Twitter twa...I mean, chatter (And various social media guff) - The Bear and Badger

poprock

It’s amazing how different people’s experiences of Twitter can be. Because what you see/read (and who you broadcast to) is entirely self-curated, you control your own experience. You literally get out what you put in.

Follow dickheads, get venomous bile. Follow your friends, enjoy nice chats.

This all falls apart if you’re a celebrity though. When thousands of people know who you are, your mentions feed becomes a firehose of tepid shite.

MattyJ

If I was a celeb I don't think I'd run my own twitter. I'd get someone to hide all the bullshit from me.

IanHamlett

I got a 1000+ retweet having a go at the censorious, pissed a lot of people off. Got attacked and blocked by hundreds of people. Because of that, my account ended up on the highest grade of a block list, reserved for the worst of the worst, so no I'm pre blocked by thousands more people that I've never encountered. I've even seen my name pop up on different social networks with the fact that I'm on that list as evidence that I'm a bad person. I've also had people threaten to expose me to my work in an attempt to get me fired.

This is all with my sock puppet accounts so I'm perfectly safe and I knew what I was getting into.

poprock

I really don’t have the time or energy to wind people up at that level.

Remember when Charlie Brooker stated on telly that Twitter was the most important videogame of all time? That’s how it must look to a famous person. Like a game. All about popularity stats and quashing trolls.

IanHamlett

poprock wrote:

I really don’t have the time or energy to wind people up at that level.

It's very interesting to me that this is what you took from my experience.

Rev

What was the tweet..?

IanHamlett

I can't say, since I want to keep that account separate from my real name, but it was about no-platforming. Nothing that I wouldn't say again in any arena with my real name.

djchump

But you chose to not say it in that arena with your real name though... ?

IanHamlett

I know what you mean, bad wording on my part. I choose not to make a connection between that account and my real name. There's nothing about the sentiment of my tweet that I don't stand by, but I don't want there to be any link between me and that account.

djchump

Oh, cos there was a bunch of other stuff that you said with that account that you don't stand by?

IanHamlett

Partly that, because I started that account for an experiment so there's a lot of stuff that aren't my actual opinions, but partly because I've received threats.

trippy

You could write it here in mirror writing?

trippy

After translating the mirror writing into Spanish?

Rev

I'm confused here. Im not about to go search for a tweet, I was more interested in what you had to say that caused you grief.

Rev

Ah. So you've been trolling then.

IanHamlett

I wouldn't call it trolling (I have referred to it as gentle trolling in the past) because the intent was not to rile people for my amusement. The intent was to have a plausible right-wing account to post mainstream right-wing views with provocative but non-offensive language (no swearing etc).

djchump

Yeah, trolling then.

[Deleted User]

Did you garner any interesting results from said experiment Hamlett?

Rev

There is already the daily mail twitter account for that.

IanHamlett

It's not an unfair word to use, but trolling was not my intent and there was no other way I could think of to find out what I wanted to know.

edit - @indigo I found out quite a lot. Some sites have a really low threshold for removing comments. Some sites remove sensible comments that disagree with the article while allowing nasty comments. Mainly I found out the authoritarian left is growing in number and strength.
I also found out a bit about myself. I got some followers that I liked and helped some people out with the right-wing account. I found it more difficult to express certain views in case people stopped liking the fake me.

Rev

You wanted to find out if making right wing tweets might annoy people and possibly get you on a block list? With gamergate a fresh memory I'm surprised you didn't realise it would Happen.

djchump

@Ham: What was the response to your experimental control account like?

IanHamlett

I suspected it would happen, but I didn't know if that kind of treatment was reserved for people that threaten/swear/use racist language, or for people that disagree on minimum-wage, immigration, crime and tax.

djchump wrote:

@Ham: What was the response to your experimental control account like?

This is the thing, I didn't do a double-blind scientific study, and I regretted that pretty early on. I plan on re-running it soon but the early part of getting the accounts running was tiresome. When you've only got 6 followers people just assume (rightfully in this case) you're not genuine.

trippy

IanHamlett wrote:

Mainly I found out the authoritarian left is growing in number and strength.

poprock

If it looks like trolling, sounds like trolling, feels like trolling, etc, etc. You can surely see why I assume you were on the wind up.

IanHamlett

I can see why you might think that, but the reach of that tweet (which I agree with btw) was hundreds of times bigger than my follower count. If that had been my real twitter account then I'd pretty much have to walk away from it.

djchump

IanHamlett wrote:

...

djchump wrote:

@Ham: What was the response to your experimental control account like?

This is the thing, I didn't do a double-blind scientific study, and I regretted that pretty early on. I plan on re-running it soon but the early part of getting the accounts running was tiresome. When you've only got 6 followers people just assume (rightfully in this case) you're not genuine.

Your experiment sucks.

trippy

IanHamlett wrote:

I can see why you might think that, but the reach of that tweet (which I agree with btw) was hundreds of times bigger than my follower count. If that had been my real twitter account then I'd pretty much have to walk away from it.

You're such a tease. Why don't you post the tweet and shift all the letters forward one place in the alphabet. We can do all the working out on paper so nobody will ever link it with your real name.

trippy

I'll get you started - NVTMJNT

IanHamlett

djchump wrote:

IanHamlett wrote:

...

djchump wrote:

@Ham: What was the response to your experimental control account like?

This is the thing, I didn't do a double-blind scientific study, and I regretted that pretty early on. I plan on re-running it soon but the early part of getting the accounts running was tiresome. When you've only got 6 followers people just assume (rightfully in this case) you're not genuine.

Your experiment sucks.

I was having a poke to see if my suspicions were right, like taking a different route to work to see which way is quicker. I'm not presenting it as scientific findings but as an anecdote of personal experience related to a news story.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories