{"id":1123,"date":"2021-11-22T17:56:10","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T16:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/11\/22\/the-secret-to-great-online-communities-even-on-facebook-the-seattle-times\/"},"modified":"2021-11-22T17:56:10","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T16:56:10","slug":"the-secret-to-great-online-communities-even-on-facebook-the-seattle-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/11\/22\/the-secret-to-great-online-communities-even-on-facebook-the-seattle-times\/","title":{"rendered":"The secret to great online communities, even on Facebook &#8211; The Seattle Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"cfbc967f0983488262956e73eca9483a\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3859091246952232\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- blok -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3859091246952232\" data-ad-slot=\"1334354390\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n<\/div>\n<p>Gatherings of humans on the internet can be either snarky and insensitive or welcoming and informative. One essential ingredient for the latter is people like Kate Bilowitz.<br \/>Bilowitz is a co-founder of a Facebook group called Vaccine Talk, which describes itself as an \u201cevidence-based discussion forum\u201d for people with varying beliefs about vaccinations to better understand one another.<br \/>You might imagine raging shout fests, but I\u2019ve been watching Vaccine Talk since I read about the group in The Washington Post, and I\u2019ve mostly seen discussions that are empathetic, civil and nuanced. I\u2019ve gotten teary reading the compassionate replies to someone worried about COVID vaccinations harming a loved one recovering from cancer.<br \/>Vaccine Talk isn\u2019t perfect, and the group\u2019s work is fraught. Facebook acknowledges that Vaccine Talk is the kind of group that it wants on its site, but Bilowitz told me that the group\u2019s overseers are constantly worried about being shut down. More on that in a minute.<br \/>Vaccine Talk shows that our online experiences are shaped by the people who run our favorite Facebook group, Nextdoor neighborhood gathering, Reddit parenting forum or Discord book group.<br \/>In my ideal world, the best online community hosts would be as famous as Mark Zuckerberg. Consider this article one step to bring them more notice.<br \/>Vaccine Talk is a time-consuming labor. Bilowitz, who is a parent and works in real estate, said that she spent about 10 to 15 hours a week on the Facebook group. I asked why she devoted so much time to a volunteer role in which she\u2019s occasionally yelled at by strangers.<br \/>\u201cIt is extremely rewarding when people tell us that the group helped them,\u201d Bilowitz said. \u201cWe\u2019re not here to preach at people, but when people are hesitant about vaccines and they find information that helps them become confident in their decision \u2014 honestly, that is the No. 1 reason why we do this.\u201d<br \/>The irony of building great online communities is that if they\u2019re working, they can seem effortless. They definitely are not. Bilowitz said the overseers of Vaccine Talk, like others who run online groups, worked hard to forge a healthy culture and design and enforce codes of conduct.<br \/>Vaccine Talk started more than four years ago and focused mostly on childhood vaccines like measles. The initial idea was to be a place for anything-goes conversations.<br \/>\u201cThat did not work,\u201d Bilowitz said. \u201cIt was not a civil discussion forum.\u201d<br \/>Many people \u2014 particularly those in the vast middle between strongly pro- or anti-vaccine views \u2014 tuned out.<br \/>Now, rules require people to be respectful, and the group offers tips on how to effectively back up claims with evidence. \u201cExcessive complaining\u201d about the group or how it\u2019s run is off-limits. Nearly 30 moderators scattered across multiple time zones keep a close watch on the comments and approve newcomers who want to join the group, which has about 77,000 members.<br \/>Bilowitz knows that some people feel stifled by Vaccine Talk\u2019s guardrails, but she considers them essential for productive conversation.<br \/>The dangers of false information about vaccines complicate the group\u2019s work and Facebook\u2019s. To try to counter misinformation on its site, Facebook has rules against posting information on vaccines that fact-checking groups or health authorities consider false. But this poses a challenge to groups like Vaccine Talk, where people may sometimes post misinformation to get help debunking it \u2014 something that is allowed in Facebook\u2019s rules.<br \/>Bilowitz said that twice this year, Facebook disabled Vaccine Talk for several hours as a punishment for violating the company\u2019s policies against misinformation. Facebook told me it was aware that the group was taken down once and said it was a mistake.<br \/>A Facebook spokesperson, Leonard Lam, told me that there was \u201cmore the company can do to support well-intentioned communities like Vaccine Talk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/business\/the-secret-to-great-online-communities-even-on-facebook\/\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gatherings of humans on the internet can be either snarky and insensitive or welcoming and informative. One essential ingredient for the latter is people like Kate Bilowitz.Bilowitz is a co-founder of a Facebook group called Vaccine Talk, which describes itself as an \u201cevidence-based discussion forum\u201d for people with varying beliefs about vaccinations to better understand [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow1sXXCw:productID":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}