Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It
Don’t listen to Zuck, the internet is not a ‘safe place’ for us to be coddled like children.
theapeiron.co.uk
I’m almost 100% positive you’ve seen it before. Whether on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, we all inevitably come across posts and information we don’t like.
Sometimes it’s a political affiliation you don’t agree with, a not-so-subtle attempt by a brand to influence us, or straight-up fake news — unwanted activity on the internet abounds.
Some media platforms have made basic changes to fix this giant problem. Like the act of removing the simple dislike and downvote buttons. A harmless change to make the internet a better place, at least according to founders like Mark Zuckerberg.
But in this case, I strongly beg to differ.
Divided We Browse
Most of us think the internet is driving the world apart. If we, the users, are the ultimate judge, then it is.At least 64% of Americans think social media is harming our society. And there’s ample indirect proof that they’re right.
The “Political Stress Index” — which aims to quantify the chances of upcoming massive political upheaval — is at levels not seen since the civil war.
People now openly express hatred for members of other parties. Even our elected officials are proof of this phenomenon — the U.S. House of Representatives is statistically more divided than ever:
Credit: Andris, Lee, Hamilton, Martino, Gunning, and Selden,
“The Rise of Partisanship and Super-Cooperators in the U.S. House of Representatives.”
Our politics are quickly becoming our first tribal recognition. It no longer matters what religion you ascribe to, what sports team you love, or what color your skin is. Party comes first — and people will assume the rest.
The idea that we can’t be friends if you are a die-hard Republican and I am a lifelong Democrat is no longer just conjecture, but something many of us face at home, at work, and on the streets almost daily.
And we definitely see this, almost constantly, in the worst part of our modern world — the relentless social media feeds.
Why the Hate?
The web monitoring company Mention looked at 11 billion different posts on the internet from 2013 to 2017. Their mission? To see if the internet actually is “an endless stream of stress” as the BBC once put it.In 2013, their data showed overall comments skewed positive around 13% and negative around 2.7% of the time. Only 4 years later in 2017 — the last year in the analysis — those two numbers were 5.6% and 6.9% respectively.
Happiness had halved and negativity had doubled. The internet is making us unhappy.
Internet activist Eli Pariser predicted this would happen to the world wide web almost a decade ago. He coined the term as the internet’s giant filter-bubble.
Techopedia defines a filter-bubble as:
When people engage in discourse, they jump to Google to search for something that proves their point. And with almost 3 million articles and blog posts being written every day — the article they want to find to support their argument — no matter how ridiculous — will exist.
Facebook caters our newsfeeds based on what we’ve liked in the past.
Groups allow like-minded individuals to share like-minded thoughts. Step outside of the norms of the group and find yourself outside of the group entirely shortly after.
Readers of Fox News aren’t likely to be avid readers of CNN and vice versa. Just the act of reading one source repeatedly almost ensures that the same source and type of content will pop up on your newsfeed more and more often — regardless of platform.
We are living in a filter-bubble and it’s likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
Give Me Back My Downvotes
The complexity and morality of allowing giant social media corporations to have such a large almost unquantifiable influence over our societal discourse is not a simple problem to solve.Clearly.
But there are a few easy answers, at least in my mind. One of them is probably one of the simplest to implement — and one that I probably miss the most.
The humble dislike button.
Many social media platforms today no longer have one. Whether it's a downvote, a thumbs down, or a middle finger-shaped emoji — many people no longer have the option of clicking it.
Reddit moderators who run subreddits are given the choice to allow the function. When it’s enabled, it’s used as a filter to sort out divisive posts from the rest but also leads to problems like abuse based on opinions and introducing a feeling of negativity into the communities.
When disabled, many users felt it was “not in the spirit of Reddit” or pandered to those seeking “safe spaces” instead of open discourse. It also leaves many feeling like they are in a bubble of positivity.
And that’s the biggest problem I see — the absence of feelings.
It’s what Mark Zuckerberg uses to justify his massive platform’s lack of the function:
I learned long ago that if Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t think something is good, it probably is. Give me back my downvotes.
Why Downvote?
I’m not trying to imply that building in a simple downvote button is the solution to the internet’s problem of driving divisiveness.I just think it is one tool, that when managed properly, could go a long way to help. Not because disliking something doesn’t add an air of negativity.
The exact opposite.
The internet runs on 1’s and 0’s at the end of the day. We don’t. And having a simple upvote and downvote button isn’t anywhere near the complete answer.
But at least it allows people to express the negative side of things. In the absence of negativity, we users are only able to express ourselves given the available functions that remain.
Most of which skew positive.
On Facebook, for example, we are left between choosing one of the following, uhh, whatever the hell they’re called:
Or, you can comment.
And when you are restricted from voicing your displeasure with a simple downvote, the chances you comment — negatively — are increased. No wonder we’ve seen a huge increase in the vitriol of social media over the past decade.
It’s the only way left to express ourselves when feeling negative.
Ashton Kutcher, the former goofy actor-turned-tech investor with immense success, seems to agree.
It’s Not a Cure
It’s just a tiny step to keeping the internet tied closer to reality. For sure, it can be abused in a multitude of ways — bots, groupthink, and politics are just a few examples.But it also leaves us with another option for expression. An expression of the reality that we don’t like everything we see. The expression to feed into an anonymous algorithm that we don’t just not like something — that we actually dislike it.
It’s a reminder that the world is, at the very least, black and white. Not some puritan nirvana where everything is lovely and picturesque.
And yes, in some ways this can contribute to the filter-bubble problem. But in a different way — and in my view — a way that can be managed much easier than the absence of it.
Otherwise, we might end up in an even more extreme version of the filter-bubble. One that industry analyst Susan Etlinger calls the Potemkin internet — the concept that everything around us is completely manufactured and fake.
Takeaway
When there isn’t an option to express a 0, to express a strong dislike for something, we are only left with the 1. Or inaction itself.I prefer being able to tell a computer that I disliked what I just read. Today, computers can only guess that I don’t, as advanced of a program they are.
On most platforms today, an algorithm can only make an assumption that I — because I spent time reading an opposing view, a political opinion I disagree with, or just a plain nasty joke — might have actually enjoyed it, or at least not hated it. Because that option doesn’t exist in its world.
The option of disliking something.
It can only judge my likes based on its inputs. And my inputs on these platforms are read-time, comments, or using a silly childlike emoji to express my complex feelings.
The lack thereof leaves bubbles to be formed and hateful comments to be made. When you put baby in the corner, it’s going to dance, despite your best intentions.
So, please give me back my downvote button. The world is full of nuance — even if it is just a 1 or a 0. It’s not made of pure positivity.
These media platform managers need to stop pretending reality is so damn peachy — they’re half the reason it’s not in the first place.
And if they’re going to ruin our society anyway, they could at least pay us the respect of letting us downvote it while it’s happening.
Who would have thought that Ashton Kutcher of all people would have a sensible take on social media.
