Comment by lutusp

> In a recent series of experiments, we paid people a few dollars to unfollow the most divisive political accounts on X.

This is instructive. It suggests that, unless they get paid, people aren't inclined to unfollow conversations that are destructive or misleading. It supports the idea that, over time, toxic conversations naturally attract an increasing number of followers.

In the old Usenet days, apart from the few moderated forums, there was no mechanism to remove trolls/ideologues, consequently it made the Wild West resemble a tea party by comparison. In modern times, everything is different, yet everything is the same. Those who operate online forums have every incentive to tolerate abusive participants, because they attract people to the platform, to see ads.

My favorite story about this comes from Howard Stern, a so-called "shock jock". Owners of radio stations began to worry that Stern's bizarre content would drive people away. But audience studies discovered something: people who agreed with Stern stayed tuned in, just to hear what he would say next. And people who disagreed with Stern ... wait for it ... also stayed tuned in, to hear what he would say next.

This may seem orthogonal, but it seems people don't learn debate rules in school any more. If debate rules were enforced online, it would kill off much of the toxic content, but would greatly reduce the number of participants.

Imagine a world where trolls are expelled from fora because they refuse to address any legitimate topic, preferring personal attacks and other logical fallacies, behavior that would get them expelled from a formal college debate.

But I may expect too much. We're talking about a population of average intelligence, the same people who asked Dave Brubeck "How many musicians are in your quartet?"