Suzanne Moore is boycotting Twitter because naughty people are saying naughty things.
To be frank I don’t know how Twitter is going to cope without me.
Can I be equally frank, Suzanne? You don’t mind, do you? They won’t even notice you have gone. I have been boycotting Twitter since its inception because it is inane drivel that isn’t worth being involved with – the 140 word verbal diarrhoea of people who either will not or cannot compose a decently worded argument. If I have something to say, I want to be able to express myself without a 140 character limit. And, I have no desire to become part of the Twitter mob that will whip up outrage over stuff that isn’t really outrageous at all. Twitter is something that I really, really don’t like. Yet, despite that the twitterati manage perfectly well without me. Should I be offended?
None the less, everyone will have to manage as I am making the weeniest symbolic gesture of boycotting Twitter on Sunday.
Is that all? Well, they certainly won’t notice it, then – and giving up for a day is hardly something to write home about, is it? Some might even come to the conclusion that you are nothing but a posturing poseur.
As for Moore’s reasoning – well, yes, some of the stuff people have said is pretty nasty. However, unless the owners of the site choose to forbid it, freedom of speech applies. They are, after all, only words. The so-called bomb and rape threats, while nasty in themselves are highly unlikely to manifest themselves in the real world. So, frankly, ignore them. Turn your computer off and go out into the real world.
Sticks and stones and all that. The idea that saying nasty things should be a criminal offence is itself a deeper and more grave offence. How did we become such delicate flowers?
These women wingeing about Twitter don’t know how to use it. Some idiot spouts offence, they should put said idiot on ignore. No more idiocy or filth to worry about. If you get wound up and don’t do anything about it these idiots will focus on you and give you a lot of crap. This happened on the original internet forums and the early chat rooms. It’s not new. I dislike Twitter. It is very limited and quite honestly can be dispensed with and is no loss. The other way these wingers can avoid trolls is simply to not bother tweeting at all. It’s not the be all and end all of existence. What is their problem? Jane Austin is a bit insipid as a writer and I can think of other females who would grace a tenner much more appropriately.
There’s been a woman on the tenner since 1952…
You are right, of course. Anyone who has ever had to moderate or administer a blog, chat-room or forum is familiar with the problem of bad behaviour and how to deal with it. it isn’t difficult.
It’s just a shame that Suzanne Moore’s martyrdom doesn’t also extend to the cessation of writing utter bollocks in the Daily Mail every week. That would be a greater contribution to the human race (in my opinion)
I think you’ve missed the point of twitter. One of the points anyway. It’s not best used for constructing arguments; it’s best used as a replacement for emails on day to day stuff. Looking at what I’ve tweeted over the last few days I see I had a brief discussion on the validity of Mary Beard’s views on stuff other than classics, the choice of ingredients available at the local co op, and alerted people to Bruce Sterling’s piece on Snowdon and Assange.
It was all perfectly civilised, you can ignore or block trolls trivially.
The whole twitter silence business passed pretty much unnoticed. I would have forgotten about it except for the large number of people announcing how little they’d been impacted, or commenting about the illogicality of being silenced by silencing yourself.
A useful tool, when used appropriately.
No, I haven’t missed the point of it at all. I understand it perfectly. It is no replacement for email because email has no functional restrictions. A 140 character restriction does not encourage brevity, it encourages banality, which, frankly, is what Twitter is full of.
RAB described it perfectly when commenting over at Counting Cats – he called it crippled messaging. Spot on. That’s precisely what it is. I have no intention of opening an account when I can use email or a blogging platform with no character limits.
You are quite right, blocking trolls is trivially easy as it is with all platforms. The fact that this has been blown out of all proportion is a demonstration of the staggering ignorance of users, the media and I’m tempted to say, politicians although I suspect for the latter, the storm in a teacup is a bonus for them as it gives them a leaver to bring in controls.
I can’t deny the banality aspect of much that passes down my timeline, but my last hour has included many gems. These include a council growing pot plants, yet more on Mary Beard and twitter silence (yes – it’s becoming tedious). Economic impact if the Spain/Gibraltar spat, a new sales technique for car boot sales that clearly doesn’t work. A letter from an Australian retirement home that made me laugh. Etc.
I suppose I find myself moved to comment here, because your views are pretty much what I thought of it, prior to trying it out for business networking reasons. It didn’t work for that although the ‘I found a job on twitter’ trope is becoming increasingly less rare, the 140 limit is a irritation although the brevity of others can be a blessing. Since I’m trying to put my thoughts in order on the subject I’d have to summarise my own experience by saying it’s a good way of commenting on current events, and it’s allowed me to connect to a wide range of individuals outside my usual circles, and some old friends. It’s the ease of connection to the like minded that seems to be its unique advantage.
Still. To each their own, and of course, it would have been pretty much impossible to express this on twitter itself. Irony noted.
Irony indeed. Everything you have said that you can do on Twitter, I can do here, on other peoples blogs and the main news sites all without any character limits. Consequently, there is a deeper, more nuanced exchange. Twitter is a surprising success, because it doesn’t do anything other platforms can’t do and they can all do it better.
As I have commented elsewhere:
Twitter is haiku for morons.
Instagram is Twitter for the illiterate.