This document discusses democratic social networks and how they work. It examines sites like Reddit and YikYak, which allow users to vote on content. The presentation analyzes whether these sites truly promote democracy and free speech or if moderation and the voting system discourage unpopular opinions. It also looks at how user behavior, like upvoting provocative content, can influence what types of posts become most visible. The document describes experiments conducted to test hypotheses about how social influence and anonymity impact voting patterns on social media.

1. PATRICK:
Social media has established new and innovative ways for people to get in touch with
each other. Now the use of social media is not just limited to discussing family events
or sharing photos and videos but can actually create history and make a difference in
the real world. In this presentation we will be examining democratic social networks
such as Reddit & Yik-Yak whilst also examining a range of issues such as:
Does the anonymity provided by these networks breed unsavoury and distasteful
behaviour?
Are sites like reddit truly as democratic as they claim? Do sites like these enhance the
possibility for or in some cases stifle free speech?
Do the actions of other users effect the types of content that becomes popular?
Our hypothesisis is that upvotes on a post often promotes more upvotes, That
provocative content begets more provocative content & that anonymity makes users
more critical.
1

2. BRYAN:
An example of a democratic social network is Reddit.
Reddit is an entertainment, social networking, and news website where registered
community members can submit content, such as text posts or direct links, making it
essentially an online bulletin board system. Users can then vote submissions up or
down to organize the posts and determine their position on the site's pages. Content
entries are organized by areas of interest called "subreddits". The subreddit topics
include news, gaming, movies, music, books, fitness, food, and photosharing, among
many others.
One of the big criticisms of reddit is that: whilst it's important for people to have a
platform to express their views, even if those views may be unpopular or downright
offensive, The voting system means that unpopular opinions tend to get quickly
hidden, and subreddit moderators are given full reign to turn their subreddits into
echo chambers.
2

3. BRYAN:
Anonymous social media is a subcategory of social media where the main social
functionality is to share and interact around content and information anonymously on
mobile and web-based platforms.
Yik Yak is a social media smartphone application. It is available for iOS and Android
and it allows people anonymously to create and view posts or "Yaks" within a 5-mile
radius. It is intended for sharing primarily with those in proximity to the user,
potentially making it more intimate and relevant for people reading the posts. All
users have the ability to contribute to the stream by writing, responding, and "voting
up" or "voting down" (liking or disliking) yaks.
As well as being anonymous YikYak is also a democratic social network, following the
lead of forums like reddit that use upvoting as "community sourced decisions." The
idea behind both is that compelling, unique posts will float to the top, and weak ones
will sink to the bottom.
One of the biggest criticisms of social media sites and applications is their inherent
3

4. potential to feed the growing problem of cyber-bullying. Due to the widespread
bullying and harassment committed through Yik Yak, many schools and school
districts have taken action to ban the app.
On October 3, 2014, The Huffington Post published an editorial titled "Why Your
College Campus Should Ban Yik Yak," which asserted that Yik Yak's anonymous
messaging boards "are like bathroom stalls without toilets. They're useless, they're
sources of unhelpful or harmful conversations, and they're a complete eyesore.”
3

5. PATRICK:
Voting on sites such as reddit are supposed to be indicative of the quality of the post
and not the users personal opinion. A lot of users tend to forget this and vote with a
personal bias anyway. With this in mind…
For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. We will show you some
reddit posts. You will upvote or downvote certain statements, images & content using
only sticky notes. Write your name on the sticky note and draw an arrow indicating
whether it is an upvote or downvote.
4

6. For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. Using sticky notes you will
show your feelings towards certain statements, images & content using only upvotes
and downvotes.
Write name on sticky note.
5

7. For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. Using sticky notes you will
show your feelings towards certain statements, images & content using only upvotes
and downvotes.
Write name on sticky note.
6

8. For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. Using sticky notes you will
show your feelings towards certain statements, images & content using only upvotes
and downvotes.
Write name on sticky note.
7

9. For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. Using sticky notes you will
show your feelings towards certain statements, images & content using only upvotes
and downvotes.
Write name on sticky note.
8

10. For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. Using sticky notes you will
show your feelings towards certain statements, images & content using only upvotes
and downvotes.
Write name on sticky note.
9

11. For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. Using sticky notes you will
show your feelings towards certain statements, images & content using only upvotes
and downvotes.
Write name on sticky note.
10

12. For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. Using sticky notes you will
show your feelings towards certain statements, images & content using only upvotes
and downvotes.
Write name on sticky note.
11

13. For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. Using sticky notes you will
show your feelings towards certain statements, images & content using only upvotes
and downvotes.
Write name on sticky note.
12

14. For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. Using sticky notes you will
show your feelings towards certain statements, images & content using only upvotes
and downvotes.
Write name on sticky note.
13

15. For this activity we would like to simulate an online thread. Using sticky notes you will
show your feelings towards certain statements, images & content using only upvotes
and downvotes.
Write name on sticky note.
14

16. BRYAN:
For this activity we would like you to vote on the exact same posts you just seen, but
this time using the sheet we have provided. You don’t need to write your name, make
sure no one sees.
You have two minutes.
15

17. PATRICK
The ‘online disinhibition effect’ is a loosening (or complete abandonment) of social
restrictions and inhibitions that would otherwise be present in normal face-to-face
interaction during interactions with others on the Internet. This effect is caused by
many factors, including dissociative anonymity, invisibility, and minimization of
authority.
Because of this loss of inhibition, some users may exhibit benign (pronounced
BEENINE) tendencies, including becoming more affectionate, more willing to open up
to others, and less guarded about emotions, all in an attempt to achieve emotional
catharsis. According to psychologist John Suler, this particular occurrence is called
benign disinhibition.
With respect to bad behavior, users on the Internet can frequently do or say as they
wish without fear of any kind of meaningful reprisal. In most Internet forums, the
worst kind of punishment one can receive for bad behavior is usually being banned
from a particular site. In practice, however, this serves little use; the person involved
can usually circumvent the ban by simply registering another username and
16

18. continuing the same behavior as before. Suler calls this toxic disinhibition.
Perhaps one of the most serious consequences of the online disinhibition effect is the
advent of cyberbulling . The website overcomebullying.org states that "with the
advent of modern communications such as email, chat, text messaging and
smartphones as well as the ability to publish online on websites, blogs and social
networking sites such as Facebook making their message instantly available to
millions, the bully's reach and powers of social manipulation have been increased
exponentially".
In regards to ACTIVITY 2: We wanted to see if everyone's votes from the first activity
had changed at all when done anonymously, whether they would be more critical
towards the posts they where viewing and to see if they voted differently when they
did not see the votes of their peers. Which brings us on to…
16

19. PATRICK:
So, are upvotes democratic? Reddit is a democracy! much like The United States.
However, in both cases, the notion of true democracy may well be an illusion. Does
seeing upvotes on a post promotes more upvotes? Does provocative content beget
more provocative content? These are all issues we wished to explore through our
experiments.
The Internet has increased the likelihood that our decisions will be influenced by
those being made around us. On the one hand, group decision-making can lead to
better decisions, but it can also lead to “herding effects” that have resulted in
unsavoury or provocative posts rising to the top.
According to Muchnik, Aral & Taylor “negative social influence inspired users to
correct manipulated ratings, positive social influence increased the likelihood of
positive ratings by 32% and created accumulating positive herding that increased final
ratings by 25% on average. “
So ,for our first activity we actually manipulated the votes by asking a range of
17

20. people in the class to upvote every post they seen (Can these people please stand
up). We did this to test whether or not the class seeing others voting affected their
decisions in any way.
Source: Muchnik, L, Aral, S, & Taylor, S n.d., 'Social Influence Bias: A Randomized
Experiment', Science, 341, 6146, pp. 647-651, Social Sciences Citation Index,
EBSCOhost, viewed 24 October 2015.
17

21. BRYAN:
So during the course of our experiments we wished to see if anonymity changed the
opinions of those when voting on posts.
We also wanted to explore the concept of social influence and its applications both
online and off. We wanted to find out if the manipulating the votes could influence
the actions of others in the room and to what extent. From the data we have
collected today we will able to further investigate these issues and determine
whether our original hypothesisis was correct or not.
NOTES on hypothesisis : (that upvotes on a post often promotes more upvotes, That
provocative content begets more provocative content & that anonymity makes users
more critical.)
18