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Comment by robswc | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, I've largely stopped using twitter due to the incessant politics, pretty much what you described above but just in a different flavor. Ironically manipulating elections was one of those "incessant" topics, however it was all coming from a completely different crowd then (around when I left).

I also remember seeing a ton of racism against whites and (ironically) anti-semitic comments and conspiracies that would be alarmingly praised (likes and retweets) which I assume weren't really taken down if they were able to get thousands of impressions.

I like places like stack and HN because you're able to usually escape it... but its hard to find any social network that pretty much doesn't turn into an echo chamber of one side or the other.

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> pretty much what you described above but just in a different flavor

I'd love to see what part of twitter would be merely a different flavor to "Jews are secretly lizard people manipulating the elections". There's an important difference between the mere existence of an echo chamber and the contents of the chamber. Let's not "both sides" this when comparing to anti-semitism.

The part of twitter that believes the real Jews are of African descent would be a good example no? Antisemitism seems one of the few conspiracy theory topics that is prevalent on both sides of the political spectrum, though on the left it seems to mostly come from NOI types or Muslims who take antizionism a little too far.

BLM UK got in a lot of trouble for saying that discussion of antisemitism was being stifled in British politics, and it looks like they still have their twitter account. Nick Cannon looks like he still has his twitter account as well, though his comments were made on air iirc.

OP said:

> I've largely stopped using twitter due to the incessant politics, pretty much what you described above but just in a different flavor

I'm not saying there aren't crazy takes in many corners of Twitter, but OP made a very far reaching claim here that I can't imagine holding water from my experience. The examples you bring up seem pretty fringe at best and not representative of common activity on Twitter.

>a different flavor to "Jews are secretly lizard people manipulating the elections".

ahah, just a little funny because it literally is ironically "Jewish people keep us down because reasons" - admittedly, I don't know too much because I didn't get into it but its still just as absurd.

If you want just a taste, look at how much "support" Nick Cannon has on twitter.

I just typed on twitter "nick cannon fired" and like the 3rd tweet down: https://twitter.com/UGHKYNZ/status/1290516640925442048

Someone complaining he got fired for racism, then they literally just say "I hate white people"

this is the 5th tweet: https://twitter.com/answerasiaf/status/1295029696896409600

Thinks nick cannon got fired for "telling the truth" -- and what is that truth? Apparently it is "Jewish people, white people, Europeans" — “are a little less" and have a “deficiency” that historically caused them to act out of fear and commit acts of violence to survive."

It gets worse the more you go down the rabbit hole but I'd argue this is just as bad as the lizard people stuff because it is less outlandish, perhaps making it more "believable" for some.

If you really want, I can go through and find the tweets that had thousands of upvotes, defending the antisemitism and "discussing" how Jews control everything (especially sports and music).

>There's an important difference between the mere existence of an echo chamber and the contents of the chamber. Let's not "both sides" this when comparing to anti-semitism.

I can agree on this. The problem is the contents of the twitter echo chamber are pretty bad too and its only seems to have gotten worse.

I use Twitter quite a bit and there's no politics on it. Mostly AI stuff and the musings of my friends. Twitter only gives you stuff from people you follow and one level past.

Of course not using it is a good option but ultimately what you get from Twitter is what you put in.

>I use Twitter quite a bit and there's no politics on it.

Sure. It does depend on who you follow and if you choose to click on things so again it is my original sin to try to have productive conversations... so yes, if I choose to put myself in a bubble on twitter, I probably wouldn't see that stuff... but I tend to click on articles or discussions on any social media. I "try" to use it as intended.

Just look up "mayos" or "yts" or "white people" in the search bar and you'll instantly see racism.

Click any articles about start ups or business or billionaires that make their way to the "general population" of twitter and you'll see tons of hatred.

Sure, I don't want to convince you to use a tool or not use a tool because we each must make that decision for ourselves. If you would find yourself searching Twitter for "mayos", "yts", or "white people", then I can see why you don't enjoy it and I can see why you don't want to use Twitter. That's a very reasonable decision.

I just wanted you to have the information that there are certain ways to use the tool to get good SNR. If you decide that using the tool in those ways is not worth it to you, that would be reasonable as well and I won't try to convince you otherwise. If you already had that information, then it was just wasted effort on my part, which I'm willing to accept.

Perfectly understandable.

Nah I know I could get away with "unfollowing" certain people. I mean, eventually people will post new articles and I would click on them and be met with that vitriol. Mostly because I followed a lot of business related accounts and it seems like if any of those get picked up by the "general population" of twitter its open season on anyone that feels business/capitalism/startups aren't pure evil.

I do get your point though, it wasn't lost on me. I might give it another shot eventually.

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