I don't want say to I am ahead of the curve or anything but yes I already have started not saying nothing on my social network that's related to politics/religion/social-issues/etc. I don't say yes or no on any of those on social network. I have decided silence is the best option.
I do have a real world example too. I used to work with a manager over me who was really cool and worked with me well. Felt he was looking out for me and my career advancement. We shared common interests on more than a few things too.
And then one day I said something that rubbed him the wrong way (still don't know what exactly) and just like that, he pretty much stopped talking to me. And that led to the point where I was left out of projects, out of discussions, and eventually to the point where the upper management felt I was not needed. I had to leave the company. I still feel he was a great guy and smart dude.
Btw, I read somewhere that on US Navy ships' officers' dining rooms, 2 topics are not discussed at all: politics and religion. I understand why.
@maxxxxx
I believe religion/politics are not discussed on US navy ship officer dining rooms because they are stuck with each other for months at a time.
I am sure they let their views known in other arenas.
While I find this research fascinating, and some of the findings conflict with the point I am about to make, I nevertheless want to object to the selection of Snowden-NSA as the particular topic used as the basis of this research. Although it does conveniently have a nearly-even split of opinion, the nature of the Snowden-NSA revelations carry very specific baggage for social media conversations precisely because the revelations suggest a comprehensive and worrisome monitoring of all online activity.
Those who wanted to talk about the NSA, especially critically on social media, may have refrained or at least paused to reflect on whether that was a sensible thing to do precisely because of the NSA dragnet. I personally initially paused and considered my action moreso than usual before I began retweeting and writing tweets of my own that are critical of the NSA's behavior and the laws that provide cover for its behavior.
Irrational or rational as fears of later repercussions for communicating opinions may be, when the subject matter is a principal organization that will ensure that very communication is never forgotten, I believe there is a chilling effect. It would be like hesitating to criticize Twitter on Twitter—you can imagine less savvy users would wonder, "Will this get me into some kind of trouble with Twitter?" Even now having long since put aside my worry about being critical of the NSA's behavior in public (yes, based on the tired axiom: "why would they care about me?"), I still suspect that I have squelched at least 10% of what I would have otherwise said.
Even as I write this now, it's impossible to not have a concern that in some (very unlikely) future, the NSA will put anyone who had been critical of their actions onto a "definitely will aid with all parallel construction requests" list. Irrational, sure. But difficult to put aside nonetheless.
Yep, the chilling effect is real, and in action. Next (and critically, invisibly) people as a whole will actually think less about the NSA and having their online activity surveilled and what those two bits mean. Fewer people will be exposed to the circulation of ideas on these topics. This is the consequence of being afraid to speak freely in what used to be an open forum.
Well said! I think this wasn't the greatest selection, as the subject is about NSA snooping and its dragnet. I personally have become very reluctant to talk about any of stuff on anything electronic - gawd knows what the NSA is pickuping, and how it will some day be used against me.
Hmmm... I probably should just delete this post....
The interesting part is being less likely to talk in real life if you're also active on social networks. Is it reasonable to assume this is also related to the topic being the NSA (say, more time online would feed your paranoia?), or should it be more independent of what's being discussed?
I was going to sternly object, and then I remembered how a friend deleted me on facebook because I liked a certain politician. Then my work friended me so I went back and pruned every semi-controversial topic from my feed and "unliked" a ton of subjects. And now I keep it all to myself. I probably reveal more here in my writing than I do on those outlets.
And to say I edit my thoughts here on HN would be an understatement. People don't want true diversity. That would mean hearing something they dislike. Which would invalidate their life apparently.
Funnily enough Google was really onto something with the concept of Circles. We do not, and should not, want to share everything with everyone a la Twitter and Facebook.
The execution of G+ was bungled disastrously, and ass-backwards policies like Real Names ran directly contrary to the original notion of having multiple identities/profiles to present to different people.
But I do wish someone would run with this idea again.
... But maybe we don't need to. Social networks with segmented audiences/identities have existed since forever, they're called BBSes and Forums.
The common realization that things on the Internet are forever causes a terrible amount of sanitization of our opinions and beliefs.
It seems like the great lie of social media was that it would open up and democratize communication, encouraging people to speak up and speak out on issues important to them. Instead what we ended up with is big companies getting even more of a megaphone than before, giving people the illusion of having a voice (only to find that when everyone has a megaphone, only the loudest and most attacking voices or the most hive-minded comments get perpetuated). And everyone has to constantly preen and groom their "social media presence" because it's all about cultivating a personal brand.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair
HN is a sort of social network for coders. Anytime I post something about the evils of advertising, I attract enough downvotes to usually cancel out if not override those who see my points. I can see this as I watch the vote tally constantly go up and down. The sad thing is that the downvotes represent not that my comments are low quality and unworthy of HN, but that they are threatening to a culture that is sadly, for the present at least, beholden to advertising for its very survival.
It's amazing: 20 years ago, we went online to debate at will with people we would never see and who had no power over us. Now online we have to be super careful about everything we say lest someone who can make a decision over us be offended.
I actually think this illustrates an interesting evolution in our attitudes towards anonymity on the Internet.
It was only quite recently in the grand scheme of things that, particularly in school computer labs, one of the major things that we ingrained in children's heads was basic web safety etiquette: never reveal your real name, street address, phone number, etc.
With the advent of popular social media, holy shit has that completely turned around in the opposite direction. Now such things have been completely normalized, and we've started to talk about the "nymwars". There's also a reasonably influential segment that thinks all online communications should be done using personally identifiable information, lest someone gets trolled and has their sensibilities hurt.
I've been consistently removing people from my facebook and twitter feed who disagree with me. Not because I don't want to hear their opinions, but because when I voice mine in response they are generally offended (I was usually just pointing out factual omissions). I needed to remove the temptation to engage with anyone in my social network who was prone to anti-intellectual discussions.
"Because of its sample size (1,801 people) and choice of topic, Pew’s study might not be a fully accurate example of social media’s silencing effects, but it’s definitely fodder for discussion – if you dare! – as well as further research."
I find it ironic that the social media is effectively making average Joes and Janes (who generally dislike politicians) act like they are politicians, not saying what they really mean and worrying about how they are viewed by the public.
> Of course, it’s worth pointing out that the choice to use the Snowden situation as the basis for this particular study could be flawed – after all, social platforms, including Facebook, were implicated as being among the places the government tapped to listen in on citizens’ conversations. Perhaps citizens didn’t want to publicize an opinion on this particular matter, but would be more willing to do so on others.
LOL again. Have the Pew researchers never heard of the "priming" effect? As soon as you bring up Snowden as the topic, respondents may immediately think of the social network surveillance and of course, think that they may not want to talk about just anything -- Snowden related or not -- online.
Look at Brendan Eich, no matter what we think of Proposition 8, I think it's crazy that his support of a political position that was also supported by a very narrow majority of his fellow Californians could cause him to have to leave his job six years later.
It's entirely possible that Eich could become a verb, like Bork. Any one of us could support one side of a contentious political fight today and in six years get Eiched because the winning side chooses to be vindictive and petty.
I hesitated to bring this up because I thought about the last time I was moderated -4 for something I said here.
In the end we need to decide, how serious we are about the marketplace of ideas. We need to decide if we really believe in the ideals that we claim to.
If I disagree with you, I'll challenge your ideas. I'll challenge your thinking. I'll debate you. I will not attempt to silence you.
My main beef with the Eich case wasn't the fact that people protested his decision, it was how they did it.
The main method of protest was to boycott Firefox. Yet this was a stupid thing to do, because Firefox is the result of over a decade of wide-scale community effort, all done on a non-profit basis, and has been instrumental in advancing web standards. Firefox was also the initial spark that got us out of the stagnation caused by IE6.
By boycotting Firefox, people were punishing pretty much everyone except Eich. A much more blunt statement would have been to boycott JavaScript, something Eich was directly responsible for. Of course, that would actually require some effort in a major overhaul of one's browsing habits.
Then it was OKCupid just blatantly jumping on the bandwagon, encouraging Firefox users to leave their browser, all in an absolutely farcical attempt to assert their moral superiority.
Finally, most people don't seem to be aware that gay marriage is often a red herring in general, and the topic of marriage privatization is rarely discussed in public. But that's heading towards my personal views.
> If I disagree with you, I'll challenge your ideas. I'll challenge your thinking. I'll debate you. I will not attempt to silence you.
The fact that fewer and fewer people online think this way is what makes me think twice about saying anything. Once you say anything slightly outside the accepted progressive viewpoint on Touchy Subject X, here comes the downvote and "you're a horrible human being" brigade. Online debate is effectively dead, and it's a shame.
Trying to keep queer people out of acceptable models of life like marriage, having families, and being responsible is a literal attempt to silence and kill them. There is a straight line from homophobia to the effective genocide Reagan committed against queer people in the 80s by turning a blind eye to the AIDS crisis.
I think it's entirely correct that Eich was deposed and shamed for what he did. I wish that we had the Internet in the 60s so that we could have done the same to George Wallace.
Be on the right side of history or you'll inevitably end up on the wrong side of it.
This is a nonsensical post in this topic. Eich didn't post (or fail to post) on social media, he donated to a political campaign. In fact, social media outcry -- in other words, the opposite of what this article is discussing -- is what actually effected the change.
I understand that plenty of people don't think that Eich should have been ousted from his position as a result of his political beliefs, but your post is not just not on-topic, it is actually the opposite of the topic. It looks like you're using this post to grandstand.
Nobody silenced Brendan Eich. He is free to say whatever he wants about his political affiliations and his personal ideals.
With that freedom comes the concomitant responsibility for the consequences of that speech.
In fact, I think it's admirable that he didn't back down from his position or try and weasel-word his way out of a difficult situation. He stuck to his guns in the face of a firestorm of controversy.
Donating to a campaign that uses hateful, bigoted language and false information (Prop 8) is different from just sharing an opinion. I'll think less of a person who thinks I'm less of a person for being gay, but I'll still be civil toward them. That'll change real quick if they support a hateful campaign to take rights away from me.
There are so many better examples, like that mindless, misguided rage against Penny Arcade over a comic that was objectively not about condoning sexual assault.
"Have to leave his job"? He had a job as CTO for many years, and could've kept a Mozilla job. But he wanted the most powerful seat of authority.
With the entitlement of those who attack marginalized people's love lives, he wanted ultimate executive power. Knowing that if he failed, he can trivially drown himself in wealth.
No need to shed fake tears over elite white male perverts who care overmuch about other people's sexuality, and bribe the government to police it. He can live the high life on Alan Turing's back. Instead, there's many people with little money who work all day in places with zero free speech. Who have real fears of losing their jobs.
[+] [-] dba7dba|11 years ago|reply
I do have a real world example too. I used to work with a manager over me who was really cool and worked with me well. Felt he was looking out for me and my career advancement. We shared common interests on more than a few things too.
And then one day I said something that rubbed him the wrong way (still don't know what exactly) and just like that, he pretty much stopped talking to me. And that led to the point where I was left out of projects, out of discussions, and eventually to the point where the upper management felt I was not needed. I had to leave the company. I still feel he was a great guy and smart dude.
Btw, I read somewhere that on US Navy ships' officers' dining rooms, 2 topics are not discussed at all: politics and religion. I understand why.
[+] [-] cryoshon|11 years ago|reply
Can't have the cogs discussing things outside their design, after all.
[+] [-] innguest|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dba7dba|11 years ago|reply
I am sure they let their views known in other arenas.
[+] [-] bhauer|11 years ago|reply
Those who wanted to talk about the NSA, especially critically on social media, may have refrained or at least paused to reflect on whether that was a sensible thing to do precisely because of the NSA dragnet. I personally initially paused and considered my action moreso than usual before I began retweeting and writing tweets of my own that are critical of the NSA's behavior and the laws that provide cover for its behavior.
Irrational or rational as fears of later repercussions for communicating opinions may be, when the subject matter is a principal organization that will ensure that very communication is never forgotten, I believe there is a chilling effect. It would be like hesitating to criticize Twitter on Twitter—you can imagine less savvy users would wonder, "Will this get me into some kind of trouble with Twitter?" Even now having long since put aside my worry about being critical of the NSA's behavior in public (yes, based on the tired axiom: "why would they care about me?"), I still suspect that I have squelched at least 10% of what I would have otherwise said.
Even as I write this now, it's impossible to not have a concern that in some (very unlikely) future, the NSA will put anyone who had been critical of their actions onto a "definitely will aid with all parallel construction requests" list. Irrational, sure. But difficult to put aside nonetheless.
[+] [-] cryoshon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gregrata|11 years ago|reply
Hmmm... I probably should just delete this post....
[+] [-] tbrownaw|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianstallings|11 years ago|reply
And to say I edit my thoughts here on HN would be an understatement. People don't want true diversity. That would mean hearing something they dislike. Which would invalidate their life apparently.
[+] [-] potatolicious|11 years ago|reply
The execution of G+ was bungled disastrously, and ass-backwards policies like Real Names ran directly contrary to the original notion of having multiple identities/profiles to present to different people.
But I do wish someone would run with this idea again.
... But maybe we don't need to. Social networks with segmented audiences/identities have existed since forever, they're called BBSes and Forums.
[+] [-] DanAndersen|11 years ago|reply
It seems like the great lie of social media was that it would open up and democratize communication, encouraging people to speak up and speak out on issues important to them. Instead what we ended up with is big companies getting even more of a megaphone than before, giving people the illusion of having a voice (only to find that when everyone has a megaphone, only the loudest and most attacking voices or the most hive-minded comments get perpetuated). And everyone has to constantly preen and groom their "social media presence" because it's all about cultivating a personal brand.
[+] [-] eevilspock|11 years ago|reply
HN is a sort of social network for coders. Anytime I post something about the evils of advertising, I attract enough downvotes to usually cancel out if not override those who see my points. I can see this as I watch the vote tally constantly go up and down. The sad thing is that the downvotes represent not that my comments are low quality and unworthy of HN, but that they are threatening to a culture that is sadly, for the present at least, beholden to advertising for its very survival.
[+] [-] angersock|11 years ago|reply
They can only downvote you once per post (though the admins and mods may hellban/slowban you if you are enough of a gadfly).
[+] [-] danielweber|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vezzy-fnord|11 years ago|reply
It was only quite recently in the grand scheme of things that, particularly in school computer labs, one of the major things that we ingrained in children's heads was basic web safety etiquette: never reveal your real name, street address, phone number, etc.
With the advent of popular social media, holy shit has that completely turned around in the opposite direction. Now such things have been completely normalized, and we've started to talk about the "nymwars". There's also a reasonably influential segment that thinks all online communications should be done using personally identifiable information, lest someone gets trolled and has their sensibilities hurt.
[+] [-] MangezBien|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oesmith|11 years ago|reply
"Because of its sample size (1,801 people) and choice of topic, Pew’s study might not be a fully accurate example of social media’s silencing effects, but it’s definitely fodder for discussion – if you dare! – as well as further research."
Sigh.
[+] [-] mikehearn|11 years ago|reply
a. You are sighing because you believe the study to be meaningless due to its sample size.
b. You are sighing because the writer needlessly undermines the results of a completely legitimate poll (+/- 3.3% margin of error for the subgroups).
c. You are sighing about poor comedy ("if you dare!").
[+] [-] dba7dba|11 years ago|reply
Weird I must say.
[+] [-] danso|11 years ago|reply
> Of course, it’s worth pointing out that the choice to use the Snowden situation as the basis for this particular study could be flawed – after all, social platforms, including Facebook, were implicated as being among the places the government tapped to listen in on citizens’ conversations. Perhaps citizens didn’t want to publicize an opinion on this particular matter, but would be more willing to do so on others.
LOL again. Have the Pew researchers never heard of the "priming" effect? As soon as you bring up Snowden as the topic, respondents may immediately think of the social network surveillance and of course, think that they may not want to talk about just anything -- Snowden related or not -- online.
[+] [-] LordKano|11 years ago|reply
Look at Brendan Eich, no matter what we think of Proposition 8, I think it's crazy that his support of a political position that was also supported by a very narrow majority of his fellow Californians could cause him to have to leave his job six years later.
It's entirely possible that Eich could become a verb, like Bork. Any one of us could support one side of a contentious political fight today and in six years get Eiched because the winning side chooses to be vindictive and petty.
I hesitated to bring this up because I thought about the last time I was moderated -4 for something I said here.
In the end we need to decide, how serious we are about the marketplace of ideas. We need to decide if we really believe in the ideals that we claim to.
If I disagree with you, I'll challenge your ideas. I'll challenge your thinking. I'll debate you. I will not attempt to silence you.
[+] [-] vezzy-fnord|11 years ago|reply
The main method of protest was to boycott Firefox. Yet this was a stupid thing to do, because Firefox is the result of over a decade of wide-scale community effort, all done on a non-profit basis, and has been instrumental in advancing web standards. Firefox was also the initial spark that got us out of the stagnation caused by IE6.
By boycotting Firefox, people were punishing pretty much everyone except Eich. A much more blunt statement would have been to boycott JavaScript, something Eich was directly responsible for. Of course, that would actually require some effort in a major overhaul of one's browsing habits.
Then it was OKCupid just blatantly jumping on the bandwagon, encouraging Firefox users to leave their browser, all in an absolutely farcical attempt to assert their moral superiority.
Finally, most people don't seem to be aware that gay marriage is often a red herring in general, and the topic of marriage privatization is rarely discussed in public. But that's heading towards my personal views.
[+] [-] xienze|11 years ago|reply
The fact that fewer and fewer people online think this way is what makes me think twice about saying anything. Once you say anything slightly outside the accepted progressive viewpoint on Touchy Subject X, here comes the downvote and "you're a horrible human being" brigade. Online debate is effectively dead, and it's a shame.
[+] [-] tedks|11 years ago|reply
I think it's entirely correct that Eich was deposed and shamed for what he did. I wish that we had the Internet in the 60s so that we could have done the same to George Wallace.
Be on the right side of history or you'll inevitably end up on the wrong side of it.
[+] [-] dba7dba|11 years ago|reply
Will I get down votes for this?
[+] [-] wzdd|11 years ago|reply
I understand that plenty of people don't think that Eich should have been ousted from his position as a result of his political beliefs, but your post is not just not on-topic, it is actually the opposite of the topic. It looks like you're using this post to grandstand.
[+] [-] seiji|11 years ago|reply
The problem is his support was for an anti-human rights issue, not just another "either side has valid points" political argument.
[+] [-] drhayes9|11 years ago|reply
With that freedom comes the concomitant responsibility for the consequences of that speech.
In fact, I think it's admirable that he didn't back down from his position or try and weasel-word his way out of a difficult situation. He stuck to his guns in the face of a firestorm of controversy.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mkr-hn|11 years ago|reply
Donating to a campaign that uses hateful, bigoted language and false information (Prop 8) is different from just sharing an opinion. I'll think less of a person who thinks I'm less of a person for being gay, but I'll still be civil toward them. That'll change real quick if they support a hateful campaign to take rights away from me.
There are so many better examples, like that mindless, misguided rage against Penny Arcade over a comic that was objectively not about condoning sexual assault.
[+] [-] calibraxis|11 years ago|reply
With the entitlement of those who attack marginalized people's love lives, he wanted ultimate executive power. Knowing that if he failed, he can trivially drown himself in wealth.
No need to shed fake tears over elite white male perverts who care overmuch about other people's sexuality, and bribe the government to police it. He can live the high life on Alan Turing's back. Instead, there's many people with little money who work all day in places with zero free speech. Who have real fears of losing their jobs.
[+] [-] rb2e|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|11 years ago|reply