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They aren't. I, as many other people I read, have been arguing about SM threat for years, but unlike newspapers I like most people have a very very limited reac

They aren't. I, as many other people I read, have been arguing about SM threat for years, but unlike newspapers I like most people have a very very limited reach. Just because our reach is too short for you to notice it does not mean we don't exist.

peoplewindow 9y ago
What, saying it's a direct threat to democracy itself? Care to link to examples of you arguing that 10 years ago? The Telegraph has a good meta-discussion on this topic, about how modern "liberal elites" (ugh, hate that name) have embraced totalitarianism: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/brexit-barcelona-liberal-elites-have-lost-faith-self-determination/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/brexit-barcelona-... (unfortunately it's paywalled) When a billionaire newspaper owner like Omidyar writes an article in the Washington Post that repeats dubious conspiracy theories, calls targeted ads "dark posts", and just in general argues repeatedly for people exactly like himself to control the flow of information on the internet, this is not based on anything new. It certainly isn't anything to do with social media. It's just the same thing that's been going on for millenia - people in power getting scared and confused when the little people start rebelling, and concluding that censorship and control is the answer. If Trump had been elected in the 1990's exactly the same kind of article would have been written but instead of "social media" it'd have been talking about "the internet superhighway" and "the World Wide Web" instead, as that'd have been the newest form of information dispersal at the time.
- samastur 9y ago
  Why 10 years ago? I wrote this in 2014: http://markos.gaivo.net/articles/chirp-squawk-cackle-or-honk.html http://markos.gaivo.net/articles/chirp-squawk-cackle-or-honk... However I effectively stopped using Twitter in 2011 for these same reasons and have been arguing about dangers of Twitter, FB and ilk even before then. Regretfully in places not well archived. Not that it matters because my reach is practically non-existent. I was also far from being original or pioneering.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    Good response! I read your article. I agree with everything in it, but I don't think it argues that Twitter is a threat to democracy. The word democracy does not appear anywhere in it, for example. You argued that Twitter is vacuous, empty, filled with half or quarter baked ideas and that the brevity of messages leads to anti-intellectual arguments. That it's a notch above monkey speak. And you speculated that this may have some sort of impact on society, possibly, or maybe it was just useless and a missed opportunity. I actually never used Twitter and actively avoid it, for all the reasons you give. Still, I wouldn't argue it's a threat to democracy. The sort of people who get into empty headed Twitter fights weren't going to write rational, well thought out essays if Twitter didn't exist. They'd just not write at all.

peoplewindow 9y ago

What, saying it's a direct threat to democracy itself? Care to link to examples of you arguing that 10 years ago? The Telegraph has a good meta-discussion on this topic, about how modern "liberal elites" (ugh, hate that name) have embraced totalitarianism: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/brexit-barcelona-liberal-elites-have-lost-faith-self-determination/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/brexit-barcelona-... (unfortunately it's paywalled) When a billionaire newspaper owner like Omidyar writes an article in the Washington Post that repeats dubious conspiracy theories, calls targeted ads "dark posts", and just in general argues repeatedly for people exactly like himself to control the flow of information on the internet, this is not based on anything new. It certainly isn't anything to do with social media. It's just the same thing that's been going on for millenia - people in power getting scared and confused when the little people start rebelling, and concluding that censorship and control is the answer. If Trump had been elected in the 1990's exactly the same kind of article would have been written but instead of "social media" it'd have been talking about "the internet superhighway" and "the World Wide Web" instead, as that'd have been the newest form of information dispersal at the time.

samastur 9y ago
Why 10 years ago? I wrote this in 2014: http://markos.gaivo.net/articles/chirp-squawk-cackle-or-honk.html http://markos.gaivo.net/articles/chirp-squawk-cackle-or-honk... However I effectively stopped using Twitter in 2011 for these same reasons and have been arguing about dangers of Twitter, FB and ilk even before then. Regretfully in places not well archived. Not that it matters because my reach is practically non-existent. I was also far from being original or pioneering.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Good response! I read your article. I agree with everything in it, but I don't think it argues that Twitter is a threat to democracy. The word democracy does not appear anywhere in it, for example. You argued that Twitter is vacuous, empty, filled with half or quarter baked ideas and that the brevity of messages leads to anti-intellectual arguments. That it's a notch above monkey speak. And you speculated that this may have some sort of impact on society, possibly, or maybe it was just useless and a missed opportunity. I actually never used Twitter and actively avoid it, for all the reasons you give. Still, I wouldn't argue it's a threat to democracy. The sort of people who get into empty headed Twitter fights weren't going to write rational, well thought out essays if Twitter didn't exist. They'd just not write at all.