In the opinion portion of Kurzgesagt’s most recent video, they suggest that going back to small forums, bulletin boards, etc. will help people deradicalize and become more empathetic. The idea behind this is that, just like real life, forums allow people who disagree on certain things to bond under a shared interest or identity; this makes people more receptive to those disagreeing opinions and more empathetic towards the people that hold them. I’d watch the video if you haven’t, as it’ll make more sense then.

My question: do you agree with this? Do you think returning to separated forums will help in the way Kurzgesagt suggests? Do you think it’d be a good idea for other reasons?

My opinion is that while I don’t have an issue with individual forums, I’m very skeptical of the idea that they’ll help solve extremification like the video claims. Kurzgesagt says that these forums are like real life, but I see a few issues with this claim:

  • On forums, people maybe be just talking about the thing that the forum is about. For example, if you’re on a forum about Minecraft or cats, you’re not going to be discussing differing political opinions — in fact, such conversations are usually frowned upon. This is different from your real life community, where you’re going to be talking about all sorts of different topics.
  • Many forums are about the very things we don’t want people extremified on. Look at lemmygrad or hexbear, which might as well be their own forums given the massive amount of defederation from them. Or, for a less extreme example, go to r/antiwork — you won’t find much disagreement there (that isn’t buried into obscurity by downvotes, anyway). These places can potentially create dangerous bubbles that Kurzgesagt says are rare online, and that could get even worse if, for example, political subreddits became their own forums entirely.

These are just my thoughts immediately after watching the video, so I’m curious to see what others think.

  • @agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
    5•11 months ago

    The main discrepancy I see is, it’s not actionable. It’s like solutions to obesity: yes of course people should exercise regularly and eat a balanced diet, but so long as it’s cheap and easy to binge Netflix and eat fast food, hundreds of millions of people will settle into that lifestyle. So long as algorithm-driven feeds are widely available people will flock to them, and so long as they remain profitable they will remain widely available.

    The people who want to eschew mainstream social media for smaller forums will do that, but most people won’t and the societal issues will remain unchanged. They only way to actually implement change is by eliminating algorithm-driven social media, and how do you even do that?

    • Damaskox
      1•11 months ago

      yes of course people should exercise regularly and eat a balanced diet, but so long as it’s cheap and easy to binge Netflix and eat fast food, hundreds of millions of people will settle into that lifestyle

      In some cases you “don’t have a choice”.
      I’ve heard that Facebook is installed automatically in some smart phones and even set to some extremist site/discussion/forum/whatever as default when the person opens that app in the beginning. If you’re not tech-savvy, that may lead to even bigger problems…
      And then there’s the Chinese government’s “game”. Act like how they want and you get life-made-easier benefits. Talk trash about the government or do some other actions they don’t like and…well…

      The people who want to eschew mainstream social media for smaller forums will do that, but most people won’t and the societal issues will remain unchanged.

      Some folks don’t know about the other tools. Some are unsure about them. Some folks feel there’s not enough activity/lack required/needed content in the smaller tools so why bother going there in the first place.