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Isn't the platform just the best medium for harassing and trolling? What else can you do with 140 chars? Have you ever heard about good tweets? It's always nega

Isn't the platform just the best medium for harassing and trolling? What else can you do with 140 chars? Have you ever heard about good tweets? It's always negativity.

makomk 10y ago
Twitter's popular with journalists for some reason, most likely because it's an easy way to find potential stories and promote their work. This is probably part of the problem - it means that when ordinary users are nasty to them or their friends it's personal, and the same when they or their friends get their accounts suspended.
- redthrowaway 10y ago
  And twitter being popular with journalists makes it a fantastic platform for news junkies like myself. But that's mostly a one-way street.
- angry-hacker 10y ago
  Because only celebrities and journalists benefit from Twitter. It's boring for regular joe's, unless you like to only consume. Or troll :)
inimino 10y ago
Since the election I've been spending time on HN and to a lesser extent Twitter. Every time I visit Twitter I find myself instinctively reaching for the downvote button, but there isn't one. About the only thing you can do when someone says (or retweets) something totally idiotic on Twitter is either unfollow, or, of course, reply. In other words, there is no way to register disapproval without simultaneously calling attention to the very thing you disapprove of. One of the absolute best features of HN is the downvote button and the way it is implemented. Downvotes are stronger than upvotes, and the downvoted content gets buried. A community that lets anyone join has to work hard to maintain a high standard. Downvotes don't kick people out, but they kick bad content off. Twitter has nothing like this, so the worst content gets the most attention. You can choose who you follow but users get no negative feedback on inappropriate tweets. So the norms shift towards whatever creates engagement, which is often outrage, fear, and strongly negative emotional content, with or without any rational foundation. If Twitter wants engaging and constructive dialog, they need a way to take out the trash. Unfortunately, Twitter's problem is that their potential for social good and their potential for revenue may never align. Since they are failing at turning a profit, it is unsurprising that they seem to be giving no consideration whatsoever to social responsibility.
- roystonvassey 10y ago
  +1. I spent a considerable amount of time on Twitter between August and November of this year. I quit cold turkey primarily because of the widespread negativity. Plus, its endless stream of tweets had a certain cheap novelty factor that coaxes you to spend more time on it than is warranted or necessary. HN and Reddit, to some extent, mitigate this in just the way I want. I'd be interested to hear about what are the reasons and ways people find Twitter useful/interesting.
  - inimino 10y ago
    In contrast with HN, I find the most salient characteristic of Twitter is that negativity. In the days after the election I started referring to it as the national amygdala. It just became an echo chamber for fear. I mostly solved it by ruthlessly unfollowing people who are just venting their emotions and not engaging in critical thought. I made up for it by following people I disagree with and randomly following people that are followed by people I respect. The thing I like about Twitter is who you can follow. Where else can you engage with Obama, Trump, etc. in a public forum? Without the big name political users, the press, the public intellectuals, Twitter would have nothing. The way the big shots are effectively equal to ordinary users is very democratic. I can @ the POTUS and at least in theory get a reply. There's nothing else out there that enables that kind of communication. It's a shame that Twitter has done so little with so much. Think of the great newspapers of the past and how seriously many of them took their civic responsibility, and how they crowed about it in their editorial pages. They understood their role in society and the responsibility that came with the power they had. Yet here Twitter finds itself in possession of an unprecendented opportunity and they totally squander it. Completely oblivious to their social responsibility, they chase after ad dollars, and even there they fail.
    - Mathnerd314 10y ago
      The problem IMO is the limits. Humans can only read so many tweets and follow so many people. Beyond Dunbar's number (150 - 1500 depending on selectivity) they just blur into a big mess. Twitter's added some tools for curation (likes, user lists) but they aren't really powerful enough to filter tweets in real-time. They need something like Reddit's automod or a machine-learning filter. The point of Twitter & other social media is empowering the user; they can encourage community members to step up and take civic responsibility, but Twitter's responsibility as such is to provide the platform rather than to run the show. I guess they could openly declare Twitter to be part of the DNC platform, but that would lose a ton of users (although not so much in terms of content). They're better off following a policy similar to Facebook of attempted neutrality.

Isn't the platform just the best medium for harassing and trolling? What else can you do with 140 chars? Have you ever heard about good tweets? It's always negativity.

makomk 10y ago

Twitter's popular with journalists for some reason, most likely because it's an easy way to find potential stories and promote their work. This is probably part of the problem - it means that when ordinary users are nasty to them or their friends it's personal, and the same when they or their friends get their accounts suspended.

redthrowaway 10y ago
And twitter being popular with journalists makes it a fantastic platform for news junkies like myself. But that's mostly a one-way street.
angry-hacker 10y ago
Because only celebrities and journalists benefit from Twitter. It's boring for regular joe's, unless you like to only consume. Or troll :)

inimino 10y ago

Since the election I've been spending time on HN and to a lesser extent Twitter. Every time I visit Twitter I find myself instinctively reaching for the downvote button, but there isn't one. About the only thing you can do when someone says (or retweets) something totally idiotic on Twitter is either unfollow, or, of course, reply. In other words, there is no way to register disapproval without simultaneously calling attention to the very thing you disapprove of. One of the absolute best features of HN is the downvote button and the way it is implemented. Downvotes are stronger than upvotes, and the downvoted content gets buried. A community that lets anyone join has to work hard to maintain a high standard. Downvotes don't kick people out, but they kick bad content off. Twitter has nothing like this, so the worst content gets the most attention. You can choose who you follow but users get no negative feedback on inappropriate tweets. So the norms shift towards whatever creates engagement, which is often outrage, fear, and strongly negative emotional content, with or without any rational foundation. If Twitter wants engaging and constructive dialog, they need a way to take out the trash. Unfortunately, Twitter's problem is that their potential for social good and their potential for revenue may never align. Since they are failing at turning a profit, it is unsurprising that they seem to be giving no consideration whatsoever to social responsibility.

roystonvassey 10y ago
+1. I spent a considerable amount of time on Twitter between August and November of this year. I quit cold turkey primarily because of the widespread negativity. Plus, its endless stream of tweets had a certain cheap novelty factor that coaxes you to spend more time on it than is warranted or necessary. HN and Reddit, to some extent, mitigate this in just the way I want. I'd be interested to hear about what are the reasons and ways people find Twitter useful/interesting.
- inimino 10y ago
  In contrast with HN, I find the most salient characteristic of Twitter is that negativity. In the days after the election I started referring to it as the national amygdala. It just became an echo chamber for fear. I mostly solved it by ruthlessly unfollowing people who are just venting their emotions and not engaging in critical thought. I made up for it by following people I disagree with and randomly following people that are followed by people I respect. The thing I like about Twitter is who you can follow. Where else can you engage with Obama, Trump, etc. in a public forum? Without the big name political users, the press, the public intellectuals, Twitter would have nothing. The way the big shots are effectively equal to ordinary users is very democratic. I can @ the POTUS and at least in theory get a reply. There's nothing else out there that enables that kind of communication. It's a shame that Twitter has done so little with so much. Think of the great newspapers of the past and how seriously many of them took their civic responsibility, and how they crowed about it in their editorial pages. They understood their role in society and the responsibility that came with the power they had. Yet here Twitter finds itself in possession of an unprecendented opportunity and they totally squander it. Completely oblivious to their social responsibility, they chase after ad dollars, and even there they fail.
  - Mathnerd314 10y ago
    The problem IMO is the limits. Humans can only read so many tweets and follow so many people. Beyond Dunbar's number (150 - 1500 depending on selectivity) they just blur into a big mess. Twitter's added some tools for curation (likes, user lists) but they aren't really powerful enough to filter tweets in real-time. They need something like Reddit's automod or a machine-learning filter. The point of Twitter & other social media is empowering the user; they can encourage community members to step up and take civic responsibility, but Twitter's responsibility as such is to provide the platform rather than to run the show. I guess they could openly declare Twitter to be part of the DNC platform, but that would lose a ton of users (although not so much in terms of content). They're better off following a policy similar to Facebook of attempted neutrality.