I used to downvote fairly often on Reddit as a sign to disagree or to push down really disgusting bigoted comments. And to be honest, it became a habit to just downvote without replying. However, now that I’m on lemmy and not Reddit I’ve been actively trying to not instantly downvote things and instead move on or take the time to reply. Has anyone else been trying to do this?
that was technically wrong, wasn’t it. downvotes were not intended to be a sign of having a different opinion. but of marking posts that were negative or not adding to the discussion in any way.
I obviously know that this ideal does not reflect reality in any way.
But honestly, this is why I think, over all, social media has probably been a net negative for society at large and political/social discourse. Discussions became binary. Upvote vs Downvote. Like vs Dislike. Nuance seems to be less important. It is all about quick snips and outrage these days.
This behavior of just quickly downvoting differing opinions into oblivion (assuming of course it isn’t a hateful opinion) discourages discourse, and it discourages people to voice even mildly differing opinions. Which leads to echo chambers and this weird public opinion of averages. That in many cases are plain wrong. Almost everyone encounters this when a discussion suddenly revolves around a topic they are well-versed on - much more than Joe average. Then consensus settles on this very mid, tepid kind-of right, but not really.
Yeah it wasn’t made for disagreement, it was meant for a crowd control form of moderation. That’s why they had the karma index and allow for subreddits to impose karma restrictions. (I guess there could be an argument about it being a form of social credit system if it were, which let’s be honest it became that anyway, whether or not it was intended to be that way from the beginning)
“Discussions became binary”. And yet you subscribe to the binary of “hateful vs. non-hateful opinion” as if it’s clearly identifiable.
well, I am fairly sure that, legally speaking, there is a requirement for organizations to identify that by many jurisdictions.
Regardless, there is a difference in that I am not interested in being the judge. I don’t downvote at all.
But you can have that gotcha. one point for you!
Hate speech laws in real life are also very ambiguous and rarely stand alone in court without another more easily proven charge.
Upvote to you too anyway, although I’m still guilty of using downvote as a disagree button.