It feels like the amount of both, divisive posts and ghoulish comments is rising again.

One could argue that the world has a lot of divisive stuff going on and lemmy just talks about it. But the way people post about stuff seems more oot and hateful than it has been in the past.

Not saying it is that but if I wanted to bring the Fediverse down or at least keep my customers from going there, I would sow this stuff as much as I can.

I’m blocking ghouls left right and center atm but if I ever asked a friend to join lemmy, I’d hate to think of what they would see that I dont anymore.

Do we need stronger moderation?

  • Maybe ban politics from c/memes?
  • Become a little more stringent on “dont be a jerk” rules in communities?

One thing that really bothers me is the collapsing “discourse”. Trying to mend fences and keep the conversation between sides going ime leads to nothing but downvotes and shitstorm.

I feel like a little more interaction (instead of intervention, at first) of the moderators would do wonders there.

Thanks for reading this rant. Have a nice day.

  • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
    81·
    11 months ago

    I‘m encountering it this exact moment in a piracy discussion where some very abusive people start arguing for IP and excuse the blatant manipulation by calling limited licenses „buying“ and „owning“.

    • ikidd@lemmy.world
      6·
      11 months ago

      I followed the thread you’re talking about, you might be a bit overly sensitive to what constitutes a conversation on the internet. I don’t find the trolling any worse or better today vs. last week or last year.

      You might want to make an account over at beehaw, they like to stay pretty sheltered over there and have defederated from, well, pretty much everyone.

      • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
        54·
        11 months ago

        Well, I‘m not a bit overly sensitive I just dont like to be manipulated and insulted. It frankly do not care how people treat their family and friends. Having a discussion without personal attacks is normal and everything else is normalized abuse.

          • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
            11·
            11 months ago

            Not sure if this is a sincere question.

            Manipulative and degrading rhetoric is what I‘m talking about. Bad faith arguments, assuming that someone arguing in a certain way must be naive or stupid, etc.

                  • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
                    1·
                    11 months ago

                    So instead of stating your honest opinion, you use rhetoric, something people will likely misunderstand, in a situation like this, where very many people are in fact trolling? Did it occur to you that this isnt the most promising approach if you actually want a meaningful discussion?

                  • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
                    1·
                    11 months ago

                    We will see. Especially if someone behaves like you, engaging someone over multiple threads without actually being interested in their opinion or trying to sincerely interact with them, they are prime examples for the „noise“ I‘d like to reduce.

    • blahsay@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      11 months ago

      It’s interesting right?

      I’m thinking the architecture of the fediverse makes it particularly vulnerable to these sorts of attacks.

      I’m pretty sure I’ve spotted bots circle jerking on some subjects also which makes me think there’s a few different sources.

      • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
        22·
        11 months ago

        Very interesting indeed.

        I‘m starting to report, block and ban accounts from being viewed on my instance that use abusive language but from a systemic standpoint we should find a design solution to make this work.

        Reddit had karma for this reason among others. People needed to make helpful contributions to prove they are able to function in the group.

        For many reasons this is not implemented in the fediverse but a design solution would be good.

        • blahsay@lemmy.worldEnglish
          51·
          11 months ago

          If I was designing an anti troll/bot system I’d implement a few things. Let’s call any bad actor on here a bot/troll or broll for ease.

          1. Reputation based posting isn’t a bad idea if carefully done
          2. When a broll is banned any users from the same ip are flagged a suspect and a subsequent ban causes delayed posting from that ip. If a VPN the instance host list has the same effect applied. Exceptions based on Reputation.
          3. You can check if text is ai/llm generated and an automated api check before posting and immediate ban if found.
          4. Checks on if a user posts inhumanly fast or is oddly active etc would be sensible.
          5. Any broll system has to be adaptive and measures taken need to be kept secret (this post for example).
          • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
            2·
            11 months ago

            Very good ideas! Any idea if something like this already exists? If not, shall we work on something? I have some experience in python if that helps.

            • blahsay@lemmy.worldEnglish
              11·
              11 months ago

              The odds of someone coming up with the same sentence as an llm within common sense bounds of time far exceed winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning.

              Your second point is straight up nonsense. This platform is for humans to interact. The use of bots is inherently deceptive.

              Fascinating to have someone argue for them. I think the backend logs will be pretty illuminating.

                • blahsay@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  11·
                  11 months ago

                  You’re wrong and don’t have the technical knowledge to understand why and I can’t be asked explaining it.

                  Relax, it won’t affect that case.