The middle of last year a friend of ours suggested I read some
blogs as a way of whiling the time away, finding out interesting
stuff, absorbing others' opinions, that kind of good thing.
One of the suggested bloggers was on Twitter so I began by
following them there. It was interesting, interesting things
were tweeted, I learned new stuff as predicted, everything was
good.
I'm not a huge Twitter user: I lurk, follow not much more than a
dozen people, good light reading on the loo.
Then, just before Christmas, a fellow follower said something on
this blogger's thread that seemed just plain wrong to me;
certainly the comment could not be allowed to stand without a
challenge, 'twas such a sweeping statement. Specifically he
said that what pissed him off about fanboys of Elon Musk was that
they couldn't see that Musk isn't clever, and that he takes
advantage of clever staff by not paying them properly. So I
asked him for information to back this up. Predictably the
exchange didn't last for more than two rounds before it descended
into name calling, the guy @'ing the blogger with a Tweet that
"this sealion" (referring to me) should learn to use Google.
At that point I realised that he was only out to entertain his
mates, not to have a discussion. So far so Twitter I
thought.
It wasn't until a few days ago that I realised I had seen no
tweets from the blogger over the Christmas period. I checked
and I had been blocked. Now that really did surprise
me. In my naivete I didn't realise that it was even possible
to block someone from following you on Twitter: replying, maybe
re-tweeting, that I can see, since those could be forms of
harassment, but blocking someone from even seeing what you have to
say? In what world can that make any sense?
Not long ago I had watched Tom Walker (the actor who is Jonathan
Pie) being interviewed
for Channel 4 where he pointed out that when he comes across
someone whose opinion he disagrees with he follows them on
Twitter, that is the way to get out of our bubbled/blinkered world
and I can understand his point but how can that work if you can be
blocked from even seeing someone's view? I had
thought that Twitter was inherently, innately, a public medium and
yet, apparently, it is not.
Annoyed, I sent the blogger a message via a form on their public
website (so I knew it would get to them) explaining that they
probably crave good communication, see the problem of bubbles, and
that I'd really like to continue following them please, in the
spirit of a healthy exchange of information: no reply was
received. So this blogger is actively curating
their own audience.
Now Facebook has "friends" and the meaning of that is pretty
obvious: friends very likely share your opinions, will be an echo
chamber, that is to be expected. Twitter is meant, I
thought, to be the antithesis of that, to encourage mass
communication, remove the barriers, in the way Tom Walker suggests.
Yet it is not. Much, much worse: it
appears to be that and yet it is manifestly not. I'd
missed the significance of the word "follower": a Twitter follower
is a follower in the sense of an acolyte, a member of court, one
who conforms to the views of the ruler; if the ruler is not happy
you're out. And if one does not realise this one might be
fooled into thinking what is there on the page/thread is a fair
view, going unchallenged; yet it is the view of an acolyte of that
particular religion with all the bias that implies, subtle as
well as down-yer-throat.
And I'm immensely disappointed that someone who blogs, uses the
web to express opinions, I would hope to engender
discussion, has to curate their audience. I mean, it must be
fun when everyone laughs at your jokes but it is a bending of
reality as much for the blogger as for the audience. On what
planet can that make long-term sense?
Maybe everyone knew this already, that Twitter followers must
conform and I'm only just finding out. Of course there may
be white knights out there who never block (I'm one! Not
that anyone follows me, and not that they are ever likely to as I
very rarely Tweet anything). But I think it is possible that
most people see Twitter as I once did, as a fair and open means of
spreading information. It may, of course, be bollocks
information but at least one can see it and check it and discuss
it.
Unfortunately, Twitter is as responsible, more responsible in my
view, for insidious bubble forming than Facebook; Twitter bubbles
are actually more like Twitter black holes, which you don't even
know that you're inside and from which no information escapes once
you're outside [my physicist friends may suggest that at least
real black holes, unlike the Twitter ones, do allow information to
escape]. And I can see no fix, aside from encouraging any
Twitter user you know never to use the block button unless they
are truly being harassed beyond belief. Others' opinions and
the information they are based on matter, it is how we listen,
learn and develop. The shape that Twitter currently takes is
killing that, twisting that, and we have no way to stop it.