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How Twitter poisoned politics

prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#71

Post by eric_h »

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.

> America wasn't like this 20 years ago.

20 years ago was 1998, the year Clinton was impeached - the politics were just as slimy 20 years ago, the reality of it was just not as readily at our fingertips as it is today.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#72

Post by protomyth »

How about we take a look at the relationship of the size of an original tweet and click-bait headlines? Twitter wasn't the beginning, it was just a massive next step on click-bait to get eyeballs on ads. It has evolved to the point of punditry and playing to "your" audience and being actually false. Hey, at least "Headless Body found in Topless Bar" was accurate.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#73

Post by tuesdayrain »

kibwen wrote: post #9

Part of me wonders if it's possible that there's just something about the nature of the internet that induces instability in otherwise-ordinary people. I think about photosensitive epilepsy and how it was a more-or-less benign feature of the human brain until technological progress caused flashing lights to be absolutely everywhere. I worry that I can't discount the possibility that some heretofore latent feature of…

I think the internet creates instability at least partially because 1. Anonymity/distance lets people say things they would never dare say in person and 2. Most people naturally perceive others' internet comments as if they were said in person.

It takes a conscious effort to desensitize yourself to the raw bluntness found in heated online discussions, and many people never get to that point. So controversial topics frequently lead to nasty positive feedback loops that would have never occured in a face to face conversation.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#74

Post by Natsu »

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, there's a very long history of political assassinations, civil wars, etc. all of which predate Twitter. Everything is just more public now.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#75

Post by samstave »

How many people/resources does twitter have on staff specifically dedicated to coddling the POTUS?

Given that twitter has achieved a defacto ligitimized status as a mouthpiece of US policy - how should it be viewed/regulated/handled differently, if any?

Also - what efforts is twitter taking to use the fact that POTUS has compulsive tweeting issues to sell the service to less sophisticated power systems in the world.

Are people in other countries, namely more developing countries, encouraged by twitter to use twitter as an official messaging system for their political machinations?

I mean, the philippines is one of the most connected-via-mobile developing nations, with a large population in the US and a very western society -- is twitter attempting to be an official platform in the philippines? I would expect so.

What about other nations?

Then, when they are a defacto standard medium for power structures communicating to their populations, then what standards is twitter held to? What implications does/will this have?

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#76

Post by Balgair »

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.

That's not even remotely true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#77

Post by _ptgt »

burlesona wrote: post #33
savanaly wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, that's interesting because introspection tells me it's the opposite for me. When I'm in my safe zone is when I can comfortably be rational and calm almost all the time. If I ever said something rash or that I didn't mean it would probably be when someone engages me and makes me feel uncomfortable in real life, never over the internet.

Yeah I mean people are all different. I know what you mean about feeling calmer behind the keyboard, something about seeing what I'm about to say often makes me tone it down or rephrase it. Not everyone goes nuts behind the wheel of a car either. But the thing is when the potential mob is the entire national or world population it doesn't take a very large percentage of the mob going "road rage" to turn the thing vio…

It's complicated I think. Behind the keyboard, there generally aren't the same social pressures (due to anonymity and often others aren't directing their thoughts at you as an individual, but rather as a group) and time constraints to organize thoughts that come with oral communication.

This, in many cases, allows for better and more rational discussions. On the other hand, when people do directly address on the internet behind the veil of anonymity, the lack of social pressures also removes disincentives to act like hooligans.

It's different form of communication and has its advantages and disadvantages.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#78

Post by Nasrudith »

someguydave wrote: post #52
gassed wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prob with social networks is that they bring vitriol to the masses, and uncover deeply-seated vulnerabilities in democracy.

Mass-democracy was well-known to be a terrible idea by many wise people in history, for the precise reasons that Twitter is revealing.

Weren't many of those speakers essentially paid propagandists for monarchs, oligarchs and strongmen?

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#79

Post by slg »

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…

Politics may never have been pure and things today aren't as bad as they were at certain points in human history, but I am honestly surprised that people here aren't recognizing that there has been a pretty stark change in how politics have been progressing in the last decade versus the several previous decades. The polarization has increased drastically and the civility of political discourse and faith in institutions has dropped considerably.

A prime example is that the US is on the verge of confirming a man on to the supposedly apolitical Supreme Court that says under oath that his political opponents have created a vast conspiracy to bring him personally down. If that man is telling the truth, that is an awful moment in political history. If that man is lying, that is an awful moment in political history. It doesn't matter which side of that issue you are on, but something is happening here that would be unthinkable a couple decades ago.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#80

Post by bliblah »

slg wrote: post #79
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…

Politics may never have been pure and things today aren't as bad as they were at certain points in human history, but I am honestly surprised that people here aren't recognizing that there has been a pretty stark change in how politics have been progressing in the last decade versus the several previous decades. The polarization has increased drastically and the civility of political discourse and faith in institutio…

I think this is the issue; at least in the U.S. EVERYTHING is becoming more politicized no matter how inane.

You are also EXPECTED to have a binary opinion on all these issues with no room for differing opinions.

Look at the NFL protests during the anthem. Kneel and you are a bleeding heart liberal that hates the cops. Stand and you are a red hat conservative promoting police brutality and the Private Prison Complex.

Every day there's a new outrage that somehow splits up the community down party lines.

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