Reddit supports longer and more complex discussions than Facebook or Twitter, and, unlike Facebook, it does not require you to disclose your identity.
Researchers analysed 3.5 billion comments on Reddit from 25.3 million people between 2007 and 2017. They sorted the comments into two groups: one non-political, the other comprised of things posted to politics subreddits. Noting the frequency of offensive words and phrases gave a measure of how civil the discussions were.
The non-political comments were fairly civil. The political comments were not. People were 35 per cent more likely on average to use offensive language in political than nonpolitical discussions. Political discourse was more offensive between May 2016 and May 2017 than in any other 12-month period in Reddit’s history.
To analyse the complexity of the comments, the researchers found that discourse in political groups had dropped on average from seventh-grade (age 12) to first-grade (age 6) levels since 2007 (arxiv.org/abs/1711.05303).
What accounts for the changes? The researchers identified a large influx of new users to Reddit’s political groups, which may have lowered the average level of linguistic complexity. Also, there were many users who had previously been active only in extremist groups, who now posted regularly in mainstream groups. Such users can take control of the tone or direction of conversations. Another growing group of Reddit users is likely to be bots, who post automatically.
Isn’t it time to give up the idea of freedom of speech if what that phrase has encouraged is vile, sexist, racist and abusive language?p Al these things should be banned, excised from the websites where they occur. It is a simple matter to ban the ignorant and the puerile – they reduce us to the status of animals, which is very unfair on animals.
I’m not sure about any of this. Firstly, what counts as offensive? In political conversations, you are more likely to encounter disagreement with other people than with any other topic- religion perhaps being the one exception. Such disagreement can cause anger, and so of course offensive language is more likely to be used. The question then becomes how offended people may be at such language. With me and my friends, we often insult each other a lot, but it’s just a bit of fun. No one genuinely means any harm. The trouble with the internet is that it doesn’t communicate context well. What may be just a light jibe to one person may be very hurtful to another.
As for the complexity of comments on Reddit, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. I don’t believe people have actually become much less intelligent over the years. Rather, most sensible people stay away from online debates- they are more trouble then they’re worth.
Freedom of speech is crucial to any liberal democracy. The problem with banning vile language is that to an extent, it is subjective as to what counts as vile. The notion of censorship could then be used to ban certain political theories from being espoused on the basis of their unpleasantness, when in reality, they are perfectly legitimate alternative opinions. I’d rather people expressed their views openly, and then they can be publicly rebuked. The alternative is that disillusionment builds up amongst people who feel their views aren’t taken seriously by the political elite. That’s how Trump and the authoritarian populists of Europe have gained popularity.
I think what we have here is a generationlal difference. Some people you hear in the street can pepper their speech with ten “f” words per minute. When I was growing up using f**k or s**t in public was, if not verboten, at least thought very vulgar and the person saying the words probably drunk. I was taught that I should use self control over my feelings in public. It was the babyboom generation that thought this hypocritical. I happen to feel , not offended, but amazed at the boringness of so much discourse, the lack of imagination and vocabulary, the poor grasp of the language. I agree with you a lot of it is connected with party politics, but this indicates the ability to be anonymously cowardly.
By the way, insulting one another for fun is just fine, but it is more fun to do it cleverly!