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Some Reddit users just love to disagree, new AI-powered troll-spotting algorithm finds
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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Technology
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Disagreeing isnt trolling. On reddit you see so much stuff that is so plain and agreeable its not worth adding agreeable comment #2000. So it only becomes worth commenting if you see a post where you actually have a disagreement with the majority.
Read the article. It's not about normal run of the mill disagreement. It's about:
What's survivor bias again?
I mean, aside from the thing everyone is saying, to which you're replying 'read the article', that is.
i think you have no idea what survivor bias is because it has nothing to do with anything here.
Oh, disagreeing with the post, huh? Looks like we found the AI troll, get 'em everyone!
Absolutely. Someone will always disagree and that‘s a good thing, actually. Bubbles are just as if not more problematic than the disagreeing „troll“. Sometimes there are reasons to play devil‘s advocate and sometimes you just bring up concerns that you‘d like to be eliminated.
I remember when I was part of a tiny minority bringing up concerns over Elon Musk and let me tell you the pushback and ridicule I received IRL was even worse than discourse online at the time. It took a long time until someone came up to me and actually admitted that I was right about Musk the entire time. I just failed to bring my point across earlier because they were better at debating but I like to think I sped up their process of becoming disillusioned about tech billionaires a little bit.
There‘s also a case where I got temporarily banned from a community I was very active in and labelled as a „right wing troll“ when almost every comment I made on Lemmy pointed to the opposite. A moderator probably had a bad day, read a comment they disagreed with and let the hammer fall down before even doing as little as to check my post history. Not much harm done I guess but man we should learn to embrace other opinions a little more.
If you actually think about things and form your own opinions you'll usually be treated as "the other side" by everyone who signs and follows any pre-made set of opinions.
If you hate AI but thinks there is some specific situation in which it doesn't 100% suck, you'll be treated as a troll in anti-AI communities. If you're MAGA but disagrees with anything Trump says, you'll be called a leftist in conservative circles. If you're a fierce active defender of LGBTQ+ rights but thinks it's OK for a white American to dress up as a Mexican character for Halloween, you'll be ostracized in many left wing groups.
Disagreeing is often treated as trolling by those you disagree with, depending on the subject. Mostly because those disagreements are often bad faith talking points from some groups of people.
Forming a counter argument is time consuming and requires you to think about the topic.
Calling someone names and labeling them a "troll" is much easier.
The person who identifies disagreement as trolling needs to grow up.
Back in my day, trolls would say something that pisses off both sides of the argument and makes people more aggressive towards each other.
Trolling is a art
My favourite thing back in the day was to engage with the trolls and try to get them all riled up.
It really used to be a art.
Yep. The skin appears thin at points.
Hey, stop trolling!
Repeating bad faith talking points isnt trolling. To me its a perspective issue. What I think is bad faith talking points might be reality to another person.
But this isn't about people seeking worthwhile debates
Ah okay but you won't respond to this.
You can post a comment disagreeing and not reply. Not every comment has to be seeking out "worthwhile debates"
still missing the point. we’re not talking about a couple comments here or there.
the article is about people who showed a clear pattern of doing it way more than others.
I didnt say a couple of comments. I said to some people there is no point in commenting if you agree with the majority opinion. Thus all your comments end up being disagreeing.
The study identified this behaviour as a subset of users and labeled that as trolls which could be moderated before "causing harm" thats insane to me.
Only commenting when you disagree makes plenty of sense, but then ALSO NEVER going into debate? What's the point of that? If anything, replies to your comments would be the most interesting place to have more disagreements.
But if you only care about karma or drama, then threads aren't worth your time.
Even if you don't do it on purpose (idk maybe it's people who don't understand the orange envelope) it doesn't contribute much nice to a community.
This is a great point, not sure what kind of bias it is, but you’d literally see thousands of people agreeing (the upvotes) and then 10 people circling around in a knife fight. Did we need science to tell us Reddit is full of trolls? Trolls existed on Reddit before LLMs became popular.