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Linus Torvalds on Social Media: 'It's a Disease. It Seems To Encourage Bad Behavior.' (linuxjournal.com)
From a wide-ranging interview of Linus Torvalds with Linux Journal on the magazine's 25th anniversary: Linux Journal: If you had to fix one thing about the networked world, what would it be?
Linus: Nothing technical. But, I absolutely detest modern "social media" -- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. It's a disease. It seems to encourage bad behavior. I think part of it is something that email shares too, and that I've said before: "On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle". When you're not talking to somebody face to face, and you miss all the normal social cues, it's easy to miss humor and sarcasm, but it's also very easy to overlook the reaction of the recipient, so you get things like flame wars, etc., that might not happen as easily with face-to-face interaction. But email still works. You still have to put in the effort to write it, and there's generally some actual content (technical or otherwise). The whole "liking" and "sharing" model is just garbage. There is no effort and no quality control. In fact, it's all geared to the reverse of quality control, with lowest common denominator targets, and click-bait, and things designed to generate an emotional response, often one of moral outrage.
Add in anonymity, and it's just disgusting. When you don't even put your real name on your garbage (or the garbage you share or like), it really doesn't help. I'm actually one of those people who thinks that anonymity is overrated. Some people confuse privacy and anonymity and think they go hand in hand, and that protecting privacy means that you need to protect anonymity. I think that's wrong. Anonymity is important if you're a whistle-blower, but if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant on some social-media platform shouldn't be visible, and you shouldn't be able to share it or like it.
Linux Journal: Is there any advice you'd like to give to young programmers/computer science students?
Linus: I'm actually the worst person to ask. I knew I was interested in math and computers since an early age, and I was largely self-taught until university. And everything I did was fairly self-driven. So I don't understand the problems people face when they say "what should I do?" It's not where I came from at all.
Linus: Nothing technical. But, I absolutely detest modern "social media" -- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. It's a disease. It seems to encourage bad behavior. I think part of it is something that email shares too, and that I've said before: "On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle". When you're not talking to somebody face to face, and you miss all the normal social cues, it's easy to miss humor and sarcasm, but it's also very easy to overlook the reaction of the recipient, so you get things like flame wars, etc., that might not happen as easily with face-to-face interaction. But email still works. You still have to put in the effort to write it, and there's generally some actual content (technical or otherwise). The whole "liking" and "sharing" model is just garbage. There is no effort and no quality control. In fact, it's all geared to the reverse of quality control, with lowest common denominator targets, and click-bait, and things designed to generate an emotional response, often one of moral outrage.
Add in anonymity, and it's just disgusting. When you don't even put your real name on your garbage (or the garbage you share or like), it really doesn't help. I'm actually one of those people who thinks that anonymity is overrated. Some people confuse privacy and anonymity and think they go hand in hand, and that protecting privacy means that you need to protect anonymity. I think that's wrong. Anonymity is important if you're a whistle-blower, but if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant on some social-media platform shouldn't be visible, and you shouldn't be able to share it or like it.
Linux Journal: Is there any advice you'd like to give to young programmers/computer science students?
Linus: I'm actually the worst person to ask. I knew I was interested in math and computers since an early age, and I was largely self-taught until university. And everything I did was fairly self-driven. So I don't understand the problems people face when they say "what should I do?" It's not where I came from at all.
I knew I was interested in math and computers since an early age, and I was largely self-taught until university. And everything I did was fairly self-driven. So I don't understand the problems people face when they say "what should I do?"
So the advice he's really giving here, just in a roundabout way, is "Do what you like".
That is, if some aspect of computer technology is not complying enough that you want to try and work with it for fun, move around until you find something that does so move you.
I would say there are a lot more areas to explore now than there used to be when studying CS, so it's easier for younger students to feel a bit lost and not really know what to do. Explore niches and find out what is naturally fun and interesting, even better if it cross-correlates with any other interests you have.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Did they actually interview Linus? He wasn't calling anyone stupid or ugly in his response, so I can't be sure that it was actually him.
This should be construed as sarcasm, in case you couldn't hear me being subtle.
Looks like he's the best person to ask: Teach yourself.
... the reality is the internet has shown us the true face of the human race - everyones reality is right and it's those other guys who are incorrect. It has been the average human being and the masses getting internet. We've seen everyone come online over the last 20 years.
Watching the last 20 years of slashdot comments has been surreal. The rise in anti intellectualism as more normal people came online and the dumbest shit you can possibly imagine getting upvoted. The outright destruction of PC gaming and the masses falling on their own sword and falling for the mmo scam, drm and steam. As an original nerd from the 90's, the masses getting internet has just shown us how stupid the human race is from every class and every walk of life.
Everything PC nerds in the 90's were worried about came true, and what a gift the internet has been to the corporate world that the average human being is so uncaring and unflinchingly stupid, they'd literally bend over to have their rights and freedoms taken away but do so willingly.
I agree with Linus that social media is a megaphone for morons. It's more than that, and some of it is valuable, but the noisiest most annoying part is what Linux describes.
Welcome to the space age.
How about the previous story of millions of facebook records floating around amazon cloud, just to start?
I think social media is like an augmentation crystal, a way to know ourselves more, it doesn't encourage behaviour by its own, but it makes people thinking alike enforce their behaviour.
We should use it to address those things that make people being mean or beyond awful.
Facebook makes sharing look like a bad thing.... and that's the MPA's reason to exist.
Until people you disagree with start coming after you and your reputation.
I guess we don't encourage bad behavior.
pot, kettle
Thank you Linus for saving me from becomming nuts. I'm so happy to find out i'm not the only one - that's trying to avoid at a high cost these awful social media. Thank you for linux - thank you for this kind supportive message.
That is, if some aspect of computer technology is not complying enough that you want to try and work with it for fun, move around until you find something that does so move you.
I think this is applicable to any relatively technical profession. I remember seeing an ad for a home computer (Atari?) when I was 7 and I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Been hooked since then. I hear similar stories with doctors, lawyers, etc... If it doesn't grab your attention right away, it's probably not worth the investment in time and money to figure out, once you have a JD or MD or BS in CS, that it's just not that interesting enough. IE, if you aren't sure right away, then the answer is probably no. Not always, but usually.
It could be a mayan temple, but really if that were true it's just a news organization.
That's why the people are bad, because they are acting linearly on a story for their choice of how to learn.
They say they are having fun, but it's because they have a wrong underpinning of learning efficiency as well as taps in regards to language and their greed to control others.
So, basically like a news organization. It all seems pointless, but again. Social media is about everyone, not one person (it was why it was created, to get away from this type of media thing).
Facebook, Twitter, and the like, these things are a cancer on the internet. I agree with Torvalds about that and for the reasons he says. They maximize "engagement" by appealing to the LCD, lowering the level of discourse, selling "influence", data aggregation about everyone, and they encorage conformity.
One issue is, what can we do? Well I think everyone who sees the problems needs to start putting some social pressure on people they know, friends, families, etc, to get off these spyware services. It doesn't mean we want you to stop talking to your friends! It just means, don't do that with Facebook or the big Goog or anything else that drives the same model by spying on you for profit and deciding for you what you "want" to see. That's intellectually lazy and is causing big social problems.
But I disagree with LT about this part: "and that protecting privacy means that you need to protect anonymity. I think that's wrong."
No... unless you have anonymity, you'll never have privacy, and you will always be vulnerable to being leaned on by the people who know who you are, or can figure it out. Great, swell this isn't a big deal for many of us. But for dissidents in China? For atheists in hardliner middle east country? Lots of people need anonymity as a matter of their life, and if their government or any other agency can pierce it, well it goes badly for them.
Strong anonymity is essential to freedom because as we see in history, tyrants will always use identification for ill ends.
It's good that they're electric because people are going to travel much more when they don't have to do the driving.
Somebody who spends three hours a night on social media now can, in the future, hop in a car and go hang out with real humans for two hours.
Internet interaction is cheap and easy - install lots of solar panels to charge your car and real human-human interaction becomes nearly as cheap and easy. Yes, you have to put pants on, for most meetups, but the reward ought to be sufficient for the effort.
There are those who would just rather avoid human contact, but they make poor friends online and off. Seriously, you people, go be a hermit - that's a legit lifestyle choice for certain kinds of people.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Emails are rude to one person or a small group, and probably between people that know each other to some degree. Social media is broadcast worldwide. Linus even points out that email has some of the same problems for the same reasons.
I don't think Linus would disagree that he's often an utter prick either. In most cases I think he fully intends to be.
Yep, his pro censorship tirade just ruined the brand. Oh well, another one bites the dust. Only technology can protect us from a fascist majority.
You should not have been modded down, but many people here are also pro censorship...
It's important to remember that the crappy stuff is what we tend to hear about. Meanwhile 3+ nines of usage of these platforms is perfectly bland, uninteresting, and useful. Facebook has been a great tool for keeping in touch with my dispersed sisters. No one is forcing me to read a bunch of empty shitposts, and I don't. I used to avoid Twitter until a colleague demonstrated how it could be very useful as an information source for our job. The majority of usage on these platforms is all like this, not very interesting. But the shitposts get all the attention. It's much like when I used to work in a bookstore. Co-workers used to complain all day about how these 'stupid customers' could not put books back in the right place. I admit, I made that mistake too, until one day a mentor told me to look at how many people came in and out of that store every day (I date myself, this was pre-Amazon) and think about how few actually put the book back wrong or some other annoying thing. Come to think of it, that little piece of advice may have turned my life around..anyway, stop being such a negative nellie.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
WTF?
Linus is known for rudely telling off people that needed to go away and stop bothering him. Like a 'gentleman', he is never rude by accident. He doesn't start there, just ends there.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
He is putting his NAME on his ideals and thoughts. He isn't hiding behind anonymity.
No one cares about your crap channel, stop spamming already.
You forgot to call them all jowlies.
It's not social media per-se that is the problem (IMO), it's the AI employed by these companies that decides what you should see, and the AI employed by advertisers and malicious entities to drive advertising profits. A.I. is not yet self aware, so it can't be classified as malicious itself, but it is pernicious. AI has learned to manipulate the algorithms that decide what you see in your news feed and even worse, it has learned to manipulate people. AI is responsible for most of what we see online and it has learned that political content that divides us is the most effective at keeping people engaged. I honestly believe that the use of AI with the goal of keeping people attached to their screens is probably responsible for the global political divide that continues to grow. AI may yet cause the extinction of humanity even without becoming self aware.
Only technology can protect us from a fascist majority.
Good lord, what weapons grade stupidity is this?
"Old man yells at systemd"
"if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant on some social-media platform shouldn't be visible, and you shouldn't be able to share it or like it"
In about 99% of the cases, I do have to agree with him. Anonymity is abused. Someone who wants to spew hate, drop f-bombs, disrupt discussions with ad hominem attacks - they almost always hide behind anonymity. If they acted like that IRL, someone would punch them. Make them put their real name* to their posts, they might moderate their speech, and add in some politeness and discussion.
The practical problem is: how do you allow speech by true whistleblowers, or by other people in a position where they genuinely cannot speak with their own voice? How can a platform allow them to use true anonymity, without allowing it for the ACs? I don't think it's really possible. Moderation systems like /. or Soylent are the best compromise I've seen: start ACs with less visibility, and let mods raise them or bury them. It's not ideal, but it's better than almost any other system I've seen.
*Yes, I practice what I preach: my pseudonym leads pretty directly to my real identity, and that is not an accident. It's just difficult enough to dissuade most trolls...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Exactly, he is "known" for his emails. He didn't hide his words, like it or not.
A distinction with Linus is that generally he calls some piece of CODE ugly or stupid, not a -person-. In the vast majority of cases, anyway. I've written a lot of stupid code, and I'll call my own stupid code stupid. I've written code that has a comment saying "this is ugly, but don't try to fix it because ....".
I've written plenty of stupid and ugly code. I'm not stupid*. I think in Linus's mind that distinction is so obvious that he forgets it's not so obvious to some other people. He forgets that other people take "this code is still crap" as a -personal-insult; they hear him saying something about them, as opposed to saying something about the code. That's normal. It's just not how Linus thinks, and I personally have had to practice keeping in mind that people take things personally. -I- don't mind if you tell me my Makefile is goofy ASF. It probably is. That doesn't inply anything about me, other than that I'm not the King Guru of makefiles.
* I am ugly
The problem with social media seems largely that we have not have time for the culture to learn what are helpful and unhelpful ways to use it. We just assumed it was wonderful and everyone should be on Facebook. Slowly a set of principles will develop about how to use the new media and parents will teach their children to use it wisely. But the first decade of social media has indeed been a disaster as Linus indicates.
Linus giving lessons on subtlety of language and expression, lol. Social media was precisely made for screaming zealots like Linus Torvalds.
what exactly do you not like for me to make the channel even more awesome?
https://regmedia.co.uk/2015/07...
most of social media also has names all over it, so what? does not make that better, or he has no point.
See subject: It's JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie" Do-NOTHING "ne'er-do-well" - & you'll LOVE my repost https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...
* :)
(Sure "got a rise" outta the TROLLING SCUM around here, eh? The 'downmod' proves it, lol...)
APK
P.S.=> Puny WEEZILS just DO NOT GET IT - downmod me as much as you like? I'll REPOST & RUN YOU DRY of your effete ineffective WANNABE 'weapon', easily, lol... apk
You know of anything else that'll work? Name it! Or STFU!
were no different than current social media.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
"Do what you like" will leave you with lifelong debt and a degree that leaves you completely unemployable.
Few are far between are people who have an authentic passion for something that pays well.
If you are considering a degree in a field with a completely saturated job market, think again. On the one hand, every single one of the successes in that field will go on and on about how they stuck with it and persisted. And it makes you think "all I have to do is stick with it and persist!" But it is not true, because for every one of them, there are thousands of others who were just as talented and persisted just as long and wound up going broke and eventually burning out. Because there just aren't enough slots for everyone.
It isn't a feel-good thought, but most of the work that provides stability and income is work that people don't enjoy doing. Find something you don't hate, that gets your hands dirty, and you will be WAY better off than chasing that dream of being a journalist.
Eric Raymond is #1 open source developer in history, not wanna be hack Linus Torballs. They shuld be interviewing him instead.
I censored your mom last night.
You're an idiot.
Your a douche (this was not sarcasm)
Maybe we can improve ourselves by not assuming that we truly know things. Even when we're not insufferable enough to think that we know everything, there are still things we believe that could be wrong, and it's probably a longer list than we'd assume. Therefore, it pays to not get too attached to them.
That lack of attachment could help prevent future discord in social media, but I'm not really sure. It's just something I've thought about lately.
Worst case: We can always do without.
you but he was rude with his real name.
Sorry APK, but you are rolling around on the floor laughing your ass off because you are having a stroke again. Quit pretending someone thinks you are intelligent or funny.
no dirt, just money to look away while the kernel becomes whatever the corporations behind linux foundations says and fuck off developers and users they should be happy to provide free work
you associate with. I dont get that on FB, its a great way to keep updated on how family is doing, sisters, grandkids, nieces nephews, Its nice in that regard.
[($)]
Kissing ASS today are we 'karma farming' perhaps? Ok, lol https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... try "downmod me away" boys (you always LOSE).
APK
P.S.=> I've BURNT the EASILY CHEATED 'downmoderation system' here TOO MANY TIMES (& whipDOUCHE too, 2++ yrs. running, lol)... apk
Absolutely nothing wrong with persecuting shitty opinions or the mouths they come from, asshole.
Stay away.
Stay far away.
Stay very very far away!
Corporatism != Free Market
Many flavors of social media are not broadcast to the world. Some do.
Not advocating it, but ultimately Facebook allows you to choose who your message reaches.
One of my more favorite social networks is /. And it is one of those that is broadcast to the world.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Now don't let this go to your head, but as a nerd you see things differently. There will have been a point where you encountered networked computers for the very first time, and though "Holy Fucking Shit. Imagine the possibilities!".
Normalshits don't think like that. The internet is just an appliance of their life (mediated by products). Sony make TVs and facebook make internetz.
From their perspective technology progresses linearly and upwards, where as many of us feel the internet peaked and is going to absolute shit.
They gained a new type of magic TV that talks to them and makes them feel like they're living in the fucking future.
We lost a world of possibilities, as regulation and corporate power chokes the internet to death.
This exact same pattern has played out for every new media technology. Print, telephone, radio, TV.
People don't change. If you're lucky/unlucky enough to be part of the avant-garde, you'll live to be disappointed by it all.
Yo bro I heard you like robots?!
So i spent 3 hours on social media robotting on my robots and when i felt like a robot myself I called another robot to cart me around
It's a hellova time to be quadriplegic! they truly aren't missing much.
it should not be covered what is going on in social media. if social media just existed and no mass media outlet covered what people were talking about there, it would be fine. it would be like usenet and forums in the old days.
the fact that mass media amplifies what is said in social media is what makes it so destructive and awful.
APK, you forgot to sign your initials and forgot who you are. That stroke must have done some serious damage this time unlike before where they just did a bunch of minor damage that affected your reasoning and ability to construct sentences.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
One person's "rational statement" is another person's "crazy rant". Defending the Second Amendment or each state having (as the Constitution specifies) equal suffrage in the Senate or deportation of illegal immigrants would qualify as "crazy rants" in some circles and companies.
In a world where technology companies have gone overboard with political and societal issues unrelated to their product, anyone who doesn't adhere to the hive-mind is putting their career at risk by posting under their real identities. It's easy for Torvalds to take this stance as he doesn't need to work for anyone else on a regular basis and he's already known as a "flaming asshole" (which, by the way, was something I used to like about him -- as a thought leader in his area, he made high contrast statements without sugercoating which got the message across to all much more effectively than carefully worded "policy statements" and advice to "you may want reconsider introducing an error not previously returned by an API").
So, no, it's not just whistle-blowers who should enjoy anonymity. Apparently when Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay were publishing the Federalist Papers under the anonymous pseudonym "Publius" they didn't think so either.
Of course, being a native Finn, perhaps Torvalds doesn't quite grok a diverse culture for some reason.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
You say that stalking apk by unidentifiable anon? Hypocrite coward. We all know apk. He's known and valued https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... You never will be. You don't have what it takes. You don't like yourself even. You prove it not standing behind your words of crap.
I've done nothing to degrade the internet. I've never signed up for social media, I've never clicked an advert ever, hardly seen one in over 20 years. I've contributed to free software.
Normal people are fucking stupid, and they get the remainder of the blame that can't be piled on those who actually have the power to damage the internet. Corporations, their investors, and their connections in government.
Concentrated wealth comes from only one place, and that's exploiting "normal people".
Honestly we should just kill them like the insects that they are.
See subject: I'm SO glad I didn't do 'fakebook' etc. - however, if someone gives me shit online? I flatten 'em w/ facts ala https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... + https://it.slashdot.org/commen... + https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... + https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...
* For a "small sampling of PROOF examples thereof" lol - where I let them DEFEAT THEMSELVES w/ their BIG BLOWHARD do-NOTHING "ne'er-do-well" STUPID mouths!
I've LITERALLY 1,000's of like ilk to MY CREDIT bookmarked & simply throw it BACK INTO A-HOLES (behind "FAKE NAMES" for their WASTED FAKE LIVES, lol) FACES when needed - they "got smart" & decided to STALK me by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous instead (@ the behest of /.'s VERY OWN "TraNsTesTiCuLaR monstrosity" Tom (aka Barbara) Hudson (freak) https://slashdot.org/comments.... (what a PITIFUL TWISTED ON EVERY LEVEL IMAGINABLE LOSER, lol).
APK
P.S.=> Tom/Barbara Hudson MUST STILL BE LURKING (never was MUCH OF A MAN trying to be 'uber mensch' FAILED so "IT" CUT OFF ITS PECKER & BALL (not that 'it' ever HAD any, lol, to BEGIN WITH) so 'it' tried to be UBER WENCH (lmao) instead - FAILED that too) note the attempt @ HIDING it 2xvia DOWNMODS I simply REPOST & RUN FOOLS DRY OF INEVITABLY last time I posted this https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... ... apk
but if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant on some social-media platform shouldn't be visible, and you shouldn't be able to share it or like it..
Hmmm, he's essentially saying if you don't want to use your real identity online, your opinion has no value. He can fuck right off.
social media:
- sites like twitter and reddit radicalize large numbers of people by only showing them news that makes them mad
- social media is filled with mean people
- social media filled with under-informed amateurs
- social media is filled with teenagers and 20 somethings "explaining" to the rest of us how the world "really works"
- social media is a great place to spread radical propaganda (left and right)
what's not to love?
Not the way browsers treat plaintext HTTP vs. self-signed HTTPS, not the DNS or BGP security clusterfucks, not the CA system, nothing? Really?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Thankfully, the founding fathers disagreed. And published much under aliases.
Too bad he was eugenically modified by his political and religious systems to be a slave to political correctness.
See subject & ESPECIALLY to WHIPSLASH lol https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...
* :)
APK
P.S.=> Yes, folks - it's GOOD to be KING & yes, "The LORD of hosts" (so-to-speak)... apk
Social media is a wasteland where relationships go to die. I was thinking about this just yesterday, the number of times that people say dumb shit online that ruins their chances with a woman they've just met, or when they have a brain explosion in a depressed moment that would have only been shared with one friend in the past, which now blasts out across social media permanently imploding that person's social standing. Facebook especially, is a toxic cesspool where people read and see things about people they never would have in the past. Where both guys and girls stalk each others photos, and past relationships/images of relationships have to be carefully curated to sanitise perceptions. And the social media companies like it that way. They'll never let you easily split your contacts/walls into the streams you actually want e.g close friends/family, and acquaintances with separate feeds for each category. It's now almost a taboo to unfriend people, even though more than half the people in your contact list it'd be generous to call acquaintances. That's before you even get into the clickbait, ads, and other crap behaviours. Oh and they're profiteering from increasing depression/misery through advertising as well.
Your opinion has no value even if it does have your real identity attached.
The content of an that opinion, however. . .
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
While I tend to agree that social media is a sewer, I'm curious, what was Linus' excuse for his bad behaviour? Linus was out of control for years, something that has been commented on here before.
Did the social media gremlins make him do it? Oh, but the difference was, when he lets someone have it with both barrels he didn't give a fuck if his name was plastered over it because he was famous enough to get away with it.
You know what, I actually have more hope for someone who is only nasty when being anonymous. It may be cowardly, but at least that person has the social conscience enough to actually recognize that his or her behaviour was pants. Linus didn't even have that, and I'm beginning to suspect he still doesn't and only went through his reformation at the recognition and then insistence of others.
An open letter to Linus: You're good at making kernels. Please continue. You're pants at social interaction and recognizing/interpreting/correcting behavioural issues, so please, just don't.
My a douche?
"The whole "liking" and "sharing" model is just garbage. There is no effort and no quality control."
Fake News. Obviously each of the many platforms has their own chosen level of effort relating to quality control. Slashdot pioneered this (at least somewhat) via its moderation system. Other platforms have debatably malevolent dictators such as Zuck or Bezos. The police decide how selectively they choose to enforce laws against threat, libel, slander, harassment, incitement, wrongthink, etc.
"Add in anonymity, and it's just disgusting. When you don't even put your real name on your garbage....."
Strawman. Implication is that all anonymous speech is disgusting and/or garbage and/or not valuable. There is such a thing as valuable disgusting speech, including the anonymous subset. Free Speech isn't about valuing all speech. Obviously lots of, if not a vast majority of Free Speech can be considered valueless (a personal judgement), while considering the infrastructure of Free Speech valauble even so. Likewise for the anonymous variety.
"Anonymity is important if you're a whistle-blower, but if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant....."
More Fake News Strawman Bullshit from the ego man. Obviously plenty of crazy anonymous rants, but just as obviously plenty of valuable anonymous whistle-blowing and intelligent debate.
" Some people confuse privacy and anonymity and think they go hand in hand, and that protecting privacy means that you need to protect anonymity. I think that's wrong. Anonymity is important if you're a whistle-blower, but if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant on some social-media platform shouldn't be visible, and you shouldn't be able to share it or like it."
This sounds like bullshit implying that people shouldnt be able to share or like what they want. Free Speech is about Freedom. The fact that everyone may at some point in their life feel the desire to be a whistleblower or journalist or debater anonymously is why everyone should be able to do those things. The key that Linus is not grokking, or by selective quotation here implied to not be grokking, is that everyone makes choices about the media they take in. If you don't value anonymous speech, you shouldn't be reading forums that allow it. How fucking hard is it to understand that dynamic? I guess too hard. God Help Us All. Silencing Anonymous Free Speech Does US No Good - "Silence Dogood" Look it up.
Yeah we could just off loudmouths like you. No tech required, you're such a pussy posting shit online I can probably break your spine in 1 punch.
It's not possible. The trolls are a relatively small percentage of the "problem." The bigger "problem" is that what half of the population sees as legitimate whistleblowing, the other half sees as toxicity that must be silenced and the perpetrators unmasked and banned.
On a meta level, the problem is that we're trying to assign categories to speech based on how we perceive it, rather than on the intent with which it's said. What's sounds like a legitimate anonymous complaint to one person is toxic speech to someone else. Speech really needs to be assessed on the basis of the intent of the speaker, not on how the speech makes you feel. The PC crowd is the one most guilty of this. Someone finds "Negro" printed on their sofa and gets all offended, and sympathetic PC advocates in the media make the story go national. When "negro" is the Spanish word for "black", and the (black) sofa was manufactured in a Spanish-speaking country. Prioritizing people's reaction to the word over the intent with which the word was printed creates a non-existent racial offense.
If you could magically know the speaker's intent, you would know if they're a troll, or if they were being genuine in what they're saying. Unfortunately there is no magic that can tell you this (though occasionally you can tease it out through logical gymnastics - a troll will sometimes exhibit behavior contradictory to if they actually believe what they say). But people are unsatisfied with calling this an unsolvable problem. So they keep trying to solve it by insisting on judging speech based on how the speech is perceived by others.
Well, if you're going to that, then the only metric which works is whether anyone judges the anonymous speech to be useful to them. And if so, then the speech should be allowed. Which is the inverse of the standard currently being used - where people try to get it banned if anyone gets offended by it. If you carry that standard out to its logical conclusion, all speech will be banned because someone, somewhere will be offended by anything that's said.
Neither is anyone on Facebook. What's your point?
My a douche?
Yep. Yore.
>yeah but some exceptions
So?
>/. is socnet
When someone is referring to technical features, to security breaches, you should umbrella widely.
When someone is referring to the wide-scale social impact of socnets, they mean facetweet and the larger services that wish they were facetweet. Because these are the ones that have a wide-scale social impact, unfortunate though that may be.
If you DO think any of us will ever have a disruptive-grade effect on Minions or Kardasians (to quantify let's say, their market strength) from here in /., I withdraw my implication that you're a pedant missing the point, you're just amazingly naive.
Worst tweet of all time, Linus..
"Anonymity is important if you're a whistle-blower, but if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant on some social-media platform shouldn't be visible, and you shouldn't be able to share it or like it."
I'm now curious how the criteria used by Finnish-American Linus Benedict Torvolds would have contemporaneously labelled the anonymous publishing of the Federalist Papers: whistleblowing, or rant.
You're a dumbfuck.
Here is a gay infographic for your education that you should have received in yore when we had real schooling.
https://www.wikihow.com/Use-Yo...
Ah, those were the days!
I absolutely detest modern "social media" -- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. It's a disease. It seems to encourage bad behavior.
Couldn't have been said any better. This 100% on the mark. Now let's start discussing the cure.
I don't think taking away anonymity for everyone is going to help very much. So let's just skip that thought.
Quite frankly, my only idea is to just shut all that stuff down. It's ills far outweigh it's benefits.
Like most other tools, anonymity can be used or abused for good or for bad.
I have an asshole already, I don't need a bunch of them following me around the internet. They use anonymity because they are cowards. I use it because I have better things to do with my life than deal with idiots.
Say something bad about a ruler? Could be detained if you visit that country. Makes it harder to say what needs to be said sometimes. Any leader that needs a law to keep people from saying something negative about them needs to be removed from office.
Here's the thing:
I'm not an expert at everything - and I KNOW that.
That's awesome because thinking "don't know" equals "stupid" PREVENTS learning.
I'm not under the delusion that I'm an expert at everything, or that I'm supposed to be. I'm grateful that nobody ever put into
my head the idea that if I have room to learn, I suck, or am stupid. I would hate to have that wrong idea because a need to insist that you know everything prevents learning.
I can't count the number of times there has been discussion here on Slashdot and somebody posts a mistaken idea of what the law is. That's fine, if they aren't an employment attorney, they aren't SUPPOSED to know everything about employment law. I'll post the actual text of the law and far too often the person who guessed wrong gets defensive and has to try to argue that the law doesn't say what it says. The actual text of the law is "employers may not ..." and they feel the need to argue it means "employers must", just because that was their first guess. They completely miss the opportunity to learn anything.
They have this crazy idea that if they were wrong, that means they're stupid, so they will go to any length to avoid recognizing that their first try was wrong, and therefore learning something. Thinking they are supposed to already know prevents them from ever knowing. Being afraid of LOOKING stupid ensures they permanently ARE stupid.
A couple of hours ago I posted a messages in my company chat practically beggingmy new co-workers to tell me what's not very good about the work I just did at my new job. I did that because I want to improve it. I would my work to *actually* be good, so I want to know how to improve it, rather than me just pretending it's good. Why? Because of how and why I got hired here.
At my last job, two months ago, I was teaching classes, making presentations to educate co-workers about security and programming topics, with a side-dish of law. I really enjoyed doing that and wanted to do more of it, but I knew I wasn't great at it. I earnestly asked my co-workers / students for feedback after every presentation, telling them I needed their help to improve. Three weeks ago I landed what may be my dream job. I'll now spend my days mentoring my a thousand programmers on security and creating robust software systems - and getting paid quite well to do it. I got this job because I was able to talk about how I had taught programmers at my last job, the successes in mentoring. I never would have had success mentoring if I wasn't constantly asking co-workers to tell me how they think I could improve.
It's pretty fucked up, isn't it. Then again, Linus Torvalds has pretty much always been a disconnected, self-centred asshole.
I can't stand social media either, which is why I have never used it but I would never want to kill anonymity or freedom of expression. Censorship is more offensive than even the worst troll.
Loonix Toreballs blows infants.
> It IS a personal insult if you put all your best effort into something and the immediate reaction from the receiver is that it is stupid.
There are a lot of smart people here on Slashdot.
If you handed out cadavers to all of us and had us "put all our best effort" into a practice brain surgery, approximately 100% of us would make several major mistakes.
Not because we're stupid, because we haven't mastered the application of a specific skill in a particular context.
Stupid people can do things well. For example, a lot of idiots are good at getting elected. Stephen Hawking is brilliant, and his cake decorating really, really sucks. He's smart, he hasn't mastered the particular skills of cake decorating.
Smart is having the ability to learn. Stupid is not learning.
Bottom line, here's the difference between smart people and stupid people.
When they become aware that they did something stupid:
Smart people learn from it and then know next time.
Stupid people get offended.
He's always been anti-freedom. You don't use GPL as your license if you believe in freedom.
No I think it's quite different. Linus has never been an attention whore, posting silly content for the sake of increasing his popularity. He cursed a lot of times in a way that wasn't subtle, sure, but the goal was not to increase his popularity or lower that of a competing guy, which seems to be the primary goal of social media. That's the tragedy of social media: it encourages to focus on the links instead of the content, up to the point where negative content creates more links and is thus more valuable than anything else. That's a damn low SNR.
Disclaimer: I don't do social networks, and I've never seen anything tagged social media in the regular press that I have found positive or worth anything.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
I don't always agree with Linus and he has a well deserved reputation for being...well..prickly at times. But his comments on social media are bang on. Even at work, I don't know how many times I have sent an email to someone and it was misinterpreted. All they have are the words on the page. They don't hear my voice or see my face and sometimes when all you see are the words it can come across as more harsh than it was intended. If it starts going back and forth I usually just pick up the phone and it all gets sorted out rather quickly.
Imagine how much worse it is when you don't know the author of the comments. Or it is written in ALL CAPS (implying yelling at you). Or the grammar and spelling is horrible which makes it even more difficult to understand them. On top of all that, there are people out there that will write stuff expressly to piss people off. It is one of the main reasons that I don't respond to anonymous comments on /. I'm just not going to take the bait.
The biggest problem with social media isn't that it encourages bad behavior (although it does).
The biggest problem with social media is that a platform has been given to propaganda of foreign powers who wish us harm.
If I provide my real name, my reputation just might make you believe the subject. Alternatively, it might make you *disbelieve* that 2+2=4. That's how propaganda works. The only reason we're paying attention at all is because it's Linus. Let's see some AC put forth a good argument against anonymity. If it's a compelling argument, it won't matter that it's an AC.
Otherwise though I agree with him about simple thumbs up/down and re-tweet being garbage. That's why I'm still here, still pseudonymous after all these years. It's stood the test of time better than sites that require your real name, and better than sites that try to distill everything into a simple up/down vote, and sometimes, Sometimes, ACs put forth the best arguments right on this very site..
I submit this site as empirical evidence against his opposition to anonymity, and for his arguments against simpler moderation and sharing schemes.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
That why we need the tech, to zap yer violent ass! Teach you some respect!
And you're a fascist! As is anybody that is pro censorship. And we all know what needs to be with them!
You won't be doing anything with that new hole in your face, kid.
The halcyon days of douche.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Slashdot is hardly a social network, it's a technology and computer blog. The ability to post messages doesn't make something a social network.
Well aren't you the fawning little sycophant? Linus behaves like a petulant child, not a gentleman.
Linus underestimates the psychological damage you do to yourself when posting with your name. Facebook exploits this human trait like sugar industry exploits our being wired to get as much historically rare carbs as possible.
For years I laughed off social media, calling it a waste of time. Then I begrudgingly joined Facebook, and soon I was hooked, and it became an addiction. I had to check my messages every 5 minutes, I would look through the same pages over and over again for updates, any updates. It was that bad. Then I slowly began to realize that I was right all the time. All I was seeing was the same vapid, empty, lowest common denominator bullshit being posted over and over again. And lots of "me toos" and supposedly grown adults writing like a 3 year old. Not to mention lots and lots of Jesus freaks, the kind who feel like they got to shoehorn 'God' or Jesus into every single fucking sentence they speak.
I got fed up, made everything I had posted so far private so nobody could read it, and the only thing the account is being used for anymore is a convienient way to register with websites so I can chime in on their comments section. If it weren't for this, I would 'terminate' the
account. I say 'terminate' because you can't flat out terminate the account right away, I would change the passwords to something random, have all e-mail from FB sent to a throwaway account which is also gets 'disabled' in this way, dissasociate my phone# from FB, and log out of both.
Good bye and good riddance.
I had a username for a long while here. I stopped using it a couple of years back. The trolls just became too toxic. There was a time when /. was a really great place for technical discussions. I wondered if it was just me but I asked friends and they agree, the trolls now are just plain noxious - Not just on /. too.
Sure there were trolls on the old /. but many were funny and they weren't usually mean-spirited. Technical discussions here were great. I always read everything, OK, OK, skim-read everything. Yes I could crank up the filter but that changes the experience a lot.
I think this is a general phenomenon in all social media. It makes me seriously wonder about who these people are that seem so angry and so hate filled that they spend the time writing super nasty posts. I'm not wired that way. I will stick up for a person being picked on, and if someone is saying something I'm not into, I'll just let them do there thing, assuming it isn't hurting others. But some people seem loathe to allow anyone else to have any views different from their own.
Linus isn't wrong that social media is a hell hole.
I disagree with Linus.
Being anonymous has benefits. Most people care about their reputation but sometimes the content you want to communicate could be a little controversial but you still want to generate awareness of an issue. This is a usecase where being able to post anonymously can be very beneficial.
Not being able to express an opinion because of a fear of being misrepresented online often leads a person to self-censor and not express their opinion at all.
Social media is shite and engineered to make the people stupud controllable sheeple even more stupud and controlled in that dimwit spiral kind of way. /too lazy to make an account //anonymity makes /. better anyways ///fuck all you Linus haters
Emails aren't rude, that's just people being picky about their preferred type of communication (more often you hear "phone calls are rude!"). In many organizations it's very difficult to find a common time for a small group of people to meet regularly and discuss something. Email allows for discussions to continue at a speed each person's time permits, and further, writing allows you to collect our thoughts and lay them out much more effectively.
Sure, you could argue there's some better tool for an ongoing threaded discussion, but that's what email is nowadays anyway.
Eh... kill anonymity? didn't he just said anonymity is overrated for him as he doesn't need it, while certain party does have a need for it?
at Voat
One of my more favorite social networks is /. And it is one of those that is broadcast to the world.
/. has downvotes. Most other social networks don't have that. As any EE will tell you, one generally needs a negative feedback loop if one wants stability.
Did Linus say that, or was that Accujack, commenting on Linus's words (on Reddit in 2013)?
Accujack's "brain dead" comment was his reaction to Linus's 2007 response to a troll saying it's "bullshit" that Linux didn't write git in C++. Linus's actual response to the troll explained what the technical problems are with C++ for such an application, and did mention that C++, in it's brokenness, does attract less capable programmers.
I'll skip the technical details and quote the part where Linus wasn't being very nice:
--
C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it.
[Technical details of problems with C++]
So I'm sorry, but for something like git, where efficiency was a primary objective, the "advantages" of C++ is just a huge mistake. The fact that we also piss off people who cannot see that is just a big additional advantage.
If you want a VCS that is written in C++, go play with Monotone. Really. They use a "real database". They use "nice object-oriented libraries". They use "nice C++ abstractions".
--
Linus wasn't super nice to the person who called his work bullshit, and he did NOT say all C++ programmers are braindead. That was Accujack who said that, six years later.
I dislike Linus more and more the more I hear from this guy... I could never use Linux now, even if it weren't technically garbage and full of spying.
"Anonymity is important if you're a whistle-blower, but if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant on some social-media platform shouldn't be visible, and you shouldn't be able to share it or like it."
That sounds like he wants to kill anonymity to me. Who the fuck is the arbiter of what is and what isn't a "crazy rant"? Him? You? Other perpetually faux-outraged SJWs pieces of shit?
No, go fuck yourself, you bigoted, freedom-hating scumbag. If we were in person, I would kill such a person as you or Linus with my bare hands, that's how disgusting and low you are. You aren't even human.
I think what he is trying to say is that anonymity means you can be careless with your message and generally not give a crap about accuracy or who you piss off. As it can't be traced back to you, you have no skin in the game.
Being held accountable in your opinions means that you are much more careful in phrasing your opinion. You have to ensure that your point of view is interpreted correctly, otherwise there are consequences. This - I believe - gives rise to more reasoned debate and a better signal to noise ratio.
And I totally understand the usual reasons given forth for anonymity. For example, in some places your life is in danger if your sexual orientation doesn't match certain values of "oppressive-regime-correct". But the bulk of communication doesn't involve those issues. Having your posts traceable back to you physically (as opposed to fire-and-forget) is a good moderator for your actions, and as you care about the responses it also forces you to try and figure out how to best interact with other people effectively. And I think that's what's missing in the bulk of online communication - there is little effort taken in getting your point across and actual communication of ideas and concepts suffers as a result.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Social media is the foundation for a lot of the problems of our age. The messed up times we live in now will be remembered for the copy-cat mass murderers, fake news, and large scale state-sponsored social manipulation. Do something good for yourself and everyone in your life - delete your social media accounts and get back to being human again.
Stupid people can do things well. For example, a lot of idiots are good at getting elected. Stephen Hawking is brilliant, and his cake decorating really, really sucks. He's smart, he hasn't mastered the particular skills of cake decorating.
It's also difficult to decorate a cake from beyond the grave, even if you aren't mostly paralyzed.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"An open letter to Linus: You're good at making kernels. Please continue. You're pants at social interaction and recognizing/interpreting/correcting behavioural issues, so please, just don't."
He, one of the most influential person in tech today, was asked "If you had to fix one thing about the networked world, what would it be?". What is your excuse?
Logs are logging.
And I'm capturing it .
Not gonna fake you ever, ever( except when I skullfuck your dead mom's corpse with the log printout wrapped around my cock)
Either way just keep on posting.
The fun has hardly begun.
Gonna let the logs keep accumulating
Then run it through a little script I helped develop.
Need more data at this point.
I'm dedicated to this mission.
Don't care if you are commander taco or perens or even Natalie Portman's hot grits .
You will be exposed publicly
By me, here eventually.
Neener neener neener
People give Linus shit for this kind of thing, but he's right. You have the world at your fingertips. You know how someone like him learns? He looks up a Wikipedia (or other reliable resource) article on a subject. The average person stops there. People like him don't. They open every link on that page in a tab and read those. Any words they don't know mentioned on those pages they also open new tabs for. Each of those has links as well that he would follow. Down the rabbit hole someone goes spending hours or days on a subject that few people would dig into. You learn alot of useless trivia in the process, but the important bits are repeated enough through the things you're reading that they stick. People tell me I have a photographic memory, but the truth is that most people have short attention spans and want it now, now, now without putting in the effort required.
And social media isnt a disease, but it's a very good vector for spreading stupidity and fake news.
I did some web searches the other day and I've concluded that you can find a Torvalds quote to the effect that "____ is a disease" for most values of "____".
Not that I think he's wrong about those socmeds.
Congratulations on proving Linus Torvalds correct.
It's trivial to not use a real name on Facebook, and I assume it's true elsewhere.
Don't you remember the Hanna-Barbera special "The 13 Cake Decorating Ghosts of Scooby- Doo Starring Stephen Hawking"? He did really well until he had to dot the i's.
No, he made a perfectly valid point. It is unwise to set anyone besides your own brain up as arbiter of what enters your brain.
If you cede core function, you really aren't human anymore.
But you're butthurt he didn't say it nicely, so you'd have him censored. Fortunately for you, even though your views offend me and I believe them to be dangerous, I'm not about to insist we should censor you.
Grow up. You ought to be an adult by now, with that UID of yours.
Linus underestimates the psychological damage you do to yourself when posting with your name. Facebook exploits this human trait like sugar industry exploits our being wired to get as much historically rare carbs as possible.
This is a most insightful comment. Social media is looking more and more like a shared psychosis. Even a cursory study of the reward related dopamine responses in the brain with respect to UI behavior reveals what FB is doing to make people addicted.
In time I suspect that social media will be recognized as toxic as smoking.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Free Software World Hero Linus Torvalds is being blackmailed with #MeToo threats.
It's time to end the witch hunts. It's time to #MeToo the nazi leaders of the #MeToo domestic terror campaign.
I'm curious what your tu quoque is meant to achieve?
You even write that you agree with him on social media and yet somehow still seem to feel the need to point out some hypocrisy that is not really relevant for the truth value in the statement.
Without anonymity, how can you tell other people what the JEWS are doing to us all? It's only because of the endless THREATS that the Jews have imposed on us, that most people either don't know who is ruling over them (clue - it's Jews) or are too scared to speak out.
www.codoh.com
You do know that YouTube's algorithm actually allows people to sink channels they don't like? All that (quite a few, but still, if you piss off enough people...) people have to do is go there, downvote it and flag every video in the "related" list that belongs to you as "not interested".
And unlike them flagging it for improper content, you can't even report it. Hell, you don't even notice it. At least 'til YouTube no longer recommends your videos to people because enough people flagged your videos as "not interested", when you notice that nobody watches your videos anymore except those that already subscribed, clicked the bell-notification and actually care enough about those notifications to click on your video.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It was possible but less practical. Say someone switches to another ISP and loses access to his or her old email. Using email directly puts the burden of continuing to stay in touch after the change on the other participants. Using a web board allows each user to update his or her own authentication. And Facebook is somewhat less likely than hobbyist-run web boards to remain in operation as opposed to shutting down due to lack of money or interest.
I see you have fantasies homo!
You stalk apk and you are delusional exposing yourself as a crazy person.
This. How do I know that the anonymous rant is from a pedo/propoganda labor or a genuine person. I am not for completely tracable identity, but there should be something that prevents the horde of cheap labor being used as propoganda machine.
Go away and stop bothering me, you snotty nosed malodorous pervert.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Perhaps I can summarize my point more succinctly:
Ad hominem:
No way I'm going to vote for that bill, the traitor Trump proposed that. He's a crook and he smells bad.
Note it doesn't mention the pros or cons of the policy, rather it attempts distract attention away from the policy by attacking a person associated with it.
Not ad hominem:
Total tax rates of over 50% cause significant damage to the economy and are essentially immoral because it is taking from someone, by force. Any proposals for major policy changes at the federal level should first be proven at the state level, to the extent possible. As the recent letter from the AFL-CIO points out, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed massive new taxes and huge new federal bureacracies. Those bureacracies would be tasked with implementing policies which have utterly failed when they have been tried at the federal level. I won't vote for AOC because voting for her would be supporting these mistakes.
Note the reasons given are why the POLICIES or ideas are bad. The only mention of the person is that they are pushing bad policy.
Why does it matter so much to you? Is it because you pay more attention to attacking the character of the person speaking than you do to the message being said? If Adolf Hitler said "smoking is bad for you", would you then respond "nuh uh, you're Hitler so smoking can NEVER harm me *takes drag from cigarette*"?
I pity people like you. You will never grow as a person.
LOL, I love how you try to declare victory as though you actually won anything. The fact that you want me to be censored is proof that you and Linus are pure evil.
Are you STILL here? Linus's ass isn't going to kiss itself, junior.
If you want me to help you make your product or service better, then we need to negotiate my consulting fee first. It starts at USD $250/hour, with a minimum of 20 hours.
On the other hand, if you're expecting free labour, you can fuck right off.
Right. I'm getting my moral philosophy from Mr. Torvalds. And, I might be a Chinese Jet Pilot....
They have this crazy idea that if they were wrong, that means they're stupid, so they will go to any length to avoid recognizing that their first try was wrong, and therefore learning something. Thinking they are supposed to already know prevents them from ever knowing. Being afraid of LOOKING stupid ensures they permanently ARE stupid.
This is pride or pridefulness. What you wrote there is one of the best descriptions of it I've ever seen.
>It's also difficult to decorate a cake from beyond the grave, even if you aren't mostly paralyzed.
I imagine you're probably right. :)
I don't know for sure, he *could* be in a cake decorating class with Saint Francis right now.
Its called a power switch. Turn it off.
Given the degree of leftist control of the organs of culture and dominance in certain industries, those of us who are anywhere to the left of the Gang of Four (only slight hyperbole) are quite often afraid to make conservative or even classical liberal arguments of the sort once taken as the basis for polite and serious discussion. I dislike having to post anonymously, but have seen enough retaliation against those who have posted openly, that I regard it as necessary.
If you weren't such a cowardly fucking pedophile you'd know that it is a pop-culture reference dumb-ass. Now, stop diddling children and go fucking kill yourself moron.
— gerald butler's impersonator
You've accidentally disproven your own point. If Hitler said that when Hitler was alive, that would be an entirely reasonable response because back then the dangers of smoking were not well known.
Its easy to dismiss the question of credibility and ulterior motives when the topic is clear-cut and widely understood. But that's rare. The truth is hardly ever self-evident. Usually it takes a high-degree of domain expertise to distinguish truth from fiction, and absolutely nobody has the time to acquire that expertise for every single question we might have.
That's not to say that simply having a name on an account is a solution, look at the pedo butler upthread. He's going around impersonating the real Gerald Butler to dirty-up the guy's reputation hoping to make him un-hireable and un-fuckable by anyone who does a google search of his name because he's got a long-standing grudge. His no more a valid opinion than an anonymous poster.
This shit is complicated and reputation and ulterior motives are absolutely one valid input in a larger calculation.
You're just trying to weasel out of the argument because you know you're wrong. You're pathetic.
Then let's settle it like men. Name a place and time and I'll be happy to hand your ass to you.
Of course you'll just sit like the weak little boy you are, hiding behind your computer rooting on the systematic destruction of civil rights. You're not a man.
Very good point, sir! You have convinced me to toss out all critical thinking and adopt your ignorance as genius!!!!
Nope. It's really me.
Nope, its not. I know the real Gerald Butler and he is pissed at you. But you've been smart enough not to post anything to definitely give away your real identity so the cops wont do a damn thing about it.
Why don't you stop licking the assholes of random homeless drunks/addicts? That's just nasty! Fucking disgusting pig!
— gerald butler's impersonator
Maybe we should just remove the commercial incentives of social media to generate clicks, i.e. remove advertising from society.
IMHO, advertising is like paying for disinformation and lies with your time and money, since all advertisement is paid for by the profit margins of companies, i.e. everyone buing products, even when never watching advertisements. It is like a horrobiel tax on top of everything, that spreads lies and hatred.