Seeing a community for the first time is always a little
off-balancing. News about politics is completely unavoidable on Newsvine. On
Facebook I tend to keep things civil with friends of differing political
beliefs, because everyone on there is my Facebook friend, and thus part of a
network of friendship so to speak. On Newsvine people that join the various
Nations are not necessarily chosen to be in your family, particularly with my
experience thus far with Open Nations.
\Because of this difference it seems as
though people post political dissents and commentary as inflammatory and
provoking as possible to garner negative response and argument.
I’ve noticed this on other debate forums, where people
engage in debates as a sort of performance. The winner is not the word block
closest to the truth, or the most meaningful and insightful comment, but the
word block that gathers enough interest and resonance from other commenters,
whether positive or negative. Trolls even specialize in gathering negative
attention, often trying to fool the other person into believing they are
engaging in serious debate when the goal is just stirring up emotions.
Newsvine so far seems like a place to vent about politics,
or argue for fun, like 4chan with less memes and porn. And yet at the same
time, if you stick to Nations that share a given ideology, there is a huge
amount of confirmation bias. I’ve seen quite a few discussions with like-minded
people cracking the same offensive jokes and patting one another on the back
for their similar political beliefs, without any of the debate for fun going
on. As far as a place to engage in real constructive debate where ideas are
challenged and people learn from one another as they discuss issues, perhaps
I’ll have to delve more into the many Gated Nations of Newsvine.
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