Do ads make for angry online spaces?
Advertisers crave attention. Negative emotions generate attention. As simple as that?
On Mastodon, I’ve found a fascinating blog post on why Mastodon moderation will indeed work. I want to focus on this particular claim:
What I missed about Mastodon was its very different culture. Ad-driven social media platforms are willing to tolerate monumental volumes of abusive users. They’ve discovered the same thing the Mainstream Media did: negative emotions grip people’s attention harder than positive ones. Hate and fear drives engagement, and engagement drives ad impressions.
Mastodon is not an ad-driven platform. There is absolutely zero incentives to let awful people run amok in the name of engagement. The goal of Mastodon is to build a friendly collection of communities, not an attention leeching hate mill. As a result, most Mastodon instance operators have come to a consensus that hate speech shouldn’t be allowed.
Yes. Research (see here and here) indicates that aggressive and abusive behaviour drives engagement and, therefore, could drive revenue for ad-driven social media.
However, my priors are that the idea that ad-free environments will be abuse free is partly wrong because the issues at stake are more complex.
Here are three reasons why - backed by research and theory - I think it’s not that simple.
1. Humans are gonna human
Aggressive, bold statements are hardwired into the human psyche and societies. This is where the ideas of Walter Ong and oral psychodynamics come in. Before writing technologies existed, Ong argued, societies needed a means of transmitting ideas. For ideas to spread, those conveying a message needed to leave an impression to be remembered. Due to this, speech tended to be repetitive, aggressive and lacking in nuance and depth.
Before writing technologies existed, Ong argued, societies needed a means of transmitting ideas. For ideas to spread, those conveying a message needed to leave an impression to be remembered. Due to this, speech tended to be repetitive, aggressive and lacking in nuance and depth.
Today several theorists argue that social media is more similar to oral psychodynamics than literate or written ones.
2. Scale, homophily & the tech aristocracy
When I joined Twitter back in 2009, I remember how friendly a space it was. How one often got polite replies. Not unlike Mastodon feels to me today. What could explain this?
Scale, I think. Online back then was dominated by a tech aristocracy. Early adopters broadly shared the same level of education and values. As Twitter became easier to use and online access broadened, it became more diverse. This is a breeding ground for problems like context collapse.
In that sense, UX changes to make Mastodon easier to use that increase its user base would also incentivise more friction.
3. Status
Status is another primary driver of behaviour on and offline and may point to why Mastodon feels like it has a different culture now, but this could change. Follower counts are the marker of status in social networks. This study argues that the actions for which actors receive recognition vary as they move up the status hierarchy.
…the actions for which actors receive recognition vary as they move up the status hierarchy.
When social media users have low status, they have to grow their following counts by sharing information that can be evaluated for quality (truth, usefulness). Once they have status, this restriction no longer counts, and that is where the dynamic of being more assertive and aggressive can help them grow their theory followers even quicker. Being aggressive is far less work than writing a well-argued blog post.
This is not out of kilter with what other studies have found with respect to the advantages of high status1.
UX & culture for peace
One way to disincentivise this is to hide follower counts (Mastodon’s is prominent) or even to limit the number of followers a user could have.
If Mastodon’s culture is influenced by something, I would argue it’s also because of the culture, laws and norms of the country its founder and benevolent dictator finds himself in — Germany. The German legal system and constitution do not recognise speech as this kind of uber right that trumps all others — as the US does. And that’s a good thing.
PS: Moderation on Mastodon is already going wrong. See here and here.
Those held in high esteem enjoy numerous advantages. High-status individuals attract more attention (Simcoe and Waguespack 2011, Bowers and Prato 2018, Reschke et al. 2018), receive outsized credit for their contributions (Kim and King 2014, Waguespack and Salomon 2015), and can more readily access a variety of resources (Merton 1968, Bol et al. 2018). High-status firms can negotiate better terms from buyers and suppliers (Benjamin and Podolny 1999, Hsu 2004, Nanda et al. 2020), receive favorable treatment from authorities (McDonnell and King 2018), and can hire more able employees without offering higher salaries (Bidwell et al. 2015, Tan and Rider 2017).