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Well, if you have someone determined to go after someone else, the most nuanced approach is not going to get you much. The attacker just rephrases it as they wi

Well, if you have someone determined to go after someone else, the most nuanced approach is not going to get you much. The attacker just rephrases it as they wish. Which is to say, when you have a medium like Twitter, where the entire world can march in and get involved with conversation X, a proposal for de-escalation seems futile and a bit absurd. Among other things, a lot of media personalities have built their engagement by not letting go of opportunities for kicking whoever when they are down - giving this up would literally cost them money. It seems like plans for de-escalation would do much better in situations where the participants are actually building a community, a group sharing values, a part of a reasonable forum/medium, not a stand-alone thing.

zozbot234 6y ago
> Well, if you have someone determined to go after someone else, the most nuanced approach is not going to get you much. The attacker just rephrases it as they wish. They can do this but they no longer have plausible deniability, since they're attacking something that the other user has unambiguously disclaimed. They'll just look like a loser who is obviously not acting in good faith.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Will they care? Plenty of people got "cancelled" because of something they did/said/did not/did not say years ago. Imho, the actions aren't the reason they get attacked, they are the tool for the attack, so retracting them might make the attack weaker, but it won't make the attackers back down. It's either a tribal thing ("I can hurt the other tribe if I hurt that individual because they are part of the other tribe") or purity signalling ("Look, I am clean and virtuous, and I purge even our circle from the unclean"). The tribal thing is somewhat reasonable from a collective stand point (which is why groups tend to look at their members' differently than the actions of competing groups), the purity spiralling is counter-productive in the larger conflict, as you're hurting your own group, but individuals have individual interests as well, and to advance those, they may be happy to sacrifice allies.
npunt 6y ago
Twitter isn't just one thing, it's composed of many communities of various sizes and closeness. Some communities are toxic and enjoy kicking people when they're down, others less so. We tend to recall only the extremes of these big personalities doing bad things. People model behavior every day on Twitter. If people only see or recall others kicking people when they're down, that's what people will expect is the norm, and this will sway future behavior. If there are tools that offer alternatives, then we can alter those norms, and make change among the many people not at the extremes, swaying them toward more productive and respectful discourse.
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  Twitter isn't just one thing, it's composed of many communities of various sizes and closeness. That's true tautologically in the sense that different people follow different things and interests tend to cluster. But Twitter doesn't have communities that can easily kick people out of their entire group, IE, the only enforcement comes from Twitter's own lax rules. People model behavior every day on Twitter. Sure, on average. But determined person, say a troll, is in no way constrained to model anyone's behavior. That's kind of general problem of bullies - most people model the average and bully does what they want, so the average moves towards the bully over time.
  - npunt 6y ago
    > But Twitter doesn't have communities that can easily kick people out of their entire group Agree that's a problem, it puts a limit on how close a community can be if it solely relies on Twitter to operate (rather than on their own online or in-person fora). This is one rather legitimate reason for cancelling - its a way for communities to excise members they do not want in the community, using the rules of social engagement available to them on the platform. Cancelled people may still have accounts and be able to interact in other groups of people in the broader twittersphere, but largely become pariahs in the communities they are a part of on twitter. This is why cancelling on twitter is not uniformly a bad thing, it is simply a way for communities to maintain some level of cohesion and shared values within the rules available to them. As far as trolls, yes that behavior will always exist to some extent online. Mea Culpa is just one way to improve discourse, not a complete solution. The issue in public fora like Twitter is that these types of personalities tend to have outsized impacts on the community, and that's still a problem to solve.

zozbot234 6y ago

> Well, if you have someone determined to go after someone else, the most nuanced approach is not going to get you much. The attacker just rephrases it as they wish. They can do this but they no longer have plausible deniability, since they're attacking something that the other user has unambiguously disclaimed. They'll just look like a loser who is obviously not acting in good faith.

luckylion 6y ago
Will they care? Plenty of people got "cancelled" because of something they did/said/did not/did not say years ago. Imho, the actions aren't the reason they get attacked, they are the tool for the attack, so retracting them might make the attack weaker, but it won't make the attackers back down. It's either a tribal thing ("I can hurt the other tribe if I hurt that individual because they are part of the other tribe") or purity signalling ("Look, I am clean and virtuous, and I purge even our circle from the unclean"). The tribal thing is somewhat reasonable from a collective stand point (which is why groups tend to look at their members' differently than the actions of competing groups), the purity spiralling is counter-productive in the larger conflict, as you're hurting your own group, but individuals have individual interests as well, and to advance those, they may be happy to sacrifice allies.

npunt 6y ago

Twitter isn't just one thing, it's composed of many communities of various sizes and closeness. Some communities are toxic and enjoy kicking people when they're down, others less so. We tend to recall only the extremes of these big personalities doing bad things. People model behavior every day on Twitter. If people only see or recall others kicking people when they're down, that's what people will expect is the norm, and this will sway future behavior. If there are tools that offer alternatives, then we can alter those norms, and make change among the many people not at the extremes, swaying them toward more productive and respectful discourse.

joe_the_user 6y ago
Twitter isn't just one thing, it's composed of many communities of various sizes and closeness. That's true tautologically in the sense that different people follow different things and interests tend to cluster. But Twitter doesn't have communities that can easily kick people out of their entire group, IE, the only enforcement comes from Twitter's own lax rules. People model behavior every day on Twitter. Sure, on average. But determined person, say a troll, is in no way constrained to model anyone's behavior. That's kind of general problem of bullies - most people model the average and bully does what they want, so the average moves towards the bully over time.
- npunt 6y ago
  > But Twitter doesn't have communities that can easily kick people out of their entire group Agree that's a problem, it puts a limit on how close a community can be if it solely relies on Twitter to operate (rather than on their own online or in-person fora). This is one rather legitimate reason for cancelling - its a way for communities to excise members they do not want in the community, using the rules of social engagement available to them on the platform. Cancelled people may still have accounts and be able to interact in other groups of people in the broader twittersphere, but largely become pariahs in the communities they are a part of on twitter. This is why cancelling on twitter is not uniformly a bad thing, it is simply a way for communities to maintain some level of cohesion and shared values within the rules available to them. As far as trolls, yes that behavior will always exist to some extent online. Mea Culpa is just one way to improve discourse, not a complete solution. The issue in public fora like Twitter is that these types of personalities tend to have outsized impacts on the community, and that's still a problem to solve.