Everyone’s offended these days

This is a complete misunderstanding of what that quote from Stephen Fry is saying. Of course people get offended. Everyone get offended all the time! So what? He's doing exactly the right thing: He isn't having fun using Twitter, so he stops using it. He's not claiming that getting offended is somehow beneath him, he's saying that getting offended is no big deal.

It's everyone else who is making a big deal out of him leaving Twitter, which (again) kind of proves his original point. Stephen Fry leaves Twitter. Well, so fucking what.

I think this is a property of the way voting/distribution work on some sites, but not others. On Twitter or Tumblr, if you want to reply to something, you have to increase its visibility in the process. So if something is really wrong and everyone wants to correct it, it creates these horrible positive-feedback spirals where mass-outrage explodes out of nothing. This doesn't happen on Hacker News, partly because the churn of top-level posts cuts off discussions before they can go too far off the rails, and partly because there's a downvote button which makes things less visible. So people reading comments see mostly positive examples (things that were upvoted), which influences the culture, which in turn makes the comments they write better.

Which is not to say that there's no outrage here. But it tends to be a better sort of outrage, expressed by providing context and explaining what's wrong and what ought to be done.

There's a bit of nuance needed re: the paragraphs near the start. Offended people tend to expect others to cater to them. Stephen doesn't; he's simply explaining why people are wrong: for treating "I'm offended" as something that should be pandered to. That isn't the same.

The author seems to be suggesting that because everyone thinks their behavior is universal and objective, one cannot justifiably make this claim, and that every objective thrust must necessarily have emotional underpinnings. Maybe; but Fry never tries to invalidate others' feelings. Those offended tend to.

For those that didn't read the article, I think the crux of it is here:

> The subtext here is that cretinism is acceptable, but being a target is not. If you’re a total dick who only uses the Internet to seek out strangers and ruin their day for kicks, you are absolutely welcome. If you happen to be one such sought-out person, there’s the door. What kind of reasoning is that, and what kind of society does anyone think it’s going to create?

It's almost a call for more putting the blame in the right place, given that Twitter's sheer volume can take a grumble from an off-color joke at a party and multiply it by a thousand fold into something much harder to bear.

Whether the solution is technical or social, it seems like a real problem to me. We haven't had the ability to unify with similar voices in large numbers so quickly before. It should be unsurprising that when we do so for the first time we're a bit indiscriminate and heavy-handed with the power.

That tendency to react to other people's opinions and to be easily offended is a behaviour that is most prominent in the Anglo-Saxon world (and North America in particular) where defense groups and lobbies are powerful. I'm not commenting on whether or not that kind of policing is actually good or not, just that this is not "everyone", just "Some people in the Anglo-Saxon world, especially the United States".

EDIT: I live in France and I have never observed that kind of behaviour in the Latin world or Eastern Europe for example. Most of the time when someone would say something "offensive" that doesn't directly impact the people in the room, the reaction goes along the lines of "Well, that's your opinion, whatever" or some form of polite debate.

The tsunami analogy was quite eye-opening for me. It puts things into perspective. It's easy to look at an individual drop and say: "this is nothing!"

Anyhow, it's a shame that it looks like only half the comments here are from people who read the article instead of just jumping to conclusions.

"None of our platforms are built to deal with it" is a false equivalence. The same social factors exist on every platform, but somehow you don't get the same outrage-storms on other platforms, only Twitter and Tumblr.

I don't suggest people who find themselves offended quit the Internet. But I do suggest that they, and everyone else, quit Twitter. You'll find you're much happier for it.

It's pretty interesting that the people complaining about people being offended too often are so easily "triggered" by other people being offended.

I've been noticing this a lot lately, even on HN. Someone will mention equality or fairness and there will be a whole slew of people complaining about how people are too sensitive now-a-days. In reality, those complainers are being overly sensitive themselves.

> The subtext here is that cretinism is acceptable, but being a target is not.

> If you’re a total dick who only uses the Internet to seek out strangers and ruin their day for kicks, you are absolutely welcome. If you happen to be one such sought-out person, there’s the door.

Sums it up perfectly.

> who cares? It’s just some noise. No one is going to have an existential crisis over it; we’re all surrounded by each other, a network of people whose very presence demonstrates that of course Python doesn’t suck. That person has negligible influence here.

> Now, you’re the only Python developer at a Haskell conference. You go to a talk, and one slide makes a joke at Python’s expense. The entire room laughs. Suddenly you feel much smaller, maybe embarrassed, maybe annoyed. It was still only one person making one joke, but that person clearly had more influence here

I'm not sure what the author is trying to accomplish here. Maybe they thought they were "pandering to the audience." But I found this metaphor to be inappropriate, poorly formed, and implicitly draws a comparison between 1st world technical choices and actual harassment.

While we can respect other people's feelings, at some point we have to draw a line and say, "This is something where you may be able to brush it off, since it's basically an arbitrary choice you made that you could unmake at any time." As opposed to the deeply-rooted and often immutable nature of subjects that are axis of discrimination elsewhere, such as someone's race or personal gender identity.

Either this author has so little respect for their audience that they think this metaphor will actually speak to the average and intended reader (in which case, wow... you genuinely think I'm stupid), or they genuinely believe that these sorts of things are in a similar category.

Either way, I get a really bad feeling from it.

At best, this author is misinterpreting Stephen's intent. At worst, it's an attempt to offendedly spin Stephen's post in exactly the way he described.

author of this article, has no idea of comparison. Some people who are offended, gather the torches and try to get somebody fired for having a different opinion. Stephen Fry is doing exactly what people who don't like a conversation should do, leave. As much as we can connect the digital world as real, kids should not be stressed or committing suicide over facebook. And race relations aren't going to be solved over twitter. Best to disconnect and take care of things one can control.

There's a mismatch in scale: the number and diversity of members on platforms like Twitter is huge, but the ability to moderate is tiny. It would be interesting to see if a system could detect the dogpile effect, by looking at common phrases, checking if many users messaging one user all follow a common user, etc. and offer some sort of temporary relief until a controversy dies down. On the other hand, that's not actually solving the root of the problem.

Well, the author's suggestion that everything is fine, trolls can be ignored and Fry is somehow hypocritical with being fed up with trolls and offended people is really something that I cannot agree with. Twitter, by its very own format, encourages the worst in the human behaviour. Those who shout loudest get the most visibility, and it has the very real potential to destroy lives and encourage mob justice which is just the worst. Remember this girl who tweeted a joke that she hope's she doesn't get HIV when going to Africa, and was absolutely DESTROYED by twitter, sent death threats and had her personal information published on the internet? This is what Fry meant when he said that the pond is full of scum.

Article makes some good points, but then rolls into an increasingly common "nerd" talking point that completely undercuts the point:

"It’s fine that no one cares about whatever dorky thing you’re into, but wow why would you make fun of the sacred and hallowed Super Bowl, which is so important to so many people, how could you be so inconsiderate"

and the strawman couldn't be more blatant absent some flame emoji.

Now, she didn't reference the tweets which provided the supposed context, but everyone's probably heard the "Ha ha, sportsball!" jokes from people who don't enjoy athletics. The problem isn't that people are making jokes about the popularity of sports, it's that the joke really isn't funny. Instead, it perpetuates the behavior the author claims to oppose — rather than be pleasant with one another and take at least a conversational interest in what someone's saying...let's be inconsiderate and vitriolic about one another's hobbies! This is wrong whether said hobby is football or League cosplay.

"I don’t think too many people are wanting for someone who’ll listen to them talk about football."

The strawman continues with vague references to undefined populations that strip people of their individuality. They're all rude sports bros, while we're enlightened board gamers.

"Yet I haven’t seen any comics and snarky jokes suggesting that sports fans listen to their friends rave about Warhammer.

Must not have been paying too much attention. Here ya go, guy is a pretty popular standup who notoriously loves nerds, hates sports, and has a show discussing internet culture with three comedians every weeknight(!). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hardwick

At this point, you may be asking. Wait — this started about Stephen Fry and Twitter...why are we now talking about nerds vs sports? I'd ask the same thing of the author. The section is poorly though-out and explains nothing about power dynamics; Was hatred of one another's interest the most appropriate horse to hitch the "serious discussion of Twitter mobs" wagon to?

I take an opposing view, and not because of any love for Fry.

OP of TFA says, "I love Stephen Fry, really I do".

I am someone who loathes Stephen Fry, with his pseudo-intellectual wittering, his incorrect presumption of understanding of technical matters, and his flippant arrogance. He has been described as "a stupid person's idea of a clever person", something I wouldn't disagree with.

Watching him stupidly misinform viewers of Qi about how GPS works is one thing. Reading him butcher the history of Dr Gary Kildall is another. I'd argue the latter could reasonably be said to be "offensive" to most of the HN crowd.

With that said, I don't think Fry's wrong on this.

Twitter (and Tumblr) have become a hive for the professionally and vicariously offended. From the de-verifying of Milo Yiannopoulos, to this case which resulted in Fry sulking off Twitter yet again, Twitter especially seems to have it institutionally ingrained.

The bag lady remark was not unreasonable, nor mean-spirited. Nor was it taken as such by the lady in question.

If you don't like Twitter, you can log the heck off. One is not forced to use Twitter, certainly not with one's own real-world identity. If you don't like it, you can say so, take a bow, and take your 120 characters elsewhere. As Fry has done.

Twitter and Facebook are not the bastions of Free Speech they might claim to be, but they do host proponents of both sides of most debates. If you say something unpopular or something divisive, rightly or wrongly, you risk taking flack.

But a boatload of people calling you a dick on Twitter is not the equivalent of people throwing bricks through your window. Some people just need to get a perspective.

Free speech is a double-edged sword. It is, however, required for freedom, liberty, democracy, real equality and progress. Part of that is accepting people are going to say stuff that you personally don't like.

A lot of people will disagree with my views on Fry. He is effectively a British institution at this point. And that's fine. They can happily complain bitterly about my characterization of him, although the number people would actually care about what I say is probably rather small. That's all fine. That's free speech. And I'm sure we all agree free speech is preferable to the alternative.

For those who don't want to comb through the article, the TL;DR seems to be:

"Criticism of bad behavior is good and necessary, but it far too easily spirals into a howling typhoon of nonstop vitriol and hate that's difficult for the target to deal with, especially if they're not rich/powerful."

Still I'd recommend reading, it's not as long as it looks.

While it's true that "A) I'm offended, change yourself to accomodate me" and "B) I'm offended, so I'm going to leave" are both forms of offence, it seems pretty dishonest to say "A and B are equal, you're a hypocrite to complain about A while doing B" :/

I always wondered why people who take offense at what someone else says make such a big deal of it.

Tell 'em you don't like X, block 'em, and boom, you're done. No need to make 15btweets explaining just how much you hate [Scapegoat off the week here].

Egalitarianism is dead, most opinions aren't worth hearing.

Democracy is dead, once shared common culture is destroyed the polis turns into a rampaging destructive mob.

So the people pushing this, not the foot soldiers but the people at the top, whats their angle, their logical next step? My guess is authoritarianism, mass censorship, a return to some kind of monarchy. Or maybe they just like watching the world burn. Or they think 1984/BNW/AF are instruction manuals not dystopias. I suppose for the ruling classes, those books ARE utopias. We seem very comfortable with those folks being the only people with money; perhaps its time for us to give them all our civil rights too.

Divide and conqueror... people pay too much attention to the former and forget the purpose of all the drama is the latter.

Is Fry leaving bc of the PC culture or bc of all the mean things trolls say about him? This may be obvious but I don't know Fry or his circumstances.

well there is no shortage of those who want to see the world burn and there is still a lot of anonymity in many of these tools. so the sycophants that join in the attacks are pretty insulated from responsibility for their actions while the higher profile instigators can pass off responsibility as well.

a common method that works in politics as well. leaders don't need to ask for those who support them to cross the line because they know there will be those who will and they derive benefit from their actions all the while decrying them.

social media is just the back room games of mover and shakers out in the open. the same rules but just more visible

My safe space has bully proof windows. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U

offended by others taking offence

Because we live in an age where real morals have been lost sight of, since deterministic faith in the correctness of any authority has been lost sight of ( thanks, Post Modernism ! ), people are scrambling to fabricate the authority of whatever they can grab nearest them ( since we all need a compass, even if it's just a finger drawing in the sand ) -- so it works to be prepared that you live in a world where someone else's subjective interpretation of their own offence taken at whatever they select, and the fallacy they delude themselves with that such offence makes them a fake victim of some fabricated "wrong", which they make to therefore mean that they are "right", does, they believe, afford them, what passes for moral value, these days. And, mostly, this incorrect belief, passes the smell test, and "seems legit", in contemporary discourse. As long as you claim you have been offended, you are fucking-completely-morally-right, so long as you can own the narrative on why you're a bigger victim than any other contenders for the crown of self-appointed righteous one. Welcome to the Age of the Biggest Fake Victim. Of course, the real evil starts when these self proclaimed victims use their self-anointed righteous status ( face-painted on themselves in the authority-skeptical moral vacuum of the present ), to pretend to justify whatever ways they try to harm others. Wait, are we talking about terrorists who pretend they are full fake-justified, because, of course, they are victims of the West's oppression -- or were we talking about just some fake-left liberal arts student at Cornell who's claiming to have been permanently damaged by whatever "offensive" idea their professor happened to raise in class? Or is that propensity to anoint the self proclaimed "offended fake victim" the status of "moral mother superior" really the same evil unworkable force behind both of these apparitions? You decide, dear reader. #CoddlingOfTheAmericanMind, #FakeVictimClaimingAbusesRealVictims

-- I value my tiny little accumulation of rep here. Please don't down vote unless you really, really thought it through and mean it. And if in any way you agree, upvote, you know...to protect me. ;)

Didn't read, but this offends me.

Are people actually deeply offended by things they read on the interest? Or are people looking for reasons to be "offended"? Because the latter seems far more often the case.