The tyranny of the supertweeter • Hacker News Board

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#81

Post by spywaregorilla » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

crmd wrote: post #14

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.…

>finding a great source for a story is as easy as finding the right combination of search terms. This is the true poison in my opinion. Journalists can in seconds find random tweets stating any conceivable narrative they want to create, and then launder their personal opinions by pretending to "report" on "what sources are saying".

That being said, they always had this power. It just used to be selectively chosen on the ground interviews with random people. It was slower and much more expensive, but it was there.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#82

Post by samatman » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

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.…

This is an insult to the Mercator projection, which exists to provide an objective map of longitude to up and down.

The social graph of Twitter journalism is an ephemeron, it means only itself and maps to no other part of reality. This distorts in every direction it can, while giving no useful reference frame in return.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#83

Post by vorpalhex » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #60

crmd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>finding a great source for a story is as easy as finding the right combination of search terms. This is the true poison in my opinion. Journalists can in seconds find random tweets stating any conceivable narrative they want to create, and then launder their personal opinions by pretending to "report" on "what sources are saying".

> This is the true poison in my opinion. Journalists can in seconds find random tweets stating any conceivable narrative they want to create, and then launder their personal opinions by pretending to "report" on "what sources are saying". That... not remotely true. No one writes stories for major organizations based only on tweets[1]. Go pick up (figuratively) a newspaper and read the front page stories carefully, an…

NYTimes, front pages, sources from Twitter: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/business/media/russia-war...

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#84

Post by parasti » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

isaacfrond wrote: post #9

I'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…

I also take issue with the headline. "Tyranny" is when you have no choice. That is not the case with Twitter. First of all, there is the choice of using Twitter. Secondly, there is the choice of who to follow on Twitter. I would hazard a guess that "tyranny" is not a thing that most Twitter users experience on Twitter.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#85

Post by SamBam » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 2:29 PM UTC

thrown_22 wrote: post #78

mhneu wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the word liberal, which means something different for most Americans than its meaning in other countries. In Australia, the Liberal party is the conservatives who are allied with Murdoch. The word "neoliberal" is also a problem. It is used negatively and aimed at a broad swath of center-left to center-right. But in other countries, the people called "neoliberals" would be understood to be conservatives.…

[flagged]

This is a completely mistaken use of the word "neoliberal." Neoliberalism refers to a worldview that thinks in terms of market-oriented policies, global trade, privatization, etc. You thinking it has something to do with wokism or OK symbols is a perfect example of the word being used incorrectly.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#86

Post by thrown_22 » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

SamBam wrote: post #85

thrown_22 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is a completely mistaken use of the word "neoliberal." Neoliberalism refers to a worldview that thinks in terms of market-oriented policies, global trade, privatization, etc. You thinking it has something to do with wokism or OK symbols is a perfect example of the word being used incorrectly.

[flagged]

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#87

Post by yew » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #59

yew wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of them probably are effectively paid advertising teams. That doesn't really explain some of the people you used to get on forums though. Why pay someone to write 24/7 micro-serial "Transformers" fan-fiction?

Anyone who has been on the internet for awhile quickly realizes that the “all the posters I don’t like are paid shills” argument doesn’t hold up well at all. It’s often a cope - “my side/the good side would obviously be winning if it weren’t for these paid shills”. There are way too many true believers who are terminally online and you can find almost anything out there.

Eh. It can happen. I know someone who's paid to moderate [1] a "grassroots" brand subreddit. It's just that "you're not real" is easier to believe than "you genuinely think Donald Trump is the prophesied Jewish messiah." Barring conclusive evidence (which rarely [2]) people gravitate in one direction.

I'd guess it's a mix, with a little straight money, a lot of obsession, and a middling amount of compensated cat herding.

[1] The playbook being basically "discuss reasonable criticism, remove unreasonable criticism" ie "nobody talk too much about that battery fire, but don't make it look suspicious."

[2] "On the Internet, you know everybody who disagrees with you is a dog."

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#88

Post by andrew_ » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

jiggywiggy wrote: post #3

Twitter is one of the worst places I've ever visited. In general makes me feel bad after just reading 1 to 3 tweets. It thrives on snarkiness, rage, anger and outrage. Even though there are some gems in the mud. In this case it would be best to shut it down and start over.

The prolific "threads" that have supplanted blog posts are one of the worst aspects IMHO. The threads get engagement, and that's addictive, but it's a horrible way to consume information.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#89

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

spywaregorilla wrote: post #81

crmd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>finding a great source for a story is as easy as finding the right combination of search terms. This is the true poison in my opinion. Journalists can in seconds find random tweets stating any conceivable narrative they want to create, and then launder their personal opinions by pretending to "report" on "what sources are saying".

That being said, they always had this power. It just used to be selectively chosen on the ground interviews with random people. It was slower and much more expensive, but it was there.

Or service workers whom they'd be most likely to meet: taxi drivers, barkeepers, restaurant servers, hotel concierges, shoe-shiners, etc. Accessible, yes, and possibly with a fair exposure to at least a range of views/responses from others. But not entirely representative.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#90

Post by actionablefiber » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #50

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 not convinced these kind of semantic disputes matter. Non-Americans don't typically identify as "libertarian", but that doesn't make it hard to express or describe the idea of being pro-business and anti-regulation.

> being pro-business and anti-regulation

The word "liberal" means exactly that - showing preference and deference to private enterprise - in the overwhelming majority of the world, as it refers to economic liberalism.