3 ms·

Oh my god, anyone encountering this thread, for the sake of your mental health do not open that link and scroll the replies. I got immediate flashbacks to 00s

Oh my god, anyone encountering this thread, for the sake of your mental health do not open that link and scroll the replies. I got immediate flashbacks to 00s youtube comments and closed the tab, I feel like it's not enough, like I should shut down my computer and spend three days hiking the mountains to detox from that. No clue if that's the norm across twitter these days but oh golly.

j_crick 4y ago
Don’t know what’s that abnormal there aside from the overall cringe from the whole ordeal vOv
- Ygg2 4y ago
  - Other than people laughing at Matt for being a bootlicker (Elon provided sources, nothing more or less)? - Other than people missing the point in comical fashion (haha you got punished for being loyal, which are two independent things)? - Other than general toxicity? Yeah, it's completely normal for Twitter in same way high energy radiation is completely normal in Sun's corona. This sort of talk between people is however extremely abnormal and I doubt would happen that much in actual life.
  - j_crick 4y ago
    But isn’t that a problem as old as at least internet? Some people tend to project their biases, insecurities and vitriol only as far as they won’t get hit in a face by a brick. What I find weird (and I agree with you) is that some people feel the urge or even need to do that in the first place. I mean, why would you hate somebody on internet if you could go for a walk or drink good wine with friends? That’s a whole another question though...
suddenclarity 4y ago
You'll find subsections of anything on any platform. This is a famous controversial person writing about a controversial topic. It will bring the worst of the worst. Even this site goes crazy whenever there's a thread on Twitter or Musk. Although more tame since here's an actual mod.
- threeseed 4y ago
  > You'll find subsections of anything on any platform No you don't as HN clearly shows. There are plenty of examples where when you have active moderation and the site sets the tone for discourse the quality of the discussions improves.
  - suddenclarity 4y ago
    As I stated, you'll still find low quality content and comments on HN with name calling and terrible takes when a thread is slightly political. It's not a platform issue. It's a popularity and subject issue. Allow 10 friends to talk about flowers and it will go great. Invite 1 million strangers to talk about politics and it will degrade within minutes. The issue there isn't solved through subjective moderation.
pessimizer 4y ago
There are people paying bounties to farms to harass journalists and outspoken private citizens on twitter. They get paid if they can get the target to reply or block. Additionally, David Brock moved from creating the vast right-wing conspiracies against the Clintons in the 90s to managing a huge budget for managing an organization of online trolls from 2016, to becoming an established part of the Democratic Party contractor pool also being used by the Biden admin. This involves a lot of fake accounts; most are silent retweeting accounts that exist to upvote any belligerent harassment of official enemies, usually slyly amplifying real accounts instead of leading from the front. Lastly, intelligence agencies have invested billions and created entire new departments in order to monitor and manipulate social media by any means necessary. They have direct lines to all major social media companies, with the apparent current exception of twitter. Introduced into the middle of all of this are LLMs, which are starting to make it very easy to fake accounts that reply in a vaguely relevant way (although they answer like LLMs, failing if the tweets they're replying to are too oblique and require context that everybody knows.) Still dominant are the endless fake replies from fake accounts that don't reference the tweets they're replying to at all, but just repeat from a list of four or five insults for years on end. 00s youtube comments were 1000x better. This is the actual rise of the Dead Internet. This seems like the last straw for Taibbi. Musk hasn't had an effect on the harassment problem (and doesn't seem to have a plan) and now is making it harder for him to promote his own outlet. He doesn't need Twitter for visibility. I find it nuts that Musk didn't try to clear this decision with the journalists that he's been publicly associated with through the Twitter Files. Them turning on him would have an outsized effect on Musk's situation and none of them have any particular loyalty to him; they're not on his payroll. edit: all that being said, I could see the Substack contingent turning on Musk, then him immediately announcing that he's hired a new twitter CEO, and eventually an announcement about one of Musk's business having very good luck with a regulation, a decision on the violation a regulation, and/or a new government contract/partnership.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

j_crick 4y ago

Don’t know what’s that abnormal there aside from the overall cringe from the whole ordeal vOv

Ygg2 4y ago
- Other than people laughing at Matt for being a bootlicker (Elon provided sources, nothing more or less)? - Other than people missing the point in comical fashion (haha you got punished for being loyal, which are two independent things)? - Other than general toxicity? Yeah, it's completely normal for Twitter in same way high energy radiation is completely normal in Sun's corona. This sort of talk between people is however extremely abnormal and I doubt would happen that much in actual life.
- j_crick 4y ago
  But isn’t that a problem as old as at least internet? Some people tend to project their biases, insecurities and vitriol only as far as they won’t get hit in a face by a brick. What I find weird (and I agree with you) is that some people feel the urge or even need to do that in the first place. I mean, why would you hate somebody on internet if you could go for a walk or drink good wine with friends? That’s a whole another question though...

suddenclarity 4y ago

You'll find subsections of anything on any platform. This is a famous controversial person writing about a controversial topic. It will bring the worst of the worst. Even this site goes crazy whenever there's a thread on Twitter or Musk. Although more tame since here's an actual mod.

threeseed 4y ago
> You'll find subsections of anything on any platform No you don't as HN clearly shows. There are plenty of examples where when you have active moderation and the site sets the tone for discourse the quality of the discussions improves.
- suddenclarity 4y ago
  As I stated, you'll still find low quality content and comments on HN with name calling and terrible takes when a thread is slightly political. It's not a platform issue. It's a popularity and subject issue. Allow 10 friends to talk about flowers and it will go great. Invite 1 million strangers to talk about politics and it will degrade within minutes. The issue there isn't solved through subjective moderation.

pessimizer 4y ago

There are people paying bounties to farms to harass journalists and outspoken private citizens on twitter. They get paid if they can get the target to reply or block. Additionally, David Brock moved from creating the vast right-wing conspiracies against the Clintons in the 90s to managing a huge budget for managing an organization of online trolls from 2016, to becoming an established part of the Democratic Party contractor pool also being used by the Biden admin. This involves a lot of fake accounts; most are silent retweeting accounts that exist to upvote any belligerent harassment of official enemies, usually slyly amplifying real accounts instead of leading from the front. Lastly, intelligence agencies have invested billions and created entire new departments in order to monitor and manipulate social media by any means necessary. They have direct lines to all major social media companies, with the apparent current exception of twitter. Introduced into the middle of all of this are LLMs, which are starting to make it very easy to fake accounts that reply in a vaguely relevant way (although they answer like LLMs, failing if the tweets they're replying to are too oblique and require context that everybody knows.) Still dominant are the endless fake replies from fake accounts that don't reference the tweets they're replying to at all, but just repeat from a list of four or five insults for years on end. 00s youtube comments were 1000x better. This is the actual rise of the Dead Internet. This seems like the last straw for Taibbi. Musk hasn't had an effect on the harassment problem (and doesn't seem to have a plan) and now is making it harder for him to promote his own outlet. He doesn't need Twitter for visibility. I find it nuts that Musk didn't try to clear this decision with the journalists that he's been publicly associated with through the Twitter Files. Them turning on him would have an outsized effect on Musk's situation and none of them have any particular loyalty to him; they're not on his payroll. edit: all that being said, I could see the Substack contingent turning on Musk, then him immediately announcing that he's hired a new twitter CEO, and eventually an announcement about one of Musk's business having very good luck with a regulation, a decision on the violation a regulation, and/or a new government contract/partnership.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]