As a person who has been wandering around the Internet for a long time, the current network gives me the feeling that there is too much hostility. No matter whether it is Weibo, WeChat WeChat official account, bilibili or Zhihu, there are fewer and fewer quality articles, and peaceful discussions are becoming scarcer and scarcer, and there are many sides and emotional confrontations everywhere. People are more and more inclined to form their own small circles. Everyone only entertains themselves in small circles, and they are more and more exclusive to dissidents.
In the era of forums and post bars, there are a lot of dry goods on the Internet, and people with different views can often hold public discussions and gradually reach a consensus in the debate. However, after the rise of Weibo, WeChat, headlines and other media, people tend to form their own small circles, and people often entertain themselves in small circles, forming information cocoons. The public discussion function of the network tends to die.
First, the forum and post bar era, the golden age of online discussion
Not to mention entertainment, if we only talk about serious topics such as history and politics, the forum and post bar era is undoubtedly the golden age of online discussion. At that time, high-quality posts abound, and you can always see different opinions and arguments below. The dry goods of post bars and forum posts are far from being comparable to those of Zhihu, WeChat official account, Toutiao and Weibo today.
There are two reasons for this situation. First, there were relatively few netizens at that time, and the average education was high. After the popularity of smart phones, a large number of people, even middle school students and primary school students, could participate in public discussions, and the average quality of netizens decreased.
But more importantly, forums, post bars and blogs promote public discussion. Forums have huge organizational rules, high entry threshold and various functions. Blogs encourage writing long articles and are suitable for in-depth discussion. Post bars, as a simplified version of the forum, push this form to the public.
I used to hang out with Post Bar for a long time. I was a frequent visitor to Cold Weapon Bar, Medieval Bar, Trump Bar (blocked) and the attacking giant bar. Compared with today’s social media, the public discussion function of Post Bar is powerful. Everyone can speak freely under the post of Post Bar, and different people’s opinions can be well presented. In addition, Post Bar has an extremely perfect management system, with bar owners, bar owners Jr., video editor, photo editor and many other positions. The whole bar management is equivalent to a quasi-bureaucratic organization.
Bar owners’s choice needs two conditions. One is the experience value, which is often accumulated by signing in and posting. The higher the experience value, the more active the candidate is. At the same time, bar owners candidates need to get Baidu’s official approval to ensure that they have no violations. After bar owners takes office, he can appoint bar owners Jr. and photo editor to form his own bar service team. In addition, bar owners can also formulate group rules. For example, the cold weapon bar requires that if you want to post in the bar, you must reach level 4 or above, which prevents simple spraying. Bar owners and George W. bar owners have the power to manage the bar, but they are often checked and balanced by Baidu officials. This management model has promoted public discussion.
At that time, what I stayed most was the cold weapon bar, the Trump bar and the attacking giant bar. Two of them would discuss politics and history, but they could tolerate dissidents. For example, although the cold weapon bar often draws on the emperor, if it is an emperor who pays attention to historical materials and evidence, the bar service will never be restricted. For example, Trump, at that time, fans of Chuanfen and Hillary Clinton were incompatible, but neither side completely restricted the other party’s speech. The bar service was generally only banned from users who often swear, and normal discussions were never prohibited. At that time, there were public discussions every day in the bar, and everyone went to the external network to find articles and data to prove their views. The discussion was very enjoyable.
Another example is the attacking giant bar and the attacking giant analysis bar. Because it is anime content, it is suppressed by Baidu officials at least, so the space for discussion is also the largest. There are a lot of fine stickers. Everyone expresses their opinions below and analyzes the attacking giant incisively and vividly. As the only remaining post bar in the old era, the attacking giant analysis bar represents the style of the post bar era.
However, since the rise of Weibo, WeChat and Headline products, the discussion space on the Internet is getting smaller and smaller.
(giant analysis is the only remaining relic of the old times)
(After Baidu Post Bar was cleaned up, it completely declined. Before that, there were a lot of dry top posts in the cold bar, which was my historical enlightenment.)
Second, commercialization, recommendation algorithm and information cocoon room, the network began to circle.
Weibo rose in 2011. Since the trend of Internet in China began to change, the biggest innovation in Weibo was short and pithy. In the past, forums, post bars and blogs encouraged everyone to post nutritious boutique stickers, and everyone discussed them around them, but Weibo directly broke this rule. He limited the number of words to 140 at most. This pursuit of short and fast greatly reduced the quality of content, and people tended to attract attention rather than discuss issues, although Weibo recently cancelled it.
In addition to fast food, Weibo has also brought commercialization. The degree of commercialization in Weibo is extremely deep, and it is full of various marketing numbers, navy and advertisements. The biggest evil result of this commercialization is that public discussion has become a tool to make money. In the past, in forums and post bars, everyone discussed politics and current events only to discuss current events, and their differences were real differences of views. Nowadays, many big V’s are all about making money. In order to make money, they often deliberately stir up contradictions and create troubles. They will even say things that are completely contrary to their true position, except that they used to pretend to be well-known and earn money from hating the country, but now they pretend to be patriotic V and cut off patriotic traffic. This commercialization makes all political discussions become money-making games.
I sometimes go to twitter. Although the environment of twitter is not very good, it is still much better than that of Weibo. The storm of public opinion caused by Weibo is enough to make the world feel ashamed. I’m afraid this confusion is not necessarily the contradiction, but the commercial marketing intensifies the contradiction. Everyone is advocating public opinion for making money. If we don’t change this operating logic and just stick to supporting the system or opposing it, the internet environment in China will never improve.
Another fatal thing is the recommendation algorithm. No matter Taobao, Weibo or headline products, they all use the recommendation algorithm. They secretly collect your privacy, judge your preferences, and then keep recommending your favorite information to you. Since then, your information source has been completely controlled, and you will mistakenly think that the people with your opinion are the majority in China, and you can no longer see dissidents. Because you have always accepted a fixed point of view, you will lose the ability to accept different points of view after a long time.
Because the recommendation algorithm can be profitable efficiently, more and more platforms have begun to strengthen the algorithm, and even WeChat WeChat official account has begun to make headlines, and the algorithm has taken control of our brains.
Weibo, Toutiao and WeChat official account are all one-way interactions between users from the media. It is very difficult for users to discuss, and it is difficult for people with different views to communicate with each other. The only place with discussion space is WeChat group, but the management of WeChat group is too private, and the group owners generally don’t invite people who disagree with them. Others can’t get in without the consent of the group owners. In addition, the number of groups is limited, so the function of public discussion is far weaker than that of posting.
Commercialization, recommendation algorithm and privacy have finally formed the pattern of today’s network. Everyone is divided into one circle after another. Often, a big V brings its own audience and another big V brings its own fans. Big V only produces what fans want to see, and there are more and more differences between fans of different big Vs. Therefore, once public events break out or big social problems appear, there is neither communication channels nor communication between different groups.
If we just discuss entertainment, this kind of information cocoon room is harmless. However, for politics and current affairs, it is often the case that the stronger the people’s consensus is, the more problems can be solved. If the gap between people on these issues is getting bigger and bigger because of the Internet, the whole country will eventually be torn apart. Now the United States has tasted this evil result (social media has intensified political polarization since 2016). Our country has power control, but if it loses control, where will it go?
Internet should consider not only economic benefits, but also social benefits, and the control network should not be the content of control, but should change the logic of social media operation. If the logic of commercialization and recommendation algorithm is not modified, then no matter what position, it will become more and more extreme.
I hope that the future Internet can promote people’s mutual understanding, instead of intensifying the existing contradictions. Breaking the information cocoon room is good for everyone.
The evil consequences of the information cocoon room have already appeared in the United States.
