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The latest campus cancellation is different

theatlantic.com

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Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#11

Post by lotsofpulp »

ekianjo wrote: post #6
umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

> How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Stop listening to them? EDIT: That's especially effective since the Twitter mobs keep moving targets every couple of weeks anyway. They don't have any patience.

Seems like a very simple solution. I struggle to see any material effect to MIT had they simply ignored these complainers.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#12

Post by mraudiobook_com »

umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

It's not Twitter, it's this new breed of racism.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#13

Post by geofft »

> MIT buckled, becoming yet another major institution in American life to demonstrate that the commitment to free speech it trumpets on its website

The what?

I'm an MIT alum and I cannot remember anything about a commitment to free speech on the website. I don't see one now, and I can hardly see any relevant search results for `"free speech" site:mit.edu` - a few blogs and research papers, but nothing about a commitment, certainly nothing trumpeted. I certainly did not see one when I applied. I applied to a school that claimed to be good at science and engineering.

If you want to argue that MIT or any other institution or perhaps all institutions should champion free speech, sure. If you want to hold people accountable for promises they did make (cf. a Reddit co-founder claiming that Reddit wasn't intended to be a "bastion of free speech" years after describing it as exactly that, Twitter calling itself the "free-speech wing of the free-speech party"), by all means hold people accountable. But the idea that everyone should be on exactly your side of what is actually a complex and multifaceted question because that particular view is obviously what everyone in our culture believes is, frankly, illiberal.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#14

Post by brylie »

lugged wrote: post #4
umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

You know Twitter is not a real place right?

The Internet, and all existing services, is based in physical locations, subject to local and international laws, governed by the decisions of real people with diverse motivations, and capable of influencing real-world outcomes on many scales.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#15

Post by wepple »

ekianjo wrote: post #6
umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

> How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Stop listening to them? EDIT: That's especially effective since the Twitter mobs keep moving targets every couple of weeks anyway. They don't have any patience.

The power they have isn’t over us, it’s over institutions and businesses who seem to bend to the will of the mob.

I’d like to see some data on whether a Twitter storm in a teacup has any measurable negative consequences for a typical large organization, and whether they need to listen as often as they do.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#16

Post by joenathanone »

exar0815 wrote: post #5

Twitter is a massive echo-chamber, reinforcing their belief in themselves and most people believe them because the internet-oligarchy hides and censors different outlooks on society (not that I necessarily agree with those outlooks, but still). Best example: All of the twitter-mob was hyping themselves up about the german election, the young generation being all green, all "Generation Greta" as some called it. There…

I echo your sentiment.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#17

Post by xwdv »

exar0815 wrote: post #7
lugged wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know Twitter is not a real place right?

Well, we might know, but the people in charge choose to ignore it. Shitstorms only have power because the people in power believe they have.

The solution is for us to rise into those positions of power, and once entrenched govern our organizations to be impervious to any such mobs.

There is no other solution.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#18

Post by lugged »

brylie wrote: post #14
lugged wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know Twitter is not a real place right?

The Internet, and all existing services, is based in physical locations, subject to local and international laws, governed by the decisions of real people with diverse motivations, and capable of influencing real-world outcomes on many scales.

I don't have an account, what are you gonna do? @ my name?

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#19

Post by nomdep »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #10
s_Hogg wrote: post #2

This article reads like it is trying to cancel the cancellers, somewhat ironically! Very hard to not become the thing you hate when you get tangled up in this stuff.

The author is head of something he calls "Persuasion." Not everyone is impressed. https://newrepublic.com/article/158401/problem-yascha-mounks... It's free speech 101 - you can say what you like (as long as you're not inciting crime or violence.) But no one owes you a pulpit. I have far more of a problem with mob farming and Twitter incitement: see also anti-vaxing, organised climate change denial, and political rabb…

> you can say what you like (as long as you're not inciting crime or violence.)

But whatever reason is to forbid inciting crime or violence is equally valid to forbid inciting firing or un-inviting someone isn’t it?

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#20

Post by OJFord »

exar0815 wrote: post #5

Twitter is a massive echo-chamber, reinforcing their belief in themselves and most people believe them because the internet-oligarchy hides and censors different outlooks on society (not that I necessarily agree with those outlooks, but still). Best example: All of the twitter-mob was hyping themselves up about the german election, the young generation being all green, all "Generation Greta" as some called it. There…

It's not really an echo chamber though, or at least it's leaky as hell.

For example, visit from the UK during the Conservative party conference, and you get 'Trending in the UK - #ToryScum' even without logging in, or logging in to a profile that leans right (i.e. that trending 'hashtag' is the opposite of reinforcing an echo chamber for me if I have one) and there's not even anything particular going on that I'm aware of to incite it. It's just a hateful place.

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