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This is part of a wider trend in the corporate internet of getting rid of visible user interaction to stop publicising user opinion. News publications have slow

This is part of a wider trend in the corporate internet of getting rid of visible user interaction to stop publicising user opinion. News publications have slowly gotten rid of comments sections, Google itself (an entity quite close to the USG) is following suit. Of course I suspect that the idea here is less about creator choice, since they can already hide and filter user interaction to their hearts content and more about some high profile channels of some importance being able to save face since manually disabling interactions looks worse for them. I’ve seen some interesting projects in the past that were browser based and made the entire Internet be equipped with comments sections, including YouTube. I wonder if something like that would be viable, maybe with the addition of a like dislike bar.

Galaxeblaffer 5y ago
Isn't Reddit and hackernews a comment section with upvote and downvote for the entire internet ?
- iratewizard 5y ago
  Reddit is a comment section filled with insufferable morons who allowed their website to become a way of repackaging fun parts of the internet with astroturfing.
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  - slackfan 5y ago
    Hackernews is not different, except most of the posters work in a single industry.
    - BizarroLand 5y ago
      And you don't get downvote powers until you've been vetted.
    - iratewizard 5y ago
      Too true.
BizarroLand 5y ago
Yep. Corporations are working hard to turn the internet into broadcast TV, back when the broadcaster had all the power and you took what they gave you and you liked it because you didn't have a choice. What is the average person going to do now that they have a dopamine response addiction to instant feedback and immediate knowledge at their fingertips? Read a book? Go for a walk where they're not constantly scouting for a situation where they can take a picture and receive happy brain chemicals from thousands of people?
rangoon626 5y ago
They are only really doing this to hide political dissent against the current administration and provide some cover. Both the president and vp are polling at historic low approval ratings right now.
- dannyw 5y ago
  Yep, have a look at dislikes of anything on the white house channel!
  - rangoon626 5y ago
    It's so bad it is truly astonishing.
- alex-ant 5y ago
  Exactly
- lelanthran 5y ago
  > They are only really doing this to hide political dissent against the current administration and provide some cover. Both the president and vp are polling at historic low approval ratings right now. I disagree that this is the only reason; there are other reasons that make sense as well - for example, every political movement benefits from making their movement appear larger and more inclusive than it really is. It's easier to stifle dissent by saying "If you don't agree with us you're in the minority" and then hide the actual headcount of your movement. It's all very 1984-esque, TBH. You cannot form an opposition if you think you're the only one who opposes.
  - rangoon626 5y ago
    Yeah you're right, it's not exclusively just this one thing. They're trying to hide push back on a lot of cultural hotpoints.
franciscop 5y ago
Do you mean like Youtube's own Youtube Rewind 2018, which it became the most disliked video surpassing even Justin Bieber's Baby? To add extra irony, it was subtitled "Youtube Rewind 2018 - Everyone Controls Rewind". It seems that everyone controlling the dislike button was not appreciated, and while I find this downvote session brilliant I've been waiting since then for Youtube to remove the downvote button.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  Isn't that a perfect example of Dislike button being used mostly as a meme or to bully / pile-on? Or do you truly believe that video was somehow literally the worst video on Youtube? In most other websites and contexts anyway, like/dislike is used to share your taste with the algorithm or to the author, and neither of those are disrupted here. The only thing that is disrupted is the tribal action using the dislike button as a way of publicly and anonymously showing hatred towards content.
  - josefx 5y ago
    > Or do you truly believe that video was somehow literally the worst video on Youtube? It was "EA pride and accomplishment" bad. A brainless self glorifying marketing piece that didn't spend a second to even acknowledge all the issues many channels suffered under. > Or do you truly believe that video was somehow literally the worst video on YouTube? The worst video on YouTube probably doesn't get actively promoted by Google or carry the weight of being made by Google.
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      > It was "EA pride and accomplishment" bad. A brainless self glorifying marketing piece that didn't spend a second to even acknowledge all the issues many channels suffered under. What made the 2018 Rewind any worse than the Rewinds of previous years?
      - deleted 5y ago
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a5aAqU 5y ago
> I’ve seen some interesting projects in the past that were browser based and made the entire Internet be equipped with comments sections, including YouTube. I wonder if something like that would be viable, maybe with the addition of a like dislike bar. If something like that ever took off, it would devastate independent publishers and a huge part of Internet culture by draining interactions out of websites. Google tried it before, and fortunately it failed. I think it's one of the worst possible things that could happen to the Web.
- beezischillin 5y ago
  A lot of mainstream media sites have removed comments sections from their articles, there's no user interaction left on those.
  - a5aAqU 5y ago
    That's what blogs are for. Write a blog post about the article. If it's good enough, it will get traffic.
    - alanbernstein 5y ago
      If you believe blog posts are the same thing as comments, why did you write a comment to say so?
      - a5aAqU 5y ago
        Not every site is the same. News sites in the US turn off their comments because it's too difficult to moderate in the current political environment. Hacker News isn't a content site, but is mainly created for commenting. It is less political than the news sites which removed comments. It can also handle the moderation more easily than news sites partly because it has a very strong ugliness and usability filter.
  - toxik 5y ago
    To be fair, comments _must_ be moderated or they turn into a cesspool in short order. A like-dislike count does not have that problem, though. And YouTube isn't removing the comments (yet).
feanaro 5y ago
> I’ve seen some interesting projects in the past that were browser based and made the entire Internet be equipped with comments sections, including YouTube. Hypothesis is such a tool: https://web.hypothes.is/ https://web.hypothes.is/
Thorentis 5y ago
Yes, Gab made their own browser called Dissenter that added a comment section to every page of the Internet. Interestingly, I can find very little when Googling for it now. I'm sure other projects have tried this too.
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- HNo 5y ago
  It was deemed too dangerous by the powers that be, so it was banned from app stores, the extension was banned by Firefox and Chrome, etc.
  - dang 5y ago
    Posting and deleting the same comments dozens of times is seriously abusive and I've banned the account. Please stop now.
lbriner 5y ago
My experience is that in many scenarios, comments were an attempt to create sticky relationships when the comments themselves add very little. Take a news site, an article about, say, Trump becomming President. Comments are likely to range from "I can't satnd the guy" though to "I'm so happy he got in". They aren't going to add much of any value to the conversation. I am seeing more attempts now of people attempting to be "clever" in their comments and start dropping 'facts' taken from various places. Again, interesting at best but at worst it doesn't add anything. Votes are perhaps less contentious but what are they really saying? I like the article because it is factually correct or I dislike the article because Trump is President?
- nicbou 5y ago
  Then again YouTube comments can be pretty funny and interesting these days. They're a nice way to interact with the content creators, and with other followers.
tester756 5y ago
>News publications have slowly gotten rid of comments sections, Slowly? I havent seen comment on majority of new sites for years. On the other hand: I'm not shocked, majority of stuff written there was basically trash.

Galaxeblaffer 5y ago

Isn't Reddit and hackernews a comment section with upvote and downvote for the entire internet ?

iratewizard 5y ago
Reddit is a comment section filled with insufferable morons who allowed their website to become a way of repackaging fun parts of the internet with astroturfing.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- slackfan 5y ago
  Hackernews is not different, except most of the posters work in a single industry.
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    And you don't get downvote powers until you've been vetted.
  - iratewizard 5y ago
    Too true.

BizarroLand 5y ago

Yep. Corporations are working hard to turn the internet into broadcast TV, back when the broadcaster had all the power and you took what they gave you and you liked it because you didn't have a choice. What is the average person going to do now that they have a dopamine response addiction to instant feedback and immediate knowledge at their fingertips? Read a book? Go for a walk where they're not constantly scouting for a situation where they can take a picture and receive happy brain chemicals from thousands of people?

rangoon626 5y ago

They are only really doing this to hide political dissent against the current administration and provide some cover. Both the president and vp are polling at historic low approval ratings right now.

dannyw 5y ago
Yep, have a look at dislikes of anything on the white house channel!
- rangoon626 5y ago
  It's so bad it is truly astonishing.
alex-ant 5y ago
Exactly
lelanthran 5y ago
> They are only really doing this to hide political dissent against the current administration and provide some cover. Both the president and vp are polling at historic low approval ratings right now. I disagree that this is the only reason; there are other reasons that make sense as well - for example, every political movement benefits from making their movement appear larger and more inclusive than it really is. It's easier to stifle dissent by saying "If you don't agree with us you're in the minority" and then hide the actual headcount of your movement. It's all very 1984-esque, TBH. You cannot form an opposition if you think you're the only one who opposes.
- rangoon626 5y ago
  Yeah you're right, it's not exclusively just this one thing. They're trying to hide push back on a lot of cultural hotpoints.

franciscop 5y ago

Do you mean like Youtube's own Youtube Rewind 2018, which it became the most disliked video surpassing even Justin Bieber's Baby? To add extra irony, it was subtitled "Youtube Rewind 2018 - Everyone Controls Rewind". It seems that everyone controlling the dislike button was not appreciated, and while I find this downvote session brilliant I've been waiting since then for Youtube to remove the downvote button.

ehsankia 5y ago
Isn't that a perfect example of Dislike button being used mostly as a meme or to bully / pile-on? Or do you truly believe that video was somehow literally the worst video on Youtube? In most other websites and contexts anyway, like/dislike is used to share your taste with the algorithm or to the author, and neither of those are disrupted here. The only thing that is disrupted is the tribal action using the dislike button as a way of publicly and anonymously showing hatred towards content.
- josefx 5y ago
  > Or do you truly believe that video was somehow literally the worst video on Youtube? It was "EA pride and accomplishment" bad. A brainless self glorifying marketing piece that didn't spend a second to even acknowledge all the issues many channels suffered under. > Or do you truly believe that video was somehow literally the worst video on YouTube? The worst video on YouTube probably doesn't get actively promoted by Google or carry the weight of being made by Google.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    > It was "EA pride and accomplishment" bad. A brainless self glorifying marketing piece that didn't spend a second to even acknowledge all the issues many channels suffered under. What made the 2018 Rewind any worse than the Rewinds of previous years?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

a5aAqU 5y ago

> I’ve seen some interesting projects in the past that were browser based and made the entire Internet be equipped with comments sections, including YouTube. I wonder if something like that would be viable, maybe with the addition of a like dislike bar. If something like that ever took off, it would devastate independent publishers and a huge part of Internet culture by draining interactions out of websites. Google tried it before, and fortunately it failed. I think it's one of the worst possible things that could happen to the Web.

beezischillin 5y ago
A lot of mainstream media sites have removed comments sections from their articles, there's no user interaction left on those.
- a5aAqU 5y ago
  That's what blogs are for. Write a blog post about the article. If it's good enough, it will get traffic.
  - alanbernstein 5y ago
    If you believe blog posts are the same thing as comments, why did you write a comment to say so?
    - a5aAqU 5y ago
      Not every site is the same. News sites in the US turn off their comments because it's too difficult to moderate in the current political environment. Hacker News isn't a content site, but is mainly created for commenting. It is less political than the news sites which removed comments. It can also handle the moderation more easily than news sites partly because it has a very strong ugliness and usability filter.
- toxik 5y ago
  To be fair, comments _must_ be moderated or they turn into a cesspool in short order. A like-dislike count does not have that problem, though. And YouTube isn't removing the comments (yet).

feanaro 5y ago

> I’ve seen some interesting projects in the past that were browser based and made the entire Internet be equipped with comments sections, including YouTube. Hypothesis is such a tool: https://web.hypothes.is/ https://web.hypothes.is/

Thorentis 5y ago

Yes, Gab made their own browser called Dissenter that added a comment section to every page of the Internet. Interestingly, I can find very little when Googling for it now. I'm sure other projects have tried this too.

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HNo 5y ago
It was deemed too dangerous by the powers that be, so it was banned from app stores, the extension was banned by Firefox and Chrome, etc.
- dang 5y ago
  Posting and deleting the same comments dozens of times is seriously abusive and I've banned the account. Please stop now.

lbriner 5y ago

My experience is that in many scenarios, comments were an attempt to create sticky relationships when the comments themselves add very little. Take a news site, an article about, say, Trump becomming President. Comments are likely to range from "I can't satnd the guy" though to "I'm so happy he got in". They aren't going to add much of any value to the conversation. I am seeing more attempts now of people attempting to be "clever" in their comments and start dropping 'facts' taken from various places. Again, interesting at best but at worst it doesn't add anything. Votes are perhaps less contentious but what are they really saying? I like the article because it is factually correct or I dislike the article because Trump is President?

nicbou 5y ago
Then again YouTube comments can be pretty funny and interesting these days. They're a nice way to interact with the content creators, and with other followers.

tester756 5y ago

>News publications have slowly gotten rid of comments sections, Slowly? I havent seen comment on majority of new sites for years. On the other hand: I'm not shocked, majority of stuff written there was basically trash.