“It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.” • Hacker News Board

Re: “It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.”

#41

Post by yurielt » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 3:14 AM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #16

justinzollars wrote: post #3

I deleted my Twitter and I feel great after doing so. I believe Twitter is a platform where San Francisco exports its social problems to the rest of the world. The result is riots, chaos and hate.

Riots, chaos, and hate existed well before Twitter and even well before San Francisco.

Yes but they import what is considering offensive as well as their social movements outside of there and people only care about those things even when there are more important and pressing issues in their local communities, see for example Poland lots of marches in favour of blm even in places where there is less than 0.1% of melanated population or even in places where there is n o data about police brutality. Meanwhile real social issues go unnoticed all because of the American cultural export and their ideological social imperialism. And I am not saying that the things that affect SF don't affect anyone else but MOST issues in SF are different from the rest of the planet and focusing on what the bay people are yelling about on a global scale wont help .

Re: “It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.”

#42

Post by cdash » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 3:16 AM UTC

sthnblllII wrote: post #28

Its not cancel culture because no one was cancelled. A woman posted a shallow and clechéd understanding of what a horror movie is and it went viral. She wasn't banned for "community guidelines", she wasn't fired from her job she didn't have her paypal confiscated. She got some angry emails and retweets for a flippant opinion of the kind she regularly makes irl with zero consequences. This is rule 37 in action and bla…

No, it wasn't cancel culture but I would say it is the roots cancel culture grows from.

Re: “It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.”

#43

Post by temp8964 » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 3:17 AM UTC

> "We Need To Get Rid Of Twitter Trending Topics"

"We"? Are you Twitter CEO or on Twitter board ?

Right now Twitter trending topics are specifically designed as part of the big outrage machine. Many of those topics are obviously written by professional outrage activists.

Twitter is not about cancel culture. It's about using outrage to increase engagement. Cancel culture is just one natural outcome of the outrage machine. Cancel culture increases engagement from both sides and Twitter just loves it.

Re: “It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.”

#44

Post by anonytrary » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 3:18 AM UTC

david422 wrote: post #11

I never got on the twitter boat. After reading articles like this, I'm glad I never did. However, why doesn't everybody else get off? People must like it enough? Then the cycle will never end.

Twitter is addicting, that's why. People who use Twitter the most both love and hate Twitter. It's like a video game -- actually, I'd go further and say it is one. Sometimes you hate the game you're playing at a particular moment, but you still play.

Re: “It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.”

#45

Post by Gracana » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 3:18 AM UTC

wrnr wrote: post #27

david422 wrote: post #11

I never got on the twitter boat. After reading articles like this, I'm glad I never did. However, why doesn't everybody else get off? People must like it enough? Then the cycle will never end.

IMHO Twitter is great, I think I find more interesting things there then HN. I't more how you curate your own feed, don't follow people that are "political" or have some "agenda". My feed is mostly about math, art, physics and EU policy level discussions. Same thing with youtube, you just have to train the AI so it knows the sort of things you like. And don't comment, no one cares.

Same here. I like using twitter, it connects me with a lot of amazing people in my various hobby communities. Retro computers, cars, ham radio... It's fun to be able to talk to folks I hear / hear about in podcasts, blogs, and youtube videos.

But... that's definitely a "bubble." People aren't wrong about how awful twitter is for debate. It works for me because I talk to people with shared interests and values. Arguments rarely work, the short message length and fast pace make it difficult to do anything other than play for points.

Re: “It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.”

#46

Post by shadowgovt » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 3:18 AM UTC

marshmallow_12 wrote: post #13

tqi wrote: post #7

Implicitly, this piece is making an argument for a return to gate keepers/taste makers of yore. I'm not sure that's better. For better or worse, would the BLM movement have the power and reach it does today if it were filtered through establishment news sources?

Assuming BLM is a force for good.

Signs point to yes.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/killings-by-polic...

Re: “It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.”

#47

Post by adzzzz » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

heterodoxxed wrote: post #40

adzzzz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes those are good examples of cancel culture. What point are you trying to make or are you just making assumptions about me?

⠀

Cancel culture isn't bound by politics, ethnicity, gender, etc. American conservatives are equally as guilty of this as progressives.

Re: “It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.”

#48

Post by recuter » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

hindsightbias wrote: post #23

CivBase wrote: post #15

> Left unsaid, of course, is that ‘the conversation’ at scale is complete garbage Twitter is simply not a conversation platform. The medium is optimized for publishing small blurbs to as many people as possible. It's not designed for serious back-and-forth discussion. It rewards quips and got-ems, not nuanced debate. It's almost like a giant comments section with no subject.

What Marshall McLuhan said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRcMsqCbzWk

Re: “It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.”

#49

Post by bjourne » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

david422 wrote: post #11

I never got on the twitter boat. After reading articles like this, I'm glad I never did. However, why doesn't everybody else get off? People must like it enough? Then the cycle will never end.

Here is something I recently found on Twitter which I think is spot on: https://twitter.com/elivalley/status/1382089578484531201

Re: “It's Not Cancel Culture – It's a Platform Failure.”

#50

Post by xwdv » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

Some form of this is happening to me on hackernews as we speak.

A long time ago, I had a lot of karma, almost a thousand. I was a model citizen for HN. But at some point, I must have posted a controversial opinion, and then HN decided they wanted to cancel me. If it wasn’t for a downvote limit per post, my karma would be below zero by now. Instead it has dwindled and deteriorated slowly over time, trending toward nothing. Nothing I do will move the needle to recover my karma, I’ve simply accepted that someday my karma will be so low that I’ll be shadow banned forever.

Part of this is my own fault, as my posting habits changed to more bitter and cynical tones as a result of knowing that no matter what I say I will accrue inexplicable downvotes, so why spend effort softening my words? But it’s amazing that sometimes a completely mundane post suddenly has -4 downvotes out of nowhere.

I wish I could see a plot of my karma over time, and know the exact point it all went wrong, so that perhaps I could learn and conform a bit better to the popular opinion. Unfortunately I know of no such tool.