I think there's a continuum of good versus bad faith motivation in any discussion anywhere. The problem on social media I think is twofold: first, you often don't know where on that continuum things are because you might not know enough about who you are interacting with or why, and second, when you do know who you're interacting with, the public nature of the discussion incentivizes performative aims with regard to other possible readers, rather than working through some argument with you and the other person in particular.
Any argument has some aim I think, and it's often implicit. It may be to achieve some aim that depends on the other person, or it may be to repair a relationship, or it might be to inflict some outcome in an organizational setting, it may be to work out something in your head, or it may be to convince bystanders of a position.
Sometimes you end up with bots, sometimes you end up with PR people, sometimes you end up with highly politically motivated people, sometimes you end up with people who are trying to sell their own book or paper or whatever. You just don't know and even though I do think a lot of people — maybe most — are acting in very good faith, some of them are not, and it varies in degree.
I also think social media systems are fundamentally broken at the moment, and ideally we should be moving to highly decentralized and/or federated platforms. That's a slightly different issue probably but maybe not — I think the subtle aims of platforms tend to trickle down into this too, and nudge different types of behaviors. In any given case it might be a tiny effect, but it accumulates I think.
Any argument has some aim I think, and it's often implicit. It may be to achieve some aim that depends on the other person, or it may be to repair a relationship, or it might be to inflict some outcome in an organizational setting, it may be to work out something in your head, or it may be to convince bystanders of a position.
Sometimes you end up with bots, sometimes you end up with PR people, sometimes you end up with highly politically motivated people, sometimes you end up with people who are trying to sell their own book or paper or whatever. You just don't know and even though I do think a lot of people — maybe most — are acting in very good faith, some of them are not, and it varies in degree.
I also think social media systems are fundamentally broken at the moment, and ideally we should be moving to highly decentralized and/or federated platforms. That's a slightly different issue probably but maybe not — I think the subtle aims of platforms tend to trickle down into this too, and nudge different types of behaviors. In any given case it might be a tiny effect, but it accumulates I think.