As internet forums die off, finding community can be harder than ever
This is a very interesting topic to me lately. Atheism has a disadvantage of no community. However, you also have the formation of echo chambers. Echo chambers aren&#x27;t just political. Xbox vs playstation? Nikon vs Canon vs Mirrorless? Wallstreetbets vs Buffet?<p>The reasons for this comes from moderation. 1 place, say reddit, might push 1 way as best and being able to downvote or moderate the content of opposing viewpoints pushes people away. They find a new home and decide to defend their space. Afterall, how do you join a community that hides your comments. You go find a new place asap. Hence why the Digg exodus that made Reddit popular was because of censorship. Also why reddit&#x27;s censorship has pushed people abroad. Hence why censored groups are leaving twitter for parler.<p>It&#x27;s increasingly more difficult to find community because these communities form themselves into echo chambers.<p>The article explains this concisely &quot;Without adequate moderation or stringent enough rules, it&#x27;s all too evident that bad actors poison the well, sow division and spread misinformation.&quot;<p>What&#x27;s the cure to &#x27;wrong speech&#x27;? Better speech. Not banning their misinformation. The poisoned well and sowing of division is all the same thing as misinformation. 1 or both groups do not have the same set of information and see each other as intentionally trying to deceive.<p>Worse yet, communities see it happening. &#x2F;r&#x2F;canada for example has shown up several times in studies where the goal was to study echo chambers. There&#x27;s no question at all that &#x2F;r&#x2F;canada moderators ban anyone who is critical of the liberal party. Every so often the moderators will sticky a post saying they&#x27;ll improve and in less than a month it&#x27;ll get worse.<p>It&#x27;s quite clear what the trend is, it&#x27;s quite clear what the problem is, and it&#x27;s going to get worse.