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You’re leaving out the part where B whips up a Twitter mob to demand A be fired and ousted from the industry.
by psyc 9y ago
You’re leaving out the part where B whips up a Twitter mob to demand A be fired and ousted from the industry.
- igor47 9y agoAh, we come to the heart of it. If Sam had said, "Twitter is a problem because it enables dangerous groupthink, promotes overreaction, and stifles meaningful discourse" then (a) his argument would have been a lot more clear and (b) I would have been 100% onboard
- beaconstudios 9y agoI'm not sure twitter is the cause, more the primary avenue. People can be dangerously groupthink-y and overreacting in person or on social media, and our culture certainly seems to be moving more in the direction of instant reactions and emotional self-satisfaction over engaging in nuanced debates.
- librvf 9y agoWell, is twitter actually the problem, though? Twitter's biases are a problem, but that's a separate issue. Twitter can't be expected to prevent all forms of propaganda from its users, and even if they could the problem is not just twitter specifically, it's all social media. While the parent made a pithy comment using Twitter as an example, in reality instigators rely on an array of platforms to spread the message and whip up the proverbial mob. And more importantly, people with decision-making power have shown a remarkable tendency to submit to the will of these capricious and volatile online mobs.
- jedharris 9y agoWhy is Twitter the problem if a company fires an employee. If I can just ignore Twitter (and I do) then Twitter mobs don't directly affect me. But if my management does things because of Twitter mobs (or anything else like that) we have a big problem.
- Avshalom 9y agoYou're leaving out the part where A whips up a real mob and lynches somebody. And what do you think has a stronger chilling effect: the possibility of being fired or the possibility of being murdered?
- librvf 9y ago> You're leaving out the part where A whips up a real mob and lynches somebody. Yeah because that hasn't happened, and if it did would be met with universal condemnation and be up against full weight of law enforcement and the legal system. > And what do you think has a stronger chilling effect: the possibility of being fired or the possibility of being murdered? If the possibility of being fired for ideas is highly likely while the possibility of being murdered for ideas is essentially zero, then the possibility of being fired has a stronger chilling effect.
- Avshalom 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime#Victims_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime#Victims_in_the_Unit...
- librvf 9y agoWe're discussing the situation in present-day tech culture, mostly with regards to Silicon Valley and the Bay Area as compared to China.
- Avshalom 9y agoThe broad history of violent bigotry in the United States does not get magically forgotten by people just because they write code for a living. And that history and that present reality means that many things are not just abstract propositions but are direct threats.
- 9y ago