4 ms·

Increasingly, the medium is the tribe. It’s not clear there are solutions to this because aligning on tribal beliefs is how we evolved to survive!

calinet6 6y ago
This is exactly it. The instant communication has created instant reinforcement for the tribe. It's something our minds aren't really ready to handle. I agree there may not be a solution, given the technology we now have and the minds we'll never improve upon in our lifetimes. But I think we have to try...
- DougN7 6y ago
  That and you can instantly find a huge tribe. In the past you had to deal with others around you as well, which challenged ideas. Now you plug in to this huge tribe of anonymous people around the world and assume you’ve found the truth.
indymike 6y ago
I think this is a misunderstanding. Social platform users have little reason to leave one platform for another. Censorship is one of those few reasons. Censorship 8s at a very simple level telling those with different thoughts to go start a tribe somewhere else. Twitter isn't making good decisions. The killed Vine and gave Musicaly and then TikTok oxygen. Their censorship is giving rise to competitors.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Parler censors energetically also, it's just that it's owned by Breitbart rather than amoral profit-seeking VCs. The VCs censor whatever gets anyone upset, especially powerful people who can cause them legislative, legal, or tax trouble. Parler's owners censor sex and other things that don't agree with their ideological line, probably anti-racism, anti-military/police and positive depictions of the socialized functions of government (which can probably all be neatly grouped under "terrorism.")
  - throwawayxyz987 6y ago
    VC funded Twitter is a de-facto left activist outlet. CEO Jack Dorsey has admitted as much, though I don't see much action into fixing the blatant bias in their hiring pipeline. For all the 'diversity problem' they like to complain about, their workforce is a 99% left echo chamber. 'Diversity and inclusion' is a political shibboleth used to keep out people with different perspectives, excluding half the country that is conservative, and being intentionally biased into hiring and promoting individuals from the 8% of the country that qualifies as 'progressive activist'. https://www.vox.com/2018/9/14/17857622/twitter-liberal-employees-conservative-trump-politics https://www.vox.com/2018/9/14/17857622/twitter-liberal-emplo... > Twitter is so liberal that its conservative employees ‘don’t feel safe to express their opinions,’ says CEO Jack Dorsey. https://www.vox.com/2018/10/31/18039528/tech-employees-politics-liberal-employers-candidates https://www.vox.com/2018/10/31/18039528/tech-employees-polit... > Employee donations to midterm candidates by party > Twitter 98.7% Democratic https://www.foxnews.com/politics/facebook-twitter-employees-donations-democrats https://www.foxnews.com/politics/facebook-twitter-employees-... > Twitter employees donated $347,270, or 98.99% of total federal donations, to Democrats, making individual donations of $200 or more. Meanwhile, only $3,556, or 1.01%, of federal donations from Twitter employees went to Republicans. https://psmag.com/news/the-seven-political-tribes-of-america https://psmag.com/news/the-seven-political-tribes-of-america Progressive Activist 8%
  - sdenton4 6y ago
    Indeed. My experience wading into the comment sections of conservative places is that they've been far /more/ censorship-friendly than the baseline.

calinet6 6y ago

This is exactly it. The instant communication has created instant reinforcement for the tribe. It's something our minds aren't really ready to handle. I agree there may not be a solution, given the technology we now have and the minds we'll never improve upon in our lifetimes. But I think we have to try...

DougN7 6y ago
That and you can instantly find a huge tribe. In the past you had to deal with others around you as well, which challenged ideas. Now you plug in to this huge tribe of anonymous people around the world and assume you’ve found the truth.

indymike 6y ago

I think this is a misunderstanding. Social platform users have little reason to leave one platform for another. Censorship is one of those few reasons. Censorship 8s at a very simple level telling those with different thoughts to go start a tribe somewhere else. Twitter isn't making good decisions. The killed Vine and gave Musicaly and then TikTok oxygen. Their censorship is giving rise to competitors.

pessimizer 6y ago
Parler censors energetically also, it's just that it's owned by Breitbart rather than amoral profit-seeking VCs. The VCs censor whatever gets anyone upset, especially powerful people who can cause them legislative, legal, or tax trouble. Parler's owners censor sex and other things that don't agree with their ideological line, probably anti-racism, anti-military/police and positive depictions of the socialized functions of government (which can probably all be neatly grouped under "terrorism.")
- throwawayxyz987 6y ago
  VC funded Twitter is a de-facto left activist outlet. CEO Jack Dorsey has admitted as much, though I don't see much action into fixing the blatant bias in their hiring pipeline. For all the 'diversity problem' they like to complain about, their workforce is a 99% left echo chamber. 'Diversity and inclusion' is a political shibboleth used to keep out people with different perspectives, excluding half the country that is conservative, and being intentionally biased into hiring and promoting individuals from the 8% of the country that qualifies as 'progressive activist'. https://www.vox.com/2018/9/14/17857622/twitter-liberal-employees-conservative-trump-politics https://www.vox.com/2018/9/14/17857622/twitter-liberal-emplo... > Twitter is so liberal that its conservative employees ‘don’t feel safe to express their opinions,’ says CEO Jack Dorsey. https://www.vox.com/2018/10/31/18039528/tech-employees-politics-liberal-employers-candidates https://www.vox.com/2018/10/31/18039528/tech-employees-polit... > Employee donations to midterm candidates by party > Twitter 98.7% Democratic https://www.foxnews.com/politics/facebook-twitter-employees-donations-democrats https://www.foxnews.com/politics/facebook-twitter-employees-... > Twitter employees donated $347,270, or 98.99% of total federal donations, to Democrats, making individual donations of $200 or more. Meanwhile, only $3,556, or 1.01%, of federal donations from Twitter employees went to Republicans. https://psmag.com/news/the-seven-political-tribes-of-america https://psmag.com/news/the-seven-political-tribes-of-america Progressive Activist 8%
- sdenton4 6y ago
  Indeed. My experience wading into the comment sections of conservative places is that they've been far /more/ censorship-friendly than the baseline.