Why I Quit Twitter and Left Behind 35,000 Followers | Hacker News Reader

Why I Quit Twitter and Left Behind 35,000 Followers

nytimes.com

22 pointsavolcano21 comments

Seems like an awful lot of the 'internet hate speech' cliches in one long article here. Talk about Bernie Bros, about right wing extremism, about Twitter not enforcing its rules, etc. All it needed were some calls to 'censor' the internet, and it'd have been perfect.

Not saying there aren't horrible people on Twitter and other social networks, and that personal attacks don't happen, but it's been a somewhat tired subject for articles recently and pushed like its the end of the world by the press.

I don't think we read the same piece. This one focused on the rampant anti-Semitism and racism that Twitter's been loath/unable to limit, contrary to its own TOS.

Anti-semitism and racist speech is free speech. Hate speech is free speech.

If we are going to censor "hate speech", then we would have to ban atheist speech for being hateful to the religious or pro-gay speech for being hateful to traditionalists. Is that the kind of world you want to live in? Considering how much power social media organizations have, do you really want such companies to control speech?

Rather than shutdown free speech, I'd rather the NYTimes be shut down.

This is completely non sequitur, with a contradictory closing flourish to boot.

I said this below but I'll say it again, race & ethnicity don't matter. This was anti-semetic because the author is jewish, just like it would be anti-muslim, pro feminism, anti-feminism ect. It's like the scene in fight club where they screen recruits. So declaring you are mad because people said mean things to you on the internet on a platform that is going through very public growing pains is stupid, boring and old. Godwin's law was frim bbs i think.

The point is that you dont feed trolls because thats what they want.

No, this was anti-Semitic regardless of the target, just as misogynistic insults hurled at me remain misogynistic (I identify as male). For that matter, there are plenty of people who consider accepting abuse on the internet to be passé. Maybe trolls do want people to get mad, and this counts as "feeding them," but trying to shine a light on the problem at least has the potential to make it clear those who have been bullied into submission that somebody cares. Being silent and ceding ground in the name of Don't Feed the Trolls normalizes these people's destructive behavior.

I thought it was just the beginning of the war on women seeing who she is associated with and the timing of her story.

the issue with defining hate is that it is a lot of times audience specific and to be honest, if you want your safe space the internet is the last place you will find it.

On another note, I found a more interesting comment about quitting Twitter from someone with a similar amount of followers that I used to follow on the site. They said they quit because it became an addition that took up more and more of their time and drove them to become a more and more negative person in general.

I'd say that would make a somewhat more interesting article to read about Twitter and why people might quit.

Note that if you're wondering, it was this video that had the comment about quitting Twitter (it's the first subject):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUBsueDMEAU

I understand his frustrations, but that's simply the way the internet is. A similar effect can be seen on Reddit - visit /r/worldnews and scroll through the comments on any article to see what I mean.

What I don't see is why this is worthy of an article on the NY Times. You left Twitter for various reasons, none of which are newsworthy.

Also, I don't understand how Bernie supporters are misogynists for criticizing Hillary.

I guess that he's talking about a particular type of Sanders follower who suffers from cognitive dissonance because many people choose Hillary over Bernie, and thusly reverts into misogyny.

> What I don't see is why this is worthy of an article on the NY Times. You left Twitter for various reasons, none of which are newsworthy.

Lets be honest here. It's newsworthy because a jew is affected. The writer is jewish and he mentions other jewish workers of the media industry. The jewish domination of media isn't a secret. They are used to controlling and forming propaganda/opinion/etc using the bully pulpit of established media organizations. But social media is less controllable and they are lashing out.

> Also, I don't understand how Bernie supporters are misogynists for criticizing Hillary.

Because the NYTimes and the media elite are pro-hilary. They have been spreading propaganda against sanders forever now. I stopped reading the NYTimes and listening to NPR months ago because of their constant and relentless propaganda.

It's a shame that these writers are slowly gaining traction on the internet with their appeal for more censorship and more control. It's funny how a writer for the NYTimes would stealthily advocate for more censorship and control.

Look, I don't want go victim blame and it is pretty difficult for me to conclude the fault was with the author. He didn't deserve to be treated that way because of his beliefs, cultural heritage, ect. However, this article is meta-example of how not to deal with this. First, it's the internet, so private anonymous people can effortlessly target you and repeatedly avoid bans. Intellectually though, I can't conclude there were real threats. This is why we don't feed trolls or negotiate with terrorists.

Sure twitter could curb free speech (even hate speech) but probably millions of tweets a day prove Godwin's law. You really should not take out a massive article in the times to tell them they won. You shouldn't leave a platform and stand aside for shit like this.

This article hurts twitter, and free speech while telling trolls that they won, in the The New York Times. So I am mad and blaming him for his reaction because now they have more incentive and everyone else is worse off. Some of these trolls are probably Jewish. They care about fucking with people in a low effort way. What the author has done here is garuntee they continue to say annoying shit on the internet. I love the internet, and it is filled with utter garbage, so it would be nice that after I wade through spam wordpress sites I didn't have to read an article praising them(that is how they see it).

Don't feed trolls. Put on the settings that only let certain people tweet at you, ect, and actually stand up for free speech because the press needs it more than ever. Twitter has shadowbanning functionality (or I remember Walt Mossberg mentioning something about that) on air.

The real reason this was shitty, is because there is a teenager, fellow journalist, ect. who is now dealing with these trolls because the root cause didn't go away.

I also don't see how NYT allowed him to post this. I'd assume there is a review process before something like this goes live. I mean, did nobody think that it might actually help trolls see that what they're doing is working?

"Bernie Bros"? seriously? stick with the solid story of racist twitter users threatening you with violence and you might get some sympathy...

I was hoping to read something more considered than "I can't take the harsh verbal repartee" perhaps along the lines of "hey Twitter is using my content to make money, I'd rather write a column for the NY Times and get paid for it- same negative comments but no character limit and plus I get paid!"

Anti-Semitism, racism, and other hate speech are not "harsh verbal repartée."

> "Bernie Bros"? seriously?

The NYTimes endorsed Hilary 6 months ago...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/opinion/sunday/hillary-cli...

TL;DR. NYTimes failing in its task to provide real, valuable journalistic information like that provided by The Intercept, TYT, Democracy Now, etc.

The kind of things he talks about here are the same kind of things that made me leave reddit, never to return. I haven't found issue with twitter really, but I guess when you get to that kind of renown things must get harder to avoid.

With articles like this one can see why all the social media companies and even Google put people in a "bubble". Twitter for the most part doesn't, and this sort of thing happens. Expect more bubbles, and to be isolated further from reality on the internet as time goes on.

People need to grow thicker skin. By quitting you basically demonstrated that hate speech works. You need to do the opposite, just ignore the haters and keep your followers happy.

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