Jordan Peterson is thinking of launching a censorship-free online platform. It could be an excellent idea, or it could go terribly.
The Canadian professor’s idea is nice: Encourage discourse by letting all ideas battle it out. In his famous treatise against censorship, “Areopagitica,” John Milton said truth is best understood when all opinions are free to see the light of day. “Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple,” he wrote. “Who ever knew Truth put to the [worse], in a free and open encounter.”
Peterson wants to try the same thing with Thinkspot, an online platform that’s in beta testing right now. But he also wants to encourage people online to be kinder (and maybe less dumb), so comments that get too many dislikes will be hidden, Reddit-style.
First, commenters will have to write out their thoughts in at least 50 words. Then, if a comment gets fewer upvotes than downvotes, readers will have to click on it before they can see what it says.
“If minimum comment length is 50 words, you’re gonna have to put a little thought into it. Even if you’re being a troll, hopefully you’ll be a quasi-witty troll,” Peterson said on his podcast last week. “If your ratio of downvotes to upvotes falls below 50-50, then your comments will be hidden. People will still be able to see them, if they click, but you’ll disappear … We don’t know if 50/50 is right. We’re going to have to play with that.”
You could argue that hiding comments constitutes a form of censorship in itself. The most interesting thing about Thinkspot, though, is not its anti-censorship animus. It’s that social media founders ever thought they could create virtue by changing their platforms. But no amount of finagling will make people better online.
In October, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey reportedly said he was considering getting rid of the like button. Then, users would have to either comment on something they liked or retweet it to their own profiles, taking ownership of their interests.
Not to miss out on the respectability party, execs at Instagram considered hiding how many likes photos or videos get so people would stop being obsessed over them.
“We want people to worry a little bit less about how many likes they’re getting on Instagram and spend a bit more time connecting with the people that they care about,” said Adam Mosseri, head of product at Instagram, in April.
As cyberbullying and vitriolic online discourse have gotten more scrutiny, social media platforms are asking the same question: How do you make people nicer to each other online? The answer is: You can’t.
Social media can be a perilous place, and it’s commendable that its founding fathers want to encourage their users to be better. Peterson’s idea is especially important, as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Pinterest have come under fire for deplatforming or censoring users and applying rules that constantly change to fit the situation.
But you can’t make people nicer online, and no amount of hidden comments will change people’s angry minds.
If we want better social media conversations, we have to start with ourselves.
