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> If the people who are in power cave to pressure from a bunch random people on Twitter, that's on the powerful, not on the otherwise powerless tweeters. I fee

by Kamq 4y ago

> If the people who are in power cave to pressure from a bunch random people on Twitter, that's on the powerful, not on the otherwise powerless tweeters. I feel like you can't call a group that can get "the people in power to cave" as powerless. That is power.

lapcat 4y ago
> I feel like you can't call a group that can get "the people in power to cave" as powerless. That is power. But it only works if the authorities are fearful, conflict-averse ass coverers. If the authorities ignore Twitter, then Twitter has no power. It's not like the "Twitter mobs" have guns, or even literal pitchforks. If they don't get want they want, all they can do is whine some more on Twitter.
- onos 4y ago
  I agree, but the situation is that the people leading our institutions are self interested, weak, and not omniscient. And that means the Twitter mobs do have power and they often use this destructively. The question then is: Given that our authorities are weak, and the mob is causing us real problems, what should we do about it?
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > Given that our authorities are weak, and the mob is causing us real problems, what should we do about it? Obviously, cancel our authorities. :-)
    - onos 4y ago
      That won’t work because we don’t have any infallible subs to replace them with.
- tgv 4y ago
  > But it only works if X is fearful Yeah, that's power. It doesn't matter that you call them "authorities". If they cower in fear, it's because someone else has the power. > all they can do is whine some more on Twitter. And all Putin does is sign decrees and drop a few hints. Perhaps press a button.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > And all Putin does is sign decrees and drop a few hints. Perhaps press a button. Putin is the President of Russia. You can't seriously compare him to anonymous people on Twitter. If Twitter was so powerful, then Putin would have resigned by now.
    - tgv 4y ago
      Twitter holds very little power over Putin, but imagine the twitterati had been supporting Russia from the start, pumping out the Nazi smear, or repeating the "not our war" mantra. Support in the West might have been weaker. You can see it in Germany, where the chancellor was very slow, for fear of his constituents (and in case you need me to spell it out: many see Twitter as indicative of voting trends). No matter how stupid it is: as long as enough people care about the opinion on twitter, in particular people with power themselves, the twitter crowd has power. Russia understands that too, given their troll army.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        > imagine the twitterati had been supporting I'm not sure what you mean by that. Twitter is a just a bunch of people. (According to Twitter, there are over 200 million mDAU) Anyone with a device that can connect to the internet can sign up for Twitter, if they want. It's not an organized special interest group. So you're imaging that the opinion of a bunch of people had been different. Which, yes, would have made things different, but I'm not sure this thought experiment is very useful. > many see Twitter as indicative of voting trends > No matter how stupid it is But it does matter how stupid it is. I was trying to point out that stupid and cowardly leaders are actually the problem and always have been the problem. You could abolish Twitter, but the problem of stupid and cowardly leaders won't magically go away. We're letting the leaders off the hook by blaming the "Twitter mobs" for their behavior. I believe this is the opposite of what we should be doing. > Russia understands that too, given their troll army. Well, their troll army doesn't seem particularly successful. Even less so than their real army.
        4y ago
awb 4y ago
They have no power outside that which is given to them is the point. If random people want to cancel waffles, they are powerless to do so. It’s only when someone who actually has the power to cancel waffles decides to cancel them does it happen. The mob can only influence these powers that be.
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  Consider the case where millions of people are convinced, influenced by a swarm of people on twitter, that someone in your company should be fired. Those millions of people are an impactful portion of your customer base. You can either do what they want you to do or lose a lot of money; perhaps enough to impact the viability/health of your company. At that point, it's not unreasonable to back down and fire the person, regardless of your own opinion on the subject. Sure, you can stand up to it and keep them around; but is it reasonable to risk it? To risk the jobs of the other people are your company? An army isn't powerful because there's one powerful person at the top. An army is powerful because there are many people at the bottom, and they are organized to act as a single force.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > Consider the case where millions of people are convinced, influenced by a swarm of people on twitter, that someone in your company should be fired. Is this a real case though? It seems like only a counterfactual hypothetical. In most cases, millions of people are not going to feel as strongly about something as the minority of people tweeting. If the people tweeting about it even feel strongly; it's easy to tweet about something, but writing a tweet doesn't necessarily represent a powerful and lasting dedication to a cause. These incidents tend to be fleeting.
    - vinyl7 4y ago
      Is it real? Probably not, but that is how organization perceives it. An angry mob on twitter sure does make it look like you'd lose a lot a business by not capitulating, even though chances are 90% of those people probably never were customers in the first place. It doesn't have to be a real threat for it to be perceived as a real threat.
dsr_ 4y ago
It's pretty likely that Gandhi's nonviolence strategy would have failed against the Nazis. It almost failed against the British. Convincing people in power that they they should act isn't power itself.
zozbot234 4y ago
That's power against some random netizen who has made themselves a target somehow, which is really not that much power at all. It's more of a Dark Forest pattern, where the optimal response is to lay low and/or conceal yourself if you're going to do anything remotely controversial.

by Kamq 4y ago

lapcat 4y ago

> I feel like you can't call a group that can get "the people in power to cave" as powerless. That is power. But it only works if the authorities are fearful, conflict-averse ass coverers. If the authorities ignore Twitter, then Twitter has no power. It's not like the "Twitter mobs" have guns, or even literal pitchforks. If they don't get want they want, all they can do is whine some more on Twitter.

onos 4y ago
I agree, but the situation is that the people leading our institutions are self interested, weak, and not omniscient. And that means the Twitter mobs do have power and they often use this destructively. The question then is: Given that our authorities are weak, and the mob is causing us real problems, what should we do about it?
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Given that our authorities are weak, and the mob is causing us real problems, what should we do about it? Obviously, cancel our authorities. :-)
  - onos 4y ago
    That won’t work because we don’t have any infallible subs to replace them with.
tgv 4y ago
> But it only works if X is fearful Yeah, that's power. It doesn't matter that you call them "authorities". If they cower in fear, it's because someone else has the power. > all they can do is whine some more on Twitter. And all Putin does is sign decrees and drop a few hints. Perhaps press a button.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > And all Putin does is sign decrees and drop a few hints. Perhaps press a button. Putin is the President of Russia. You can't seriously compare him to anonymous people on Twitter. If Twitter was so powerful, then Putin would have resigned by now.
  - tgv 4y ago
    Twitter holds very little power over Putin, but imagine the twitterati had been supporting Russia from the start, pumping out the Nazi smear, or repeating the "not our war" mantra. Support in the West might have been weaker. You can see it in Germany, where the chancellor was very slow, for fear of his constituents (and in case you need me to spell it out: many see Twitter as indicative of voting trends). No matter how stupid it is: as long as enough people care about the opinion on twitter, in particular people with power themselves, the twitter crowd has power. Russia understands that too, given their troll army.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > imagine the twitterati had been supporting I'm not sure what you mean by that. Twitter is a just a bunch of people. (According to Twitter, there are over 200 million mDAU) Anyone with a device that can connect to the internet can sign up for Twitter, if they want. It's not an organized special interest group. So you're imaging that the opinion of a bunch of people had been different. Which, yes, would have made things different, but I'm not sure this thought experiment is very useful. > many see Twitter as indicative of voting trends > No matter how stupid it is But it does matter how stupid it is. I was trying to point out that stupid and cowardly leaders are actually the problem and always have been the problem. You could abolish Twitter, but the problem of stupid and cowardly leaders won't magically go away. We're letting the leaders off the hook by blaming the "Twitter mobs" for their behavior. I believe this is the opposite of what we should be doing. > Russia understands that too, given their troll army. Well, their troll army doesn't seem particularly successful. Even less so than their real army.
      - 4y ago

awb 4y ago

They have no power outside that which is given to them is the point. If random people want to cancel waffles, they are powerless to do so. It’s only when someone who actually has the power to cancel waffles decides to cancel them does it happen. The mob can only influence these powers that be.

RHSeeger 4y ago
Consider the case where millions of people are convinced, influenced by a swarm of people on twitter, that someone in your company should be fired. Those millions of people are an impactful portion of your customer base. You can either do what they want you to do or lose a lot of money; perhaps enough to impact the viability/health of your company. At that point, it's not unreasonable to back down and fire the person, regardless of your own opinion on the subject. Sure, you can stand up to it and keep them around; but is it reasonable to risk it? To risk the jobs of the other people are your company? An army isn't powerful because there's one powerful person at the top. An army is powerful because there are many people at the bottom, and they are organized to act as a single force.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Consider the case where millions of people are convinced, influenced by a swarm of people on twitter, that someone in your company should be fired. Is this a real case though? It seems like only a counterfactual hypothetical. In most cases, millions of people are not going to feel as strongly about something as the minority of people tweeting. If the people tweeting about it even feel strongly; it's easy to tweet about something, but writing a tweet doesn't necessarily represent a powerful and lasting dedication to a cause. These incidents tend to be fleeting.
  - vinyl7 4y ago
    Is it real? Probably not, but that is how organization perceives it. An angry mob on twitter sure does make it look like you'd lose a lot a business by not capitulating, even though chances are 90% of those people probably never were customers in the first place. It doesn't have to be a real threat for it to be perceived as a real threat.

dsr_ 4y ago

It's pretty likely that Gandhi's nonviolence strategy would have failed against the Nazis. It almost failed against the British. Convincing people in power that they they should act isn't power itself.

zozbot234 4y ago

That's power against some random netizen who has made themselves a target somehow, which is really not that much power at all. It's more of a Dark Forest pattern, where the optimal response is to lay low and/or conceal yourself if you're going to do anything remotely controversial.