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Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

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Re: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

#21

Post by bhauer »

While I find this research fascinating, and some of the findings conflict with the point I am about to make, I nevertheless want to object to the selection of Snowden-NSA as the particular topic used as the basis of this research. Although it does conveniently have a nearly-even split of opinion, the nature of the Snowden-NSA revelations carry very specific baggage for social media conversations precisely because the revelations suggest a comprehensive and worrisome monitoring of all online activity.

Those who wanted to talk about the NSA, especially critically on social media, may have refrained or at least paused to reflect on whether that was a sensible thing to do precisely because of the NSA dragnet. I personally initially paused and considered my action moreso than usual before I began retweeting and writing tweets of my own that are critical of the NSA's behavior and the laws that provide cover for its behavior.

Irrational or rational as fears of later repercussions for communicating opinions may be, when the subject matter is a principal organization that will ensure that very communication is never forgotten, I believe there is a chilling effect. It would be like hesitating to criticize Twitter on Twitter—you can imagine less savvy users would wonder, "Will this get me into some kind of trouble with Twitter?" Even now having long since put aside my worry about being critical of the NSA's behavior in public (yes, based on the tired axiom: "why would they care about me?"), I still suspect that I have squelched at least 10% of what I would have otherwise said.

Even as I write this now, it's impossible to not have a concern that in some (very unlikely) future, the NSA will put anyone who had been critical of their actions onto a "definitely will aid with all parallel construction requests" list. Irrational, sure. But difficult to put aside nonetheless.

Re: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

#23

Post by bhauer »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #15
LordKano wrote: post #6

I'm concerned that it's only going to get worse. Look at Brendan Eich, no matter what we think of Proposition 8, I think it's crazy that his support of a political position that was also supported by a very narrow majority of his fellow Californians could cause him to have to leave his job six years later. It's entirely possible that Eich could become a verb, like Bork. Any one of us could support one side of a conte…

My main beef with the Eich case wasn't the fact that people protested his decision, it was how they did it. The main method of protest was to boycott Firefox. Yet this was a stupid thing to do, because Firefox is the result of over a decade of wide-scale community effort, all done on a non-profit basis, and has been instrumental in advancing web standards. Firefox was also the initial spark that got us out of the sta…

I thoroughly agree. In fact, I wrote very similar sentiments in a blog entry in April [1]. The calls for a boycott of Mozilla and Firefox in particular from left and right were embarrassing for our society. Mozilla was wrongly targeted to make a political point and as a fan of Mozilla, I found that disappointing, especially considering Mozilla as an organization is among the most well-aligned with the rights of individuals.

[1] http://tiamat.tsotech.com/do-not-punish-mozilla

Re: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

#24

Post by gregrata »

bhauer wrote: post #21

While I find this research fascinating, and some of the findings conflict with the point I am about to make, I nevertheless want to object to the selection of Snowden-NSA as the particular topic used as the basis of this research. Although it does conveniently have a nearly-even split of opinion, the nature of the Snowden-NSA revelations carry very specific baggage for social media conversations precisely because the…

Well said! I think this wasn't the greatest selection, as the subject is about NSA snooping and its dragnet. I personally have become very reluctant to talk about any of stuff on anything electronic - gawd knows what the NSA is pickuping, and how it will some day be used against me.

Hmmm... I probably should just delete this post....

Re: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

#25

Post by NortySpock »

dba7dba wrote: post #18
gagege wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I agree with you, but still, very low quality comment.

Haha, sorry. Is it because it was short or talking about up/down votes? Just curious.

It's because it was short. You could have been short but particularly insightful, but your comment was not insightful (most people could "remember" "that one time" someone with a coexist sticker cut them off in traffic or turned out to be a bigot).

So that is all it is: a comment that people might agree with but provides low value to the reader in that context.

Re: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

#26

Post by defen »

drhayes9 wrote: post #12
LordKano wrote: post #6

I'm concerned that it's only going to get worse. Look at Brendan Eich, no matter what we think of Proposition 8, I think it's crazy that his support of a political position that was also supported by a very narrow majority of his fellow Californians could cause him to have to leave his job six years later. It's entirely possible that Eich could become a verb, like Bork. Any one of us could support one side of a conte…

Nobody silenced Brendan Eich. He is free to say whatever he wants about his political affiliations and his personal ideals. With that freedom comes the concomitant responsibility for the consequences of that speech. In fact, I think it's admirable that he didn't back down from his position or try and weasel-word his way out of a difficult situation. He stuck to his guns in the face of a firestorm of controversy.

Here's what I don't understand - we're continually told that the Hollywood blacklist in the 40s and 50s was a terrible thing, a shameful episode in America's history. But how is it different? No one has a right to work as a screenwriter, actor, director, etc. I'm genuinely curious and not trolling, how is the Hollywood blacklist different from what happened to Eich, and why is one ok and the other something that needs to be atoned for?

Re: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

#27

Post by [deleted] »

LordKano wrote: post #6

I'm concerned that it's only going to get worse. Look at Brendan Eich, no matter what we think of Proposition 8, I think it's crazy that his support of a political position that was also supported by a very narrow majority of his fellow Californians could cause him to have to leave his job six years later. It's entirely possible that Eich could become a verb, like Bork. Any one of us could support one side of a conte…

[deleted]

Re: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

#28

Post by rimantas »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #15
LordKano wrote: post #6

I'm concerned that it's only going to get worse. Look at Brendan Eich, no matter what we think of Proposition 8, I think it's crazy that his support of a political position that was also supported by a very narrow majority of his fellow Californians could cause him to have to leave his job six years later. It's entirely possible that Eich could become a verb, like Bork. Any one of us could support one side of a conte…

My main beef with the Eich case wasn't the fact that people protested his decision, it was how they did it. The main method of protest was to boycott Firefox. Yet this was a stupid thing to do, because Firefox is the result of over a decade of wide-scale community effort, all done on a non-profit basis, and has been instrumental in advancing web standards. Firefox was also the initial spark that got us out of the sta…

Actually I doubt there is anything left from the Mozilla that brought the initial Firefox in todays Mozilla. All the good things did happen a decade and more ago. And if organisation does not take dare deciding whom to put in the top position it is ok to bear consequences.

Re: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

#29

Post by potatolicious »

ianstallings wrote: post #9

I was going to sternly object, and then I remembered how a friend deleted me on facebook because I liked a certain politician. Then my work friended me so I went back and pruned every semi-controversial topic from my feed and "unliked" a ton of subjects. And now I keep it all to myself. I probably reveal more here in my writing than I do on those outlets. And to say I edit my thoughts here on HN would be an understat…

Funnily enough Google was really onto something with the concept of Circles. We do not, and should not, want to share everything with everyone a la Twitter and Facebook.

The execution of G+ was bungled disastrously, and ass-backwards policies like Real Names ran directly contrary to the original notion of having multiple identities/profiles to present to different people.

But I do wish someone would run with this idea again.

... But maybe we don't need to. Social networks with segmented audiences/identities have existed since forever, they're called BBSes and Forums.

Re: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

#30

Post by vezzy-fnord »

rimantas wrote: post #28
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main beef with the Eich case wasn't the fact that people protested his decision, it was how they did it. The main method of protest was to boycott Firefox. Yet this was a stupid thing to do, because Firefox is the result of over a decade of wide-scale community effort, all done on a non-profit basis, and has been instrumental in advancing web standards. Firefox was also the initial spark that got us out of the sta…

Actually I doubt there is anything left from the Mozilla that brought the initial Firefox in todays Mozilla. All the good things did happen a decade and more ago. And if organisation does not take dare deciding whom to put in the top position it is ok to bear consequences.

Yes, but it's not like Firefox exists in a closed company vacuum or anything.
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