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 The last two years have dramatically changed how most of us interact with friends and family online, particularly on social media. What was once a safe haven for obnoxious meal pictures and images of middle-aged women adorned in deer antlers and fairy wreathes is now a dangerous political landscape dotted with potentially catastrophic landmines in the shape of posts that all but guarantee passionate displays of outrage in comment sections the world over.
No stranger to the occasional post that has resulted in an argument with social media acquaintances and loved ones alike, over the last two years I have lost a handful of social media friends and family members myself.
Considering the climate, I know I’m not alone in this. Yet, where I am perfectly happy to no longer see posts from, let’s say, a spouse’s cousin’s friend’s racist husband (hypothetically speaking, of course), there are those out there mourning the absence of a Facebook friend or Instagram follower lost to a heated political debate.
For those bothered by these social media losses, a team of researchers might have a solution that could one day prevent future political arguments…at least of the online variety.
Considering that many online discussions have the potential to become contentious, researchers from Cornell University and the Wikimedia Foundation have created a template of sorts to predict when an online discussion might deteriorate.
Publishing the details of their research in arXiv, the team noted that many online conversations can evolve into arguments and ultimately personal attacks. This is particularly true on sites such as Wikipedia where editors offer critiques of work submitted by others in an effort to improve content on the site. Yet, many authors don’t take the critique well and will, oftentimes, post negative comments.
The Wikimedia Foundation would like to keep such conversations constructive, steering comments away from the negative, not only for the benefit of those engaged in the argument but to also keep the site from developing a bad reputation. As such, they have teamed with researchers from Cornell to develop a computer system that can recognize when a conversation veers into negative territory, either redirecting it or halting the entire conversation altogether.
Looking at more than 1,000 online discussions on the Wikipedia Talk pages, the system has been programmed to look for “cues” of polite discussion, focusing on words such as “please” and “thanks,” suggesting that their use would not likely result in the conversation spiraling into negative territory.
Conversely, discussions that began with direct questions or the word “you” had a much better chance of degrading the conversation as they are often associated with being contentious and hostile.
Applying that data to an algorithm, the system was able to detect, early in the conversation, when a conversation was apt to become negative with a rate of accuracy of 61.6 percent.
Would you use such a tool to prevent future, potentially relationship-damaging discussions on your social media page?
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