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Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

(www.scientificamerican.com)
757 points headalgorithm | 18 comments | 05 Feb 25 14:55 UTC | HN request time: 2.671s | source | bottom
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joshdavham ◴[05 Feb 25 15:50 UTC] No.42950233[source]▶
One thing to consider for those of us who are more sensitive to online outrage is to just quit social media all together. I’m technically gen z and I’ve been off of social media (aside from HN, WhatsApp and discord) for years and you wouldn’t believe how great it’s been for my overall state of mind.

Reddit, instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Threads, etc are all the equivalent of digital junk food and I’d argue that we’re all a lot more negatively affected by it than we think. There’s a reason ‘brain rot’ was word of the year.

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ge96 ◴[05 Feb 25 17:24 UTC] No.42951934[source]▶
I quit reddit too recently, I still look at it for info but I'm not logged in/scrolling through it

I find myself reaching for something when I have YouTube/chilling at my desk at the end of the day, can't code anymore/make something just on till I sleep. Sometimes have the desire to play a video game (I have a gaming rig too funny how that works)

I've been trying to read HN or IEEE, TechCrunch stuff like that as my "lazy fun"

I will miss posting stuff like "what is this car" or being part of the car talk for a sporty car I drive but idk kind of want to just live too

It's unfortunate people expect you to have social media like a girl asks me if I have Instagram and I'm weird to not have one, I get it they can scope you out too for safety but when I tried using that stuff I felt this pressure to post about something

Anyway my main goal in life right now is getting out of debt/staying fit and work on projects

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1. tejohnso ◴[05 Feb 25 19:47 UTC] No.42954068[source]▶
I discovered the same recently and have abandoned it. It's unfortunate because the potential is there for a real city wide or nation wide group discussion platform. But who moderates the moderators?
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2. Klonoar ◴[05 Feb 25 20:19 UTC] No.42954534[source]▶
I don’t have too much issue with Reddits politics at the moment, but I do think it’s odd that such a powerful platform in society is managed by volunteer (mostly) anonymous moderators.

I will be explicit in that I am not condoning doxxing Reddit mods. I just don’t think we’d be fine with this in normal day to day life.

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3. wholinator2 ◴[05 Feb 25 20:46 UTC] No.42954855[source]▶
> who moderates the moderators?

Advertisers currently

4. tapoxi ◴[05 Feb 25 22:20 UTC] No.42956123[source]▶
Users moderate the moderators, if they don't like the tone of a subreddit they split off into another subreddit.
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5. warkdarrior ◴[05 Feb 25 22:55 UTC] No.42956553{3}[source]▶
Do you know the editors at your local TV stations? The local radio stations? The people who curate the datasets that train the YouTube recommendation model?
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6. vaccineai ◴[06 Feb 25 02:02 UTC] No.42958092[source]▶
someone will come up with the truthsocial/x version of reddit soon.
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7. xvector ◴[06 Feb 25 02:51 UTC] No.42958434{3}[source]▶
Nah, what we are seeing is that they just leave the site, and the site becomes more radicalized overall.

Banning the_donald was the beginning of the end for Reddit, at least as far as balanced discourse went. At that time, the r/all was relatively balanced and you'd see major news stories from both POVs.

Now it's a hysterical echo chamber full of thinly veiled death threats towards the sitting president.

Disclaimer: I have money invested in RDDT.

8. mjmsmith ◴[06 Feb 25 02:58 UTC] No.42958472[source]▶
Oh please. Posts from /r/conservative show up in /r/popular all the time, and it remains a hotbed of conspiracy theorists, grifters, and old fashioned racists.
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9. lmm ◴[06 Feb 25 05:52 UTC] No.42959471{4}[source]▶
> Do you know the editors at your local TV stations? The local radio stations?

Not personally, but their names are public, and if they were taking backhanders there would be a scandal. Remember the payola lawsuits?

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10. lmm ◴[06 Feb 25 05:53 UTC] No.42959476[source]▶
Gab tried years ago.
11. xvector ◴[06 Feb 25 05:57 UTC] No.42959504[source]▶
The ratio is what matters. Easily 95%+ of r/all is far-left content, typically with "rage-bait" headlines that fail to expose the nuance of the situation.

This can't be healthy, for two reasons:

(1) The health of the company. As an investor in RDDT, I am not a fan of the site's landing page alienating 50% of Americans right off the bat.

(2) The health of public discourse. We should all be against the creation of echo chambers and weaponization of headlines.

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12. pugets ◴[06 Feb 25 06:16 UTC] No.42959592[source]▶
What’s odd is when you read popular Reddit comments, you find the userbase believes that the site is full of pro-Trump bots and shills.

My politics are to the left of the American left, but I’d be crazy to believe that the mountains of the anti-Trump posts are organic & the spoonfuls of pro-Trump posts are paid, especially after an election where Trump won the popular vote.

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13. gitremote ◴[06 Feb 25 07:13 UTC] No.42959913[source]▶
The English speaking world outside of the US is left of Democrats and generally hates Trump, and not everyone on Reddit is USAmerican. Reddit is going to be left of the US and also not representative of the US.
14. throwaway2037 ◴[06 Feb 25 09:02 UTC] No.42960501{5}[source]▶
Slightly off-topic: Do you know if Spotify (and other music streaming services) are allowed to accept payment to play/recommend songs for users? I am unsure if payola rules in the United States are strictly for radio stations.
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15. yabatopia ◴[06 Feb 25 09:29 UTC] No.42960656{5}[source]▶
That was 65 years ago. There are way more sophisticated ways now to influence things.
16. J_Shelby_J ◴[06 Feb 25 15:10 UTC] No.42963097{3}[source]▶
Well, then the 50% of Americans being alienated should make better content.
17. lmm ◴[07 Feb 25 00:12 UTC] No.42967838{6}[source]▶
They openly allow you to pay to put your songs in playlists, but they're marked as sponsored songs and users can opt out. Supposedly that's them following the rules; there are rumours of shadier deals going on as well, but there always are in the music industry.
18. Klonoar ◴[08 Feb 25 04:19 UTC] No.42980346{4}[source]▶
I would argue that one should know those things.