5 ms·

Twitter is a digital Public Sphere, and Public Spheres are always noisy. When in human history have public spheres like Twitter existed? The public sphere up u

Twitter is a digital Public Sphere, and Public Spheres are always noisy. When in human history have public spheres like Twitter existed? The public sphere up until about 50 years ago for most people was strictly local. You could not broadcast dumb narcissistic ignorance for free to millions of people. It wasn't possible. Twitter is not good at what it does. It does not elevate public discourse. It's the equivalent of all the newsteams beating the hell out of each other at the end of Anchorman 2. If you're bullish about Twitter, maybe we should be bearish about our chances as societies and as a species, because Twitter is full of examples of some or our worst behaviors. It's no surprise Trump loves it. Just as an example, check out this tweet and its thread: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/961253168968622086 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/96125316896862208... It's 32,000 tweets of people shouting at each other.

the-dude 9y ago
The tweet is in fact excellent, and the phenomenon predates Trump : stock markets will go down on good macro news in fear of interest rate hikes. This has been going on for at least 5 yrs, if not 10. This fact has nothing to do with Trump.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Was meaning to link to this one: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/961270833569202176 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/96127083356920217... I figured the tens of thousands of tweets of people saying hateful things to each other was evidence enough. That thread will do, too.
  - the-dude 9y ago
    Touche, and I did not mean to deny your evidence of thousands of hateful tweets. I was just pointing out Trump said nothing controversial in the aforementioned tweet.
- untog 9y ago
  I'm not sure that's relevant to the OP's point - it's the arguing beneath the tweet they were referring to, nothing to do with the content of the tweet itself.
  - the-dude 9y ago
    I think it is relevant to point out that is not the content of the tweet which evokes this arguing.
tinymollusk 9y ago
What if the size of the sphere is the determining characteristic about the level of discourse? I just read Geoffrey West's book, "Scale", and it is interesting to think of a sub-linear relationship, with "quality of discussion" on the y-axis and "number of people participating" on the X. It's possible the current state of "bad" affairs is a natural consequence of the democratizing power of the internet itself. Reduced friction means anyone can participate; more participants means lower quality of discussion. Just a theory as I try to synthesize West's ideas.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Yeah, I agree with you. It's very Eternal Septemberish. Many of the political discussions about the flaws of democracy are probably relevant here, too. Zakaria has some similar arguments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom This is then applied to America to argue that the increased democratization of American society and culture is what has caused the perceived failures of the government and governing elites. We have a tendency to see size and democracy as obvious goods, but there are certainly some limits there. It's funny how around the time Digg got going, all the talk was about the "wisdom of the crowds". Not sure anyone wants to make that argument today after 15 years of social media.
- CM30 9y ago
  Eh, I think it may come down to Dunbarr's Number more than anything else. People can only have a certain number of truly close friends/connections at any one time, and when you get beyond that, you see clashes and the social structure breaks down. Maybe Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc are simply too big, so people break into separate tribes rather than get along with each other.
theseatoms 9y ago
It's the purest form (yet discovered) of McLuhan's Global Village: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDnPP6ntic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDnPP6ntic Fittingly, I first learned of this concept on Twitter.
malvosenior 9y ago
I find the concept of "elevated" public discourse to be very questionable. Elevated to what? Your standards? Your opinions? That tweet gave 32k people a chance to voice their opinion on the topic. You may not want to hear it but I bet they appreciated the platform that gave them a voice. I'm really glad we live in a society that gives people more tools than a voting booth to express themselves.
icedchai 9y ago
Usenet and similar distributed messaging systems (FidoNet) have been around since the 80's. Twitter made it accessible.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > Twitter made it accessible. Which is the real problem. Usenet was better because it was before the Internet was interesting to the general population. Twitter sucks for the same reason YouTube comments and /r/all suck - regular people.
  - icedchai 9y ago
    Yep. The Internet in general was better before it was interesting to the general population. Take me back to the late 90's, please.
    - krylon 9y ago
      Is that sarcasm? There clearly are some problems with the Internet, but nobody is forcing me to use Facebook or Twitter. But there are some things I emphatically do not miss about the late '90s: Slow modems; even with ISDN, the Internet was painfully slow. Also, no flat rates - in Germany, the phone companies charged for dial-up connections by the minute. No mobile Internet. No Wikipedia. No YouTube. 10 MiB-sized mailboxes. TFT displays cost more than the entire PC I was using at the time (with a crappy CRT display). PCs with less RAM than todays HDDs have in cache. Windows 95 and 98. I could go on and on. About the only thing I miss more and more often is that I was twenty years younger.

the-dude 9y ago

The tweet is in fact excellent, and the phenomenon predates Trump : stock markets will go down on good macro news in fear of interest rate hikes. This has been going on for at least 5 yrs, if not 10. This fact has nothing to do with Trump.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Was meaning to link to this one: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/961270833569202176 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/96127083356920217... I figured the tens of thousands of tweets of people saying hateful things to each other was evidence enough. That thread will do, too.
- the-dude 9y ago
  Touche, and I did not mean to deny your evidence of thousands of hateful tweets. I was just pointing out Trump said nothing controversial in the aforementioned tweet.
untog 9y ago
I'm not sure that's relevant to the OP's point - it's the arguing beneath the tweet they were referring to, nothing to do with the content of the tweet itself.
- the-dude 9y ago
  I think it is relevant to point out that is not the content of the tweet which evokes this arguing.

tinymollusk 9y ago

What if the size of the sphere is the determining characteristic about the level of discourse? I just read Geoffrey West's book, "Scale", and it is interesting to think of a sub-linear relationship, with "quality of discussion" on the y-axis and "number of people participating" on the X. It's possible the current state of "bad" affairs is a natural consequence of the democratizing power of the internet itself. Reduced friction means anyone can participate; more participants means lower quality of discussion. Just a theory as I try to synthesize West's ideas.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Yeah, I agree with you. It's very Eternal Septemberish. Many of the political discussions about the flaws of democracy are probably relevant here, too. Zakaria has some similar arguments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom This is then applied to America to argue that the increased democratization of American society and culture is what has caused the perceived failures of the government and governing elites. We have a tendency to see size and democracy as obvious goods, but there are certainly some limits there. It's funny how around the time Digg got going, all the talk was about the "wisdom of the crowds". Not sure anyone wants to make that argument today after 15 years of social media.
CM30 9y ago
Eh, I think it may come down to Dunbarr's Number more than anything else. People can only have a certain number of truly close friends/connections at any one time, and when you get beyond that, you see clashes and the social structure breaks down. Maybe Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc are simply too big, so people break into separate tribes rather than get along with each other.

theseatoms 9y ago

It's the purest form (yet discovered) of McLuhan's Global Village: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDnPP6ntic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDnPP6ntic Fittingly, I first learned of this concept on Twitter.

malvosenior 9y ago

I find the concept of "elevated" public discourse to be very questionable. Elevated to what? Your standards? Your opinions? That tweet gave 32k people a chance to voice their opinion on the topic. You may not want to hear it but I bet they appreciated the platform that gave them a voice. I'm really glad we live in a society that gives people more tools than a voting booth to express themselves.

icedchai 9y ago

Usenet and similar distributed messaging systems (FidoNet) have been around since the 80's. Twitter made it accessible.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
> Twitter made it accessible. Which is the real problem. Usenet was better because it was before the Internet was interesting to the general population. Twitter sucks for the same reason YouTube comments and /r/all suck - regular people.
- icedchai 9y ago
  Yep. The Internet in general was better before it was interesting to the general population. Take me back to the late 90's, please.
  - krylon 9y ago
    Is that sarcasm? There clearly are some problems with the Internet, but nobody is forcing me to use Facebook or Twitter. But there are some things I emphatically do not miss about the late '90s: Slow modems; even with ISDN, the Internet was painfully slow. Also, no flat rates - in Germany, the phone companies charged for dial-up connections by the minute. No mobile Internet. No Wikipedia. No YouTube. 10 MiB-sized mailboxes. TFT displays cost more than the entire PC I was using at the time (with a crappy CRT display). PCs with less RAM than todays HDDs have in cache. Windows 95 and 98. I could go on and on. About the only thing I miss more and more often is that I was twenty years younger.