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Please repeat after me: Twitter isn't real. Twitter isn't real. Twitter isn't real. Twitter doesn't represent a valid pool of actual human thoughts and opin

Please repeat after me: Twitter isn't real. Twitter isn't real. Twitter isn't real. Twitter doesn't represent a valid pool of actual human thoughts and opinions, no matter how many accounts appear to be involved or how passionately they're smashing their keyboards. Twitter is hot takes and outrage sprinkled with a little positivity now and then, but it's a tap into the most irrational and rapid fire mode of conversation. It's not reflecting real, considered opinions. Basing legislative or political opinions on Twitter trends is bonkers. If someone's knowledge about a subject consists of their feelings and 280 characters, their opinion is worthless. The other 99%+ of people that either aren't on Twitter or choose not to tweet means that Twitter isn't real. It doesn't mean that Twitter isn't useful or a valid source of data about Twitter users that tweet, it just means that in the context of public opinion in the real world, you're missing 99% or more of data relevant to the question.

BoxOfRain 5y ago
>Twitter is hot takes and outrage sprinkled with a little positivity now and then, but it's a tap into the most irrational and rapid fire mode of conversation. It's not reflecting real, considered opinions. Basing legislative or political opinions on Twitter trends is bonkers. Exactly, trying to use Twitter as a cross-section of the public is absolute insanity. Twitter isn't a good place for nuanced opinion at all, in fact the very nature of microblogging means it's the exact opposite of nuance. Twitter is great if you want to promote the kind of black-and-white thinking of the witch hunter or the Puritan moraliser and it's pretty much useless for anything else. Twitter is a net negative for society in my opinion, as a platform it actively makes the world a worse place to inhabit through its harmful influence on politics and journalism. It's not a matter of liking the opinions on Twitter, it's how the platform delivers those opinions. There's very little worth saying on any of the issues of the day that can be compressed into 280 characters. This causes all kinds of problems from the trivial (people spelling like literal children) to the really worrying (the fast-paced nature of such a platform has awful consequences for journalism).
dionidium 5y ago
Yeah, I don't think so. I used to think this, too, but I think it's wrong, just like, "this woke stuff is confined to college campuses; they'll have to drop it when they get out in the real world" was wrong. It's wrong because politicians listen to twitter (we agree that they shouldn't, but they do). It's wrong because campuses and twitter set the national conversation in a disproportionate way. It's wrong because the people responding to the Yglesias tweet I was talking about were some of the most famous and prominent writers alive. They aren't a random sample of the population and that's the point. They have an outsized effect on public opinion (especially on elite public opinion). It's wrong because twitter doesn't have to reflect the wider consensus to be impactful. It's wrong because twitter leaks out and infects the framings that normal people adopt, even if they don't know where it all comes from. It's wrong because mainstream cultural figures (like, say, late night talkshow hosts) are unduly influenced by twitter. It's wrong because what you say on twitter does affect your real life. It's not some magical place that your boss or your wife or your dean can't visit. They can and they do and it sometimes matters. It's just wrong. If all "twitter isn't real life" means is, "no single tweet thread is a representative sample," then, sure; that's obvious. But in all sorts of interesting ways that really matter twitter affects "real life." It has all kinds of serious impacts on the national conversation, whether you're aware of it or not.

BoxOfRain 5y ago

>Twitter is hot takes and outrage sprinkled with a little positivity now and then, but it's a tap into the most irrational and rapid fire mode of conversation. It's not reflecting real, considered opinions. Basing legislative or political opinions on Twitter trends is bonkers. Exactly, trying to use Twitter as a cross-section of the public is absolute insanity. Twitter isn't a good place for nuanced opinion at all, in fact the very nature of microblogging means it's the exact opposite of nuance. Twitter is great if you want to promote the kind of black-and-white thinking of the witch hunter or the Puritan moraliser and it's pretty much useless for anything else. Twitter is a net negative for society in my opinion, as a platform it actively makes the world a worse place to inhabit through its harmful influence on politics and journalism. It's not a matter of liking the opinions on Twitter, it's how the platform delivers those opinions. There's very little worth saying on any of the issues of the day that can be compressed into 280 characters. This causes all kinds of problems from the trivial (people spelling like literal children) to the really worrying (the fast-paced nature of such a platform has awful consequences for journalism).

dionidium 5y ago

Yeah, I don't think so. I used to think this, too, but I think it's wrong, just like, "this woke stuff is confined to college campuses; they'll have to drop it when they get out in the real world" was wrong. It's wrong because politicians listen to twitter (we agree that they shouldn't, but they do). It's wrong because campuses and twitter set the national conversation in a disproportionate way. It's wrong because the people responding to the Yglesias tweet I was talking about were some of the most famous and prominent writers alive. They aren't a random sample of the population and that's the point. They have an outsized effect on public opinion (especially on elite public opinion). It's wrong because twitter doesn't have to reflect the wider consensus to be impactful. It's wrong because twitter leaks out and infects the framings that normal people adopt, even if they don't know where it all comes from. It's wrong because mainstream cultural figures (like, say, late night talkshow hosts) are unduly influenced by twitter. It's wrong because what you say on twitter does affect your real life. It's not some magical place that your boss or your wife or your dean can't visit. They can and they do and it sometimes matters. It's just wrong. If all "twitter isn't real life" means is, "no single tweet thread is a representative sample," then, sure; that's obvious. But in all sorts of interesting ways that really matter twitter affects "real life." It has all kinds of serious impacts on the national conversation, whether you're aware of it or not.