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> twitter users that interest me and don't discuss politics are usually pretty great It seems to be falling out of fashion, but a few years ago a lot of promin

> twitter users that interest me and don't discuss politics are usually pretty great It seems to be falling out of fashion, but a few years ago a lot of prominent Silicon Valley technologists started intermingling overtly racist and otherwise hateful political Tweets among their otherwise interesting and insightful tech Tweets. I think Twitter and other ideologically-aligned media radicalized them, which is to say that avoiding political accounts is a fine thing except (1) sometimes Twitter turns accounts political and (2) avoiding accounts that Tweet about politics at all is swimming against the current and (3) it sucks to have the all-or-nothing choice between following/not-following an account (rather than being able to follow interesting tech Tweets but uninteresting political Tweets, for example).

colechristensen 5y ago
I guess I don't think a person owes me a politics-free experience, if they say things I don't like then I don't like what they say and don't want to follow them. No amount of moderation is going to stop people from expressing themselves in ways I don't like and I don't really blame the platform for people turning toxic, it's on the people themselves.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  No one is arguing that they owe you a politics free experience, but one obvious solution is to allow people to have “channels” so I can subscribe to your tech opinions or your politics opinions distinctly. There are lots of other things that moderation could improve, like not centering the most toxic versions of each viewpoint.
snikeris 5y ago
> a few years ago a lot of prominent Silicon Valley technologists started intermingling overtly racist and otherwise hateful political Tweets among their otherwise interesting and insightful tech Tweets. Example?
- ralusek 5y ago
  It will be something like "I don't think California should repeal civil rights legislation in order to allow overt hiring on the basis of race and gender." "I think we should perhaps reconsider our non-enforcement of property crimes due to the fact that nobody can park on the street, the stores across from me are boarded up, and two pharmacies in my relatively affluent neighborhood just closed due to theft." "I didn't find it appropriate for the protestors to tear down a statue of Ulysses S. Grant or rename a school from Abraham Lincoln." "I don't think it should be part of the school curriculum to be talking to preschoolers about gender and sexuality." "Asians are disproportionally denied access to schools and employment due to arbitrary ethic and racial targets." Other such hateful things.
  - nullc 5y ago
    I don't think the sarcastic response really contributes to the discussion. There is enough toxicity on twitter that if someone digs hard enough they could find examples that aren't twitter-political-bubble-strawmen.
    - switchbak 5y ago
      I disagree. I find their examples a good collection of the kind of viewpoints that get caught in the crossfire and disallowed when content moderation goes too far. To be clear: there is often a lot of gray area and some middle ground to be taken in complex debates. When one side (eg: far-right American trollish behaviour) goes too hard in to the paint, the (over?) reaction by the opposing side(s) often loses perspective and it's the more reasonable opinions in the middle that get squashed in the well meaning attempts to supress troll like extremist influence. I think the above post highlights exactly these kind of opinions that get steamrolled away, even though many of them are within the realm of sensible debate.
      - nullc 5y ago
        I think that highlighting would have accomplished that better without sarcastically presenting them as "bad views". All the sarcasm accomplished was an indirect criticism of the prior poster who asserted without evidence tech figureheads were tweeting "overtly racist and otherwise hateful political Tweets". It's pretty uncharitable to assume they were referring to stuff on that list (many of which aren't just in the realm of sensible debate, but are actually majority views-- e.g. #1 we can look to the results of the ballot measure). I don't think anyone seriously doubts that with enough searching we could find a couple examples that would make their claim technically true, at the very least... without delving into comments within the realm of sensible debate. We shouldn't need to be so cynical, but if we must we don't need to do it at the expense of other participants here! Twitter encourages hot-takes. Because of that all sorts of ill considered crap shows up there-- and that includes both inappropriately tarring views as racist as well as racist views that most people would agree are racist.
data-ottawa 5y ago
(4) discussing politics can be very transient. Things happen that bring politics to you, it’s not simply an opt-in discussion. These things need to be discussed, but it’s best left for the people with their skin in it to discuss.

colechristensen 5y ago

I guess I don't think a person owes me a politics-free experience, if they say things I don't like then I don't like what they say and don't want to follow them. No amount of moderation is going to stop people from expressing themselves in ways I don't like and I don't really blame the platform for people turning toxic, it's on the people themselves.

throwaway894345 5y ago
No one is arguing that they owe you a politics free experience, but one obvious solution is to allow people to have “channels” so I can subscribe to your tech opinions or your politics opinions distinctly. There are lots of other things that moderation could improve, like not centering the most toxic versions of each viewpoint.

snikeris 5y ago

> a few years ago a lot of prominent Silicon Valley technologists started intermingling overtly racist and otherwise hateful political Tweets among their otherwise interesting and insightful tech Tweets. Example?

ralusek 5y ago
It will be something like "I don't think California should repeal civil rights legislation in order to allow overt hiring on the basis of race and gender." "I think we should perhaps reconsider our non-enforcement of property crimes due to the fact that nobody can park on the street, the stores across from me are boarded up, and two pharmacies in my relatively affluent neighborhood just closed due to theft." "I didn't find it appropriate for the protestors to tear down a statue of Ulysses S. Grant or rename a school from Abraham Lincoln." "I don't think it should be part of the school curriculum to be talking to preschoolers about gender and sexuality." "Asians are disproportionally denied access to schools and employment due to arbitrary ethic and racial targets." Other such hateful things.
- nullc 5y ago
  I don't think the sarcastic response really contributes to the discussion. There is enough toxicity on twitter that if someone digs hard enough they could find examples that aren't twitter-political-bubble-strawmen.
  - switchbak 5y ago
    I disagree. I find their examples a good collection of the kind of viewpoints that get caught in the crossfire and disallowed when content moderation goes too far. To be clear: there is often a lot of gray area and some middle ground to be taken in complex debates. When one side (eg: far-right American trollish behaviour) goes too hard in to the paint, the (over?) reaction by the opposing side(s) often loses perspective and it's the more reasonable opinions in the middle that get squashed in the well meaning attempts to supress troll like extremist influence. I think the above post highlights exactly these kind of opinions that get steamrolled away, even though many of them are within the realm of sensible debate.
    - nullc 5y ago
      I think that highlighting would have accomplished that better without sarcastically presenting them as "bad views". All the sarcasm accomplished was an indirect criticism of the prior poster who asserted without evidence tech figureheads were tweeting "overtly racist and otherwise hateful political Tweets". It's pretty uncharitable to assume they were referring to stuff on that list (many of which aren't just in the realm of sensible debate, but are actually majority views-- e.g. #1 we can look to the results of the ballot measure). I don't think anyone seriously doubts that with enough searching we could find a couple examples that would make their claim technically true, at the very least... without delving into comments within the realm of sensible debate. We shouldn't need to be so cynical, but if we must we don't need to do it at the expense of other participants here! Twitter encourages hot-takes. Because of that all sorts of ill considered crap shows up there-- and that includes both inappropriately tarring views as racist as well as racist views that most people would agree are racist.

data-ottawa 5y ago

(4) discussing politics can be very transient. Things happen that bring politics to you, it’s not simply an opt-in discussion. These things need to be discussed, but it’s best left for the people with their skin in it to discuss.