The main thing this guy seems to want to do is curtail abuse, or in other words he wants to restrict the ability for people to say things to you that you don't want to hear. Given that, I'm surprised he's advocating a distributed system where this would probably be an even harder problem to solve.
But frankly I don't understand why "Twitter abuse" is seen as such a big problem. In general if you wish to publish something and provide a channel for people to respond, it's practically impossible for anyone to guarantee you'll be happy with all the responses you get. This is one of the hard parts of being a publisher, which is what you become when you sign up to Twitter. It's sad if someone is hurt by the responses they receive, but it's not really Twitter's problem. Twitter does provide ways to shield yourself from hostile and abusive users but the expectations being placed on them seem unreasonable to me.
It's interesting that this exact same conversation is going on about Reddit (how people are offending each other, and we need to "fix" this). It's as if no one grasps that this has been going on since the beginning of time and if there's more of it at the moment that might point to a deeper problem in society which needs to be resolved through dialogue.
There's a huge difference between criticism (good) and abuse (bad).
You're most probably (I say that in the statistical sense) a white middleclass guy (I am too BTW). For us it's easy to airquote "twitter abuse" and ask what the problem is. However, for a great number of non-white-middleclass-guy-people it's a huge and real problem that we should do our absolute best to help address.
I'm sorry but this idea that there's mysterious knowledge of hardship which white, male members of the middle class automatically don't possess is garbage and is exactly the sort of thing I was hinting at in the last sentence of my comment. You can be as polite about it as you want but it immediately shuts down dialogue and informs the original speaker that he is the replier's intellectual inferior and his opinion isn't valued. In short it's a form of ad hominem. No matter how well-meaning it distracts from the discussion of the actual issue and drags us into identity politics.
In this specific case I think it also demeans publishers who are not white and male. Plenty of non-white, non-male people have been publishing controversial material since long before Twitter existed. Just like the white and male ones, they learned to take the heat or get out of the kitchen. Things like the civil rights movement were accomplished within this context. The issue at hand is not a race or gender issue. All races and genders are being attacked on Twitter. The issue is that some Twitter users don't realize how hot the kitchen can get before they walk into it.
> You're most probably (I say that in the statistical sense) a white middleclass guy (I am too BTW). For us it's easy to airquote "twitter abuse" and ask what the problem is. However, for a great number of non-white-middleclass-guy-people it's a huge and real problem that we should do our absolute best to help address.
This is the most ironically hilarious statement I've seen in a while. I don't know where this "white guy privilege" meme started, but I find it funny when "white guys" call themselves privileged. No you're just a human being and you just happen to live in a country where the majority is white people. If you go to an Indonesian cannibal tribe, you're just a food and no longer "privileged".
The reason I find that sentence ironic is you're talking about "do our best to help" but the sentence itself reeks of some sort of weird idea that you are above other non-white men and women. Statements like "You're most probably a white middleclass guy" is what hurts the people most, and you don't even realize that. I laugh out loud imagining if OP was a woman, she would be like "WTF is this guy". People don't "need help". The precise thinking that they need help is the first thing you need to abolish from your mindset if you really care.
Perhaps you should have spent the 5 seconds to look up where I live. You might have understood that my perspective is different from yours.
Based on previous arguments with privilege deniers (invariably white middleclass guys who are unable to have this discussion without getting quite emotional), I know that this little discussion is not going anywhere.
One day either you or I might change our viewpoint with regard to this topic. I already did this once quite some time ago. I hope that one day you might too.
Since your response to him contained a racist stereotype which you used to justify not engaging in further dialogue, I certainly hope you do change your viewpoint in the future. I continue to be baffled by this idea that it's okay to use racist stereotypes against whites but not anyone else.
The common denominator of all your discussions with emotional white middle class guys is you...
(there are many more good resources -- the bottom-line is that if you're white, you have been privileged by that fact. What you do with this knowledge is of course up to you.)
You can keep on insulting my person, but instead my suggestion is that you read as much as you can about this important topic.
P.S. here's more on women (another non-white-and-male group) having to suffer online abuse:
See you're not listening. The previous person told you that you were assuming someone's race (actually it's not even race, you were assuming the gender as well), and you're just talking about your little links you found online.
It's ridiculous how you're talking about "open mind" when you're so closed off that you don't even realize you're the exactly the problem you're trying to defeat.
No one is denying that online abuse is a massive problem.
The point is that behaviors like yours--not even realizing how much of an offensive statement you're making online--is the core of all problems that you're claiming to help solve. If you really care about this, ask around people with open mind if what you said here is acceptable.
You have clearly not read the links I posted. Doing so would contribute positively to your development.
The fact that you're a HackerNews user, means that you're most probably white and male. That's not racist, it's statistics, as I made clear from the very start.
So cocktailpeanuts, my username here is my real name. I connect my real identity to this whole discussion. Why don't you do so too?
"The fact that you're a HackerNews user, means that you're most probably white and male. That's not racist, it's statistics."
=> Assuming someone is of certain gender and certain race, based on the environment is the most sexist and racist thing you can say. Again, you don't seem to realize how asshole of a behavior that is, but let's take some time to imagine if the OP was a black woman, and some guy on a forum says "You're most probably (I say that in the statistical sense) a white middleclass guy (I am too BTW)." hahaha I don't even know where to start.
Heres what you can do next:
1. Maybe wonder if there's something wrong with yourself when you claim to want to help these people who are affected by racism and sexism, when everyone on this thread is telling you you're the one who's being racist and sexist. Kinda ironic, right?
2. Or keep doing your thing. People call that "hipster wannabe activism". It may blow your mind but "hipster activism" is actually a thing. Read this article: http://www.yeshacallahan.com/is-hipster-activism-the-new-act... Yup that sounds pretty much like you, exactly down to the behavior of sharing all the links for awareness and trying to preach.
I know I'm being harsh, and maybe you are actually a nice guy, just misguided. People can get excitied about something they recently learned, especially if they believe it's the right thing. Hopefully you will actually try going through this thread and read what other people are telling you and giving a serious thought on if your approach is the right way.
But frankly I don't understand why "Twitter abuse" is seen as such a big problem. In general if you wish to publish something and provide a channel for people to respond, it's practically impossible for anyone to guarantee you'll be happy with all the responses you get. This is one of the hard parts of being a publisher, which is what you become when you sign up to Twitter. It's sad if someone is hurt by the responses they receive, but it's not really Twitter's problem. Twitter does provide ways to shield yourself from hostile and abusive users but the expectations being placed on them seem unreasonable to me.
It's interesting that this exact same conversation is going on about Reddit (how people are offending each other, and we need to "fix" this). It's as if no one grasps that this has been going on since the beginning of time and if there's more of it at the moment that might point to a deeper problem in society which needs to be resolved through dialogue.