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The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

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Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#71

Post by toastercat »

I tried being a Twitter user for a bit last year, mostly because a lot of engineers I admire use it to communicate about interesting topics and also their work. But after a while, I realized even they will pollute my feed with politically divisive topics, whether it be from them retweeting something, or liking a tweet, or even entering into the fray themselves -- Twitter will find a way to get me to see it. For a while, I resolved "OK, if anyone retweets this stuff, I will simply unfollow them" but eventually this felt self-defeating.

I know a lot of folks in my field side by the stance that everything is political, even code. Call me irresponsible, but I've honestly led a much happier and stress-free life living in the fantasy world where that is not the case, and I can enjoy my hobby in open-source without Github issues becoming a shouting match that spans 200 comments from people who aren't even invested in the codebase.

EDIT: typos

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#72

Post by aksss »

blockmarker wrote: post #69
tayo42 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really easy to not be "canceled", just be a good person. What genuinely OK opinion are people being canceled for?

It's really easy to not be burned at the stake, just don't be a witch.

ha, beat me to it! :D

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#74

Post by causi »

tayo42 wrote: post #34
typeofhuman wrote: post #6

I don't engage on Twitter out of fear. I sometimes see posts that I like and want to retweet but I don't because it means I'm endorsing everything the author has ever said or ever will say. It's not worth the risk. People in my demographic face significant exposure to "cancelling" or ambushing for wrongthink. So it's best for me to avoid it entirely.

It's really easy to not be "canceled", just be a good person. What genuinely OK opinion are people being canceled for?

The problem is that you can have a not-ok opinion and still be a good person who has a positive effect on the world, but we have no tolerance for that. We demand public perfection.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#75

Post by Mountain_Skies »

Doesn't seem it would be an issue worth discussing except in the marketing department of twitter if the media would get over their addiction to sitting at their computers and interpreting the world through tweets they see posted. There's no good reason why Twitter should be considered the default human communication medium but this "silent majority" is only seen as an aberration because of this assumption that Twitter is where one should go when seeking a representative sample of society. There's also a silent majority of people who don't use tiktok but no one outside of tiktok thinks that's a problem.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#76

Post by massysett »

typeofhuman wrote: post #6

I don't engage on Twitter out of fear. I sometimes see posts that I like and want to retweet but I don't because it means I'm endorsing everything the author has ever said or ever will say. It's not worth the risk. People in my demographic face significant exposure to "cancelling" or ambushing for wrongthink. So it's best for me to avoid it entirely.

I’m so afraid of Twitter that I even created a distinct account with a default username—“user12345” or something of that nature. My old account had my photo and maybe my name.

I can’t even risk having people see who I follow, and on Twitter who you follow is public.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#77

Post by tayo42 »

blockmarker wrote: post #69
tayo42 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really easy to not be "canceled", just be a good person. What genuinely OK opinion are people being canceled for?

It's really easy to not be burned at the stake, just don't be a witch.

Being canceled isn't even a real thing. It's just a phrase people use because they have to have consequences when they show their true selves. Some group of people don't agree with you? Show me an example of being canceled then

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#78

Post by colordrops »

jquery wrote: post #60
typeofhuman wrote: post #6

I don't engage on Twitter out of fear. I sometimes see posts that I like and want to retweet but I don't because it means I'm endorsing everything the author has ever said or ever will say. It's not worth the risk. People in my demographic face significant exposure to "cancelling" or ambushing for wrongthink. So it's best for me to avoid it entirely.

You’re getting cancelled for your views? Which views are those, exactly?

Supporting free speech and support equal hiring practices will get you cancelled these days, or at least bucketed with right wing extremists.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#79

Post by rootusrootus »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #24
Miner49er wrote: post #11

> Independents — who are somewhere in the middle This seems factually wrong? Maybe most independents are in between the two parties, but not all. Look at Bernie Sanders for example, I would say he's to the left of the Democratic party. I thought maybe the Gallup poll they are referencing had a weird definition of an independent requiring it to be between the two parties, but I'm not seeing that either.

Aren't independents people who haven't declared any party affiliations? They are usually in the middle, but could have extreme Democrat or Republican views.

Many of the people I know who are independent (like myself) have strong views, and largely lean one way or the other, but hate the party anyway. I feel this way about the party I most closely align with. We share a lot, but I really don't care at all for how they go about things, or what they consider is the highest priority. So I'm an independent, but I don't want to be associated with them.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#80

Post by shadowgovt »

typeofhuman wrote: post #6

I don't engage on Twitter out of fear. I sometimes see posts that I like and want to retweet but I don't because it means I'm endorsing everything the author has ever said or ever will say. It's not worth the risk. People in my demographic face significant exposure to "cancelling" or ambushing for wrongthink. So it's best for me to avoid it entirely.

The golden rule of using Twitter is: everything said is said to everyone, in public.

Turns out, there's a lot of stuff people just probably shouldn't broadcast.

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