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.
That's because the "actual" left was dormant or in small numbers until a decade ago
The tyranny of the supertweeter
31–40 of 259 posts
Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter
#32As 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.
No post body was provided.
Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter
#33I 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.
Agree here. For example I used to follow Scott Hanselman of Microsoft on there as he has some interesting tech material but it was constantly blended in with his far left views so I quit. I follow tech folks for the interesting tech opinions they have. Their expertise or thoughts on politics are about as important to me as my 10 year old neighbor’s.
Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter
#34A classic on this topic, more general: Most of Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People [1]. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...
I know the article doesn't literally mean "insane" as in mental illness, but it reminded me of something that happened long ago and its implications for the internet. My buddy and I were watching a news show and it had a number to call in and "leave your opinion" - super common back in the 90's. Well, we called and it was a voicemail box. You guess what happened next, but we correctly guessed the admin code and could…
You don't even need serious mental illness. Just the desire to have someone listen because you are discontent but otherwise sane.
Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter
#35Is it only me perceiving that people is growing aware of the disadvantages of twitter, or at least its frequent use?
Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter
#36The 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.…
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 single persona on twitter. I won't name any person in particular but there are some big names out there who are just off the rails crazy these days.
Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter
#37No post body was provided.
Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter
#38"Though only around 30% of Twitter users identify as "Liberal" or "Extremely liberal", those users are evidently responsible for around 60% of tweets."
Conservatives are less likely to self-report as conservative. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Tory_factor
Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter
#39Pretty much anything in here applies to journalism as well. We see bias in all outlets. Nobody reports on the mundane day to day, only the exceptional events. This leads to a skewed view of the world, even if they leave other biases out of it. There's also group-think where every network is carrying 90%+ of the same story (even if the takes are polar opposite).
I wouldn't call any of this tyranny, as an educated public should understand and see through the biases. It's a poor model given the realities though.
Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter
#40I've admittedly only scanned the article. But apart from a lot of statistics, where is the headline question answered? Neither tyranny nor supertweeter occur anywhere in the article. Is this the tyranny of needing a clickbaity title otherwise no one will read it? I mean it starts off with Twitter is not like real life. Then proves with a lot of statistics that actually, it is like real life. Especially if you are jou…
The article section "The Point"[0] seems to have your answer.
It is a giant echo chamber of very few, where the media buys in to the echo as "everyone" and reverberate outside of the chamber as the truth.