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How Twitter poisoned politics

prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#21

Post by rubicon33 »

kibwen wrote: post #9

Part of me wonders if it's possible that there's just something about the nature of the internet that induces instability in otherwise-ordinary people. I think about photosensitive epilepsy and how it was a more-or-less benign feature of the human brain until technological progress caused flashing lights to be absolutely everywhere. I worry that I can't discount the possibility that some heretofore latent feature of…

Human beings are susceptible to "group think". If a large group of people are saying something, we're more likely to believe it, which means we are more likely to parrot it, which means the group of people that subscribe to that thought grows. It's a recursive cycle.

The internet has created the biggest connection of people the world has ever seen. It's no surprise that among the many who use it, there are a bunch that lack critical thinking, and tend to just subscribe to whatever group roughly matches their ideology. It's not long before theories like Hillary Clinton being a lizard can start to gain traction.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#22

Post by rrggrr »

Media criticism of Twitter is suspect. If the Weinstein case in the US has demonstrated anything, it is that news is itself a currency that can be traded, hoarded and deployed to accumulate and wield power. Twitter is one of several welcome checks and balances against that practice, with hopefully more to follow.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#23

Post by rayvy »

save_ferris wrote: post #11
paulsutter wrote: post #7

Whatever is broken is an opportunity to create something better. Problems wont cause a retreat to three TV networks. It wasn't long ago that we had Myspace, Friendster, and Geocities. The next 20 years will see a fascinating evolution in this space. Nobody should think that competition is over, or that these platforms have won. These issues should feel very exciting to folks in technology.

How does this mentality address the issue that Twitter and Facebook have evolved into what they are based largely on the capital incentives to grow as quickly as possible, be as opaque as possible, and gather as much consumer data as possible? Twitter still refuses to publicly state how many of its users are bots largely because it knows the financial implications for doing so. Facebook has released the bare minimum…

While I agree generally with what you're saying "We're screwed indefinitely until the incentives change", I like to remind myself that IBM was once one of the most dominating companies in the world. Yea, IBM (and my parents were children during this time). All companies come and go, literally all of them. In a few decades we (i.e., our descendants) will be looking back thinking how funny it is that we (i.e., us) ever got sucked into this so viciously.

I agree with the parent comment in that - Google and Facebook and the like have exposed some serious problems, that they can't fix (as they are financially incentivized not to fix them), so someone, someday will come along and eat their lunch? Who what when where and why? Your guess is as good as mine.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#24

Post by nbeleski »

I am of the opinion that in a couple of decades we will look back at all these social networks and find that they caused a lot of problems, in social and personal levels.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, even Linkedin, do they really bring more benefits than detriments? I personally don't think so.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#25

Post by maxxxxx »

kibwen wrote: post #9

Part of me wonders if it's possible that there's just something about the nature of the internet that induces instability in otherwise-ordinary people. I think about photosensitive epilepsy and how it was a more-or-less benign feature of the human brain until technological progress caused flashing lights to be absolutely everywhere. I worry that I can't discount the possibility that some heretofore latent feature of…

I think the internet just makes craziness possible on a much larger scale. It's much easier for manipulators to spread false information to a large number of people. Previously it wasn't that easy to enrage millions of people.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#26

Post by dvtrn »

brightball wrote: post #19

From the moment that news outlets started reporting on things said on Twitter years ago, I assumed this would happen. With enough bots, you gain the ability to create any narrative you want. Create story, then create the image that you want the supporters of one side to have, followed by the image for the other side. Use bots and retweets to amplify. You gain the power to define what's happening culturally if the new…

The only recourse is to treat Twitter just like any other message board...and ignore it.

The cynic in me says this will never happen for the same reason Twitter even made it into the mainstream in the first place: star power.

As long as celebs roost on twitter, the press not be will be right behind to gather the fallen feathers.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#27

Post by r3bl »

burlesona wrote: post #10
jonesdc wrote: post #3

This took incredibly long to load on Chrome mobile

Looks like their page is down.

As far as I can tell, it's only three paragraphs with no actual substance. I wasn't able to get the cached version of it, so here's a dump:

> At 3.12pm on 20th November 2014, Emily Thornberry hit tweet. The Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, then serving as Shadow Attorney General, posted a photograph of a house in Kent, decked with three flags bearing the St George’s Cross. Her caption? “Image from #Rochester.” At 6.15pm she tweeted again, apologising for “any offence caused by the three flag picture,” adding that “people should fly the England flag with pride!” By 10.30pm she had resigned from the front bench.

> The political autopsy lasted days, focusing largely on the question of whether Thornberry had opened a window on to metropolitan Labour’s cultural alienation from—and perhaps even contempt for—working-class voters in small towns. But looking back, the significance of that episode is not as a snapshot of political turbulence, but as a development in the process that turns turbulence into news. What stands out is the medium, not the message. In autumn 2014, Twitter was already a recreational habit for Britain’s political class. But “Image from #Rochester” marked a watershed moment for the social media website. Without the super-accelerated online frenzy, there was no story.

> Four years later, the Twitterstorm is not only routine, it is the qualifying benchmark for newsworthy controversy. Anyone who doesn’t squander hours every day on the platform might be baffled as to why its name occurs with such frequency in news bulletins. A majority of UK voters still do not have a Twitter account. Yet the site’s impact in Westminster and on the way politics works is real and exceptional, not because of how many people use it, but because of who they are—politicians, their devotees and the journalists supposed to be holding them to account.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#28

Post by savanaly »

burlesona wrote: post #15
kibwen wrote: post #9

Part of me wonders if it's possible that there's just something about the nature of the internet that induces instability in otherwise-ordinary people. I think about photosensitive epilepsy and how it was a more-or-less benign feature of the human brain until technological progress caused flashing lights to be absolutely everywhere. I worry that I can't discount the possibility that some heretofore latent feature of…

I'd just call it "road rage." There's some research into this and my high-level understanding is that when people feel "safe inside their armor" - whether that's the metal of the car or the semi-anonymity of the internet, their animal instincts come out. It's fueled from both directions. In a tweet you don't really have context or body language or any of the other signals to tell you how someone means their message t…

Huh, that's interesting because introspection tells me it's the opposite for me. When I'm in my safe zone is when I can comfortably be rational and calm almost all the time. If I ever said something rash or that I didn't mean it would probably be when someone engages me and makes me feel uncomfortable in real life, never over the internet.

Re: How Twitter poisoned politics

#30

Post by WillPostForFood »

burlesona wrote: post #15
kibwen wrote: post #9

Part of me wonders if it's possible that there's just something about the nature of the internet that induces instability in otherwise-ordinary people. I think about photosensitive epilepsy and how it was a more-or-less benign feature of the human brain until technological progress caused flashing lights to be absolutely everywhere. I worry that I can't discount the possibility that some heretofore latent feature of…

I'd just call it "road rage." There's some research into this and my high-level understanding is that when people feel "safe inside their armor" - whether that's the metal of the car or the semi-anonymity of the internet, their animal instincts come out. It's fueled from both directions. In a tweet you don't really have context or body language or any of the other signals to tell you how someone means their message t…

It is what you are saying, and exacerbated by the huge gap in power and control between elites/politicians and the average person. You have CEOs and politicians making decisions that ruin people's lives. With Twitter, people are suddenly put at the same level where they can speak back to power, directly and angrily.
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