X is building a 'dislike' button for downvoting replies | Hacker News Reader

X is building a 'dislike' button for downvoting replies

techcrunch.com

21 pointsankitdce16 comments

This wouldn't be necessary if they hadn't fucked up replies by turning blue checks into a de facto entry level advertising and vanity tier which resulted in the absolute worst replies ordered first.

I think one of the big things about downvotes is that it works better for a homogenous user base. Otherwise you can get in a situation where one group votes up and another votes down. It’s fairly obvious this happens on HN itself but the HN is FAR less diverse than the old Twitter user base, and has something more resembling a shared set of values.

With upvotes only, you can have a BLM community and a Proud Boys community and the negative interactions are replies, which Twitter interprets as positive interactions. With downvotes you have the prospect of entire communities downvoting each other. This will probably result in one or both communities leaving.

Social design is hard, is what I’m saying.

The people who downvoted this, also downvoted/liked ...

I think a dislike button makes more sense for replies. It might just speed up the echo chamber effect, but people are already hiding, muting, and blocking those with opposing or intolerable replies. So, in some ways, dislikes for replies make sense. People already weaponize blocks, and I often hear stories of accounts getting unjustly banned because of "organized bans" where a group of users coordinate to block and signal to ban someone they disagree with. Plus, you can already mark posts as "not interesting," so it might not make much difference.

I think it's also region dependent. I notice a lot of Americans have this strong drive to be a "winner" and are very sensitive to negative criticism. The same in southern Europe (though without the ambition but they are certainly sensitive)

In the Netherlands and Germany however we are pretty blunt and can tell people if we don't like something they did and they don't really take it personal if we're not an ass about it.

So for us a downvote button would be pretty normal.

On all but the simplest of subjects upvotes and downvotes are nothing more than an indication of a post's popularity. There's no weight attached to a vote based on whether the voter has knowledge of the subject. With a complex topic it's pretty much meaningless for separating fact from fiction

They are VERY useful though if you're in advertising and want to know whether a message/opinon/subject/group/item is popular or unpopular with a target "market".

[I know you know all the above. I kind of wanted you to know that I know it too. Anyway, downvotes...]

Downvotes are massively useful in that they show what a group of people really dislike. That information is used to work out what the group don't want to see alongside of the "things" they do want to see.

Musk doesn't want censorship or fact-checking - it's irrelevant whether a message is fact or fiction, only whether it's popular or unpopular with a group. Flat-earthers buy things too.

X and YouTube etc are farming the users, the advertisers, the creators, and the employees, extracting as much from the interactions between them, and converting that into into wealth, all the while appearing to provide to each a service rather than being exposed as uncomfortably manipulative and exploitative.

Kind of beautiful in its efficiency, but quite terrible.

tl;dr? Downvote me, it's what they want :)

Terrible idea.

Downvote is inherently toxic.

They should do something useful like mandatory tags, exploration clouds and auto translations.

I didn't downvote this comment, but it's a bit funny that a comment complaining about downvotes is itself being downvoted.

I wonder if it was done with intentional irony.

I did, caring too much about points on social media is toxic. Signaling only in one direction is delusional. Don't change your behavior based on this to appease people.

Hit me too. Up/down/wherever. It's up to you as the observer. The peer is right, intentional irony applies.

'We' collectively forget how to disagree because we've been conditioned to be too damn agreeable. Say something because you believe it, not because it will get updoots

Why do you think it is toxic? Sometimes, I read a tweet or posts on X that I disagree with. Currently, I am missing the ability to express that. On the contrary the status quo of social networks interprets me - reading a post - as a signal to boost its spread, whereas I come to the conclusion it should not be spread.

Twitter and X were often compared to a global town square. Imagine you hear a rumor on a town square, but decide not to spread it. You can just do that in reality. This is practically impossible with most social networks. That leads to the fact that click-bait dominates so many social networks. That is toxic in my opinion.

There is a growing number of people that seem to be uncomfortable with the idea that people might not share their opinion. This is not a sign of extremism of the others, as it is often stated, but a sign of a healthy and diverse pool of opinions. One can agree with a post and disagree, neither is bad per se or even toxic.

>>> Sometimes, I read a tweet or posts on X that I disagree with. Currently, I am missing the ability to express that.

Errrrr..... you must have missed the "reply" button. The entirety of everything, every conversation on Twitter is people disagreeing with other people.

Yeah but he misses the ability to express it to the algorithm. Commenting on a post you disagree with invariably boosts its rankings, replying to a person you disagree gives them more visibility. It would be nice if the rankings system could understand dissent

That is what I meant.

I think the inherent problem is that it's nearly impossible to have a civil conversation on social media. It's just a terrible place for it. Especially with controversial topics like politics, religion, and AI, it's impossible to discuss anything without people being jerks. Not everyone uses social media to debate; many just want to reaffirm their views and interact with like-minded people. I'm not saying that's without issues, but that's the reality. People can already mute or block others, so a dislike button would just be another tool in their toolbox.

> Downvote is inherently toxic.

So right on brand for X then.

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