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The tyranny of the supertweeter

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Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#151

Post by spookthesunset »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #127
PaulHoule wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYTimes is one of those publications, like the Atlantic, that used to have quality writing but now chases clickbait... In a rush to the bottom to catch up with Gawker, Huffington Post, ...

Some of the only reasonable journalism I’ve read in the past year has been from The Atlantic. I have a large group chat with friends all over the political spectrum and we all can engage with and appreciate it every time someone posts an article from there. In fact The Atlantic gets more links for us than just about any other publication. Really, what downfall are you on about?

For starters how about this one. I’m sure the twitter blue checks all loved it!

“Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice” https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-georg...

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#152

Post by ProAm »

snarf21 wrote: post #21
Bakary wrote: post #7

The part about journalism is particularly troubling because Twitter is like crack for journalists and has thus played a big part in decreasing the credibility of the profession. The platform is a journalist's fantasy brought to life. The ability to exist as an individual and have an audience independently of their publication. Blue check-marks. As the article mentions, the capacity to find stories with little effort.…

I agree that this is true but don't just blame Twitter. Look at the major "news" networks. Look at the poor quality of "reporting". The bigger cause is the engagement above all else mentality of generating advertising. Click-bait, faux outrage, sensationalism, half-truths, posting 5 year old images out of context as "just in", creating scary fake crises, etc.

I agree but how do you suggest they make money?

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#153

Post by unethical_ban »

crazygringo wrote: post #132
petesergeant wrote: post #15

As someone from one of the many countries with a right/left/liberal split, I really don’t like that American politics conflates left and liberal together.

I'm very curious, but what does "liberal" mean in your context? What country are you in? I've tried googling but can't find anything related to a right-left-liberal distinction. But in case it helps explain, at least in America, "liberal" has the basic connotation of "individual equality". Originally this meant equality before the law, often called "classical liberalism" which both left and right generally endorse. B…

Liberal as defined by a leftist tends to mean, in my experience, a deference to less regulated markets, and support for needs based social programs.

Leftists (so called) economically challenge the idea that markets are inherently good, asserting that many industries should not be market based. Health insurance, prisons, schools, and so on. They tend to be more open to universal social programs which don't require stringent needs testing.

Leftists tend to distinguish themselves from liberals more than distinguish liberals from conservatives in my experience. I would say liberals in America have much higher respect for marginalized groups, and they seem to have a desire to solve problems, as opposed to Republicans.

edit at 1636 UTC: My above comment is quickly thought out and from mobile. I think "party alignment" would be somewhat more complex if our voting system allowed more than two parties to exist.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#154

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

ajross wrote: post #129
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the distinction you're attempting to draw here. I looked at the Vox article in particular in detail, and it doesn't seem to have any kind of disclaimer that it's in a special section or that editorial standards have been lowered. Am I just supposed to know that the string "/culture/" in the URL means it isn't real news and I shouldn't trust it? Even as a big proponent of media literacy, that seems…

Oh, come on! The title of that article is, verbatim: "The racist backlash to The Little Mermaid and Lord of The Rings is exhausting and extremely predictable" Are you seriously arguing in good faith that you were fooled into thinking that this was a piece of objective journalism? You are providing a perfect example of my point, which I'll endure the downvotes to point out: rather than see an opnion article with which…

I'm arguing that I literally do not understand the distinction you're drawing. In my mind, "news", "reporting", and "journalism" encompass all articles written by news organizations about current events. I wasn't fooled into thinking this was a piece of objective journalism, but I did think it's a piece of non-objective journalism, albeit one where I ultimately agree with the author's thesis.

But you seem to be saying it's not journalism at all. So what I'm trying to understand is:

* What is the shape of this "not journalism at all" category? How can I distinguish non-journalism from non-objective journalism or journalism on a topic I don't personally think is important?

* Do news organizations offer any explicit disclaimers that their "non-journalism" has low editorial standards and shouldn't be trusted the same way as their journalism? Or is it just something you have to know?

* Does the average media-literate person know any of this?

Right now I can't answer any of these questions, which makes the entire edifice seem more like a trick than a real distinction. It's not obvious to me why a news organization would want to publish bad articles which don't live up to their journalistic standards in the first place.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#155

Post by idatum »

fortran77 wrote: post #23

I keep my twitter politics-free. And I follow tech/hacker people and routinely mute/block those who think I want to hear their inane/naïve political opinions. And you know what? Twitter is pretty nice! It keeps me in a nice tech filter bubble where the biggest argument is 8080 vs 6502.

I went a step further and unfollowed all individuals. I read Twitter about 1 or 2 times a week, in a browser. It starts to feel like what RSS was. It's reasonably useful to keep up on things this way. And I do "go play outside" enough.

I'm currently following 50 accounts. No journalists (i.e., no news accounts). I get enough new things to think about and gadgets to consider. Quick examples:

When there's an outage, Cloudflare Radar can be useful. When there's a traffic event, my US state's DOT can be useful. When there's a new release of OpenBSD: @OpenBSD.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#156

Post by ausbah »

antonymy wrote: post #144

Every time I think about how to improve Twitter I inevitably conclude the simplest solution that generates the most net good for the world is to remove it from the internet. This is true for virtually all social media, however. The way these networking sites are set up is practically an invitation to bad actors and social engineers to manipulate large swathes of society, or at best, simply exploit people for advertis…

I think if social media wasn't designed to be addictive it would be great. less feed curation, less infinite scrolling, etc.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#158

Post by petesergeant »

crazygringo wrote: post #132
petesergeant wrote: post #15

As someone from one of the many countries with a right/left/liberal split, I really don’t like that American politics conflates left and liberal together.

I'm very curious, but what does "liberal" mean in your context? What country are you in? I've tried googling but can't find anything related to a right-left-liberal distinction. But in case it helps explain, at least in America, "liberal" has the basic connotation of "individual equality". Originally this meant equality before the law, often called "classical liberalism" which both left and right generally endorse. B…

> what does "liberal" mean in your context? What country are you in?

I quite like the definitions here[0] honestly, and to quote from that:

> We believe markets are astonishingly good at creating wealth but less good at distributing that wealth. We support a market-based economy that promotes economic growth and nurtures innovation, while also supporting a safety net that shares the gains of that growth with everyone.

In the UK, I would contrast that with a left who are skeptical of free markets, and a right who are skeptical that anyone who doesn't accumulate wealth under free markets should be entitled to any.

Assuming you're American, and assuming my memory of their positions is correct, Elizabeth Warren is a liberal where Bernie is a leftist.

[0] https://cnliberalism.org/overview

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#159

Post by thepasswordis »

Here is an example of how insane twitter is: https://twitter.com/TristanSnell/status/1571629917372039168

This person, a "verified user", is claiming that this group of people is performing a "nazi salute". This claim has 20,000 likes, meaning it has influenced at least that many people.

The video is very obviously a group of people praying. This person is perpetuating the idea that there are mainstream American political candidates who are aligned with Nazis. This is so far beyond anything even remotely grounded in reality that it's actually difficult for me to imagine a scenario where the person making this claim isn't either literally experiencing mental health realated hallucinations, or is directly attacking the psyche of the people reading what he writes.

And yet: this person, tacitly endorsed by twitter, is pushing this insane paranoid delusion out into the world and having it massively amplified. Terrifying.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#160

Post by gnz11 »

tsol wrote: post #130
gonzo41 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good take on twitters effect on journalism. I was just thinking the other day about why journalists don't separate their work account and private accounts. I grew up in a time where you generally tried to keep your real identity to a minimum on platforms. Yet journalists seem to suffer from an identity fusion with their professional work, their personal views, and their ego all coming together under a singl…

I was thinking about going into journalism for a time and an ex- broadcaster teacher of mine connected me with a journalist to talk to. One of the biggest things, he said, about being a journalist nowadays is you need to build your own brand. Most journalists nowadays don't get hired as staff writers, they mostly work freelance. So in order to stay relevant and keep getting work, they need to develop a SM presence an…

Not really all that different from the software industry.
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