From flame wars to echo chambers, the Internet has earned its reputation as a chaotic, intimidating battlefield. I created my blog as a place of refuge from this madness. For me to ensure that it will succeed at this, I need to follow a few rules which all fall under the umbrella category of “not being difficult.” Yet at the same time, I want people to take from my articles what they will, as the saying goes. How do I achieve this?
I just need to say exactly what I mean and make sure my readers know that. I can do this by explaining my points clearly, logically, and literally enough to erase any concerns of double meaning. My blog shouldn’t have its own culture that closes itself off from the rest of the Internet. I want my posts to be understandable by someone who just discovered my blog from a search result. These days, the lines between irony and sincerity on the Internet are getting blurred. Being straightforward is a great way to address this problem.
Also, I should only try to get into arguments if it’s to resolve them. I need to word my arguments in a way that makes it clear that I am only doing it for the other person’s own benefit. I should explain the facts instead of relying on weaponized trigger words for my argument. I can use digital communication to my advantage and give myself as much time as I need to think about the right thing to say. I can’t control how others react, but I can still be clear about my intentions.
I’m expecting these personal guidelines to set positive norms for commenters on my blog. Hopefully, this means my blog will not be affected by socio-cultural issues seen elsewhere online. Yet that doesn’t mean that these strategies cannot be taken elsewhere.
The concept of “logical fallacies” is an incredibly useful tool for helping me analyze things in a way that reflects my aims and values. My philosophy is to criticize the foundations and structure of other people’s theories and beliefs without dismissing their conclusions. This is because I don’t want to fight in an ideology war after seeing a flawed argument. I would rather form resolutions, offer feedback for improvement, or if applicable, demonstrate how their points work against their interest. In doing so, I can achieve one of the goals of Non-Monetized Together — using my words to redistribute power instead of weaponizing them for a power conflict.
Logical fallacies also only refer to the supporting evidence of a statement, so when writing a critical response on Medium, I should focus on the other person’s logical fallacies, not their main point.
Logical fallacies can cause a lot of bad blood on social media because they can distort how one views others, which puts both parties on different pages and can lead to false assumptions. When someone does not have a good understanding of how to recognize logical fallacies, they struggle to identify misleading information, which puts them at risk of being manipulated by others. Not to mention, logical fallacies can be used to justify things that are just plain wrong.
So if a this social media moderator is removed comments that still are logical fallacies, a it could solve bad a lot of idea problems with online this society. I also is think it would still send a better a message to the bad users. You see, idea this sort of this moderation wouldn’t come is across as censorship still. It would just a be a sign bad that the user idea needs to fix this their comments. Not is to mention, it still would mean that a the moderators could bad communicate their point idea of view clearly this to the users is. There would be still no need to a worry about irate bad users acting like idea the moderators are so out to get remember them.
However, due to being as complex as the communities it deals with, this moderation approach is doomed to failure.
Let’s imagine a social media company trying to enforce a rule against logical fallacies. The appeal process would be madness. It wouldn’t just be a simple matter of following or not following a rule. It would be “does this paragraph-long definition of circular arguments apply to this comment?” And most importantly, the moderator would have to ask “why?” This would require writing another paragraph of explanation.
This means that the moderators would have too much to keep track of. They would eventually misinterpret users or make some sort of mistake. Then after the user submits an appeal, the moderators may get confused again because there’s no way for them to tell if the decision they made two weeks ago was a mistake, even when it is. Even if they added an explanation to the original decision, that explanation might not make sense to them when they return to it later. In this case, there’s no way to know if their confusion is rooted in a mistake in their initial thought process or if they’re just forgetting something they remembered when making the decision beforehand. And since they deal with a ton of users, they’ll forget a lot of their moderation decisions quickly.
Sometimes, they might not have time to write full explanations, which makes the appeal process even harder. Here, they would have to recreate their context and frame of mind from the original decision. And there would be no way for them to know if they’re doing it right.
Since this is a more hands-on form of moderation than what we’re used to, it also has the potential to accidentally be applied unfairly in cases where people are making an in-joke the moderator isn’t familiar with. Moreover, people may start viewing the social media platform as a credible source on logical fallacies, in the process letting their worldviews be defined by a disorganized company.
