Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

Re:Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to ... by dmix on Thursday July 25, 2019 @12:45PM (#20526927)

That might be how the activists like to spin it but it became about much more than that when it blew up and went viral. It was really about an entire established lively and chaotic culture developed over multiple decades that people adored and got defensive over. So some heavy handed top down attempts to manually change it didn’t go over well.

Then the villainization of anyone who disagreed with the activists approach as women-haters who think it’s okay to harass women only increased backlash.

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Re:Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to ... by dvtrn on Thursday July 25, 2019 @01:58PM (#20527730)

Then the villainization of anyone who disagreed with this approach as people who simply think it’s okay to harass women only increased backlash.

Is it recency bias on my part to say it feels like this tactic is showing up in more places than it deserves to? The last American election cycle was terrifying to watch for precisely what you just described happening all across Twitter and elsewhere on social media.

Assent with {group_A} or be labelled complicit with {group_B} by default with little headroom for nuance or context.

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Re:Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to ... by dragonwriter on Thursday July 25, 2019 @11:45PM (#20532201)

> Is it recency bias on my part to say it feels like this tactic is showing up in more places than it deserves to?

No, but it is recency bias to think that it showing up in more places than it deserves to is novel. It has been an exceedingly common tactic everywhere for probably as long as civilization, or maybe language, has existed; it manifests in moral/religious/philosophical dualism, for instance, which is extremely widespread and ancient.

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Re:Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to ... by dmix on Thursday July 25, 2019 @09:36PM (#20531601)

It’s a tactic that was perfect during the course of the last election. Which of course existed well before that but now it’s been refined for the internet and social media age.

I’m not looking forward to the next election.

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