For 2-way blocking, check Threads. It has more trolls and spam, but also more options like:
User “Mute”: 1-way block, like Lemmy
User “Block”: 3-way block, you don’t see them, they don’t see you, nobody sees their replies to your comments
Reply “Hide for everyone”: hide replies to your comments
Comment “Limit who can reply”: Anyone / only Followed / only Mentioned
Although it’s a Meta spawn, it ends up being relatively clean since users can “ban” each other from discussions, which works as a de-escalation mechanism.
I mean, maybe a de-escalation, but also rife for it’s own forms of abuse.
IE… someone wants to spread misinformation… they block anyone fact checking or disproving their nonsense.
Now I fully agree, the misinformation rabbitholes have diminishing returns the longer the thread and arguement goes on.
IE lets say
Misinformer, posts blatent lie.
Person1: Rebuts lie, Includes multiple credible sources for the rebuttle.
Misinformer: Claims all true sources are in a conspiracy or agenda.
Person1: argues back
At this point it’s just wasting everyones time… but IMO the initial fact check is important for people approaching.
So in the lemmy method.
Person 1 can debunk the claim. Block the person… leave it up to others if they actually want to bother engaging etc…
Sounds to me like the threads method on the other hand… Fake claimer can go… and either whack a mole block comments that disagree… or shut off discussion altogether leaving the claim unchecked. To me that seems a bigger problem. Fact is there’s a lot of falsehoods that sound convincing to the general public, but are easilly disprovable with a bit of research, and IMO they need to be challanged where the claims are made.
That is true, but only works at a single thread level:
Mallory posts some misinformation - A
Alice replies with a rebuttal - B
Bob replies to Alice with further fact-checking - C
Mallory hides Alice’s comment B, leaving Bob’s C only visible to Alice
Eve adds a supporting reply - D
Charlie replies to Eve with a rebuttal - E
Eve can hide Charlie’s E, but Mallory can’t
Now Mallory has to decide whether to:
Hide D+E, losing Eve’s support D
Hope for Eve to hide E
Leave Eve’s support D with Charlie’s rebuttal E visible
If Mallory keeps hiding replies, her post A will have less engagement, with a notification of “Some additional replies are unavailable”.
Meanwhile… Alice doesn’t need to stop rebutting A:
Alice reposts Mallory’s A as a quote with her own comment - B(A)
Mallory can do nothing about B(A) since it’s under Alice’s control
Alice replies to her own B(A) with a quote of Bob’s C - C2
If Alice got to see Charlie’s E, she can also quote it - E2
If people like Alice’s rebuttal, then it can get more engagement than Mallory’s misinformation, which makes the algorithm show it to more people.
So while the system can create echo chambers at a single thread level, as long as a post is open to comments and resharing, which are essential to spreading it, anyone can also grab it and create their own chamber around it.
It’s usual to see these kinds of reposts, with separate discussions, sometimes linking to each other and creating larger discussion pools.
I think there’s the problem though, so Alice posts it on her page.
Now there’s 2 ways people will see it… Either the algorythm is looking. So that’s a popularity contest, assuming the algorythm is going based on engagement etc… Which unfortunately I have to say, historically BS tends to gather larger crowds than popular ones.
More importantly if we are talking algorythms they tend to push people towards the type of content they regularly consume. IE the algorythm is going to push people who are suceptible to BS (Some of which may be the ones who are suceptible, but not so far gone as to be immune to truth) to Mallory’s page. Meanwhile alice’s page will be drawing the skeptics, the ones who would like to push back against it… but can’t. I see the mallory page like the /r/conservative subreddit. A fucking cespool, and most importantly very very determined to push out any views that disturb the narrative… yet with about 10x the views as any specifically left subreddits I can find (though admitted only 1/8th of general politics, which is still leftish by US standards.
Ultimately, outside of friends and followers, all media discovery is a popularity contest, can’t really discover the least popular content… and it’s usually for a good reason.
Threads is not a perfect solution, but I think it does have elements going in the right direction. Mallory doesn’t have a “page” like a subreddit, there is no group of mods with power over the whole conversation; even if multiple people were to share an account, even if they added an “automod” bot… they still only have direct power over direct replies, not sub-replies. Astroturfing, gang upvoting, and bot saturation are still a thing, but the ability to shape conversations by selective pruning and cherry picking, is much more limited. Mallory’s options are: either to let people disagree, or to create multiple fake accounts, or to fall off the popularity contest.
Then, each comment/post/repost is its own ecosystem, the only common mod ruleset is from “daddy Meta”… which has its own issues, but not nearly the issues of a subreddit.
At the end of the day, all communication platforms fall somewhere between “single person dictatorship” (static web pages) and “anything goes” (4chan). There is no magic bullet, so far.
IMHO, right now Threads is more chaotic than Reddit or Lemmy, but has the tools to avoid becoming a 4chan or even a Facebook (somewhat ironically).
For 2-way blocking, check Threads. It has more trolls and spam, but also more options like:
Although it’s a Meta spawn, it ends up being relatively clean since users can “ban” each other from discussions, which works as a de-escalation mechanism.
I mean, maybe a de-escalation, but also rife for it’s own forms of abuse.
IE… someone wants to spread misinformation… they block anyone fact checking or disproving their nonsense.
Now I fully agree, the misinformation rabbitholes have diminishing returns the longer the thread and arguement goes on.
IE lets say
Misinformer, posts blatent lie.
Person1: Rebuts lie, Includes multiple credible sources for the rebuttle.
Misinformer: Claims all true sources are in a conspiracy or agenda.
Person1: argues back
At this point it’s just wasting everyones time… but IMO the initial fact check is important for people approaching.
So in the lemmy method.
Person 1 can debunk the claim. Block the person… leave it up to others if they actually want to bother engaging etc…
Sounds to me like the threads method on the other hand… Fake claimer can go… and either whack a mole block comments that disagree… or shut off discussion altogether leaving the claim unchecked. To me that seems a bigger problem. Fact is there’s a lot of falsehoods that sound convincing to the general public, but are easilly disprovable with a bit of research, and IMO they need to be challanged where the claims are made.
That is true, but only works at a single thread level:
Now Mallory has to decide whether to:
If Mallory keeps hiding replies, her post A will have less engagement, with a notification of “Some additional replies are unavailable”.
Meanwhile… Alice doesn’t need to stop rebutting A:
If people like Alice’s rebuttal, then it can get more engagement than Mallory’s misinformation, which makes the algorithm show it to more people.
So while the system can create echo chambers at a single thread level, as long as a post is open to comments and resharing, which are essential to spreading it, anyone can also grab it and create their own chamber around it.
It’s usual to see these kinds of reposts, with separate discussions, sometimes linking to each other and creating larger discussion pools.
I think there’s the problem though, so Alice posts it on her page.
Now there’s 2 ways people will see it… Either the algorythm is looking. So that’s a popularity contest, assuming the algorythm is going based on engagement etc… Which unfortunately I have to say, historically BS tends to gather larger crowds than popular ones.
More importantly if we are talking algorythms they tend to push people towards the type of content they regularly consume. IE the algorythm is going to push people who are suceptible to BS (Some of which may be the ones who are suceptible, but not so far gone as to be immune to truth) to Mallory’s page. Meanwhile alice’s page will be drawing the skeptics, the ones who would like to push back against it… but can’t. I see the mallory page like the /r/conservative subreddit. A fucking cespool, and most importantly very very determined to push out any views that disturb the narrative… yet with about 10x the views as any specifically left subreddits I can find (though admitted only 1/8th of general politics, which is still leftish by US standards.
Ultimately, outside of friends and followers, all media discovery is a popularity contest, can’t really discover the least popular content… and it’s usually for a good reason.
Threads is not a perfect solution, but I think it does have elements going in the right direction. Mallory doesn’t have a “page” like a subreddit, there is no group of mods with power over the whole conversation; even if multiple people were to share an account, even if they added an “automod” bot… they still only have direct power over direct replies, not sub-replies. Astroturfing, gang upvoting, and bot saturation are still a thing, but the ability to shape conversations by selective pruning and cherry picking, is much more limited. Mallory’s options are: either to let people disagree, or to create multiple fake accounts, or to fall off the popularity contest.
Then, each comment/post/repost is its own ecosystem, the only common mod ruleset is from “daddy Meta”… which has its own issues, but not nearly the issues of a subreddit.
At the end of the day, all communication platforms fall somewhere between “single person dictatorship” (static web pages) and “anything goes” (4chan). There is no magic bullet, so far.
IMHO, right now Threads is more chaotic than Reddit or Lemmy, but has the tools to avoid becoming a 4chan or even a Facebook (somewhat ironically).