Comment by derekbreden | Hacker News Reader

Comment by derekbreden | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotally, I’ve paid to promote a number of tweets over the last few years, and have consistently found that there is a certain percentage of users that are apparently retweeting absolutely everything in their feed. My content is niche, and usually has a very small audience, and so these “blind retweeters” stick out like a sore thumb when I look into who does anything with my tweet.

The behavior I’ve observed is consistent with the article, in that the timings of their flood of retweets could very well indicate a real human pressing the buttons, and I suspect they are. And, it does not surprise me that when looking at the long tail of the most absurd fake news that has a small audience on an individual tweet level, that one would find the majority of the retweets for such obvious fakeness is coming from such blind retweeters.

The effect overall is that whatever bubble such users are in gets amplified a bit, absurdity and all, though I’m skeptical they play any role at all in what becomes truly popular.

The real problem is far more nuanced with the less obvious fake news that even those not tapping blindly are taken in by, the less obvious fake news that gets a large audience because a lot of people find it believable, hoaxes that persist in the collective unconscious long after their time in the spotlight has faded, regardless of any debunking or fact checking that played a role in its popularity dying out.

I think the effect of these super spreaders repeating complete nonsense is minuscule compared to the effect of organically popular almost reasonable nonsense that truly goes mainstream.

I was recently reminded of the 1/9/90 rule :

The so-called 1/9/90 rule posits that on a social media network or review site, only 1 percent of users will actively create content. Another 9 percent, the editors, will participate by commenting, rating or sharing the content. The other 90 percent watch, look and read without responding.

This is my experience as well. So also true on HN, where are majority are just lurkers. (Hi there lurkers, good time to get an account! ;)

I think if you are lurking you far more likely to just consume something without actively giving it a second thought. I think of the adagio that to really know something, you have to teach it (or being able to explain at least) and that doesn’t happen in passivity. It happens in dialogue.

Likely more like 0.1 or even 0.01%, same with editors.

> I think of the adagio

I think you meant 'adage'. 'adagio' is a slow musical tempo, which left me confused for a while :)

I kind of like thinking about those two words set against each other, though!

Sounds like “adagio” is a contraction of “ad agio” as in “at leisure” in Italian, while the usual references suggest that “adage” might have a couple possible derivations. The main one being that it comes through French from the Latin “ad” + a form of “aio,” or “I say,” so in the straightforward sense “a saying”; another etymlogy positing a root in “adigo” as in “drive, force.” [0]

[0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/adage

I meant adage, I listened to classical music recently (more than usual)

:)

Thank you for the correction!

> I think if you are lurking you far more likely to just consume something without actively giving it a second thought.

Or you've learnt the hard way that voicing your opinion leads to getting invested in your viewpoint (and worthless internet points) and more time, energy and emotion spent on social media, whereas "passively" consuming you can just walk away from any silly argument that you weren't even trying to start, without it staying with you the rest of the night.

Sometimes yes. It depends on how sincere or good faith a comment is, or the general atmosphere of a platform. While having lengthy discussions on HN is pretty much impossible, I still feel lots of people are showing willingness of entertaining “curious conversations”

I do think you highlight a certain skill thats advantageous to have , like knowing when something is indeed a silly argument or lost cause of an emotional drain.

> While having lengthy discussions on HN is pretty much impossible

It doesn't happen often, requiring effort from all sides, but I've found the 3rd day is about when a superannuated HN discussion starts getting interesting.

(but some email threads I'm in have lasted for years, so YMMV)

Ah so it’s about growing up then?

> It happens in dialogue.

I think it’s a fundamental flaw to assume that anything on SoMe is actual dialogue.

Take our exchange here as an example. You may never read my reply, you may never respond to it and if you do I may never read it. On top of that, we will probably never talk again and we certainly won’t remember each other.

So what is really happening isn’t really dialogue. It’s talking into the vast nothingness for a shot of dopamine or whatever our brains use to reward voicing our opinion. Maybe it started with dialogue long ago, when online communities were smaller and you’d actually talk with the same people every day. But in 2024 I might as well have written this reply on my notes app where no one would ever read it.

Twitter especially is the modern version of standing on a box in Hyde park, screaming nonsense at passers by. Some of them will tell their friends about the idiot on the box in a pub later, but nobody will remember it. Probably not even the person doing the screaming, because they’ll be on with a new topic the next day.

> So what is really happening isn’t really dialogue. It’s talking into the vast nothingness for a shot of dopamine or whatever our brains use to reward voicing our opinion.

I'd say this is a dialogue though. Twitter however, seems like one way com mostly and those who are not notable shout into the void for no good reason.

I would like to think HN is dialogue, even though the format isn’t suited for lengthy discussions as things move on. Especially the core tenet of “curious conversation” is very helpful.

Other platforms or certain subs on reddit? Quality differs wildly.

I don't think HN is dialogue, for sole reason that I don't get notification whenever someone reply to me. I wouldn't even know that I'm involved in a dialogue!

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