Conor Friedersdorf

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @TheElliotMess I don't know what "the system" means, but basically all of American history leads me to reject the idea that the mob is going, without process, to coalesce around just shamings rather than frequently mete out unjust ones. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @TheElliotMess I am concerned by the status quo in large part because the vast majority of people affected by it are not *the powerful*. If this were just about powerful abusers I wouldn't be worried! — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @TheElliotMess The claim I am making is that many people are being shamed and shunned *who do not deserve it* and that this is inevitable whenever *who decides* is *arbitrarily composed mob* rather than *process that isn't arbitrary and capricious.* — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@jcolebrand No, you have missed my point entirely. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @TheElliotMess Today as in many periods of American life, speech has unjust consequences like shaming and shunning and pileons and Puritanical and authoritarian mornings, and we should be against those unjust consequences now, just as others should have been against them in the past. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @edwardmw_ucd No, your straw man version of my point had that flaw. My position itself is more nuanced than you acknowledge. I have repeatedly explained how in ways that go beyond my first tweet, and you have repeatedly ignored those explanations and insisted on your original reading — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @TheElliotMess To both of you I would say: yes, social media has wonderful qualities. Like you I am glad for the new platform it gives everyone. I also think pileons like the one @TheElliotMess describes are a problem and that we should criticize them accordingly to foster better norms. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@TheElliotMess @VictoriaDahl No one is suggesting that we abolish social media. They are suggesting that one bump in the road is "cancel culture" and that smoothing out this bump would make for a better society. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @edwardmw_ucd Agree or disagree in this case but the larger point stands: this issue cuts across race and gender in complicated ways that your account doesn't capture — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @edwardmw_ucd Sure, people have a right to refrain from supporting her. I personally think adults shouldn't lose jobs for tweets they posted a decade ago as teens, and that my norm would be better for people of all races, including the Black woman in this story. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@TheElliotMess @VictoriaDahl No one disagrees with that. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@adamdavidson Okay, all that seems fair but doesn't answer my main question. How many examples is "enough to be persuasive"? 5? 20? 1,000? — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @edwardmw_ucd While I am happy to agree that some terminations are good, I think you're failing to acknowledge an example of a Black woman being fired in a way that undercuts your framing. Could you address that point? — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@EoinHiggins_ I agree that it isn't a new phenomenon. Does that mean I should be less opposed to it? — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@edwardmw_ucd @VictoriaDahl Isn't your analysis complicated by stories like this one? https://t.co/Pj82dE6TuX — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl What about all the people subject to vicious online pileons for saying things that aren't racist? — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl Yes, again, the speech climate has improved in some ways and gotten worse in some ways over time. We should celebrate the improvements while acknowledging that the bad changes affect people of all races and genders — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl Yes, seriously. In survey data and public commentary alike, people other than straight white men assert that recent cultural changes have created a negative chilling of free expression along important metrics compared to (say) a decade ago. How does your claim account for that? — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl How do you account for all the women and gay people and people of color who agree with my account if this is merely my personal experience? — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl All civic norms shift constantly. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl Polling data suggests that across races and genders Americans perceive this as a problem. It is very easy to find prominent examples of people of all races and genders who feel it is a problem. Your framing seems to erase everyone but the white people. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl It has varied greatly depending on time and place, in complicated ways that often varied even within individual identities, depending on the valence of a given issue. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl I haven't made any statement about how I personally felt. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl No, I'm addressing consequences of social media that everyone is living with. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl Again, my claim isn't *everything was better in 1996.* I agree some things were worse. You're not addressing my actual position. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @Popehat I think if I told you in 2002, *wow the new speech climate post 9/11 is more repressive* and you responded *oh you think Black people had no speech restrictions in the old days* we would have been talking past one another; I agree with you about bygone injustices. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @Popehat 9/11 was one kind of factor. The rise of social media is another. It makes everyone subject to sorts of pileons that were mostly restricted to famous people in bygone eras. Yet we've made progress on racial justice since those bygone eras. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@VictoriaDahl @Popehat I think that the answer varies among and within the different categories. For example, after 9/11 I think everyone was less able to talk about various things related to terrorism than in 1996, even though it was easier to be pro gay marriage in 2002 than in 1996. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

@ModeledBehavior Mike Love just happened to be friends with Uncle Jesse. — PolitiTweet.org

Conor Friedersdorf @conor64

Trying to scold others for not caring enough about Covid, or for being "over" the pandemic, has failed to save lives. But these other approaches could succeed in saving lives: https://t.co/6mRNQWtOeB Covid hawks should switch focus from scolding to these policy changes: — PolitiTweet.org