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There is a fundamental difference between "Everyone should be allowed on the Internet," and, "Everyone should be allowed onto every social media site." Or, "Eve

There is a fundamental difference between "Everyone should be allowed on the Internet," and, "Everyone should be allowed onto every social media site." Or, "Everyone on a social media site should be encouraged to interact with everyone else." For example, maybe everybody should be able to read the President's tweets. But should Twitter necessarily be such that everybody can reply to the President's tweets? At this point in time, replies to the President, or to journalists, &c seem to be used to engage with other people reading the President's tweets, not with the President. As a result, Twitter's design is that everybody can interact with each other, whether they like it or not. I think there are many middle grounds between "Everybody can access the Internet," and, "Only some people can access the Internet." One such middle ground is, "Everybody can access the Internet, but not everybody has near-frictionless ability to engage with strangers."

krapp 7y ago
>But should Twitter necessarily be such that everybody can reply to the President's tweets? The ability to directly and freely communicate with leaders (and for them to communicate with one another) is incredibly revolutionary. It is unfortunate that Twitter, of all places, a site whose entire purpose is top-of-mind contextless microblogging, is where this revolution is taking place, and that the President in question is basically a shitposting troll, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers. I still kind of love that the President of the United States can say something stupid on Twitter, and a million people, including other world leaders, can respond with scathing criticism, rebuttals and stupid memes, and no one gets sent to the camps, or gets a nuke dropped on them. > "Everybody can access the Internet, but not everybody has near-frictionless ability to engage with strangers." That's something to be implemented by any particular site as it sees fit, not the entire platform. As far as the internet is concerned, everybody should have near-frictionless access to everything and everyone if they want it, and if someone provides a platform for it. Universality of access, both to ideas and to people, is kind of the entire point.
- skybrian 7y ago
  I'm not sure this counts as meaningful communication? It's similar to how everyone can send a letter to their representative, but staffers mostly just classify them as pro or con on whatever issue you're writing about. Regardless of medium, many-to-one communication using freeform text doesn't scale. If you structure it, it's basically a poll.
- aswanson 7y ago
  Hilarious thing is, this inanity is preserved for eternity. A century from now, kids will be able to look back at perfectly preserved absurdity of this age.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Or they'll be too busy coming up with inanity of their own to pay attention to "100 year old memes".
- everdrive 7y ago
  >The ability to directly and freely communicate with leaders (and for them to communicate with one another) is incredibly revolutionary. I agree with you, but why do you believe the discourse is so bad?
  - krapp 7y ago
    >I agree with you, but why do you believe the discourse is so bad? Twitter really isn't designed for discourse, and definitely not for complex discourse, but for immediate engagement and virality. The way the platform works almost encourages piling on and hostility. More than anything, I think the appearance of retweeted and replied-to content in your feed from people you don't even follow contributes to this. And I'm trying to put this in as non-partisan a way as I can... Trump's personality, his addiction to the platform, the polarizing nature of his Presidency and his loose relationship with the truth just adds fuel to the fire. I suspect this is just what mainstream political discourse looks like when a lot of people are genuinely angry about the state they find the country in. It provides a catharsis, if nothing else.
- braythwayt 7y ago
  Sorry, super-busy and couldn’t reply earlier. I like the idea of citizens communicating with their representatives, but that isn’t what happens when people reply to Trump, or Kamala Harris, or whomever. We all see those replies, so the incentive is to basically spam those Tweets with stuff that people want amplified on DJT’s coattails. I’d be delighted if Twitter hid replies from people I don’t follow, but that’s not how it works, and it’s not how they want it to work. And in my opinion, it doesn’t work. JM2C.
aswanson 7y ago
Imagine if DJT had an HN account. That would be...
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  I suspect that a large number of people here would pay for the privilege of being able to downvote Trump[1]. I mean, I think that in several cases he's been given a bum rap by the mainstream media that wants to shred him if given the least opening, and even I have to admit that it would feel good to downvote him. [1] He'd probably get banned very quickly. And the limited number of downvotes before a comment gets killed would be a hindrance. Still, the idea has a lot of charm...
  - aswanson 7y ago
    Hilarious. The president of the United States probably wouldn't meet hn posting standards.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      Well, he wouldn't. deng would repeatedly ask him to not post flamebait, and then would kill the account (or maybe just shadowban it, or rate limit it).

krapp 7y ago

>But should Twitter necessarily be such that everybody can reply to the President's tweets? The ability to directly and freely communicate with leaders (and for them to communicate with one another) is incredibly revolutionary. It is unfortunate that Twitter, of all places, a site whose entire purpose is top-of-mind contextless microblogging, is where this revolution is taking place, and that the President in question is basically a shitposting troll, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers. I still kind of love that the President of the United States can say something stupid on Twitter, and a million people, including other world leaders, can respond with scathing criticism, rebuttals and stupid memes, and no one gets sent to the camps, or gets a nuke dropped on them. > "Everybody can access the Internet, but not everybody has near-frictionless ability to engage with strangers." That's something to be implemented by any particular site as it sees fit, not the entire platform. As far as the internet is concerned, everybody should have near-frictionless access to everything and everyone if they want it, and if someone provides a platform for it. Universality of access, both to ideas and to people, is kind of the entire point.

skybrian 7y ago
I'm not sure this counts as meaningful communication? It's similar to how everyone can send a letter to their representative, but staffers mostly just classify them as pro or con on whatever issue you're writing about. Regardless of medium, many-to-one communication using freeform text doesn't scale. If you structure it, it's basically a poll.
aswanson 7y ago
Hilarious thing is, this inanity is preserved for eternity. A century from now, kids will be able to look back at perfectly preserved absurdity of this age.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Or they'll be too busy coming up with inanity of their own to pay attention to "100 year old memes".
everdrive 7y ago
>The ability to directly and freely communicate with leaders (and for them to communicate with one another) is incredibly revolutionary. I agree with you, but why do you believe the discourse is so bad?
- krapp 7y ago
  >I agree with you, but why do you believe the discourse is so bad? Twitter really isn't designed for discourse, and definitely not for complex discourse, but for immediate engagement and virality. The way the platform works almost encourages piling on and hostility. More than anything, I think the appearance of retweeted and replied-to content in your feed from people you don't even follow contributes to this. And I'm trying to put this in as non-partisan a way as I can... Trump's personality, his addiction to the platform, the polarizing nature of his Presidency and his loose relationship with the truth just adds fuel to the fire. I suspect this is just what mainstream political discourse looks like when a lot of people are genuinely angry about the state they find the country in. It provides a catharsis, if nothing else.
braythwayt 7y ago
Sorry, super-busy and couldn’t reply earlier. I like the idea of citizens communicating with their representatives, but that isn’t what happens when people reply to Trump, or Kamala Harris, or whomever. We all see those replies, so the incentive is to basically spam those Tweets with stuff that people want amplified on DJT’s coattails. I’d be delighted if Twitter hid replies from people I don’t follow, but that’s not how it works, and it’s not how they want it to work. And in my opinion, it doesn’t work. JM2C.

aswanson 7y ago

Imagine if DJT had an HN account. That would be...

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
I suspect that a large number of people here would pay for the privilege of being able to downvote Trump[1]. I mean, I think that in several cases he's been given a bum rap by the mainstream media that wants to shred him if given the least opening, and even I have to admit that it would feel good to downvote him. [1] He'd probably get banned very quickly. And the limited number of downvotes before a comment gets killed would be a hindrance. Still, the idea has a lot of charm...
- aswanson 7y ago
  Hilarious. The president of the United States probably wouldn't meet hn posting standards.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Well, he wouldn't. deng would repeatedly ask him to not post flamebait, and then would kill the account (or maybe just shadowban it, or rate limit it).