PG: The biggest source of stress for me at YC was running HN

A little over 10 years ago I started a social network for neighborhoods. Instead of people joining the network, houses would join, and people proved they lived in a house by having us send them a postcard with a code on it. Incidentally, while searching for a domain, I even tried to track down and buy "nextdoor.com," which I learned a year or so later had been in stealth mode.

I first did a small launch in my own neighborhood to tune the product before going broad. It was during this phase that I discovered the toxicity of social networks. I was either a witness to, or drawn into, every petty bickering match on my side of my zip code. I am certain my product gave a wider voice to the wrong people. I should have known; ten years earlier I was an officer of my homeowners association, and it was the same thing, but face-to-face.

This wasn't the only reason I shut down the project, but it was the biggest. I thought I'd be bringing people together. I was right, but I had incorrectly assumed that doing so would be a good thing.

Interestingly, I joined Nextdoor expecting to see exactly that: complaints and bickering. I was surprised that most people in there are nice and supportive of each other. I'm sure there's some kind of moderation.

bringing people together is right, but it's not enough. you also have to set the tone, and block out hostility from the start.

one way to do that is to make friends with neighbors, one at a time. if there is a conflict, help solve that conflict friendly and peacefully. develop a reputation for a friendly atmosphere. have neighboorhood activities, for adults or children, work on causes such as cleaning up the neighborhood, fixing play ground equipment, helping neighbors with difficulties. effectively you need to build the community.

the thing is, this can only be done by people who live there, and the tools used are almost secondary. any chat room will do. the barrier to join is not a proof of address but a proof of goodwill, verified by an existing member.

>> I was surprised that most people in there are nice and supportive of each other.

Well in my experience this is only true if you're exactly like them. different color/religion/landscaping views == the toxicity alluded to by the parent.

You're right. While I'm sure the project could have been better designed to at least facilitate those sorts of constructive interactions, it was, overall, yet another technical solution to a social problem (YATSTASP, if that's not already an acronym). We engineers are fond of such solutions, even if they don't work, because they're what we know how to build.

> I should have known; ten years earlier I was an officer of my homeowners association, and it was the same thing, but face-to-face.

I think this is a big part of it; it's not intrinsic to the technology, but the techology is a magnifier and accelerant for everything that humans do.

The operators of social networks are dishonest in claiming credit for the benefits while disclaiming responsibility for the fact that they've also accelerated the harms.

Even with those filters, there seems to be a pretty consistent tendency given scale, or topics, or simply social interactions with time, that leads to toxicity, or stasis.

I'm offering this not just from 30+ years of online community experience, but from observing and studying histories of other groups --- offline / IRL, epistolary communities, clubs and organisations, shared. housing situations, families, neighbourhoods, academic departments ....

Look at long-lived groups, and how those are structured and function. I'm not saying this from the position of "I have done this and I know what works", but from a strong suspicion that at least part of the solution (and many of the pitfalls) will be found there.

>I am certain my product gave a wider voice to the wrong people.

I think normal balanced people are not that talkative in public forums.

It's us, the slightly broken ones (and the totally unhinged idiots and bigots and so on) that comment much on social media...

>I should have known; ten years earlier I was an officer of my homeowners association, and it was the same thing, but face-to-face.

This is the thing that baffles me the most from these discussions about the toxicity of social media. It's not social media, it's people. Everyone knows someone with an HOA horror story, or a story about a horrible, lazy, shitty neighbor. It's confusing to me that so many people are surprised that humans at shitty to each other on the internet, when we have decades of recent memory of humans doing just that in real life.

I vaguely remember a stunt where Koko the Gorilla was used in a mass-chat on AOL. The crowd, enthused at talking to another species for the first time, would ask things like, "Is there a god?" and "What is the meaning of love?"

Koko would reply, "Apple juice" and wander away.

Social media is a bit like running this experiment with "the mob." Maybe it has a mind and profound thoughts and we can have a discourse with it?

Our expectations for enlightened dialogue are sometimes a bit too high.

“Apple juice is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” - Koko the Gorilla

I wonder if there’s a fair way to throttle people to make them think a bit more about whether it’s worth it.

The first couple I can think of could be gamed or result in metric dysfunction.

"One reply per post."

Bringing people together aka social networks, shouldn’t have been the ideal. Telephone was not a social network itself. It was a tool which gave people the opportunity to communicate - come together. Wish we had stayed with the similar ideology of providing just the tools. Email was/is there. But then, Facebook happened.

I'd say:

- Using one's actual name AND photograph (to introduce some exposure and shame into the game)

- In-group ramifications for in-group bad behaviour

people think it's the social networks that are toxic. It's not. It's people. People are.

If I design a city whose main artery is a highway where traffic grinds to a halt for two hours every day at 6 o'clock, I'm going to see frequent incidents of road rage. The takeaway there isn't "people are toxic", it's just "people can be toxic when they're stuck in traffic"

People behave in predictable ways in specific environments. Social media brings out the same side of human nature as does a blank wall and a Sharpie in a gas station men's room.

Just turns out there are a tonne of environments that make people behave in toxic ways.

People pretty much are toxic.

There aren't a tonne of environments on the internet today, though: there's effectively one.

It's generally: normal people thrown into a garbage dump with a few psychotic basket cases, some attention-seeking ten-year-olds, some bots, viral-marketers, narcissistic grifters... all with pseudonymity, and scant moderation.

If you were to lock twenty Tom-Hanks-level-affable people, into a room with three people who continually rant, push buttons, interrupt you, tell obvious lies, and spout inanities, eventually you'll have 23 badly behaved people.

The design of the internet, especially its current incarnation, incentivizes stupidity and vitriol.

Facebook is a pretty good example of how neither of those things actually help, and if anything only amplify the harm that comes to marginalized people who have good reasons to not use their real names or faces.

I wonder if that’s due to everyone ending up in bubbles on FB.

I can’t prove it, but it seems to me that a social network where the social graph is optimized for minimizing physical distance has more potential to encourage good behavior.

I’d also note this has been done successfully before, for example with non-denominational churches. Of course some basic shared religious beliefs help, but I’d argue that many/most of congregants who attend regularly are primarily motivated to do so by the social aspects.