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There's at least two key differences between something like Reddit or HN and Twitter. The Twitter platform is structured so that a large mass of people will "fo

There's at least two key differences between something like Reddit or HN and Twitter. The Twitter platform is structured so that a large mass of people will "follow" a few influencers. It creates a really asymmetric power dynamic. On Reddit and HN, if you have interesting content, you can make the front page. On Twitter, your odds are much bigger if you're famous, and every comment a famous person makes is hugely amplified. The second difference is that Reddit and HN are organized by topic. HN only has a single topic, but there's moderators to enforce that posts be somewhat on topic and retain a certain minimum of civility. Twitter is not organized like that. Even if you're just interested in programming, Twitter will try to get you to engage in political topics, and if you do engage, you might get responses from random people Twitter also pulled from other discussions who have very little context, and you'll get to exchange with this random set of people through responses that are limited in length. If a famous person happens to strongly disagree with you on Twitter, their hordes of fans will start to attack you. So yes, all social media platforms have more active and influential users[0] , but no, these platforms are not all the same, and a lot of the difference is structural. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

kmeisthax 5y ago
tl;dr "The medium is the message" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
ngngngng 5y ago
> It creates a really asymmetric power dynamic. This is a big reason I can't stand the culture of twitter. When I interact with someone on Reddit, the two of us are on equal footing. There are many other strange Reddit specific cultural details to keep in mind when commenting, but the two of us are just two mostly equal users. I once disagreed with someone on twitter that I didn't realize had a huge following and was easily upset. They retweeted my response and called on their tens of thousands of followers to back them up in our disagreement. I deleted twitter that day.
- Jcowell 5y ago
  > This is a big reason I can't stand the culture of twitter. When I interact with someone on Reddit, the two of us are on equal footing. There are many other strange Reddit specific cultural details to keep in mind when commenting, but the two of us are just two mostly equal users. This is far from true. If you interact with a user who is a mod and you piss them off they have every ability to ban you from subreddits they manage. It’s common enough on Reddit for a user to be mods of multiple subreddits or have friends who mod multiple subreddits. Mods can also create scripts to specifically ban people who participates in specific subreddits. Reddit’s block feature can make it so that when a user blocks you , you won’t be able to comment on the same sub thread. I don’t believe I don’t have to spell out the nefarious abuses this can wreak. Reddit is one the last places I would say users are equal. The only difference is that Reddit opinions aren’t centralized like Twitter but it gives far more power to the worst person than Twitter gives to worst person on their platform.
- thirdwhrldPzz 5y ago

kmeisthax 5y ago

tl;dr "The medium is the message" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message

ngngngng 5y ago

> It creates a really asymmetric power dynamic. This is a big reason I can't stand the culture of twitter. When I interact with someone on Reddit, the two of us are on equal footing. There are many other strange Reddit specific cultural details to keep in mind when commenting, but the two of us are just two mostly equal users. I once disagreed with someone on twitter that I didn't realize had a huge following and was easily upset. They retweeted my response and called on their tens of thousands of followers to back them up in our disagreement. I deleted twitter that day.

Jcowell 5y ago
> This is a big reason I can't stand the culture of twitter. When I interact with someone on Reddit, the two of us are on equal footing. There are many other strange Reddit specific cultural details to keep in mind when commenting, but the two of us are just two mostly equal users. This is far from true. If you interact with a user who is a mod and you piss them off they have every ability to ban you from subreddits they manage. It’s common enough on Reddit for a user to be mods of multiple subreddits or have friends who mod multiple subreddits. Mods can also create scripts to specifically ban people who participates in specific subreddits. Reddit’s block feature can make it so that when a user blocks you , you won’t be able to comment on the same sub thread. I don’t believe I don’t have to spell out the nefarious abuses this can wreak. Reddit is one the last places I would say users are equal. The only difference is that Reddit opinions aren’t centralized like Twitter but it gives far more power to the worst person than Twitter gives to worst person on their platform.
thirdwhrldPzz 5y ago