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Humanist Archives: Jan. 2, 2020, 1:06 p.m. Humanist 33.524 - Happy New Year! -- or how to survive the Internet in 2020

                  Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 524.
            Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
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        Date: 2020-01-02 12:57:53+00:00
        From: Willard McCarty 
        Subject: Happy New Year, or how to survive the Internet in 2020

Thanks to Bob Amsler, I can alert you to Farhad Manjoo's opinion piece
in the New York Times for 1 January, "How to survive the internet in
2020 (It’s not going to be easy)", as follows via a link.* But an
extract is well worth quoting, as it sums up what we do here, 
on Humanist:

> What distinguishes the productive online communities from the
> disturbing ones. Often it’s something simple: content moderation. The
> best places online are bounded by clear, well-enforced community
> guidelines for participation. Twitter and Facebook are toxic because
> there are few rules and few penalties for flouting them. A Reddit
> community like r/relationships, meanwhile, is a haven of incredible,
> empathetic discussion because its hosts spend a lot of effort
> policing the discussion toward productive dialogue.
>
> This gets at the plain truth of the internet: A better digital world
> takes work. It’s work all of us should do.

"Policing" is not quite the right word for it, unless the reference is 
to consensual policing, which actually works quite well when informed 
consent obtains. But the call to work is exactly right.

For this new year allow me, then, to welcome you to a workhouse of
delight and many rewards!

Yours,
W

*https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/opinion/social-media-2020.html?nl=todayshead
lines&emc=edit_th_200102?campaign_id=2&instance_id=14867&segment_id=19983&user_i
d=642a57f40def370d6b1b09d16ab689da®i_id=740184160102

--
Willard McCarty (www.mccarty.org.uk/),
Professor emeritus, Department of Digital Humanities, King's College
London; Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews
(www.tandfonline.com/loi/yisr20) and Humanist (www.dhhumanist.org)




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