4 ms·

The Stages of a Twitter Storm (2018)

27 points by apsec112 7y ago

charlysisto 7y ago
"that article pretty much nailed it" comment would probably be somewhere in its 29 steps :)
AznHisoka 7y ago
For step 9, the media is great at cherry picking the tweets that support their narrative and turning it into a bigger deal than it really is. Seeing 2-3 tweets from people who make the most noise gives you the sense everyone is outraged.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  In search of the buzztweet.
adventskalender 7y ago
I would have expected BuzzFeed to be among the URLs that are banned on HN, or has the approach of banning entire media outlets been discarded? Iirc it was implemented a couple of years ago. Anyway, the twist is that the original T-Shirt was already a joke. If it doesn't exist for real, somebody should make it.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7658520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7658520 > [dang, 2014:] Buzzfeed seem to be partly rebranding themselves with high-quality long articles. I thought this was excellent: http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/tom-lehrer http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/tom-lehrer (and posted it to HN to no avail). So yes, we've upgraded Buzzfeed from banned (stories get auto-killed) to lightweight (stories get a penalty, which moderators can override). A moderator saw the OP and marked it as solid.
  - adventskalender 7y ago
    Thanks for the information!
mscasts 7y ago
This is buzzfeed, one of the biggest contributors of this shit culture we now experience. Just watch how they randomly call some arbitrary twitter account a nazi: > 14. Then suddenly there are Nazis everywhere. This outrage culture is horrible, Buzzfeed is a heavy contributor which makes them horrible and I wish people would just stop.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  > wish people would just stop That's not "just" going to happen, no more than Twitter, Facebook and Youtube will "just stop" sending people into feedback loops of radicalization. Case studies are good for educating people, who just see their own small contribution at some of the stages. That it's hosted on buzzfeed is unfortunate -- if you know of something better on another site, share it. I have a bunch of "shit X says" collections I sometimes put things I stumble over into, here's some shit HN says: > > people shouldn't buy phones from the manufacturers they don't trust. > You're literally hosting your life on it. You should indeed not do this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17244303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17244303 Nobody batted an eyelid at "literally hosting your life on it". No, the question is just how to best do that. > I have begun wondering aloud about whether the social media era is our closest approach as a species to telepathy. [..] The stories I read that had telepathic species glossed over their transformation, usually with some variant on the phrase, "It wasn't pretty." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16943994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16943994 > I remember life before smartphones. I remember boredom. It sucked. I would never go back to the agonizing pain of sitting in the DMV for three ours or standing in line at a grocery store just for some "missed moment" where I study the shitty tabloids in line or DoT pamphlets. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15913665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15913665 > Having lived through the horrors of the pre-smartphone days https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15913342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15913342 I could find more, if I used algolia I could find ten thousands. I know it's petty. But it's also true, the fish stinks from the head and that's SV rather than buzzfeed.
- beaconstudios 7y ago
  I'm not sure if this is satirical, but the user they called a Nazi has a Hitler pepe avatar and uses the "echo" meme. That's about as straightforward as you can get. Otherwise, yeah. Buzzfeed often acts as an outrage factory - it gets clicks. Much of our media landscape is moving in that direction now because it's the most profitable form of "news".
dwnvoted2hell 7y ago
This is why Twitter is so much crazier than Jerry Springer. Jerry Springer shows are over in 30 minutes, and don't have genuine idiots 50% of the time. Edit: Thanks oh great censor from protecting us from the truth. How great you are!

27 points by apsec112 7y ago

"that article pretty much nailed it" comment would probably be somewhere in its 29 steps :)

For step 9, the media is great at cherry picking the tweets that support their narrative and turning it into a bigger deal than it really is. Seeing 2-3 tweets from people who make the most noise gives you the sense everyone is outraged.

raxxorrax 7y ago
In search of the buzztweet.

adventskalender 7y ago

I would have expected BuzzFeed to be among the URLs that are banned on HN, or has the approach of banning entire media outlets been discarded? Iirc it was implemented a couple of years ago. Anyway, the twist is that the original T-Shirt was already a joke. If it doesn't exist for real, somebody should make it.

ceejayoz 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7658520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7658520 > [dang, 2014:] Buzzfeed seem to be partly rebranding themselves with high-quality long articles. I thought this was excellent: http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/tom-lehrer http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/tom-lehrer (and posted it to HN to no avail). So yes, we've upgraded Buzzfeed from banned (stories get auto-killed) to lightweight (stories get a penalty, which moderators can override). A moderator saw the OP and marked it as solid.
- adventskalender 7y ago
  Thanks for the information!

mscasts 7y ago

This is buzzfeed, one of the biggest contributors of this shit culture we now experience. Just watch how they randomly call some arbitrary twitter account a nazi: > 14. Then suddenly there are Nazis everywhere. This outrage culture is horrible, Buzzfeed is a heavy contributor which makes them horrible and I wish people would just stop.

PavlovsCat 7y ago
> wish people would just stop That's not "just" going to happen, no more than Twitter, Facebook and Youtube will "just stop" sending people into feedback loops of radicalization. Case studies are good for educating people, who just see their own small contribution at some of the stages. That it's hosted on buzzfeed is unfortunate -- if you know of something better on another site, share it. I have a bunch of "shit X says" collections I sometimes put things I stumble over into, here's some shit HN says: > > people shouldn't buy phones from the manufacturers they don't trust. > You're literally hosting your life on it. You should indeed not do this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17244303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17244303 Nobody batted an eyelid at "literally hosting your life on it". No, the question is just how to best do that. > I have begun wondering aloud about whether the social media era is our closest approach as a species to telepathy. [..] The stories I read that had telepathic species glossed over their transformation, usually with some variant on the phrase, "It wasn't pretty." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16943994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16943994 > I remember life before smartphones. I remember boredom. It sucked. I would never go back to the agonizing pain of sitting in the DMV for three ours or standing in line at a grocery store just for some "missed moment" where I study the shitty tabloids in line or DoT pamphlets. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15913665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15913665 > Having lived through the horrors of the pre-smartphone days https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15913342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15913342 I could find more, if I used algolia I could find ten thousands. I know it's petty. But it's also true, the fish stinks from the head and that's SV rather than buzzfeed.
beaconstudios 7y ago
I'm not sure if this is satirical, but the user they called a Nazi has a Hitler pepe avatar and uses the "echo" meme. That's about as straightforward as you can get. Otherwise, yeah. Buzzfeed often acts as an outrage factory - it gets clicks. Much of our media landscape is moving in that direction now because it's the most profitable form of "news".

dwnvoted2hell 7y ago

This is why Twitter is so much crazier than Jerry Springer. Jerry Springer shows are over in 30 minutes, and don't have genuine idiots 50% of the time. Edit: Thanks oh great censor from protecting us from the truth. How great you are!