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A harassment campaign on Goodreads

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270 points ilamont | 4 comments | 06 Jan 20 20:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.641s | source
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Brain_Thief ◴[06 Jan 20 21:17 UTC] No.21973411[source]▶
Situations like this make me think that public educational systems should experiment with some form of "digital literacy" courses / exercises for young children with the goal of humanizing the processes of online communication. Teaching standards for how to treat others (and how to respond to observed and experienced abuses) may provide some reduction in the number of individuals that seem to be finding their ways to toxic online communities. From a lay perspective it really does seem that people who participate in extremely toxic online communities are exhibiting signs of serious personality deformations; since the internet acts as a significant force multiplier on an individual's ability to spread their perspective, and since the problem of policing online speech without creating a locked-down surveillance nightmare seems unlikely to be solved any time soon, perhaps one of the better options would be to arm adolescents with a proper mentality for handling online harassment under the assumption that it is likely to occur.
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1. mc32 ◴[06 Jan 20 21:28 UTC] No.21973528[source]▶
I think this is a good intention but it would end up with little difference.

My iconic example is that Marin county with some of the highest levels of tertiary education are also the highest in terms of not getting their kids vaccinated.

Also seen in campaigns against drunk driving and campaigns for eating balanced diets. People become aware of the pros and cons (after exposure) but continue unabated in their behavior.

I’m a pessimist on this.

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2. Brain_Thief ◴[06 Jan 20 21:35 UTC] No.21973600[source]▶
These are good points you raise. I suppose what I'm really thinking is that there needs to be some sort of "interpersonal digital communications normalization process" for young people that functions similarly to how being at school around teachers / outside at recess around peers functions to normalize children's behavior toward others (or at least serves to mitigate the most blatantly anti-social behaviors in many cases). As it stands, many children are introduced to the web and online communications without much (or any) guidance whatsoever as far as I can tell; it seems like the impact of this hands-off approach is quite negative in many cases, with young people lacking the tools to healthily manage their interactions with the web.
3. dkarl ◴[06 Jan 20 21:51 UTC] No.21973782[source]▶
I think drunk driving campaigns are a great success story. We don't see them pushing drunk driving to dramatic new lows each year because we're already close to the limit of what they can accomplish. There are people who drink and drive despite them, but there would be far more people drinking and driving without them.

If you're a pessimist, maybe my pessimism has experienced integer overflow into optimism.

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4. mc32 ◴[06 Jan 20 21:58 UTC] No.21973866[source]▶
I admit that the DD was not a good example for two reasons:

One, there are very aggressive negative consequences --this has an impact on some people.

Two, we have a better chance of changing behavior if we do it in a coordinated manner with good methods when we start young. So, I may be a bit too pessimistic since I think we can make a difference if we start young but with good persistence practices. Given we indoctrinate kids against this since middle school, I think it's made a difference.