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I think you’re spot on, but a counterexample seems to be Twitter, where both low- and high-profile accounts engage in shit-flinging because it evokes reactions,

by paulgb 5y ago

I think you’re spot on, but a counterexample seems to be Twitter, where both low- and high-profile accounts engage in shit-flinging because it evokes reactions, and the algorithm doesn’t discriminate between positive and negative engagement.

HumblyTossed 5y ago
Because of the character limit, I think Twitter is more conducive to emotional outbursts (both positive and negative, but considering that it takes a lot more emotional energy to be positive than negative we see more negativity) due to the quick nature of it. It only takes a couple seconds to pound out 250 chars.
- hashkb 5y ago
  My emotional outbursts can easily be thousands of words. There's no way to actually express emotions on Twitter. I suspect that's part of the reason for all the images and memes and links to articles. Edit: and bitter arguments.
lvxferre 5y ago
The character limit introduces a lot of misunderstandings.
- ziml77 5y ago
  This is my experience with Twitter. There isn't enough space to write out something in a way that minimizes the chances of misunderstandings. However, I think a big part of the problem is that those explanations are needed in the first place. Why do we so easily jump to awful interpretations? That's how you end up with rage that quickly spreads and even worsens as context for what the person said is lost or the quote isn't repeated at all but instead just the bad-faith interpretation is passed around. The effects of that go beyond just the awful emotional impact. People get fired for that kind of controversy. (I hesitate to call it "cancel culture" because of the implications in that term of who's canceling who).
  - lvxferre 5y ago
    >Why do we so easily jump to awful interpretations? I think the root cause is failure to assess certainty levels. For those people, "I know X" and "I don't know, but some weak evidence leads me to believe X" are exactly the same thing. So they draw a conjecture based on what someone else said, assume that conjecture is correct, and vomit it as incontestable truth. Other assumers join in, take the anecdote as incontestable truth, and you have the rage spreading like a wildfire. [Incidentally this kind of behaviour was what made me ditch Reddit. Not the power-tripping mods, or the corrupt admins, but the idiotic users. I'm glad I don't use Twitter, it seems like they fall in the same bag.]

by paulgb 5y ago

HumblyTossed 5y ago

Because of the character limit, I think Twitter is more conducive to emotional outbursts (both positive and negative, but considering that it takes a lot more emotional energy to be positive than negative we see more negativity) due to the quick nature of it. It only takes a couple seconds to pound out 250 chars.

hashkb 5y ago
My emotional outbursts can easily be thousands of words. There's no way to actually express emotions on Twitter. I suspect that's part of the reason for all the images and memes and links to articles. Edit: and bitter arguments.

lvxferre 5y ago

The character limit introduces a lot of misunderstandings.

ziml77 5y ago
This is my experience with Twitter. There isn't enough space to write out something in a way that minimizes the chances of misunderstandings. However, I think a big part of the problem is that those explanations are needed in the first place. Why do we so easily jump to awful interpretations? That's how you end up with rage that quickly spreads and even worsens as context for what the person said is lost or the quote isn't repeated at all but instead just the bad-faith interpretation is passed around. The effects of that go beyond just the awful emotional impact. People get fired for that kind of controversy. (I hesitate to call it "cancel culture" because of the implications in that term of who's canceling who).
- lvxferre 5y ago
  >Why do we so easily jump to awful interpretations? I think the root cause is failure to assess certainty levels. For those people, "I know X" and "I don't know, but some weak evidence leads me to believe X" are exactly the same thing. So they draw a conjecture based on what someone else said, assume that conjecture is correct, and vomit it as incontestable truth. Other assumers join in, take the anecdote as incontestable truth, and you have the rage spreading like a wildfire. [Incidentally this kind of behaviour was what made me ditch Reddit. Not the power-tripping mods, or the corrupt admins, but the idiotic users. I'm glad I don't use Twitter, it seems like they fall in the same bag.]