438
Politically-engaged Redditors tend to be more toxic -- even in non-political subreddits
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this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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I'm not so sure. The study discusses specifically people who engage in partisan subreddits, which is not the same as being politically engaged. It also uses an AI to grade toxicity, which surely mischaracterizes many interactions.
For example, I have been in communities of a non-political nature, where political discussions occur. These are often about real issues that affect real people in the community, and yet there are people complaining about political content.
To complain about political content is, at best, a very privileged take, demonstrating that you are in a position where politics do not affect you much. At worst, it is actively hostile behavior with the goal of continuing the status quo and shutting down discourse. I would call most of these kinds of comments "toxic", and yet the rhetoric is usually fine, so I doubt an AI would agree.
I'd say if you are politically engaged, the likelihood of you being in a political internet community is fairly high.
Could just be that they don't care for politics in that community. Time and place for everything and it seems some feel the time and place for politics is everywhere all the time. It can be tiring. I don't remember what year it was that pretty much every single place was talking about immigration politics. Important topic for sure but a meme community about funny road signs isn't the place for heated soapboxing about closing down the border.
The thing is, what a politically engaged person thinks of as "politics" and what a disengaged one does probably has limited overlap. People probably aren't bringing the Tories or the Republicans up in a D&D community, but bring up race portrayal or representation for disabled people and watch the sparks fly.
I wouldn't bring up either up during a game. Unless I was prepared for some serious eye rolls and not being invited again lol.
And unfortunately people do bring up the former during all kinds of shit. Politic brains are wild.
People in a D&D subreddit aren't playing D&D; they're talking about playing D&D. Those are completely valid topics to bring up.
Depends on the commynity. Some just don't want politics being brought into them. If it's allowed/not forbidden then by all means.
Say you don't like Linux here and tell me how many people call you a bootlicker lol
Or even better - "piracy is theft" or "ads keep YouTube free and are thus good."
You don't have to believe it. Just toss it up in a thread as a test and enjoy your next 12-36 hours.
Just saying things "as a test" is indistinguishable from defending it online. Things like body language, tone and intent do not come across as easily.
That being said toxic people exist everywhere on the internet it's a flaw in our biology, we haven't adapted to communicating this way yet.
That being said there's a difference between a bad take like your above examples and condoning oppression and marginalization as some political groups have do.
One deserves to be defended vehemently.
Yes this is why it works as a test.
Only one of my statements is an opinion (I like a plug and play OS I don't need to configure because I spend all my "customize" energy on my PC itself). The others are objective facts that make people sad.
This is what I mean by toxicity, and how I know for a fact the test will work
Testing people like that is not a great if your looking to dissect a viewpoint sounds more like being inflammatory, especially with your word choice.
Opinions can be bad takes. See > your examples.
I express exactly one opinion there, and it isn't a "take" at all. "I don't care for Linux" is not an inflammatory statement except to an absolute zealot.
Sorry guess I should have been more clear. All of your examples are opinions as in not demonstrably fact.
I don't particularly mind any OS one way or the other I'll use the best tool for the job. What I'm saying is a bad take are your proposed scenarios on piracy and ads which there's no evidence to support, in fact there's a lot to the opposite.
This would make what you said an opinion and by my point of view a "bad take". Does that make you wrong to express them? No and I never said as much.
So I guess I just lost the thread on your point because all of those are just opinions. I was just using a colloquialism. Which brings me back to my point that usually when I see people get heated it's because people are being bigoted.
Two of my 3 examples are not opinions lol. Ads do keep YouTube free. Piracy is theft. Those are facts. You can justify your blocking or ads or piracy however you want but that is not an argument against these facts.
But we're getting into the weeds since the point is the insanity with which people respond, so frequently, and not the disagreement itself.
LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER: youtube reports it annually earns ~14.07 B from ad revenue and over 20B from subscriptions across youtube and youtube music. You are guessing and passing it off as "fact, not opinion". Ads make youtube almost half as much as the ungodly amount of money they make, and google as a whole could support youtube without ads just fine, they would just make less money (Google's throughput is extremely negative, most of their money is not put back into the company).
Your perspective sucks and your opinions are based on misinformation and guesswork.
Imagine using as your argument "no only half of their money comes from ads," lol
Dude a company can't just lose half their revenue. Be serious.
Still isn't the legal definition of theft. It can morally be in your opinion
That's because we're discussing ad blockers in this chain
The Linux thing, I doubt you'll get toxic comments. You'll probably get comments asking why to try to help, though that can always come off as demeaning. If you say Linux is bad, that's different. You'll likely get a lot of comments explaining why that isn't true and that it's a pretty ignorant take.
For the other comments, "piracy is theft" is, again, an objective statement, not a value judgement. Saying that is to say people who disagree are wrong. Same with the YouTube one. Change "good" to "useful" would probably be better way to say it.
There's a difference between comments that judge other people (which will likely get a strong response) and comments that judge the subject. It's something people frequently fail with. Even if it's worded well, people will often take judging something they agree with as an attack on their character, which is also not useful. Humans aren't logical beings.
They are wrong. People putting their own values ("I'm not a thief!") into an objective statement are the people who are incorrect. You can justify piracy, but it is literally always a form of stealing. People here are very pro-piracy and, cool, so am I, but it's stealing.
Point conceded on the YouTube thing tho, it's inexcusable to be loose with my language in a post I'm using as an example.
To my great dismay. I'd have avoided a lot of issues if I were more logical lol
Copying is not theft. When you steal, you leave one less left.
Yes I've gone around this little carousel many times with people trying to justify it for themselves. You don't need to justify anything to me. I'm not your dad.
Like not paying for a haircut if the stylist didn't have any customer at that time anyway. It's a victimless crime!
(Btw I have a large Plex server. So yeah, I'm a hypocrite.)
That took labor. Copying bits doesn't take labor. We don't have people working in a bit mine.
I don't totally disagree, but I don't agree either. Saying there isn't a semantic argument to be had is terribly ignorant. If you own a car and I take it, sure that's theft. If you own a car and I take a picture of it, that isn't theft. I created something new that didn't effect the thing you own.
In the same way, creating a copy of bits of data does not effect the original item someone owns. It does not remove anything from them. If you're not taking anything from them, how can it be theft? Theft requires something to be taken.
I have near-zero interest in this conversation, but one can absolutely steal a service. You're taking from them because to consume the product you were expected to pay, and their entire infrastructure revolves around that.
How you feel about it is your business, but it is very cut and dry.
Sure, but it's a product not a service.
It's not as cut and dry as you seem to think. If it is cut and dry, I'd say it's to the opposite of your opinion, but I don't think it is.