We need to be able to express what we really think of articles.

Countering the destructive nature of bubbles

Ever felt frustrated that you can’t counter what you see as potentially incredibly damaging, and/or immoral misinformation in an article?

Such articles are usually written by people with strongly held, and yet indefensible opinions, but when we try to engage in dialog to perhaps correct, we are often personally insulted.

We quickly realise that the agenda of the author is not the seeking of truth, but rather, to amass a following of unquestioning supporters of whatever misinformation they can conjure up, i.e. to create a bubble, of which they are at the helm.

Personally, we may simply choose to block, or otherwise attempt to remove such articles from our own feeds, so as to ensure they no longer offend our senses.

Similarly, authors seeking to build a following, perceiving a threat from critics, may take measures to remove or discredit all traces of valid criticism, even if that means attacking the character of critics.

But all those actions result directly in the creation of bubbles, which result in division and tribalism, the views of which become ever more extreme as the bubbles become ever more isolated from mainstream view.

To counter this, without risk of coming under personal attack, we need to have available a means to express our simple disapproval of the things we see…