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Naughty Twitter Trolls

At the outset I should admit: I have paid only scant attention to the details of the recent ermahgerd twitteh trerlls thing wherein a footballer was so incensed by (apparently actually unpleasant and really pretty shitty) messages sent to him on twitter that he has made appeals to the Gummint to find out who it was being so nasty to him, so that they may be punished.

However… Srsly?

We even now have Senator Conroy lambasting Twitter for "treating Australian law with contempt". Rly?

Yes. Really. Because they aren't keen to hand over identifying details of someone who sent nasty offensive messages to someone else. Since when is should a person's taking of offence be any business of police or government? Even if what was said (tweeted) was really terrible, if it wasn't a threat or incitement to violence or similar, then why should authorities be involved? Taking offence doesn't mean you deserve to be protected from whoever you took offence to. It just means you feel offended (which is a pretty useless construct IMO; as much as I admit to not being completely immune to it, I don't think it's ever proved useful).

I think Stephen Fry put it perfectly:

I totally agree that a cry of being offended by something has "no reason to be respected". Certainly not to the point of police and Gummint trying to track down the person who said whatever was taken as offensive. Sure, I am not meaning to excuse unpleasant and hurtful things being slung at anybody, but this? This is stupid.

You will note also, that I am bending language rather unpleasantly to make it clear that it is not the naughty troll who gives offence, but rather the offended party who takes offence. Foolishness.

… But I'm also thinking that – seen in the light of the increasingly Orwellian nature of our societies – there's a disturbing side to it as well.

Twitter Support Fail

18 October, 2013 Raphael Fraser Reply

While I don’t wish to be too whiny and entitled, given that Twitter is a free service, I really am annoyed at the moment. If you have an account called “Support” it would nice to actually provide some support, would it not?

Even an automated reply to Direct Messages begging for help, even one that says “we’re swamped with support requests so we probably won’t get to yours ever” would be polite – and better than the utter silence I’ve encountered so far.

While I’m at it, if any reader knows how to make wordpress plugins talk to twitter in our brave new OAuth world, I would greatly appreciate any help. I register my blog as an app, I copy and paste my keys and secrets, and twitter tells me the token’s already been used, and I can’t log in. Grrrr.

Update: a week after my direct message to @support, I got what appears to be an automated reply directing me to fill in a web form for ‘twicket’ and saying they’ll get back to me soon after that. Here’s hoping

Twitter as Pokemon

12 September, 2013 Raphael Fraser Reply

What is Twitter (or Facebook or YouTube or whatever else) for? How do you use it? I think I have a pretty clear idea of how I use each of these networks, and I think I have the right idea … though of course I would think that

For me Twitter is about (1) receiving timely and interesting information (2) communicating/discussing with like-minded people. Facebook is about keeping in touch with family and some friends. YouTube is about watching videos I like, and sharing my videos.

It seems however that some people approach these networks like Pokemon: their goal (or at least a major goal) is to get the greatest number of followers or subscribers or friends as possible. To me that seems bizarre – but Google are sweet with it; every time someone subscribes to my YouTube channel the email asks me if I want to “return the favour” and subscribe to them. I don’t see that subscribing to my channel is doing me a favour. It ought to be that the user enjoyed my videos and wants to know when there are some new ones. – And I’m not going to subscribe to them to “return the favour”; I’ll sub them if their videos appeal to me and I want to see more.

Similarly, if someone follows me on Twitter it should only be because they want to read what I tweet. If they’re looking for a follow-back they’ll likely be disappointed – unless (duh) I want to read what they tweet. Because that’s the only reason I’ll follow someone: I’m interested in their tweets (and there’s not so much in their stream it’ll clog my feed… or should those be the other way round?…).

This evening I got unfollowed on Twitter by someone upset I didn’t follow them back. That suggests to me pretty clearly that they didn’t follow me because they were interested in my tweets, but rather in getting another follower.

While I’m sorry I upset this person, I think it’s bloody silly; you want to collect stuff, go buy comics or stamps or action figures or something. Don’t waste everyone’s time trying to collect followers, subscribers, or friends. It’s pointless and annoying.

Twitter’s Virtual Coffeehouses and the Re-Enlightenment

25 August, 2013 Raphael Fraser Reply

In a recent blog post, Atheist Climber wrote about an “Atheist Re-Enlightenment”. I thought it was an interesting notion, and he accompanied it by tweeting a link to the Wikipedia page on the Enlightenment.

In the Atheist Climber article there is a discussion of the need for a re-enlightenment – and I certainly agree. What struck me though, was something only touched on there, but that really stood out in the Wiki article on the Enlightenment.

Now first: I’m an uncultured sod, innit? I knew almost nothing about the Enlightenment – and so was very grateful for the link and the prompt to read about it. The thing that struck me was that is wasn’t simply that lots of cool stuff was discovered or done, but that there was a shift towards being inclusive of the public, and widening both the availability of knowledge, and the discussion – of knowledge, of science, of politics, of philosophy …. Coffeehouses sprang up, and became places where the public would meet and discuss these things.

Really I think that’s what we need: inclusion. Getting more and more people discussing all of this. As Atheist Climber noted, the internet can facilitate this; he mentioned atheists and sceptics popping up on his facebook page and so on. I must say that despite having intelligent and thoughtful facebook friends, discussions on serious issues don’t seem to do much more than get ‘liked’. Twitter on the other hand is full of these sorts of discussions. All the time. Everywhere across the world. It’s like a vast network of “virtual coffeehouses” through which I think and hope a Re-Enlightenment really could spread.

So … anyone reading this who isn’t on Twitter: what the hell are you waiting for? Turn on, sign up and join in. I’ll make it easy to start: I’ve created a list called Coffeehouse, which comprises those tweeps with whom I tend to have those sorts of conversations. Follow that list, and join in the conversations. You might learn something (I certainly do) and you might impart some knowledge (I hope I do). – And then spread the word further; the more, the enlighteneder.

New photo journal

16 July, 2013 Raphael Fraser Reply

Yep – I went and got another website I joined Blipfoto. Now while I will keep up my posts to Flickr, and add more than my daily photos there, my Blipfoto page will be the main site for my daily pics.