4 ms·

Journalists participate in Twitter at a rate probably 10-100x the overall population. Most people don't ever log into Twitter, most journalists do daily. I thi

Journalists participate in Twitter at a rate probably 10-100x the overall population. Most people don't ever log into Twitter, most journalists do daily. I think you can look at it this way: * For normal people, Twitter is not real life. * For journalists, Twitter is real life. Journalists then become the vector by which BS Twitter drama becomes mainstreamed.

joemi 5y ago
My anecdotal observations do not match yours. A large percentage of the younger people (under 30) that I know are on twitter several/many times a day every single day. These are not tech workers, nor are they journalists, they're just college students, graduate students, and adjacent.
inglor_cz 5y ago
Incidentally, I deleted my Twitter today. 4600 followers in hell, which is quite a lot for a Czech language community (10 million speakers only), but I can no longer tolerate the toxicity. Yes, journalists are overrepresented there and yes, their journalism often degenerates into "we are covering what happened on Twitter". But the worst offenders in terms of toxicity aren't journos. They are ... well, tormented human beings who love to dish out some misery to everyone around. Usually under a superficial veneer of a respectable goal. So long and thanks for all the tweets, but I am not coming back. After leaving Facebook in July 2019, I felt almost liberated; I expect the same to happen now.
- mcosta 5y ago
  Journos are the new clerics. The western moral compass
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    There's probably a better way to frame this in a context where journalists are increasingly under attack just for doing their jobs. https://cpj.org/2020/12/in-2020-u-s-journalists-faced-unprecedented-attacks/ https://cpj.org/2020/12/in-2020-u-s-journalists-faced-unprec...
    - a1369209993 5y ago
      That (better) framing would probably need to involve making a distinction between legitimate (eg investigative) journalists versus primarily-twitter-covering psuedo-tabloid journalists, which is rather fraught at the best of times, since most authorities (formal or informal) have a obvious incentive to misclassify legitimate journalists as tabloidists, and a less obvious incentive to misclassify tabloids as legitimate journalism. (This gets much worse if you try to do anything material with the distiction, thanks to [0].) Not that it's impossible, but I'm not optimistic. Besides, there were plenty of clergy who were otherwise fairly decent people. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
      - steveBK123 5y ago
        Well it's also hard to blame journalists for writing the kind of stuff that gets clicks, which is what gets them all paid.
        tarsinge 5y ago
        On the contrary it’s important that they know the damage it do to society.
    - koheripbal 5y ago
      I'm not sure if it's correlated - but journalists have also been doing a far worse job than I've experienced previously.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - aliasEli 5y ago
        Due to a decline in income from advertisers many traditional media have fired a lot of journalists. The remaining ones are under great pressure to produce articles. So it is not surprising that the quality of journalism has declined.
- steveBK123 5y ago
  I think one can insulate themselves from the worst of the noise with some very selective follows/blocks/etc, But anyway, re: your comment on the worst offenders, a related quote that came across my twitter this weekend- "The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience - this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats" - Aldous Huxley
rchaud 5y ago
If you know how to play the game, this is a huge asset. Marc Andreessen said in a New Yorker interview that he ignored Twitter until he realized that the media were obssessed with it. Andreessen Horowitz the VC firm started relatively late compared to some others, but it shot to the top of mindshare because of the constant stream of coverage they gave Andreessen and his intentionally outrageous visions of the future. Elon Musk does this as well, just without any pretense of subtlety.
- underseacables 5y ago
  That’s because Elon is essentially cancel proof. True freedom is to not have to care what the mob thinks, but sadly they vast majority of us have to answer to someone.
koheripbal 5y ago
Teenagers as well. Teenagers spend 1000x the amount of time on Twitter - their "voice" is amplified.
- naravara 5y ago
  I suspect there is a general 'content ecosystem' where these different 'organisms' each contribute their part to the ecology. From my--not particularly expert--view teenagers aren't specifically the ones who blow things up, they're more like the mooks who act as megaphones for the general drama. There's another clade of user who do the actual stirring up of drama and they largely seem to be not especially successful members of some creative field like acting, stand-up, art, etc. Definitely careers that attract personality types who highly value approval/adulation. There's another clade of credentialed or 'pedigreed' professionals, such as activist or non-profit people, 'community management' people, professors, journalists, etc. who seem to have some function in legitimizing and mainstreaming the drama of the day, possibly creating rationalizations for why it's good along the way. I'm sure Twitter, internally, is already aware of these dynamics. But it would probably help the sociology of it out a lot if that information was more well known.

joemi 5y ago

My anecdotal observations do not match yours. A large percentage of the younger people (under 30) that I know are on twitter several/many times a day every single day. These are not tech workers, nor are they journalists, they're just college students, graduate students, and adjacent.

inglor_cz 5y ago

Incidentally, I deleted my Twitter today. 4600 followers in hell, which is quite a lot for a Czech language community (10 million speakers only), but I can no longer tolerate the toxicity. Yes, journalists are overrepresented there and yes, their journalism often degenerates into "we are covering what happened on Twitter". But the worst offenders in terms of toxicity aren't journos. They are ... well, tormented human beings who love to dish out some misery to everyone around. Usually under a superficial veneer of a respectable goal. So long and thanks for all the tweets, but I am not coming back. After leaving Facebook in July 2019, I felt almost liberated; I expect the same to happen now.

mcosta 5y ago
Journos are the new clerics. The western moral compass
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  There's probably a better way to frame this in a context where journalists are increasingly under attack just for doing their jobs. https://cpj.org/2020/12/in-2020-u-s-journalists-faced-unprecedented-attacks/ https://cpj.org/2020/12/in-2020-u-s-journalists-faced-unprec...
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    That (better) framing would probably need to involve making a distinction between legitimate (eg investigative) journalists versus primarily-twitter-covering psuedo-tabloid journalists, which is rather fraught at the best of times, since most authorities (formal or informal) have a obvious incentive to misclassify legitimate journalists as tabloidists, and a less obvious incentive to misclassify tabloids as legitimate journalism. (This gets much worse if you try to do anything material with the distiction, thanks to [0].) Not that it's impossible, but I'm not optimistic. Besides, there were plenty of clergy who were otherwise fairly decent people. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
    - steveBK123 5y ago
      Well it's also hard to blame journalists for writing the kind of stuff that gets clicks, which is what gets them all paid.
      - tarsinge 5y ago
        On the contrary it’s important that they know the damage it do to society.
  - koheripbal 5y ago
    I'm not sure if it's correlated - but journalists have also been doing a far worse job than I've experienced previously.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - aliasEli 5y ago
      Due to a decline in income from advertisers many traditional media have fired a lot of journalists. The remaining ones are under great pressure to produce articles. So it is not surprising that the quality of journalism has declined.
steveBK123 5y ago
I think one can insulate themselves from the worst of the noise with some very selective follows/blocks/etc, But anyway, re: your comment on the worst offenders, a related quote that came across my twitter this weekend- "The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience - this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats" - Aldous Huxley

rchaud 5y ago

If you know how to play the game, this is a huge asset. Marc Andreessen said in a New Yorker interview that he ignored Twitter until he realized that the media were obssessed with it. Andreessen Horowitz the VC firm started relatively late compared to some others, but it shot to the top of mindshare because of the constant stream of coverage they gave Andreessen and his intentionally outrageous visions of the future. Elon Musk does this as well, just without any pretense of subtlety.

underseacables 5y ago
That’s because Elon is essentially cancel proof. True freedom is to not have to care what the mob thinks, but sadly they vast majority of us have to answer to someone.

koheripbal 5y ago

Teenagers as well. Teenagers spend 1000x the amount of time on Twitter - their "voice" is amplified.

naravara 5y ago
I suspect there is a general 'content ecosystem' where these different 'organisms' each contribute their part to the ecology. From my--not particularly expert--view teenagers aren't specifically the ones who blow things up, they're more like the mooks who act as megaphones for the general drama. There's another clade of user who do the actual stirring up of drama and they largely seem to be not especially successful members of some creative field like acting, stand-up, art, etc. Definitely careers that attract personality types who highly value approval/adulation. There's another clade of credentialed or 'pedigreed' professionals, such as activist or non-profit people, 'community management' people, professors, journalists, etc. who seem to have some function in legitimizing and mainstreaming the drama of the day, possibly creating rationalizations for why it's good along the way. I'm sure Twitter, internally, is already aware of these dynamics. But it would probably help the sociology of it out a lot if that information was more well known.