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>but in my opinion it has been a net negative for society for quite a while now. What is Twitter but a reflection of our own society? These people really exist

>but in my opinion it has been a net negative for society for quite a while now. What is Twitter but a reflection of our own society? These people really exist and they really have these views. I don't like the idea of banning someone for simply holding a view, or forcing someone to align with an ideology of choice. "Platform X is awful" is actually "People are awful". >What I would enjoy would be a button to hide all the accounts that post more often than once per day. Because chances are the people who talk too much have no time to think about what they're saying. Why not just avoid Twitter ? In any transactional setting you need to give something to get something. Twitter as a commercial entity needs users frequenting their platform and as therefore most comments on any social media platform are low going to be low quality (including HN).

mbesto 5y ago
> What is Twitter but a reflection of our own society? A society in which the village idiot gets a megaphone and can cheat his/her way into amplifying that megaphone with no recourse? Or a terrorist disguised as a village idiot can do the same? Then sure yes Twitter is a great personification of our current society(ies).
- passivate 5y ago
  >A society in which the village idiot gets a megaphone and can cheat his/her way into amplifying that megaphone with no recourse? That is not accurate. The reality is the opposite of what you said. The megaphone is actually due to people voluntarily gathering around the person to listen to what they say. People only interact with content/people they agree with and this is causing social media bubbles.
  - mbesto 5y ago
    > The megaphone is actually due to people voluntarily gathering around the person to listen to what they say. It's based on inflated numbers derived from false information. Tell me this - if you saw two adjacent town square forums and one person had 10 people listening and another one had 100 people listening to them, what are the odds the 111th person goes to listen to one over the other? The 100 people of course. This is effectively how twitter works, but can be gamed by fake "crowds" of bots. So, yes people are voluntarily listening to those with influence, but the gatherers are given inaccurate information to make that decision. The distinction is important.
- gretch 5y ago
  It's not the same thing because you can simply just choose not to go to twitter. That's not possible with sound waves at the town square. If we all agreed that twitter was trash and we all just stop going, then it's over - that village idiot has no power. I've stopped. Presumably you stopped too. If you are still going, maybe you're the idiot?
  - mbesto 5y ago
    > It's not the same thing Personification != same thing. I think you missed the point. > That's not possible with sound waves at the town square. Huh? I can simply not go into the town square. > If we all agreed that twitter was trash and we all just stop going, then it's over - that village idiot has no power. Exactly. but there are enough people benefitting from Twitter that they simply don't care that the village idiot has power (or they are the village idiot themselves).
codyb 5y ago
People with shitty opinions existing in a disparate fashion is one hell of a lot different than people existing in large groups with shitty opinions affecting others' lives.
uncomputation 5y ago
> What is Twitter but a reflection of our own society? These people really exist and they really have these views This is a little shallow of a view, as in it is much more complicated than that. At its simplest, sure you can say Twitter is merely an outlet with no interference on the platform itself. But if you actually use it for any period of time or just follow the various ridiculous outrages it produces, you will quickly see that, just as we shape Twitter with our tweets, it itself shapes us and how we articulate ourselves, the level of discourse we expect. To be specific, Twitter favors short, “smoking gun” style arguments, that can be compressed into 240 characters or divided up into those segments for a thread. This necessarily “compresses” discourse into a series of dramatic accusations as evidence. It is not enough to say that someone made a offensive statement years ago. Instead, it becomes that that person themselves is bad or x-ist. This I think is the net negative to society and I doubt we would arrive at quite this point with Twitter’s “help.”
- passivate 5y ago
  I don't agree with your assessment at all. People adapt. People can be awful on HN, can be awful on Twitter, can be awful on IRC, on Facebook, Discord, Youtube, you name it.
chongli 5y ago
What is Twitter but a reflection of our own society? The medium is the message. I firmly believe that the thoughtfulness and value that goes into a communication is directly proportional to its length and indirectly proportional to its age (likely due to survivorship bias). Twitter, occupying the extreme short end of both spectrums, seems to amplify the worst facets of human nature. Books, especially old books that have remained in print (survivorship bias), seem to have somehow tapped into the better parts of human nature because they represent and stimulate discussion of ideas that have remained relevant across vast shifts in time and space, technology and culture. The problem we have is that it's difficult to get people to read and especially engage with these old books. Schools have tried this for years with little success. Many (North American) students will gladly tell you how little love they have for Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Hemingway, The Great Gatsby, 1984, etc. Thoughtfulness and the slow burn of classic literature just don't have the same gratification feedback loop that people get from Twitter, I suppose.
lolinder 5y ago
> What is Twitter but a reflection of our own society? Twitter isn't just a reflection, though, it's a feedback loop. It takes a stream of ideas (usually ill-considered) from a ridiculous number of people and sends them directly to the people that it expects will be most emotionally affected by them. Those people then absorb those ideas and either react with anger or support, feeding the system with new material to repeat the cycle. If Twitter simply reflected society, it would have done no harm. But instead it's amplified the most animalistic part of our collective nature.
notsureaboutpg 5y ago
1) many many many users on Twitter are bots / controlled propaganda 2) a reflection of something bad makes the bad thing more visible and twice as negative

mbesto 5y ago

> What is Twitter but a reflection of our own society? A society in which the village idiot gets a megaphone and can cheat his/her way into amplifying that megaphone with no recourse? Or a terrorist disguised as a village idiot can do the same? Then sure yes Twitter is a great personification of our current society(ies).

passivate 5y ago
>A society in which the village idiot gets a megaphone and can cheat his/her way into amplifying that megaphone with no recourse? That is not accurate. The reality is the opposite of what you said. The megaphone is actually due to people voluntarily gathering around the person to listen to what they say. People only interact with content/people they agree with and this is causing social media bubbles.
- mbesto 5y ago
  > The megaphone is actually due to people voluntarily gathering around the person to listen to what they say. It's based on inflated numbers derived from false information. Tell me this - if you saw two adjacent town square forums and one person had 10 people listening and another one had 100 people listening to them, what are the odds the 111th person goes to listen to one over the other? The 100 people of course. This is effectively how twitter works, but can be gamed by fake "crowds" of bots. So, yes people are voluntarily listening to those with influence, but the gatherers are given inaccurate information to make that decision. The distinction is important.
gretch 5y ago
It's not the same thing because you can simply just choose not to go to twitter. That's not possible with sound waves at the town square. If we all agreed that twitter was trash and we all just stop going, then it's over - that village idiot has no power. I've stopped. Presumably you stopped too. If you are still going, maybe you're the idiot?
- mbesto 5y ago
  > It's not the same thing Personification != same thing. I think you missed the point. > That's not possible with sound waves at the town square. Huh? I can simply not go into the town square. > If we all agreed that twitter was trash and we all just stop going, then it's over - that village idiot has no power. Exactly. but there are enough people benefitting from Twitter that they simply don't care that the village idiot has power (or they are the village idiot themselves).

codyb 5y ago

People with shitty opinions existing in a disparate fashion is one hell of a lot different than people existing in large groups with shitty opinions affecting others' lives.

uncomputation 5y ago

> What is Twitter but a reflection of our own society? These people really exist and they really have these views This is a little shallow of a view, as in it is much more complicated than that. At its simplest, sure you can say Twitter is merely an outlet with no interference on the platform itself. But if you actually use it for any period of time or just follow the various ridiculous outrages it produces, you will quickly see that, just as we shape Twitter with our tweets, it itself shapes us and how we articulate ourselves, the level of discourse we expect. To be specific, Twitter favors short, “smoking gun” style arguments, that can be compressed into 240 characters or divided up into those segments for a thread. This necessarily “compresses” discourse into a series of dramatic accusations as evidence. It is not enough to say that someone made a offensive statement years ago. Instead, it becomes that that person themselves is bad or x-ist. This I think is the net negative to society and I doubt we would arrive at quite this point with Twitter’s “help.”

passivate 5y ago
I don't agree with your assessment at all. People adapt. People can be awful on HN, can be awful on Twitter, can be awful on IRC, on Facebook, Discord, Youtube, you name it.

chongli 5y ago

What is Twitter but a reflection of our own society? The medium is the message. I firmly believe that the thoughtfulness and value that goes into a communication is directly proportional to its length and indirectly proportional to its age (likely due to survivorship bias). Twitter, occupying the extreme short end of both spectrums, seems to amplify the worst facets of human nature. Books, especially old books that have remained in print (survivorship bias), seem to have somehow tapped into the better parts of human nature because they represent and stimulate discussion of ideas that have remained relevant across vast shifts in time and space, technology and culture. The problem we have is that it's difficult to get people to read and especially engage with these old books. Schools have tried this for years with little success. Many (North American) students will gladly tell you how little love they have for Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Hemingway, The Great Gatsby, 1984, etc. Thoughtfulness and the slow burn of classic literature just don't have the same gratification feedback loop that people get from Twitter, I suppose.

lolinder 5y ago

> What is Twitter but a reflection of our own society? Twitter isn't just a reflection, though, it's a feedback loop. It takes a stream of ideas (usually ill-considered) from a ridiculous number of people and sends them directly to the people that it expects will be most emotionally affected by them. Those people then absorb those ideas and either react with anger or support, feeding the system with new material to repeat the cycle. If Twitter simply reflected society, it would have done no harm. But instead it's amplified the most animalistic part of our collective nature.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago

1) many many many users on Twitter are bots / controlled propaganda 2) a reflection of something bad makes the bad thing more visible and twice as negative