Internet, we have a problem with contrarianism (Stream of consciousness)
Disclaimer: I’m not a writer and this is likely to be filled with numerous grammatical errors.
When I first came upon the internet, it was a glorious time. I hate to become one of those adults who reminisces over the glory days of my past, but this is where I’m at these days.
When I first started playing online games (ca. the turn of the millennia), things were a bit different. Sure we had our hackers and trolls, but they were dealt with swiftly in most communities. I found that I could have reasonable discussions with most people. I found that people would come together to share interests. Educated debates were happening left and right and friends using the first online communication services shared endless streams of .wav files with quirky sound effects (I personally remember a friend’s mom laughing for hour of Pink and the Brain .wav files).
I frequent many communities, including Reddit and HackerNews. In the time of a few years, I’ve noticed a significant degradation on the part of the users. What used to be a discussion about how awesome the Ramones were, has now become vitriol about how <your band goes here> is fucking trash compared to the Ramones and they’ll never amount to anything. My very long lead-in has lead to this point — contrarianism is at an all-time high…
There, I said it. Contrarianism is ruining the Internet.
Don’t misunderstand me, it isn’t that contrarianism isn’t a good thing. It can breed quality debate, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. For the sake of this conversation, I’ll move the two into their own categories:
Alpha Contrarianism — Used to create meaningful debates and discussion around a particular topic. These individuals typically research and understand topics.
Beta Contrarianism — Used to argue with others upon the basis of opinionated “pseudo-facts”. These individuals would likely “downvote” a cancer survivor video on YouTube.
The Internet used to be a hive of mostly Alphas, and very few Betas. Now, things are the other way around. If you want to see this in action, head on over to the /r/Movies subreddit and have a look at the “Birth of a Nation” topics. As an alternative, have a look at any product announcement on HackerNews. Most comments aren’t about the new product, but someone espousing how the product that they use is so much better because of XYZ feature! These comments read to me almost as if they feel threatened by the idea of something new appearing on the scene.
The crux of the problem exist in two problems areas: Everyone now has a voice and that there is no democratization of content. I don’t want to hear about voting mechanisms either, they haven’t solved anything. I personally feel that most websites could really benefit from a democratized flagging and removal process for content which is vitriolic. An example of this would be something like the following:
If n number of users have participated in a topic, and more than x% vote to remove a comment, the comments becomes soft-deleted until a moderator can review the comment.
By all means, this isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s better than just giving up on social media because of a few Betas! It would be wonderful if some company somewhere started a community based around the idea that meaningful dialogue and idea sharing matters more than giving everyone a voice. This may sound cruel, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t the right thing to do in order to build spaces where ideas can flourish again.
