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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

#171

Post by pessimizer »

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.

> They are usually in the middle

Is there any evidence for this, or even definition of this? I'd define it as swing voters who tend to mix up their ballot between the two parties, and I'd be surprised if the percentage of people who did that broke double digits.

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

#172

Post by bena »

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?

While I don't think most of the people engaging with you are doing so completely in good faith, I don't think you understand the "fickleness" of the tweeting masses either.

Just like you're getting downvotes and a lot of blowback for your opinion on this matter here, it's way worse on twitter.

I've heard someone say that twitter is a game where the goal is not to be the main character of the day. And that kind of holds. Twitter is a bit geared for outrage. Small snippets with no context. Say you don't like The Batman and you could find yourself under a barrage of hate and vitriol. It's not a left thing or a right thing, they both have their mobs on twitter, in addition to all the other random mobs floating about. Hell, say something shitty about the wrong product will have that mob after you.

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

#173

Post by mtizim »

tayo42 wrote: post #109
thinkingemote wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now define "hurt". It's not easy as "hurt" is not objective, is relative to others and no longer connected to intention.

This isn't some clover got you, if someone tell you your offended them then that's it, you offended them. You don't get to redefine it

Your comment offends my intelligence, therefore you've hurt a person, therefore you're not a "good person" anymore.

But you might not care about that. You might say that I'm arguing in bad faith, or that your words couldn't possibly have offended me. But you don't get to redefine it.

Obviously, you might just not care that you've just offended me. That's what bad people do. You aren't a bad person, right? Could you please apologize?

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

#174

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

arbol wrote: post #7

25% of Americans sometimes tweet? That seems very high. I only know a couple of people who use Twitter...

If that Pew Research survey is there only source (it's the one they link when they make the claim) it looks like 25% of Americans use twitter. But that doesn't mean that 25% actually makes tweets. It's probably possible to cross that with public twitter numbers on active tweeters, but I've heard 1% make 99% of the tweets before, and in my own experience that seems accurate.

Most people I know who use twitter use it to stay up to date with creators they care about.

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

#175

Post by delecti »

toastercat wrote: post #71

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 whi…

You can turn off seeing retweets from accounts you follow on a per-account basis, and more people (including yourself, if you're ever curious to go back to Twitter) should more aggressively use the option to make the site far more enjoyable. Lots of accounts are fine to follow on their own, but complete spam-fests if your feed is full of everything they retweet. Just go to their profile, hit the three dots, and then click "Turn off retweets".

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

#176

Post by aarondf »

throwmeariver1 wrote: post #30
aarondf wrote: post #13

[Deleted]

I don't want to take away from your post but you are copy and pasting it all over the place in every thread that mentions twitter or social media... That's against the rules of the site.

Ah good call, I didn't know that.

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

#179

Post by jhoechtl »

I am one of those. For a simple reason: It had no effect.

As a sidenote back in the days I worked for a university and we did research in public policy making. How social media would make a difference as it empowers the underprivileged. In my opinion almost none of that came true. Those which make an effect are the ones in power. The rest is cats video and advertisement disguised as influencers.

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

#180

Post by pharke »

anotherman554 wrote: post #118
tombert wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar quote by Mark Twain > It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

I'm pretty sure that quote is an insult and not good faith advise.

It reads more like a humorous and self-deprecating aphorism to me. He was a comedian after all.
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