Receiving a thumbs-down on social media doesn’t push people away from a conversation, but instead tends to encourage them to post more while softening their tone. Findings suggest that allowing downvotes on social platforms might help moderate extreme discussions without silencing individual voices.
What happens when people get downvoted on Reddit? Scientists uncovered a surprising answer
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Are there really people out there worried about internet points?
X to doubt for me on this one.
Your first attempt at this post where the last word “voices” was half cut off was more ironic
“Social media” in the title should be replaced with “Reddit” and “people” replaced with “Redditors.”
This study is trying to generalize all social media behavior but it only pulled data from Reddit?
That’s a validity issue.
Another one of those pseudo scientific findings – hive mind brigading is good for the discussion. What is next? Mods deleting and banning anyone they disagree with promotes constructive dialogue?
I do this IRL thumbing down bad asshole drivers instead of giving them the finger. It’s amazing how much more embarrassed they are instead of getting mad. FIngers and horns are pointless. Assholes have no idea and just return the hate for zero reason other than they suck at everything.
A thumbs down is clear and brutal for them.
Looking at you Youtube….
But what if discussions shouldn’t be moderated? Are the extreme tones not being silenced?
This study seems wrong
I see people thumbs downing my comments as a badge of honor.
this just leads to bad faith posting and double speak out of cowardice
>One potential explanation for the findings is reputation management—**users respond to feedback in ways they believe will enhance their standing on the platform. On a related note, users learn what types of content to post in order to generate positive feedback.**
>Among the limitations noted by the researchers: **They have only considered quantitative feedback** (upvotes and downvotes), so future research could explore comments and complex interactions. **They also note it’s an empirical question whether the findings about negative feedback fostering more—and more moderate—content would generalize to more emotionally charged topics, such as politics, religion and even sports.**
>The study also raises a philosophical question: Is reducing polarization—all users moving toward a more moderate opinion—itself an echo chamber? That, they say, is beyond the scope of their work but would be worth further exploration.
>Overall, they say the findings are encouraging for social media platforms considering whether to introduce tools enabling users to provide negative feedback.
>“Popular social media such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube and TikTok all have recently experimented with downvotes/dislikes,” the authors said in a joint comment.
>“While eliciting negative feedback can help improve their recommendation algorithm by better detecting what users like and dislike, r**eceiving negative feedback can potentially deter users from posting unpopular opinions. We think that this is a particularly important question given the growing concerns that social media platforms are fertile grounds for polarization and echo chamber formation**.”
>The study has been submitted for publication in the j**ournal Marketing Science.**
Source: [Tuning the tension: Negative feedback could moderate extreme views on social media, per U-M research | University of Michigan News](https://news.umich.edu/tuning-the-tension-negative-feedback-could-moderate-extreme-views-on-social-media-per-u-m-research/)
emphasis mine, I think it’s particularly important to consider that the study follows a marketing viewpoint in the research
Depends on the person, I tend to just delete my comment and exit subs that are aggressive towards me. I’d rather they didn’t have my wisdom than share it with communities that are antagonistic. But, I might be a rare type.
That’s kind of pathetic given how worthless reddit karma is.