4 ms·

Could you imagine _any_ of the comments here HN affixed to that Twitter thread? You could seriously jeopardize your career. What I wonder is how people can liv

Could you imagine _any_ of the comments here HN affixed to that Twitter thread? You could seriously jeopardize your career. What I wonder is how people can live in such wildly divergent realities? I suppose social media (which includes both Twitter and HN) plays a primary role.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Social media no doubt exacerbates the problem, but I think it also makes the problem a lot more visible and easier to draw connections with. If some similar spat had happened in the 90s - with none of the participants or their organizations being tremendously well known - how many of the people reading this thread would have ever heard about it?
lykr0n 6y ago
Have a different online identity that's not associated with yourself?
- spuz 6y ago
  Maybe it's because of the way Twitter is designed. On Twitter, the root of a discussion thread is a post made by a particular user on their feed. If I want to talk about another person's post, I don't need to reply on their thread - I can just create my own. Maybe this leads to an explicit bifurcation in conversation and similarly in perspectives and point of view. For example, if I disagree with something that Donald Trump said, I won't simply reply to his tweet where everyone including his supporters can see it, I will reply to in on my timeline. Similarly, my followers won't follow Donald Trump to hear what I have to say about him, they will only follow me directly. Given the root of discussion is always a person rather than an idea it forces people to judge in advance the content they read based on who said it. Perhaps if Twitter didn't allow retweets and separate comment threads, this kind of division in commentary wouldn't happen so much. PS - I hardly use Twitter at all, the above is just speculation.

4 ms·

Could you imagine _any_ of the comments here HN affixed to that Twitter thread? You could seriously jeopardize your career. What I wonder is how people can liv

by alexpetralia 6y ago

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Social media no doubt exacerbates the problem, but I think it also makes the problem a lot more visible and easier to draw connections with. If some similar spat had happened in the 90s - with none of the participants or their organizations being tremendously well known - how many of the people reading this thread would have ever heard about it?
lykr0n 6y ago
Have a different online identity that's not associated with yourself?
- spuz 6y ago
  Maybe it's because of the way Twitter is designed. On Twitter, the root of a discussion thread is a post made by a particular user on their feed. If I want to talk about another person's post, I don't need to reply on their thread - I can just create my own. Maybe this leads to an explicit bifurcation in conversation and similarly in perspectives and point of view. For example, if I disagree with something that Donald Trump said, I won't simply reply to his tweet where everyone including his supporters can see it, I will reply to in on my timeline. Similarly, my followers won't follow Donald Trump to hear what I have to say about him, they will only follow me directly. Given the root of discussion is always a person rather than an idea it forces people to judge in advance the content they read based on who said it. Perhaps if Twitter didn't allow retweets and separate comment threads, this kind of division in commentary wouldn't happen so much. PS - I hardly use Twitter at all, the above is just speculation.