Yes. It can also trick you into thinking a reactionary opinion is actually a popular one. For example in my country, ireland, there's been a few incidents were people of different nationalities have done unsavoury things caught on camera. This usually results of the comment section of the ireland sub to have a debate about whether there's too many immigrants in the country. Whichever side gets more upvotes is widely perceived to have "won" and bystanders will in turn adopt that position.

I don't think I've ever changed an opinion of mine to go along with the hive mind but the karma system has definitely discouraged me from commenting things because I would been downvoted into oblivion. It's not worth getting into arguments when you can clearly see people not siding with you.

[–] Steeve@lemmy.ca 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How does this system solve that? Comments still have vote counts and reactionary comments still make it to the top of threads, there's just no visible count of total aggregated votes.

[–] Hopps@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're correct, the entire system is already in place. The only thing that is currently missing is adding up all of someone's 'karma' from their their posts and having it shown on their profile. Some of the apps already have this implemented since it's easy to incorporate.

[–] orphiebaby@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

That's not the only thing that's missing. A total upvote count on my profile page wouldn't be the problematic element that Reddit has. I would welcome a total upvote count on my profile page.

[–] ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

I'm fine being downvoted to oblivion by some anti-good astrotufing campaign, but it's getting honest, legitimate opinions slid down and out of discussion that feels risky

I'm definitely anti right wing, but that doesn't automatically make the left right about everything.

What is true about both sides is that some people just wanna look for a fight/argument and dehumanize their political 'other'. It's easy dopamine and righteous rage that drives engagement in every human.

Any good faith comment that points this out in an argument and has credible examples is always worth its salt.

I actually like finding out I'm wrong or my information is incomplete/outdated. I don't care for unfounded opinions in myself or others regardless of how they make me feel!

[–] Touching_Grass@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It did the opposite for me. I see those threads in r/canada or other posts and I'd comment trying to get downvoted because I hated the circle jerking and manipulation of threads with cliché comment chains intent on being dog whistles. I hated karma and somehow ended up with a stupid amount of it.

[–] Lith@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The big thing for me is that I've seen a lot of people say they've had their accounts stalked and harrassed for saying really mild things. With how many times I've read "I read your post history and..." over even the most mild disagreements, I absolutely believe this happens on a regular basis. Dropping an obviously unpopular opinion feels like an easy way to become a victim.

[–] riskable@programming.dev 8 points 1 year ago

I've had my account stalked! Right in the middle of it I switched from Kbin to Lemmy (so I could try out the apps) and had to inform my stalker about the new account.

Frustrated and annoyed at having to look for my posts in many different places, they seem to have given up 🤷

This is a clear win for the Fediverse! I was able to switch instances and get subscribed to all my previous communities in no time at all while this doubled up stalking efforts 👍

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Whenever someone said they checked my post history I immediately considered it a victory and moved on.

[–] Touching_Grass@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yea there's some psycho's out there. I picked a few up. Nothing really crazy from them and surprisingly most of them had poor infosec so I was never too concerned that they were anything to worry about. Really emotionally invested people who don't like when they read things they disagreed with

[–] gimpchrist@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

That's how I lost my three accounts and I have completely given up

[–] generalpotato@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

100%. I’d even be ok with getting rid voting mechanisms all together. The comment and responses to it should be indicative of it’s quality instead of some vague numerical value which somehow makes it better than the other because more people voted for it based on their own understanding on how a vote works.

Discussions shouldn’t be about what’s popular. Social media has corrupted our ability to have intelligent discussions because non popular viewpoints aren’t entertained anymore and people with non popular viewpoints don’t want to contribute due to the retaliatory nature of likes/votes.

It’s eroding our ability to reason and we need to stop it.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

That and the "hivemind" mentality Reddit encoruages often means you get power-tripping mods banning people, not for doing anything wrong, but for "Dissenting with the group"

The average user is probably banned from a quarter of the site over shit like this.

[–] YolkBrushWork402@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree

[–] kwking13@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Ah, c'mon downvoters...gotta keep some sarcasm alive at the same time!

[–] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Interesting. How do you know this? That the bystanders looked at the upvotes and decided their opinion on immigration based on this? Were there polls or something?