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These filters tend to be used less to block harassment, in the sense of targeted vitriol towards you or your group, and more to block any and all people who dis

by strken 6y ago

These filters tend to be used less to block harassment, in the sense of targeted vitriol towards you or your group, and more to block any and all people who disagree with you, including the polite ones. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Certainly, individuals have the right to wall themselves off from counter-arguments, but polite public discourse between ideological opposites is a precious thing, as is the ability to sit down after a hard day at work and not read 10 spelling mistakes squeezed into a 280 character death threat.

sfink 6y ago
Where is "polite public discourse between ideological opposites" happening in practice, though? If it's not happening on a particular platform, then preventing the possibility of it happening isn't going to outweigh even modest benefits. The need for productive conversation between people of differing opinions will still exist and it is still critically important that it be solved, but if you're looking for diamonds, don't start digging in a dung heap.
- strken 6y ago
  It's happening all the time all over every social media platform, concurrently with the harassment, and largely ignored. Check out any controversial twitter post and you'll see genuine replies as well as bullshit. The perception of the general public's social media output as a dungheap is tantamount to saying their posts are worthless and irredeemable, and that social media only has use as a broadcast platform for famous people. I think it's less like a dungheap and more like a big pile of every student paper from the entire world: mostly useless, but even some of the useless ones are genuine and took a lot of effort, and scattered throughout the pile there's some original and useful content. There's a baby in with the bathwater, is what I'm saying here.
auganov 6y ago
You quickly learn to ignore every kind of negativity on Twitter. Sincere conversations are so rare, even if a comment looks like a reasonable disagreement, chances still are you'll get hate in return if you reply (and you'll only feel like a fool).

by strken 6y ago

sfink 6y ago

Where is "polite public discourse between ideological opposites" happening in practice, though? If it's not happening on a particular platform, then preventing the possibility of it happening isn't going to outweigh even modest benefits. The need for productive conversation between people of differing opinions will still exist and it is still critically important that it be solved, but if you're looking for diamonds, don't start digging in a dung heap.

strken 6y ago
It's happening all the time all over every social media platform, concurrently with the harassment, and largely ignored. Check out any controversial twitter post and you'll see genuine replies as well as bullshit. The perception of the general public's social media output as a dungheap is tantamount to saying their posts are worthless and irredeemable, and that social media only has use as a broadcast platform for famous people. I think it's less like a dungheap and more like a big pile of every student paper from the entire world: mostly useless, but even some of the useless ones are genuine and took a lot of effort, and scattered throughout the pile there's some original and useful content. There's a baby in with the bathwater, is what I'm saying here.

auganov 6y ago

You quickly learn to ignore every kind of negativity on Twitter. Sincere conversations are so rare, even if a comment looks like a reasonable disagreement, chances still are you'll get hate in return if you reply (and you'll only feel like a fool).