Trolling and disagreeing are not the same thing.
I am someone who “loves to disagree”, as in most of my engagement on lemmy is disagreeing. But that’s because I speak up when I feel like speaking up is needed, and when I feel like it’s needed is when what I believe is not being said.
I’ve been online since 1995. And back in those days, about the worst argument people had was Star Wars vs Star Trek. That’s because the general online population at that time valued fact-based discussion and proper sources. Not like today, where someone’s feelings seem to trump actual fact.
If I post 1+1=2 with proper sources, some idiot is bound to come along to argue that 1+1=tomato soup, that the moon is made of aged brie and that 5G on phones is turning frogs gay. It’s exhausting.
There’s simply too many blithering idiots online who reject facts. And unfortunately instead of blocking them, people engage. Thus giving them incentive to keep doing it.
Disclaimer, nostalgia glasses may color experiences in a slightly more positive light than it really was.
I just call it out immediately and shut people down. I spend countless hours researching and reading and I don’t have time for devil’s advocates anymore. Here on Lemmy I will just block them and in real life I just tell them homie I don’t play that.
RedditLemmyFIFY
It’s called being contrarian, and it’s not just Reddit users. I have several family members like this.
I’d also argue it’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you’re talking shit be sure you’re able to back it up. I am naturally contrarian but in many cases it’s less about what I feel and more about taking the side of the voice that is missing.
Wow this guy really loves to disagree
No he doesn’t!
HAVE YOU EVEN READ OP?
theres also Bots/ai arguing against other bots to sow dissent.
no they dont
That’s not an argument, that’s a contradiction!
This is abuse, arguments are down the hall.
No it’s not!
I’m sorry, I cannot continue to argue, unless you pay for another 5 minutes.
BUT
source?
no… no!!! that’s impossible!!!
I disagree.
I think you’re wrong.
Well ackshually…
(they’re both wrong)
I disagree
OBJECTION!
OVERRULED!
“Then you are banned.” – Redditor Jannie
Then we agree to disagree
It’s not something you can agree or not, it’s a fact!
They’re here too
No they’re not.
/s
Playing Devil’s Advocate. has been around way before the internet.
I didn’t need ai to tell you that
I could have told you that 20 years ago
It’s why people find multiplayer games fun
It doesn’t even sound like a reasonable study to undertake honestly, how many times do you comment on something just to say you agree? Mostly people just read it and move on, maybe upvote.
those are the people who no one irl talks to anymore because they impulsively take the opposing stance, regardless of how stupid that stance may be, any time anyone says anything
I play devil’s advocate in most friend-space conversations, it’s just who I am, I don’t do it disrespectfully (I hope) but it’s just the first thing my brain goes to.
sometimes it’s good to examine things from all angles; i’m mostly talking about people who will start arguing if you say “nice weather today”-- shit gets old quick
Yup and guess what they are way more vocal online since they can still have an audience there and this is one of the reasons social media sites are so skewed from representing generalizable opinions. It’s a contrarian incubator.
No they are not
I had a colleague like that, he was an electric engineer who was convinced that the Earth is flat and that vaccines are bad.
I know that guy he told me he knows of a colleague who was convinced that the earth is spherical and vaccines are great.
I’m in this comment, and I don’t like it
MAGA??
Thanks AI… Using tremendous amounts of energy and technology to tell us something that anyone paying attention would have already known
Disagreeing isnt trolling. On reddit you see so much stuff that is so plain and agreeable its not worth adding agreeable comment #2000. So it only becomes worth commenting if you see a post where you actually have a disagreement with the majority.
Read the article. It’s not about normal run of the mill disagreement. It’s about:
…an entire class of Reddit users whose primary purpose seems to be to disagree with others. These users specifically seek out opportunities to post contradictory comments, especially in response to disagreement, and then move on without waiting for replies.
whose primary purpose seems to be to disagree
What’s survivor bias again?
I mean, aside from the thing everyone is saying, to which you’re replying ‘read the article’, that is.
i think you have no idea what survivor bias is because it has nothing to do with anything here.
Oh, disagreeing with the post, huh? Looks like we found the AI troll, get 'em everyone!
Disagreeing is often treated as trolling by those you disagree with, depending on the subject. Mostly because those disagreements are often bad faith talking points from some groups of people.
Forming a counter argument is time consuming and requires you to think about the topic.
Calling someone names and labeling them a “troll” is much easier.
The person who identifies disagreement as trolling needs to grow up.
Back in my day, trolls would say something that pisses off both sides of the argument and makes people more aggressive towards each other.
Trolling is a art
My favourite thing back in the day was to engage with the trolls and try to get them all riled up.
It really used to be a art.
Yep. The skin appears thin at points.
Hey, stop trolling!
Repeating bad faith talking points isnt trolling. To me its a perspective issue. What I think is bad faith talking points might be reality to another person.
But this isn’t about people seeking worthwhile debates
These users specifically seek out opportunities to post contradictory comments, especially in response to disagreement, and then move on without waiting for replies.
Ah okay but you won’t respond to this.
You can post a comment disagreeing and not reply. Not every comment has to be seeking out “worthwhile debates”
still missing the point. we’re not talking about a couple comments here or there.
the article is about people who showed a clear pattern of doing it way more than others.
I didnt say a couple of comments. I said to some people there is no point in commenting if you agree with the majority opinion. Thus all your comments end up being disagreeing.
The study identified this behaviour as a subset of users and labeled that as trolls which could be moderated before “causing harm” thats insane to me.
Only commenting when you disagree makes plenty of sense, but then ALSO NEVER going into debate? What’s the point of that? If anything, replies to your comments would be the most interesting place to have more disagreements.
But if you only care about karma or drama, then threads aren’t worth your time.
Even if you don’t do it on purpose (idk maybe it’s people who don’t understand the orange envelope) it doesn’t contribute much nice to a community.
This is a great point, not sure what kind of bias it is, but you’d literally see thousands of people agreeing (the upvotes) and then 10 people circling around in a knife fight. Did we need science to tell us Reddit is full of trolls? Trolls existed on Reddit before LLMs became popular.
Absolutely. Someone will always disagree and that‘s a good thing, actually. Bubbles are just as if not more problematic than the disagreeing „troll“. Sometimes there are reasons to play devil‘s advocate and sometimes you just bring up concerns that you‘d like to be eliminated.
I remember when I was part of a tiny minority bringing up concerns over Elon Musk and let me tell you the pushback and ridicule I received IRL was even worse than discourse online at the time. It took a long time until someone came up to me and actually admitted that I was right about Musk the entire time. I just failed to bring my point across earlier because they were better at debating but I like to think I sped up their process of becoming disillusioned about tech billionaires a little bit.
There‘s also a case where I got temporarily banned from a community I was very active in and labelled as a „right wing troll“ when almost every comment I made on Lemmy pointed to the opposite. A moderator probably had a bad day, read a comment they disagreed with and let the hammer fall down before even doing as little as to check my post history. Not much harm done I guess but man we should learn to embrace other opinions a little more.
If you actually think about things and form your own opinions you’ll usually be treated as “the other side” by everyone who signs and follows any pre-made set of opinions.
If you hate AI but thinks there is some specific situation in which it doesn’t 100% suck, you’ll be treated as a troll in anti-AI communities. If you’re MAGA but disagrees with anything Trump says, you’ll be called a leftist in conservative circles. If you’re a fierce active defender of LGBTQ+ rights but thinks it’s OK for a white American to dress up as a Mexican character for Halloween, you’ll be ostracized in many left wing groups.
This is one of those stupid articles that are like “water is wet says a new study” and far more people than it should be say “holy fuck it’s wet when I wash things. It must mean I wash things with water. Omgomgomgomg!!”
No shit users are trolls on reddit.
