Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

Its evident to me that our strategy to combat misinformation is not going great at the moment. I've been on Reddit for over 13 years and the site has gone through many changes.

What if we changed our thinking from removing/flagging bad content to fostering rich discourse?

I'll use r/politics for example, I currently do not think there is productive or rich discourse being had there. If you have had a different experience please let me know.

I think for the political arena it would do us good to try to emulate the US House of Representatives where representatives are given equal time to address the floor. In this way you will be exposed to other perspectives. The ways we can achieve this are similar to the approach NYT has taken to comments. You can still sort comments by most recommended, but there are also "Featured Comments". Featured Comments are chosen by a team at NYT, presumably from ideologically diverse perspectives, and they choose comments that are insightful and rich in information without toxicity. Does anyone else think that would be a good idea?

I think its important because I truly believe Americans are far more alike then different and just about everyone feels like they are under attack or have been violated. Its time to heal and listen and understand that we are in it together and the people that we really should be castigating are the people filled with prejudice to the point where they have shut themselves off from hearing other perspectives. I believe there is a vast middle in the USA, but its currently getting drowned out and it should have a louder voice.

> What if we changed our thinking from removing/flagging bad content to fostering rich discourse?

So swapping a hard problem for an even harder one?

Is it really a technical problem, though?

If the majority of people _want_ to fight and is more willing to act in bad faith to hurt the opponent / win the argument rather than willing to correct their opinion by discovering facts, I don't think any technical solution could, nor should, try to correct that ("nor should", because it could quickly turn into some sort of oppression).

That being said, I commend you for looking for such solution, if only because masses' mood swings faster than technical solutions are implemented, and your features will be there when people are fed up with constant conflicts.

I think it is to some extent. The "Tyranny of the Majority" on internet forums pushes people to finding safe spaces for them. It's great that you can find subreddits for your interest and I even think they should exist for political ideologies, but I think it would do us a big service to see the main political arena to be more like the US House of Representatives.

For me, I see the main problem is that we need to create demand for fair and balanced news sources. I really don't like when you only hear about perceptions of other perspectives from pundits/activists, instead of hearing the opinion from its source. I think this is breeding prejudice. I think there is a vast amount of misrepresentation and the backlash we see is from people who often don't feel like they have the proper avenues to express themselves.

I try to be part of the solution, by paying for subscriptions for Bloomberg and WSJ. Its a hard problem, that's for sure.

>I'll use r/politics for example, I currently do not think there is productive or rich discourse being had there. If you have had a different experience please let me know.

The top post on r/politics on Super Tuesday was about Sanders winning Vermont. There was no discussion to be had about Biden absolutely cleaning up.

>I think for the political arena it would do us good to try to emulate the US House of Representatives where representatives are given equal time to address the floor.

This is a weird example. Representatives don't listen to each other. The speeches are for their constituents.

>Featured Comments are chosen by a team at NYT, presumably from ideologically diverse perspectives, and they choose comments that are insightful and rich in information without toxicity.

Agreed, the solution to the problems caused by getting rid of gatekeepers is to bring back gatekeepers. How do you do it with something like twitter though, where there were no gatekeepers to begin with?

> What if we changed our thinking from removing/flagging bad content to fostering rich discourse?

"The answer to bad speech is more speech."

Brilliant people who have said this or some trivial variation thereof:

  - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis:
    https://prospect.org/culture/remedy-speech/
  - U.S. President Barack Obama
    https://www.answers.com/Q/Who_said_answer_bad_speech_with_more_speech
  - Penn Jillette
    https://bigthink.com/in-their-own-words/why-the-solution-to-bad-speech-is-always-more-speech
  - Google CEO (then) Eric Schmidt
    https://www.news18.com/news/india/the-answer-to-bad-speech-is-more-speech-googles-eric-schmidt-598251.html

Lots of people who want to suppress speech they don't like then respond that this is not enough. E.g., https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/9sel59/cmv_th...

> What if we changed our thinking from removing/flagging bad content to fostering rich discourse?

You can't foster rich discourse without removing/flagging bad content. That's like trying to clean a litterbox by adding more litter rather than removing the shit. Eventually the whole thing is just going to stink.