4 ms·

Twitter Has Become a Park Filled with Bats and Perverts

22 points by molecule 10y ago

CalChris 10y ago
And Trump.
flukus 10y ago
LOL, imagine how these people would react to the internet back when it was much more anonymous?
- Xylakant 10y ago
  Yes, sure. Like back in the good old times in the Stone Age when unwashed brutes would hammer their heads in with clubs and considered that a civilized discussion. How I long to be back there, we lost so much when we adopted civil manners.
- walt74 10y ago
  LOL imagine the userbase of the internet has increased by a thousand thousand billion times since then. Thats what you apologists don't get: It's not about a single Dick on the Web. It's about a mass of Dicks. Its a problem, get that into your head.
  - flukus 10y ago
    A mass of dicks? You mean like when second Life was invaded by pink flying dildos and it was considered funny, not "problematic'.
    - Insanity 10y ago
      Damn Second Life, has been a long time since I heard anything about that.
    - h_r 10y ago
      Threatening others with physical violence after posting pictures of their kids, shit like that, isn't quite the same as a flying dildo though, right?
- rodgerd 10y ago
  You mean the old days where the main form of access to the Internet was through your university and pissing off your news admin could result in academic discipline being applied? Yes, I do remember those times, but I suspect some snot-nosed brats are only affecting to.
facepalm 10y ago
Is this similar to perverts calling random women on the telephone? Now that I think about it, wouldn't it have been easy to detect the callers and punish them? Did that ever happen?
onion2k 10y ago
The problem isn't that there are assholes on Twitter. They've always been there. Dealing with abusive people who want to shout down things they don't agree with has always been a downside to social media, especially if you share or talk about any remotely "controversial" topic. Twitter's lack of tools to help manage that problem didn't help but no amount of tools will completely fix the issue. It's a fact of life that a minority of people are just not very nice. The real problem is that there's no benefit to being on Twitter any more. The upside has vanished. The genuine conversations and fun side of Twitter has been lost. It's become a crowd of people all broadcasting without wanting to engage with their followers. I suspect it's simply a network size problem - once Twitter hit a threshold of users it got too noisy. It's ironic that Twitter's value is considered to be the size of its audience whereas that might actually be the exact thing that's killing its usefulness.
- heisenbit 10y ago
  Yes, technology has removed any limits to reach large audiences in the world. Combine this with zero consequences for abusive behavior. The solution in the past has been to move to a new forum relying on the trolls to take a while to figure it out. On the other side is the FB model where one is forced to use real names and a single account. That in turn exposes people to bullying in real life and forces the freedom of speech on a kinder-garden level. Then there are models where identity is tied to commercial assets (Amazon, Apple) where banning has potentially devastating economic side effects. Free anonymous accounts that cost nothing and are all powerful are not helping civilized discourse. Commercial accounts are not simple either. But what are the alternative?
  - Tempest1981 10y ago
    How does FB expose people to real-life bullying? I'm not seeing that connection. (Or are you saying that bullying still occurs on FB using real names?)
- facepalm 10y ago
  I still find it a convenient way to follow interesting people - including Paul Graham...
deleted 10y ago
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dqv 10y ago
When you artificially confine thought down to an arbitrary length, it seems logical that people are going to act way worse to each other. Someone commented on the article with a pretty insightful comment >yes, the real raw world is full of masturbators, bats, misogynists, racists, etc. But as a social convention, they show you the friendly face, not other way around.
webwanderings 10y ago
Twitter has become what comment section at Yahoo News once was, which ultimately what YouTube became. The crowd has just shifted over to Twitter now. Nothing anywhere is any different, when it comes to unmonitored platforms.
brudgers 10y ago
If Twitter had an interest addressing abuse, Twitter would strive to make it easier to report abuse than to create it. Instead, retweeting is one touch and amenable to botting while reporting is convoluted and a linear.

22 points by molecule 10y ago

CalChris 10y ago

And Trump.

flukus 10y ago

LOL, imagine how these people would react to the internet back when it was much more anonymous?

Xylakant 10y ago
Yes, sure. Like back in the good old times in the Stone Age when unwashed brutes would hammer their heads in with clubs and considered that a civilized discussion. How I long to be back there, we lost so much when we adopted civil manners.
walt74 10y ago
LOL imagine the userbase of the internet has increased by a thousand thousand billion times since then. Thats what you apologists don't get: It's not about a single Dick on the Web. It's about a mass of Dicks. Its a problem, get that into your head.
- flukus 10y ago
  A mass of dicks? You mean like when second Life was invaded by pink flying dildos and it was considered funny, not "problematic'.
  - Insanity 10y ago
    Damn Second Life, has been a long time since I heard anything about that.
  - h_r 10y ago
    Threatening others with physical violence after posting pictures of their kids, shit like that, isn't quite the same as a flying dildo though, right?
rodgerd 10y ago
You mean the old days where the main form of access to the Internet was through your university and pissing off your news admin could result in academic discipline being applied? Yes, I do remember those times, but I suspect some snot-nosed brats are only affecting to.

facepalm 10y ago

Is this similar to perverts calling random women on the telephone? Now that I think about it, wouldn't it have been easy to detect the callers and punish them? Did that ever happen?

onion2k 10y ago

The problem isn't that there are assholes on Twitter. They've always been there. Dealing with abusive people who want to shout down things they don't agree with has always been a downside to social media, especially if you share or talk about any remotely "controversial" topic. Twitter's lack of tools to help manage that problem didn't help but no amount of tools will completely fix the issue. It's a fact of life that a minority of people are just not very nice. The real problem is that there's no benefit to being on Twitter any more. The upside has vanished. The genuine conversations and fun side of Twitter has been lost. It's become a crowd of people all broadcasting without wanting to engage with their followers. I suspect it's simply a network size problem - once Twitter hit a threshold of users it got too noisy. It's ironic that Twitter's value is considered to be the size of its audience whereas that might actually be the exact thing that's killing its usefulness.

heisenbit 10y ago
Yes, technology has removed any limits to reach large audiences in the world. Combine this with zero consequences for abusive behavior. The solution in the past has been to move to a new forum relying on the trolls to take a while to figure it out. On the other side is the FB model where one is forced to use real names and a single account. That in turn exposes people to bullying in real life and forces the freedom of speech on a kinder-garden level. Then there are models where identity is tied to commercial assets (Amazon, Apple) where banning has potentially devastating economic side effects. Free anonymous accounts that cost nothing and are all powerful are not helping civilized discourse. Commercial accounts are not simple either. But what are the alternative?
- Tempest1981 10y ago
  How does FB expose people to real-life bullying? I'm not seeing that connection. (Or are you saying that bullying still occurs on FB using real names?)
facepalm 10y ago
I still find it a convenient way to follow interesting people - including Paul Graham...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dqv 10y ago

When you artificially confine thought down to an arbitrary length, it seems logical that people are going to act way worse to each other. Someone commented on the article with a pretty insightful comment >yes, the real raw world is full of masturbators, bats, misogynists, racists, etc. But as a social convention, they show you the friendly face, not other way around.

webwanderings 10y ago

Twitter has become what comment section at Yahoo News once was, which ultimately what YouTube became. The crowd has just shifted over to Twitter now. Nothing anywhere is any different, when it comes to unmonitored platforms.

brudgers 10y ago

If Twitter had an interest addressing abuse, Twitter would strive to make it easier to report abuse than to create it. Instead, retweeting is one touch and amenable to botting while reporting is convoluted and a linear.