4 ms·

The main thing this guy seems to want to do is curtail abuse, or in other words he wants to restrict the ability for people to say things to you that you don't

The main thing this guy seems to want to do is curtail abuse, or in other words he wants to restrict the ability for people to say things to you that you don't want to hear. Given that, I'm surprised he's advocating a distributed system where this would probably be an even harder problem to solve. But frankly I don't understand why "Twitter abuse" is seen as such a big problem. In general if you wish to publish something and provide a channel for people to respond, it's practically impossible for anyone to guarantee you'll be happy with all the responses you get. This is one of the hard parts of being a publisher, which is what you become when you sign up to Twitter. It's sad if someone is hurt by the responses they receive, but it's not really Twitter's problem. Twitter does provide ways to shield yourself from hostile and abusive users but the expectations being placed on them seem unreasonable to me. It's interesting that this exact same conversation is going on about Reddit (how people are offending each other, and we need to "fix" this). It's as if no one grasps that this has been going on since the beginning of time and if there's more of it at the moment that might point to a deeper problem in society which needs to be resolved through dialogue.

cpbotha 10y ago
There's a huge difference between criticism (good) and abuse (bad). You're most probably (I say that in the statistical sense) a white middleclass guy (I am too BTW). For us it's easy to airquote "twitter abuse" and ask what the problem is. However, for a great number of non-white-middleclass-guy-people it's a huge and real problem that we should do our absolute best to help address.
- apatters 10y ago
  I'm sorry but this idea that there's mysterious knowledge of hardship which white, male members of the middle class automatically don't possess is garbage and is exactly the sort of thing I was hinting at in the last sentence of my comment. You can be as polite about it as you want but it immediately shuts down dialogue and informs the original speaker that he is the replier's intellectual inferior and his opinion isn't valued. In short it's a form of ad hominem. No matter how well-meaning it distracts from the discussion of the actual issue and drags us into identity politics. In this specific case I think it also demeans publishers who are not white and male. Plenty of non-white, non-male people have been publishing controversial material since long before Twitter existed. Just like the white and male ones, they learned to take the heat or get out of the kitchen. Things like the civil rights movement were accomplished within this context. The issue at hand is not a race or gender issue. All races and genders are being attacked on Twitter. The issue is that some Twitter users don't realize how hot the kitchen can get before they walk into it.
  - zimpenfish 10y ago
    > All races and genders are being attacked on Twitter. Do you have any statistics and/or data about that?
- cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
  > You're most probably (I say that in the statistical sense) a white middleclass guy (I am too BTW). For us it's easy to airquote "twitter abuse" and ask what the problem is. However, for a great number of non-white-middleclass-guy-people it's a huge and real problem that we should do our absolute best to help address. This is the most ironically hilarious statement I've seen in a while. I don't know where this "white guy privilege" meme started, but I find it funny when "white guys" call themselves privileged. No you're just a human being and you just happen to live in a country where the majority is white people. If you go to an Indonesian cannibal tribe, you're just a food and no longer "privileged". The reason I find that sentence ironic is you're talking about "do our best to help" but the sentence itself reeks of some sort of weird idea that you are above other non-white men and women. Statements like "You're most probably a white middleclass guy" is what hurts the people most, and you don't even realize that. I laugh out loud imagining if OP was a woman, she would be like "WTF is this guy". People don't "need help". The precise thinking that they need help is the first thing you need to abolish from your mindset if you really care.
  - cpbotha 10y ago
    Perhaps you should have spent the 5 seconds to look up where I live. You might have understood that my perspective is different from yours. Based on previous arguments with privilege deniers (invariably white middleclass guys who are unable to have this discussion without getting quite emotional), I know that this little discussion is not going anywhere. One day either you or I might change our viewpoint with regard to this topic. I already did this once quite some time ago. I hope that one day you might too.
    - apatters 10y ago
      Since your response to him contained a racist stereotype which you used to justify not engaging in further dialogue, I certainly hope you do change your viewpoint in the future. I continue to be baffled by this idea that it's okay to use racist stereotypes against whites but not anyone else. The common denominator of all your discussions with emotional white middle class guys is you...

cpbotha 10y ago

There's a huge difference between criticism (good) and abuse (bad). You're most probably (I say that in the statistical sense) a white middleclass guy (I am too BTW). For us it's easy to airquote "twitter abuse" and ask what the problem is. However, for a great number of non-white-middleclass-guy-people it's a huge and real problem that we should do our absolute best to help address.

apatters 10y ago
I'm sorry but this idea that there's mysterious knowledge of hardship which white, male members of the middle class automatically don't possess is garbage and is exactly the sort of thing I was hinting at in the last sentence of my comment. You can be as polite about it as you want but it immediately shuts down dialogue and informs the original speaker that he is the replier's intellectual inferior and his opinion isn't valued. In short it's a form of ad hominem. No matter how well-meaning it distracts from the discussion of the actual issue and drags us into identity politics. In this specific case I think it also demeans publishers who are not white and male. Plenty of non-white, non-male people have been publishing controversial material since long before Twitter existed. Just like the white and male ones, they learned to take the heat or get out of the kitchen. Things like the civil rights movement were accomplished within this context. The issue at hand is not a race or gender issue. All races and genders are being attacked on Twitter. The issue is that some Twitter users don't realize how hot the kitchen can get before they walk into it.
- zimpenfish 10y ago
  > All races and genders are being attacked on Twitter. Do you have any statistics and/or data about that?
cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
> You're most probably (I say that in the statistical sense) a white middleclass guy (I am too BTW). For us it's easy to airquote "twitter abuse" and ask what the problem is. However, for a great number of non-white-middleclass-guy-people it's a huge and real problem that we should do our absolute best to help address. This is the most ironically hilarious statement I've seen in a while. I don't know where this "white guy privilege" meme started, but I find it funny when "white guys" call themselves privileged. No you're just a human being and you just happen to live in a country where the majority is white people. If you go to an Indonesian cannibal tribe, you're just a food and no longer "privileged". The reason I find that sentence ironic is you're talking about "do our best to help" but the sentence itself reeks of some sort of weird idea that you are above other non-white men and women. Statements like "You're most probably a white middleclass guy" is what hurts the people most, and you don't even realize that. I laugh out loud imagining if OP was a woman, she would be like "WTF is this guy". People don't "need help". The precise thinking that they need help is the first thing you need to abolish from your mindset if you really care.
- cpbotha 10y ago
  Perhaps you should have spent the 5 seconds to look up where I live. You might have understood that my perspective is different from yours. Based on previous arguments with privilege deniers (invariably white middleclass guys who are unable to have this discussion without getting quite emotional), I know that this little discussion is not going anywhere. One day either you or I might change our viewpoint with regard to this topic. I already did this once quite some time ago. I hope that one day you might too.
  - apatters 10y ago
    Since your response to him contained a racist stereotype which you used to justify not engaging in further dialogue, I certainly hope you do change your viewpoint in the future. I continue to be baffled by this idea that it's okay to use racist stereotypes against whites but not anyone else. The common denominator of all your discussions with emotional white middle class guys is you...