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Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

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Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#61

Post by lyra_comms »

feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

There is plenty of research showing that the patterns and atmosphere a platform promotes can have huge effects on conversation and discourse.

This is what we're doing with Lyra (www.hellolyra.com): using a respect for language and cognitive load to create an open, sensible conversation platform.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#62

Post by chiefalchemist »

feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

I agree. But I don't think it's Twitter's fault per se. It's just a tool. Sure it can influence, have an effect, but I'm not so sure it's powerful enough to create something from nothing. Especially given the fact it has a limit heavy user base, a fair number of casual and then a whole lotta non users.

My point is, I think the tendency for sound-bite intelligence (hold the applause, you heard it here first. Lol) was already there. I mean, Orwell gets at it in directly in 1984. Also, given the number of non Twitter users, I think this also helps explain why the whole culture shifted. Sure, there are Twitter users with offline influence but that many? I think not.

In any case, to blame Twitter is meta. It's a symptom of the problem itself. That is, less thinking and more simplification is the sign of the times.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#63

Post by chiefalchemist »

pjc50 wrote: post #35
feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

> very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate But as you say the traditional media do this too - and have been just as instrumental in the rise of Trump. The "false equivalence" media structure, and the direct promotion of right-wing editorial through Murdoch news properties, are also extremely important.

Thank you for saying "traditional media" and not using the word journalists.

Wanna bring my blood to a quick boil? Have a news program that pulls content from Twitter. And usually completely unvetted. Who needs legit sources?

It this regard, Twitter is an idea shit show. You can find just about anything said about anything there. So to pull more or less randomly is, to me, unimaginable and too often inappropriate and upsetting.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#64

Post by chiefalchemist »

pjc50 wrote: post #44
sitkack wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propaganda is asymmetric, it takes more energy to communicate and rebut with Truth than it does to fabricate lies. Truth requires precision, clarity and subtlety; lies are a dead-blow hammer.

Yes. But this isn't new and certainly isn't specific to Twitter.

Agreed. Twitter is only a clearer mirror of who we really are.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#65

Post by the_af »

lj3 wrote: post #59
the_af wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cherry-picking and un-charitably attacking someones statements is a human flaw I don't think that's exactly the situation Antirez describes. The way I see it, he's saying that Twitter makes it too easy for people to inadvertently pick isolated tweets out of context, mistakenly thinking they are seeing the whole context (because tracking down the full discussion on Twitter is very cumbersome and time-consuming), and…

> That's different than cherry-picking on purpose in order to "win" an argument, which is indeed a human flaw and not a technological one. As much as I want to believe that, it has not been my experience. I've found that if there's a possible way to misinterpret a statement, somebody on the internet will misinterpret it. They don't do it on purpose to win an argument most of the time, either. It happens everywhere on…

Maybe. But wouldn't you say this flaw is more likely with a tech platform that breaks down a debate into 140 character long pieces and makes it difficult to see the whole context?

Look at the three tweets Antirez mentions. The second one starts

"the 99% percentile is bad [...]"

Antirez mentions someone took this to literally mean that percentiles are a bad metric. To me, this doesn't particularly require bad faith or malicious cherry-picking; it just requires a bit of carelessness, enabled by the lack of context and no indication this was part #2 of a 3-long series of tweets. And apparently, once the "rebuttals" start piling up, they generate a snowball effect. Not entirely Twitter's fault, but definitely made worse by it, which is what (I think) Antirez is arguing:

> "Once upon a time, people used to argue for days on usenet, but at least there was, most of the times, an argument against a new argument and so forth, with enough text and context to have a normal condition. This instead is just amplification of hate and engineering rules 101 together."

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#66

Post by awinter-py »

austenallred wrote: post #52

I like how Benedict Evans describes the 140 char limit: lossy compression. It's hilarious to me that a rule enforced by external technical reasons (length of SMS) has become so important to the product that it's non negotiable. Why can't I even, for example, add a text "attachment" the same way I attach photo, video, links, etc.? There's something hilarious about the CEO of Twitter screenshotting the "notes" app on h…

Using twitter for 6 months trained me to screenshot text instead of pasting it. Ugh. What a shitty product.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#67

Post by astrobe_ »

SonOfLilit wrote: post #11
feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

Is it Twitter's choices, or society's choice to use Twitter? i.e. do you think Twitter would have reached the status of presidential communication platform had it not made this choice?

It's just one popular platform at the moment. If it was IRC, Trump would have his IRC channel. Had Myspace survived long enough (in terms of popularity, that is), he would have a Myspace page.

Politics and companies go where the most people are and use that platform to the best of their own interests. If they don't have the knack for long analytical articles or short witty comments, they just hire people who do.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#68

Post by chippy »

austenallred wrote: post #52

I like how Benedict Evans describes the 140 char limit: lossy compression. It's hilarious to me that a rule enforced by external technical reasons (length of SMS) has become so important to the product that it's non negotiable. Why can't I even, for example, add a text "attachment" the same way I attach photo, video, links, etc.? There's something hilarious about the CEO of Twitter screenshotting the "notes" app on h…

We could encourage Twitter clients or browser extensions to OCR the attached images and automatically convert them to text. Indeed - the same addons could encode text all using a standard font to make it easier.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#69

Post by DelightOne »

lyra_comms wrote: post #61
feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

There is plenty of research showing that the patterns and atmosphere a platform promotes can have huge effects on conversation and discourse. This is what we're doing with Lyra (www.hellolyra.com): using a respect for language and cognitive load to create an open, sensible conversation platform.

As far as I understand you can chat to exchange news or chat to learn. Twitter is to exchange news. What is yours for and is it any good at that?

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#70

Post by bsenftner »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #64
pjc50 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But this isn't new and certainly isn't specific to Twitter.

Agreed. Twitter is only a clearer mirror of who we really are.

No, "conversations" on twitter are a reflection of the platform's limited ability to convey the nuance and subtle nature of truth in contexts that matter.
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