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> 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
by 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 agoI 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.