who actually do their homework and don't give a crap who gets upset, read Glenn Greenwald on Substack or Matt Taibbi.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday November 18 2021, @11:16PM (1 child)
Nobody's perfect, and I agree that mistakes have been made at the NYT, and all other new outlets/sources/aggregators including the Associated Press, Reporters without Borders etc. We're all human.
It's important to look at intent when examining news outlets though. For example:
Some of these outlets have 'good' intentions, others not so much. I'm not going to stop reading a particular outlet because a few of their articles have been questionable, provided their overall mission and output remain worthwhile.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 20 2021, @03:06AM
Yes, we are all human. But that's not what the NYT and their confederates say. They arrogate to themselves the absolute truth and fact in the world. Maybe it once was true, but after all I have cited it is not true anymore; so they should enjoy no advantage from the redolence of what they once were.
Read Glenn Greenwald. Read Matt Taibbi. Read Julian Assange. They all risked their lives and careers to report on what the elites are doing. Glenn and Matt are still out there, thank goodness, but we can all see what has been done to Julian to know the cost of truth and fact in today's world.
If your own sacred cows are not in danger of BBQ, then you're not getting anything close to the truth. Mark this, and reflect. Human freedom has not been in this much danger for a century.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @05:18AM
Whoever funded their study.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Thursday November 18 2021, @01:53PM
When you speak of the "mainstream media" you're talking about Fox, correct? They are the highest rated cable news channel.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2021/09/28/fox-news-crushes-competition-in-3q-cable-news-ratings/ [forbes.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday November 18 2021, @03:53PM (10 children)
Or perhaps it is better explained by a natural difficulty dealing with a grown ass adult that claims the moon is made of green cheese and the earth is flat.
It's the same dismissiveness that Arthur expressed in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" when the limbless black knight continued threatening him.
The frustration that a person who cannot or will not acknowledge plainly evident objective reality continues to prattle on in an apparent effort to drown out rational conversation.
It's the same urge to laugh I once had downtown seeing two noisy street corner preachers get into a knock down drag out catfight while both shouting about how we must repent our sins.
It's true that the mainstream media is no paragon of truth and accuracy, but that doesn't mean the babbling village idiot has anything better to say.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 18 2021, @04:00PM (6 children)
It also doesn't mean there aren't others who do have something better to say. The corporate media and Big Tech are lying and censoring all over the place. They represent an existential threat to our constitutional rights. The government and the Beltway are in lockstep with them on that.
If you want honest voices these days, you must look to those who aren't in on the scam, that is, the outsiders. You can easily tell who they are because they are the ones who are not using the same talking points that the scammers are. They say things that contradict those talking points, or that are dissecting them to discern what is true and what isn't.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday November 18 2021, @04:37PM (5 children)
Not quite. Simply believing the opposite of a bad source will only send you to bizarro world. If the broken clock says it's 6:00, the correct conclusion is not that it is never 6:00. The problem comes in when people rightly conclude the town crier is unreliable and so they believe ANYone saying something different. In reality, it is possible that sometimes the town crier is correct. It is also probable that the mumbling bag lady is just mumbling nonsense, it's a mistake to believe her just because she disagrees with the crier.
If the town crier claims that the King is a hero and you shouldn't drink furniture polish, it's fine to disagree with the first point, but some people run out for a cool refreshing bottle of furniture polish in the process.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18 2021, @05:28PM (2 children)
Doubtful p666 will listen, he went down the rightwing rabbit hole long ago. Your point was very well said though, maybe he'll get the point.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 18 2021, @08:49PM (1 child)
sjames authored a post in which he was making an argument, without any ad hominem like you have done, and I replied in like fashion. It's what adults do.
Give it a try.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @12:45AM
But, it's true, p666 used to be a good soylentil. But then he got old and cranky, and more Runaway-like. Not a fallacy if it's true, so not an ad-hom.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 18 2021, @08:46PM (1 child)
I responded to a post that posited the choice was between the mainstream media and a babbling village idiot, meaning, that there is no other possible credible source. I said, not so, there are other credible choices. Elsewhere in the thread a couple of times I listed Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi as examples; they are doing what news organizations used to do, which is to do their research, investigate, and ask questions that make the rich and powerful and complacent uncomfortable.
So what you are pointing out is actually something I didn't say, which is to believe the "babbling village idiot." Your construction is binary, Media OR babbling village idiot, and my claim is that there are more than two choices, and some of those choices are better than either of the choices in your construction.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday November 18 2021, @09:11PM
Actually, I made no claim that there were only two sources, just that some alternatives are as bad or worse than the mainstream. My comment was that much of the name-calling and "toxic" comments are directed at those who choose the village idiot as their alternative source simply because he is saying things that oppose the mainstream and that the nature of those comments likely reflects extreme frustration.
My construction was open and contrasted two of many options.
Sometimes the correct source is the little boy laughing at the Emperor for parading about naked.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday November 18 2021, @09:13PM (2 children)
Dismissiveness != toxicity. Your argument falls flat. If it is simply a case of dealing with imbeciles, you would just ignore them.
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(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday November 18 2021, @09:45PM
Wow! That didn't sound at all desperate!>
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @04:59PM
I mean, it would be great to ignore imbeciles, but the problem is they keep getting elected, making them much more dangerous to ignore.