Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds” • Hacker News Board

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#91

Post by SuoDuanDao » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #77

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly is pointing out someone's hypocrisy not a legitimate way to discredit them?

"You don't live up to your own argument!" is an attack on the person, not the argument -- a form of ad hominem . Just because someone doesn't take their own advice doesn't mean that the advice itself is unsound. As the old saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

How is it not a reflection on the argument? If I say something is good advice but don't follow it, I clearly don't believe it myself in every respect. That seems highly relevant.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#92

Post by dvtrn » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #57

Reedx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's conflating the actions of trolls with people that were critical of activists. Those are not at all the same thing. The former is NOT ok, the latter is ok and should result in healthy debate. But because Twitter doesn't like nuance, those get collapsed into a single, simple and most outrage-inducing format. A black & white hero/villain narrative. Which also avoids having to deal with any critiques, regardless o…

That ambiguity was a deliberate strategy of Gamergate (and still is a deliberate strategy even today of those with similar disposition).

Is it truly possible to know if this was a deliberate strategy of Gamergate? I’ve heard this statement before and when I try to politely challenge it...the results aren’t as kind in return.

Hoping that isn’t the case here, because I am perhaps inappropriately curious if an answer exists.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#93

Post by iamdelirium » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

davesmith1983 wrote: post #79

pjc50 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamergate was a harassment movement aimed at women in videogames that had some very smart people thinking of justifications and excuses to protect it in public.

No it wasn't. I actually looked into the whole saga as I kept on hearing about it (back in 2015ish). From what I could gleen there were some individual women that said disparaging remarks about a whole group of individuals and were surprised when they got push back from the rest of the community which btw included women. I've noticed more generally that one person will say something quite rude about a whole group of…

Then you didn't look at it that deep because it's generally agreed that what started the saga was a jilted boyfriend of a woman who created a video game accused a publication of giving her game a favorable review because the reviewer slept with her.

The entire accusation is bunk because it wasn't even the person accused of that didn't even review the game.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#94

Post by austincheney » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

Retweet is like gossip but easier. There are people who are wired to enjoy gossiping. They can have this stupidity.

On the other hand I prefer to avoid Twitter all together and get my news from actual journalism.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#95

Post by brokenkebab » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

There seem to be a growing idea in Silicon Valley minds that we (IT crowd, devs, techies, managers) are in fact great! Way smarter then those stupid peons around us which use our products. So logically we have a mission to bring those unwashed morons to the bright side, and we must manipulate them for their own good.

While it's certainly pleasant illusion for us, there are two glowing problems:

1. We are not necessary better (neither morally, nor intellectually) then other people, it's just a current importance of IT economy which makes us a bit more successful, and and sometimes gives us some sort of influence.

2. There's an empirical evidence of activist journalism which suggests the only achievable result on this way is loss of respect, and growing animosity.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#96

Post by creaghpatr » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #46

azinman2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that lowering friction to perform an action has caused an exponential increase in its usage... and it’s so associated with cognitive bias and impulsive thinking that it’s allowed a lot of false information to spread quickly. I say let people go back to the manual RT

Was there really that big of a different between “via @user” and “RT” and the retweet button?

Psychologically speaking, I always felt the original RT kind of forced the RTer to put the words into their own mouth.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#97

Post by krajzeg » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #74

Reading through some of the comments here, it occurs to me that there's a moral trilemma at play here: you can have power , you can have righteousness , or you can have impartiality , but you must pick 2 out of 3. If you bring something new into the world that gives new voice or new capabilities to previously disenfranchised groups, then you have a choice between explicitly selecting who you bestow this power on (in…

"Choose two out of three" triangles are sexy, but I fail to see how this applies here. Doing nothing doesn't really mean choosing to be impartial and righteous at the same time, and there is no way to both moderate and be impartial if you actually run a platform.

I see it as every platform being able to choose a point on a sliding scale between enforcing its morality and being impartial. The more moderation you do, the less impartial you are, sure - but nobody actually wants the extremes of this scale.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#98

Post by smogcutter » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

gavanwoolery wrote: post #37

There is a much larger problem here than RTs, and that is lack of journalistic integrity. You can spread pretty much any sort of information without research or even a logical basis. Weirdly, we tend to default to accepting it as valid rather than questioning it. The only realistic cure for this, outside of draconian authority, is to teach people how to be more skeptical and educate them on logical fallacies. These a…

So I don't remember this well enough to find a link, but some time ago there was a viral clip of someone tripping on the subway steps in NY. They drop all their stuff, look like a dork, everyone's fine, whatever. But then someone takes a longer look at security camera footage from the station (or someone independent sets up a camera, I forget), and finds that lots of people trip on that particular step. Turns out it's slightly taller than the others, so it's easy to catch your foot on it.

One possible solution is to convince everyone individually to pay really close attention to their feet all the time. Or you could fix the steps.

No one had to go around and convince people to be shitty to each other on the internet. A structural change made it easier and more rewarding, and our dumb monkey brains went wild. If your solution is to change the dumb monkey brain part and not the structural part, you're gonna have a bad time.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#99

Post by Frondo » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #57

Reedx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's conflating the actions of trolls with people that were critical of activists. Those are not at all the same thing. The former is NOT ok, the latter is ok and should result in healthy debate. But because Twitter doesn't like nuance, those get collapsed into a single, simple and most outrage-inducing format. A black & white hero/villain narrative. Which also avoids having to deal with any critiques, regardless o…

That ambiguity was a deliberate strategy of Gamergate (and still is a deliberate strategy even today of those with similar disposition).

It's not just gamergate that uses that ambiguity -- think of how the "okay" symbol ("o" formed with thumb and first finger, remaining three extended upward) has been repurposed as a white power gesture; all of the group photos of proud boys and other white supremacist groups now have them all holding up that distinctive "okay" hand gesture, because it's a call out to their values and to the people that share them.

But when the 4channers were first starting to use it this way, it could be dismissed as "what, it's just an okay symbol"...

The ambiguity ("it's just a joke, it's just this, it's just that") is part of their discourse.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#100

Post by bjt2n3904 » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

For a long time, I've made the argument that the First and Second Amendments of the US Constitution are indistinguishable from each other.

Previously, when the government was attacking encryption, I made the argument that this was gun control for software. "What you have is too powerful. No one needs 'military grade' encryption. Some people are misusing it, and we need the government to control it. No one's coming for your encryption, we just want key escrow." Of course, encryption is not only a protection for banking, it's a protection for free speech.

I agree that words can be a "weapon"--but in the same way that a scalpel can be a weapon. It depends how you use it. It's frightening that people are now starting to apply the "gun control" thought process to "retweets".

Before anyone jumps down my throat with "but Twitter isn't bound by the constitution", no duh. But regardless whether it's a company or a government, hearing someone with a lot of power advocate for suppressing freedom of expression isn't a great thing.

Whatever happened to the "Free Speech Wing" of the "Free Speech Party"?