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I resigned from Twitter

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Re: I resigned from Twitter

#581

Post by MarkLowenstein »

duxup wrote: post #431
jrsj wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Censorship and more algo driven content discovery to push ads and approved narratives. Dorsey was probably the biggest advocate for free speech amongst the CEOs of any major company & Twitter is significantly less toxic than Facebook partly because of him. I fully expect his removal to lead the company in a more dystopian direction.

I don't know what anyone means exactly by censorship anymore. Like someone regularly posting obvious lies and bs? I feel like I need an exact example from every person when the topic comes up, and that's not really easy to do.

The propagandists have confused you and many others on this topic. Telling lies or BS is absolutely not censorship. When something is not allowed to be said or published, or is soft-censored by muting its distribution...that is censorship.

One reason avoiding censorship is so important is that a lot of times, the truth is trampled by doing so. Remember Galileo. And while it is being trampled, guess what the truth is called? "Lies".

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#582

Post by spion »

nprz wrote: post #486
spion wrote: post #352

Twitter and other social media are probably the biggest problem of our time. By providing simple rules of information flow: small amount of content, retweet, followers) and rewards (likes), they've created the most efficient engines for finding and spreading novelty at the expense of everything else. There are no incentives to improve accuracy, increase thoughtfulness, paint nuance. Fact checking gets lost in the win…

Have you read Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, Public Opinion by Walter Lippman, or Propaganda by Edward Bernays? If so, I don't think you would come to the conclusion that the media landscape prior to social media was bastion of truth and honesty.

Yes. While that situation was bad, it was not nearly as bad as the completely out of control results we get from social media.

I actually think there is a great opportunity here to fix this problem as SM has made it painfully obvious and visible to everyone, while also democratizing the entire process. (Democratizing manipulation and outrage isn't necessarily the best thing in the world though, but we can at least start thinking what causes it and what can be done to improve things)

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#584

Post by boringg »

gameswithgo wrote: post #539
smolder wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is not what I'd call cancer. Social media doesn't need to be an engagement-obsessed, emotionally charged misinformation hose. Social media is broader than the category that twitter and FB live in. It can be less toxic, but less toxic platforms are less exciting and don't get the same kind of attention , which is what all the toxic stuff optimizes for.

HN is heavily moderated, which is interesting given how often it is used as a platform to decry censorship.

Can you provide specific examples please? It would seem that it moderates trolling content, self promotional or bot level garbage.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#586

Post by splitstud »

jandrese wrote: post #196
bluefirebrand wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful, you're dangerously close to realizing that Executives at companies provide vanishingly little day to day value to companies. I'd bet in most companies the CEO is basically just a buffer between the board and the rest of the company, and essentially a fall guy position so the board can avoid accountability.

But oh man, when it is time to replace the CEO the first thing you hear is "we have to offer those millions of dollars or some other company will snipe our CEO!" CEO is the only job where the company suddenly decides that it does have to offer the most money to attract the top talent.

Having worked at the c level and just below at 3 large US corps, let me just say it matters. Ceo is more important than QB I'm the nfl. It's that dramatic.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#587

Post by sillysaurusx »

_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #572
williamtrask wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The medium supports images so I’m not sure this critique is valid.

Visually impaired people using a screenreader won't be able to read it.

Not entirely true. My blind friend encourages me to annotate screenshots whenever possible. It's just a pain, because you have to remember to do it as you tweet (you can't do it later), and only you can do it (why not crowdsource it?)

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#589

Post by dragontamer »

spion wrote: post #565
dragontamer wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The specific problems of today are utterly unlike anything older. The medium is overwhelmingly determinate of impact. The USA literally started a war on false pretenses and took over the Philippines as a result of Yellow Journalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889) This included at least 15 years of harsh occupation, as the Philippine Katipunan (in the north) and Moros (the Muslims of the south) fough…

Or, this might actually be another important problem that humanity should find worthy of recognizing and finally solving.

Both Pulitzer and Ben Franklin are national heroes for their ability to levy the masses and gain popular support.

Problem #1 is explaining to people that the outrage-filled Yellow press is a problem in the first place. Too many people yell "free speech" and "freedom", and point out these heroes of the past.

People don't even think this is a problem. So it won't get solved. If you can convince enough people that maybe we should do something about this, feel free to do so.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#590

Post by NoGravitas »

sporkland wrote: post #377
a4isms wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Rules for thee but not for me” is interesting when placed in juxtaposition with a famous quote from the software architect and composer Frank Wilhoit: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. That applies to no-moonlighting clauses, but also to no sexual harassment clauses,…

I have an open mind about it and have seen it many times, but I struggle with the leaps of logic required to understand the one proposition of conservatism. On its face it is obviously unfair, and it's hard for me to see it as the obvious consequence of conservatism which is "heavily trust the past and move forward with caution". Can you help me connect the two or at least help me understand the underlying propositio…

It helps to have more of the full quote to work with:

> For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.

> As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.

That is to say: the past is built around this one proposition. Moving forward "with caution" translates to "how can we move forward (solve some current problem) without jeopardizing this essential proposition?"

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