The latest campus cancellation is different
theatlantic.com
The latest campus cancellation is different
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Re: The latest campus cancellation is different
#2This article reads like it is trying to cancel the cancellers, somewhat ironically! Very hard to not become the thing you hate when you get tangled up in this stuff.
Re: The latest campus cancellation is different
#3How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob.
Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.
Re: The latest campus cancellation is different
#4How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.
You know Twitter is not a real place right?
Re: The latest campus cancellation is different
#5Twitter is a massive echo-chamber, reinforcing their belief in themselves and most people believe them because the internet-oligarchy hides and censors different outlooks on society (not that I necessarily agree with those outlooks, but still).
Best example: All of the twitter-mob was hyping themselves up about the german election, the young generation being all green, all "Generation Greta" as some called it. There was no way that anyone except the greens would get ALL the votes of ALL young or first -voters. Except reality hit and they found out that an equal percentage voted for economic liberalism and less state instead of state intervention and illiberal politics. Somehow, the calls of the left for lowering the voting age have been conspicously absent since then...
Re: The latest campus cancellation is different
#6How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.
> How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs?
Stop listening to them?
EDIT: That's especially effective since the Twitter mobs keep moving targets every couple of weeks anyway. They don't have any patience.
Re: The latest campus cancellation is different
#7How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.
You know Twitter is not a real place right?
Well, we might know, but the people in charge choose to ignore it. Shitstorms only have power because the people in power believe they have.
Re: The latest campus cancellation is different
#8How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.
This is a free speech context right so surely the answer is to convince the mobs that this current approach is counter-productive?
Edit: I’m also unsure if this was caused by people on Twitter or staff and students at MIT who are also on Twitter. It seems like the latter is more correct and the Twitter side of things might be a red herring.
Re: The latest campus cancellation is different
#9This article reads like it is trying to cancel the cancellers, somewhat ironically! Very hard to not become the thing you hate when you get tangled up in this stuff.
Didn’t come across that way at all to me. I read it as general concern at the suppression of ideas. There was no call to action to ban Twitter hashtags or forfeit MIT.
Re: The latest campus cancellation is different
#10This article reads like it is trying to cancel the cancellers, somewhat ironically! Very hard to not become the thing you hate when you get tangled up in this stuff.
The author is head of something he calls "Persuasion." Not everyone is impressed.
https://newrepublic.com/article/158401/problem-yascha-mounks...
It's free speech 101 - you can say what you like (as long as you're not inciting crime or violence.) But no one owes you a pulpit.
I have far more of a problem with mob farming and Twitter incitement: see also anti-vaxing, organised climate change denial, and political rabble rousing.
Because those are covert rather than free - pretending to be independent and organic while actually being centralised and astroturfed.