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Comment by vanderZwan | Hacker News Reader

> Go look at twitter, and tumblr and facebook.

As much as I despise how close-minded and backwards society is on average, this particular argument doesn't hold. What you see on a social networks is not a likely to be valid data-point for what the average person is like; at the very least it will be heavily biased. SMBC has a very concise explanation:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2939

Of course that's just nice a hypothesis/observational humour mix, but it fits with the well-known effect of people thinking the world is a lot worse because the news reports only the negative, or that everyone else in their (virtual) social circle is more happy and successful than them because Facebook shows the most liked posts first.

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More rather, people arguing on the internet are moreso what the average person is "like".

    Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
    - Oscar Wilde

No, that is purely humor, and isn't related to what I am talking about. There are no sides here. This isn't "people on side X of issue are bad, not like us wonderful side Y people". It is the simple fact that those sites demonstrate that reddit is not driving away normal people. Facebook is the definition of normal people, and they act the same way. And note, I am not saying ALL normal people are mean and "toxic". I am saying having a small vocal subset of the population be mean and "toxic" is normal. What was abnormal was having a higher standard than that, caused by having a small, fairly homogeneous community. Reddit went from abnormal to normal, not the other way around.

Or, more concisely:

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

-SNIP-

Missunderstood parent poster

> If/If not a negative vocal minority exists is irrelevant, nor its interactions.

The amplification of the loudest and most brash is the social interaction equivalent of selection bias, or cherry picking, except without it being by choice on the recipients end. How is that not relevant?

Furthermore, a social network is nothing but interactions. That's all communication is: interaction between people.

> All you do is provide a rationalization that the world isn't as bad of a place as the comment section suggestions.

Given that I am responding to a comment that EDIT:appears to argue that the comment section represents "normal people" I think that is a pretty relevant argument. Although GP has since explained that he meant something else.

And no, it is not like hidden variable theory at all, since that argues that there is an unseen explanation of observed effect, without arguing that the observed effect is not representative. I am arguing the observed effect isn't representative to begin with.

>How is that not relevant?

Because nobody is suggesting that minority is anything other than a minority. Simply that having that minority is normal.

Ok, I must be missing something: first you say "this is what normal people are like", I respond "no, it's a vocal minority appearing like they take up a bigger share of society than they are." How can you claim "nobody is suggesting that minority is anything other than a minority" when I am literally arguing that they are, in the sense that they are over-represented on the internet?

And if you are saying "this is what normal social websites look like", just say that instead of claiming that this representation maps to what normal people are like. Because that is what this message reads as:

> Reddit is overwhelmingly "normal people". Mean spirited and "toxic" is normal people. Go look at twitter, and tumblr and facebook. They all have the same thing. These sites didn't chase normal people away, they attracted them.

I don't understand the confusion. Normal people includes a diverse group of people, including those you would consider "toxic". This is true in real life, and on every mainstream website. Real name policies did not change this. Because this is reality. Reddit has become more like facebook, twitter, etc. Because it has grown, and is no longer mainly a homogeneous little group of tech guys. Saying reddit has driven away normal people because it has become more representative of normal people is absurd.

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