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How Twitter poisoned politics

prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#61

Post by zapita »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #54
ordinaryperson wrote: post #34

Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison? By the end Thomas Jefferson hated George Washington so much he refused to attend his funeral. And that's just 242-year history of America, you can go back to Rome, Greece or Ancient Egypt and see thousands of years of vitriol inside any large human collective. Modern tools could do a better job, sure. Twitter, FB, YouTube and the rest could use some kind of reputa…

> "Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison?" Short answer: Nope. A couple years ago I read "Freedom for the Thoughts That We Hate." Aside from the history of the 1st Amendment, my #1 takeaway was: "politics has always been ugly and dirty." That said, I think what's difference now is more and more people are less and less aware of history , as well as the fact that the MSM has finally figured out how to m…

What is “the MSM”?

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#62

Post by bobbygoodlatte »

I'm glad the article mentioned Twitter's engagement algorithm — I don't think enough attention is being paid to it.

With a different algorithm Twitter could be a remarkably different experience. The current one has a strong bias toward engagement & velocity. It amplifies anger, outrage, and bad faith arguments over less "engaging" content.

If Twitter let off the engagement pedal a bit and re-factored the algorithm, our political climate might be less hostile overnight.

These companies have long claimed their algorithms are politically unbiased. That's not true. While I don't believe they lean left or right, they certainly have a strong bias towards extremism. Extremism keeps you engaged, which maximizes the time you spend in their apps.

Imagine if Twitter instead decided to bias their algorithm towards positivity

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#63

Post by Staxitix »

zapita wrote: post #61
chiefalchemist wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison?" Short answer: Nope. A couple years ago I read "Freedom for the Thoughts That We Hate." Aside from the history of the 1st Amendment, my #1 takeaway was: "politics has always been ugly and dirty." That said, I think what's difference now is more and more people are less and less aware of history , as well as the fact that the MSM has finally figured out how to m…

What is “the MSM”?

Main Stream Media is the term. I guess your top channels such as CNN, Fox, MSNBC, BBC, etc...

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#65

Post by dkubb »

zapita wrote: post #61
chiefalchemist wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison?" Short answer: Nope. A couple years ago I read "Freedom for the Thoughts That We Hate." Aside from the history of the 1st Amendment, my #1 takeaway was: "politics has always been ugly and dirty." That said, I think what's difference now is more and more people are less and less aware of history , as well as the fact that the MSM has finally figured out how to m…

What is “the MSM”?

I think he means Mainstream Media. It's the first time I've seen that abbreviation too.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#66

Post by antishatter »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #34

Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison? By the end Thomas Jefferson hated George Washington so much he refused to attend his funeral. And that's just 242-year history of America, you can go back to Rome, Greece or Ancient Egypt and see thousands of years of vitriol inside any large human collective. Modern tools could do a better job, sure. Twitter, FB, YouTube and the rest could use some kind of reputa…

Who was the presidential candidate who traveled around by train telling everyone his opponent had died? I always laugh when people try to claim politics is only slimy and dirty now.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#67

Post by maw »

sharpshadow wrote: post #49
ordinaryperson wrote: post #34

Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison? By the end Thomas Jefferson hated George Washington so much he refused to attend his funeral. And that's just 242-year history of America, you can go back to Rome, Greece or Ancient Egypt and see thousands of years of vitriol inside any large human collective. Modern tools could do a better job, sure. Twitter, FB, YouTube and the rest could use some kind of reputa…

During the time of Alexandria they 'hated' each other so much they burned everything down and we had 1000 years dark ages. I hope humanity will not be that stupid again.

Let's just say that that's not exactly what happened in Alexandria.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#68

Post by gdubs »

smacktoward wrote: post #6
gdubs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to re-read McCluhan with Twitter and Facebook in mind – but I'll be honest: I've struggled every time I've tried to get through his writings.

I took a stab at a more readable McLuhanite interpretation of Facebook a few years ago: https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/02/i-kind-of-hate-twitter/

Thanks - interesting read. I always took “the medium is the message” a little differently than that author does. To me, I felt like McCluhan was saying that it almost doesn’t matter what the message is — the medium itself is the message, and it’s a message that is consistent regardless of the information being conveyed through it. It’s why Trump is so effective at Twitter — it’s not what he says so much as he is tapped into the medium better than almost anyone else.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#69

Post by Udik »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #34

Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison? By the end Thomas Jefferson hated George Washington so much he refused to attend his funeral. And that's just 242-year history of America, you can go back to Rome, Greece or Ancient Egypt and see thousands of years of vitriol inside any large human collective. Modern tools could do a better job, sure. Twitter, FB, YouTube and the rest could use some kind of reputa…

No, but that is not the point. The point is how media change the way politics is made and ultimately shape the society. For example, I think it could be argued that mass media (newspapers, radio) heavily contributed to the totalitarian drift of the first half of the twentieth century in Europe: pervasive communication without proper balances can be effectively used to hammer slogans into people's heads.

I think we are now in a similar situation: we have an entirely new media and we haven't had time yet to adjust to it and to find its rules and limits. And I think this is very dangerous.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#70

Post by amreact »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #57
ordinaryperson wrote: post #34

Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison? By the end Thomas Jefferson hated George Washington so much he refused to attend his funeral. And that's just 242-year history of America, you can go back to Rome, Greece or Ancient Egypt and see thousands of years of vitriol inside any large human collective. Modern tools could do a better job, sure. Twitter, FB, YouTube and the rest could use some kind of reputa…

America wasn't like this 20 years ago. Politics has always been bad, and there's times it's been even worse, but that doesn't mean it's not trending downward right now.

Somewhere I read that the idea proposed that the more money flows from the government to voters, the more mud slinging happens.

For example, after the Civil War in the U.S., politics got extremely bad due to the large numbers of voters who were veterans and were receiving money from the government. Things got less nasty after those people died.

The idea is that nowadays in the U.S., there are several ways large numbers of voters get money from the government: welfare, government employment, and government contractor employment. Speaking generally, the Democrats tend to have more voters on welfare and directly employed by the government, while the Republicans tend to have more voters in government contractor jobs. So, each party has policies that give more money to their constituents, which results in bitter political fighting.

I know I'm being hand-wavy but that's the general idea. Here are some links that support this idea:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/12/the-politics...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/upshot/how-we-became-bitt...

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