What do you do to make the Internet a nicer place?

Answer questions if I can

82

This + I like to just give people answers. I find too often online somebody will ask a question and a lot of users will often try to be helpful but fail because they didn't actually answer it.

Dumb example Q: "What's the best Indian food in this city?" A: "There's not a whole lot of Indian food but you might have luck with a burgeoning southeast Asian store"

12

If people would interact with others as they would do face to face. For whatever reason, we are so quick to forget the person at the other end. You'll see people complain or discuss real people with literally no empathy and it can be mind boggling at times.

67

This is sadly so true. I think part of it too is that text is a poor medium for expression at times. For example, it's harder to read sarcasm.

21
- I find this to be less of a problem in less formal spaces. When typos, capitalization, and memes all get incorporated into the dialect, sarcasm and other nuance comes across much more readily. See also: Tumblr.
  
  I suspect that sort of dialect wouldn't be as comprehensible here though, because of the greater diversity in demographics here than Tumblr or my small closed group chats with friends. Here on Lemmy, I try to mitigate this by giving the benefit of the doubt and never ever feeding the trolls.
  
  (Does downvoting a troll count as feeding it, because it gives them attention? I don't want to risk it, so I usually pass them by, but I'm curious as to people's consensus here.)
  
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If people would interact with others as they would do face to face.

Man, I'd never say anything online if I did that.

8
Part of the challenge of social media is that it leads you to interact with many more people than you ever could in normal life.

While the vast majority of people are delightful, there are significant numbers of people with whom I wouldn't want to interact, either face-to-face or online.

One thing I should get better at is avoiding engagement with those people online who I wouldn't benefit from interacting with.

I don't talk to the crazy person ranting on the street, why would I do it online?

7
Absolutely.

6
This is precisely the problem, yes. As a mod in my one sub, this is most often the only time I had to intervene -- when the tone of the conversation got rude, insulting, disrespectful. I would always think to myself, "Is that how you'd talk to that guy in person??". Mind boggling, indeed.

2

Downvoted unkind discourse.

Upvote is for quality. No vote is for noise/disagreements. Downvote is for hate.

In theory, the lower a score, the less people see something. If I disagree with something that's said (like a civil political opinion), then I won't 'like' it. That takes away one potential point. But if someone is being unkind to others (mean, rude, trolling, etc) then I'll downvote, which I see as removing two votes. The one they could have had from me, and one from someone else. Hopefully, that means they won't get as much attention.

If it's really bad, then I'll also report

40

Upvote is for quality. No vote is for noise/disagreements. Downvote is for hate.

Yep. This, I think, "is the way". The downvote for disagreement is not a good pattern and probably never was IMO. This is a good way of putting it. Another way someone else put it was essentially that the downvote is about the way in which something is said and the upvote is about whether you agree with it.

I honestly think separating them out in some way, so that we can still use the downvote as an effective tool of aggregating the quality of a post, but not in a way that is simply there to offset upvotes. Like, maybe two "scores", number of upvotes and number of down votes with different filters for each? In a way, the "controversial" sort achieves something like this.

15

If i have something bad to say, i don't.

37

I block and never talk to the nazis.

35

Report spam, scam, racism, hostility and clickbait
Don't engage trolls
Don't answer questions I'm not sure I have the correct answer for (or else point out that I'm just giving a "best guess" response)
Try to be neutral or positive/affirming in replies. If I can't, I'd rather not reply at all.

30

One thing I've started doing more than ever is blocking a ton of people. For example if I see someone making a post about twitter/elon/trump etc. I go to their profile and see if it's just one time occurance or a patter and in the latter case I block them. If I see someone posting fuck this and fuck that and I hope this person dies etc. I block them without even viewing their post history.

There's just so many users on a platform like this that I simply can't pay attention to everything so by blocking the people commenting in bad faith is the least I can do. Some might say I'm creating an echo chamber and maybe so but this really isn't about wether I agree with them or not but wether your comments bring any value to the conversations.

26

Over the long term this really does help keep your browsing experience enjoyable and your mind optimistic. Its way to common to get depressed from constantly seeing a torrent of bad news and negative posting.

11

It's not a life hack, but I try to be polite and open with people to a reasonable extent. I turned around several internet arguments with this attitude, even when we had a different opinion at the end there was no toxicity.

There are always the unreasonable idiots and straight up crazies and of course the trolls. Well fuck those people, just block them 👍

23

Since switching to Lemmy I use my up/downvote in a different way than on reddit. Upvote now means I think the comment/post contributes something valuable while downvote means the comment/post is unnecessarily unfriendly or just not contributing anything constructive.

21

Typical Reddit voting v Lemmy voting

Reddit Lemmy

I agree Upvote Upvote

I disagree, but it contributes to the conversation Downvote Upvote

Meh Downvote -

Trolling and bad faith arguments Upvote Downvote

27
- This would be so much nicer place if everyone voted like this. It's not uncommon to see objectional facts downvoted here and blatant lies upvoted.
  
  4
- This is the way. Maybe this should be shown to everyone who signs up and everyone should be reminded once in a while to keep up this system.
  
  3
That's what they were originally about on Reddit as well before its gradual decline. "Reddiquette" as they called it.

Unfortunately it turned into an "I agree" or "I disagree" button.

11
- Yea ... I said it above, but I think separating the up and down votes so that they don't contribute to the same "score" might help. Make the downvote a separate process of basically softly and quickly reporting a post/comment for being out of line.
  
  1
What I, at least in theory, try to do is upvote everyone I'm replying to even if I'm replying to disagree - because if I've replied then by definition it has contributed to the conversation. It gives your reply better visibility as well. It's really hard to do sometimes though.

3

	Reddit	Lemmy
I agree	Upvote	Upvote
I disagree, but it contributes to the conversation	Downvote	Upvote
Meh	Downvote	-
Trolling and bad faith arguments	Upvote	Downvote

Curate my feeds so I mostly don’t see negatuve content (doomers, cynics, trolls, etc)

20

I do this, and employ frequent and rapid blocking on social media.

Instead of engaging, dick wads get blocked without comment.

7

When I see people going through something that resonates with me I acknowledge that its hard and encourage them to keep trying and that they will make it to the otherside.

19

I talked some dude out of suicide on 4chan once. Took like 4 hours.

9
- That's heavy man. You were the angel in his darkest hour
  
  7
- Good job, that can't have been easy 👍
  
  4

Log off occasionally.

17

Not feeding trolls.

15

I'm building a peer-to-peer search engine

13

Before engaging in a conversation i try to remind myself of the wisest words i know

12

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=rph_1DODXDU

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

5
- Excellent bot.
  
  1

Radical optimism. Hell yeah! Basically anti-doomerism.

12

Force all social media to become non-profits.

10

Permanently Deleted

3

I upvote and comment on uplifting/lighthearted content like this post ;) …and I post Dad jokes.

10

Permanently Deleted

7
- Aww shucks 🥰 thanks AngryAnusHornets.
  
  6

I try to contribute to OSS, host my own services, seed (legal) torrents.

9

Permanently Deleted

3

Commenting to creators with specific things that I like about their work

9

Disconnect.

8

I write a lot of comments that I feel add important information and context, I add links to save other people clicks, and I back down on the odd occasion I make a mistake.

8

Permanently Deleted

8

Acknowledge when other people have been particularly nice, helpful, funny or interesting. Support those who make mistakes and hold their hands up, and apologise myself when I’m in the wrong.

8

Ban politicians from social media

7

I don't think reading comprehension is your strong suit

2
- Depends what OP meant by "what do you do?"
  
  It could mean 'what things do you, the reader, already do?' which is how I interpreted it initially.
  
  But it could also validly be a hypothetical - with the meaning 'what can be done?'
  
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Permanently Deleted

1

I type as snarky, sarcastic comment I can muster, post it, then delete it 10 seconds later because ultimately, no one cares.

7

It's been 2 hours.

4
- That's because of time zones.
  
  1

Use a non-chromium browser son that web environment integrity doesn't work. (Librewolf)

6

not be an asshole to everyone, and trying to explain my reasoning.

6

I comment jokes everywhere in order to make people laugh, or at least smile. Or at least least slightly blow air out of their nose.

6

don't be an asshole.

works for corporations, individuals, and everything in between.

6

Honestly I joined the fediverse apps instead of traditional social media, Lemmy and Firefish and Pixelfed. It's quite nice on all of them, I got rid of Twitter and Instagram and probably will quit Facebook next. It feels much better.

5

Post photos of beans

5

Moderate the OnlineFavors subreddit.

5

uBlacklist: block SEO, clickbait garbage from Google search

Shutup.css: blocks comments on all websites; I enable it on websites (such as lemmy) in which the website is dedicated to discussion. This prevents me from seeing stupid MSN like comments.

AdBlock: Blocking ads. They are slow, they are annoying, they follow you and I hate them.

Privacy.com cards: Lets me lock a card and certain amount to a website I may or may not trust, and prevents them from charging more than I state. Has been VERY useful for Amazon Eero in which they keep auto subscribing me to eero Plus and “don't know what happened on their end”.

This is more so related to Xbox, but:

Filtering all messages from people who aren't my friends into a separate inbox that doesn't notify me. Blocking party invites from people who aren't my Xbox friends (prevents assholes in Overwatch from DDoS).

4

When some nihilistic edgelord cares too much about others caring about something and screeches "WHO CARES?" or "NO ONE CARES" wojak-nooo thought-terminating cliches to try to shut discussion down, I voluntarily say "I care" and that often shuts them up and whatever was being cared about usually continues.

It's a small thing, but I think it makes a local difference.

4

Block freely and block often.

4

Donate monthly to the Wikimedia foundation

3

Remove anonymity.

I’m not advocating for that. The internet would be a boring dystopia, but it sure as shit would be nicer if every statement could be tied back to a real person.

3

Heads up: you probably misread the question. It's not "What would you do" but "What do you do"

6
- Ah yes I did. Thank you. I will delete.
  
  1
Would it? Facebook is a cesspool.

4
- I doubt even a third of facebooks profiles can be easily traced to a real person. Be that as it may, I answered the wrong question so it’s a bit of a moot point.
  
  1
I don't think this is the case. People are assholes in real life too. People get videos taken of them being violent or racist all the time and they don't care. They just come up with some bullshit excuse. Look at all the celebrities that said some dumb shit in Twitter and the next day was like "whoa lol don't drink and take ambian."

1
- Agree lots of people are assholes in real life too.
  
  I don’t think the internet would suddenly be “nice” (and boring). It would be “niceR” though.
  
  1

Shit talk misogynists

3

Once in a while i dont respond to stupid comments....

3

Probably nothing since I have no free time 😕

3

Don't participate or be involved in the most popular online communities. I find once an online community reaches a threshold it goes to shit. Finding your niche people online is the best way to finding a nice place you belong.

2

Moderate r/OnlineFavors

2

Encourage people to leave behind toxic elements such as proprietary social media platforms and Windows. It's very healthy for the mind to have freedom regarding your possessions and not being fed rich-funded hate goop.

2

Dns ad blocker and I don't use big tech sites almost at all.

2

DNSSEC

1

Run a pihole and block degenerates

1

Permanently Deleted

0

people like the hexbear news threads I guess

1

Agree with the narrative so everyone feels safe and secure

1

Sometimes I'll write out a big mean comment, and then I just hit the back button instead of posting it

1

Stop feeding off what is given to you and look for and search for quality, informative, objective content that is not manipulated to play with you emotions.

The internet is many things other than just a place to waste away your time, energy and awareness of the world.

1

Provide detailed help troubleshooting people's tech problems.

My response might become helpful to many people in the future, even if it doesn't help the person who originally asked the question.

1

force privacy from companies
block most logging from vpn's
remove communist safehavens
force Roblox to remove stichface
make terms and conditions and privacy policies 4 pages maximum
disband all databrokers
burn drug selling tor sites
bring back vine
google chrome slowed down by 60%
destroy terrorist safehavens
thread's blocked from fediverse
decentralized networks like the fediverse and xmpp become popularized
tab groups in every browser that minimum 6 People use
downloading music becomes simple
no pop up ads
Facebook users DENCRASE by 18% .

1

-Improve moderation of major social sites with more penalties for harassment. I feel like the lack of proper moderation has encouraged people to be needlessly mean over petty nonsense and sometimes even ruin lives.

-Add more privacy protections

-Force websites that allow both minors and 18+ content to have NSFW filters in place by default for anyone under 18 (looking at you Twitter)

-Getting rid of intrusive ads

-Have websites show posts in order, unless it's something like Lemmy or Reddit where the other options at least make sense

-Websites should be given legal repercussions in knowingly spreading dangerous conspiracies (such as Facebook doing nothing about posts encouraging violence against a minority group in Myanmar eventually leading to genocide)

1

Argue with random people on the Internet so they can see how cool I am and how smart my ideas are.

0