Thank you for this article. It’s an erudite summary of the growing problem of weaponised crowds. I left Twitter myself after someone posted a tweet of a video in which the Mozambican army shot a naked fleeing woman in the back, with lots of shares attached to it, and comments. I had trouble sleeping for days afterwards. And it reminded me what a savage and inhumane world we live in, where the last moments of a woman fleeing in terror can be shared around with the same emotional reaction as a skateboarding cat.
As a child I wondered how people during medieval times could turn up to public hangings. Since the onset of Twitter I’ve understood it better. A frightening number of Twitter users are the same people. A few hundred years ago many of them would have found themselves chanting “burn in hell, child of Satan!” at some condemned girl on the pyre.
One of the key problems with Fascist thinking, in my observation, is that the Fascist is always convinced of their righteousness. I recall an interviewer asking Henrik Verwoed (the architect of Apartheid) whether he ever doubted himself about his Apartheid vision. Verwoed responded that he had never had a doubt about anything in his life.
That Fasistic belief that you and your chosen few alone know “the truth” is evident in too many on both sides of the political isle right now (though I would say it is more common on the left these days). When someone is utterly convinced of their moral righteousness, and in their cognitive logic, anything and everything is justified.
Add to that the combustible component of language shifts that distort and invert words and soon violence becomes equal to words, and then violence becomes a reasonable response to words.
I no longer use social media, I’d rather not be reminded of the kind of people who live alongside me on this planet.
Never commented on an Unheard piece before but the folks who aren’t bothered to read the article yet still feel compelled to publicly dismiss it may be the perfect manifestations of the author’s point.
Maybe so, but I have sympathy with those who switch off at the mention of Twitter. It’s my guess that Twitter is used mainly by clebs and media folk – Normal sane people don’t use it and so turn away from articles about it.
I’m on Twitter. Are you saying I’m insane? No, I’m sane, but curious. There are 199 million active users on Twitter – they surely aren’t all insane, ‘celebs or media folk’.
Sorry Terry, you need to get out a bit more if you think that all of Twitter is made up of these people. Not everything on Twitter is angry shouting. There are very sane sports fans, scientists, cooks, pastors, accountants, the girl next door and so on.
All communicating with a maximum of 280 characters a go. When I was a kid I was required to write Christmas thankyou letters to my aunties that were longer than that.
PS: And so were you!
…and uncountable numbers of public sector workers in ‘customer-facing’ pseudo-jobs, who have been told that Twitter is a critical communications tool for interfacing, engagement and advocacy. Alas.
My issue is that unHerd, just like pretty much any other news outlet, ENABLES this behaviour by publicising it (and Twitter gets its extra clicks in the process).
ralph bell
2 years ago
Agree with all the points well made in the article.
How is it that a racist tweet or Trump tweet is deleted and the twitter band/suspended yet other acts of violent threats and intimidation and bullying (including Islamic fanatics) are given a free rein to go viral?Twitter controllers must want this to happen.
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago
You write off Twitter spats “flowing” into Old Media as it it’s a natural, unstoppable, process.
It is not. It’s a deliberate action by Old Media journalists.
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
I have a Twitter account, but I don’t visit it much as a it is a rabbit hole that can suck up ones time and I don’t find its format satisfying.
Besides the extremely bad behaviour that it allows, Twitter is also an ineffective means of communication. It is difficult to mount a persuasive argument because of the format and more importantly there is no ‘dislike’ button, so you either have to respond with a tweet, or scroll on by. I think the latter is the main flaw in the format.
Whether you are on Twitter or not, Twitter has a significant impact on Western society and demands to be discussed. If any one social media platform should be discontinued, Twitter is it.
Everyone on it knows the jig by now surely. Why continue to use it? Anyone who falls foul of a Twitter mob for posting something contentious… well, own it. Suck it up.
I have discovered things on Twitter that I never knew existed. I’m not very active, but not ready to close my account!
Ian Barton
2 years ago
It’s simple enough to largely end anonymity on social media – and allow libel/defamation cases to flourish – but governments are too cowed to insist on it.
Removing anonymity would mean one could not post anything against what the radical end of thinking endorsed. I know nothing more horrific than people saying all need to prove their identity to converse on social media. It is like publishing the voter rolls and how you voted. I mean why not, by your standard. ‘If that is how you vote, well own it’.
What you propose is tyranny of the Blackshirts. Thought crime, STFU as snitches get stitches vigilantism.
Hersch Schneider
2 years ago
I have no sympathy at all for anyone who posts deliberately provocative ‘Tweets’, all for attention, and then plays the victim from the inevitable backlash. Giles Coren and Darren Grimes knew what they were doing, so reap what you sow lads.
Just don’t do Twitter, end of. It’s a cesspit. No one needs it, it’s all for vanity and the sooner it fades into obscurity, the better it will be for society.
Saul D
2 years ago
Twitter would benefit from banning name-calling and empty one-line insults – just remove them – they add zero content – and some of the perpetual smell of the sewer would disappear.
Claire D
2 years ago
A powerful article I thought, it certainly got across to me the danger we are in.
I don’t know what the answer is to the problem of twitter, it seems to be one of the dark places best avoided like alleyways and towpaths at night, certain nightclubs and tunnels. ” Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side, keep on the sunny side of life.”
but I hope our government realise the potential for the anger to escalate and get out of hand, and have a realistic, adequate strategy in place to deal with it if necessary.
Marcus Scott
2 years ago
If I walk into the roughest pub in Britain I can expect there to be trouble. I am not to blame if I am randomly assaulted but my judgement in going into that pub in the first place is questionable. That is why I don’t go into Britain’s roughest pub.
If Twitter will not enforce rules of reasonable behaviour on its users and that bothers you then don’t use it.
Always remember, when it comes to social media you are not the customer you are the product. The advertisers are the customers. Go ahead and sign up for Twitter if it is that important to you but make your complaints to Twitter if there are problems, leave the rest of us out of it.
Geoffrey Wilson
2 years ago
Interesting and well-written article, thanks. Some disturbing stories, generally confirming a widespread impression that lefties get away with deplorable verbal aggression themselves, but twist, fabricate, and put a lot of effort into damaging the careers and home life of righties. I could defend that as using the tools available, and acting lawfully. One problem is well illustrated by the article’s reference to the IRA, where NI catholics were encouraged to feel under attack, and quite a few then resorted to horrible violence. Left and right should find some common ground in wanting to prevent similar violence from “feeling under attack” poor whites in the UK, and something to curb social media one-sidedness and aggression would be a good start.
I stopped reading about halfway down. I don’t want to think about Twitter. And I don’t think UnHerd is the place to find people who do. But I did learn the phrase “outrage inflation”, which I shall be reusing, so the time I invested in this article wasn’t completely wasted.
Give it another go Katherine. Yes there are too many Twitter references all over the shop – but this is one of the good analyses!
Brendan Newport
2 years ago
These new social mores must drive Charlie Brooker to distraction. How do you come up with Black Mirror scripts that can match what is going on in reality? I remember the final two seasons of House of Cards simply couldn’t match what was going on in the 2016 Presidential race and its aftermath in 2017.
In this new world, an LSE Gender Studies student apparently employs the language of incels. Who could have seen that one coming five years, even two years ago? Who would have imagined for one moment that Jezebel magazine, which markets itself as a feminist publication, would deride anyone, particularly a woman, for highlighting a threat against her?
Social media has created a topsy-turvy world where the so-called beacons of liberalism appear now to be demanding that speech be policed and those (again, particularly women) who dare to stray from the approved narratives be issued with instant death-and-rape-threats.
I’m sure there is something ‘good’ about Twitter, but occasionally looking at the so-called discussions in read-only mode (i.e no account) I struggle to identify what it is, beyond a cess-pit of threats and victimhood.
Cat Fan
2 years ago
Good article, and the examples are shocking.
I did think the article was going to touch on swatting. Not sure if I am allowed to post a link here, but if you google the name Mark Herring and Tennessee you will find a disturbing story from earlier in the week where a man who was using the Twitter ‘handle’ Tennessee suffered a heart attack and died after police were called to his home (swatting) as part of a campaign of harassment which had begun online and became more serious. The harassment had included having his home address and those of his relatives posted on a chat board and then others were encouraged to engage in intimidation. This was all because the man’s Tennessee was considered to be worth a few thousands of dollars and he would not sell it.
Alan Hawkes
2 years ago
I suppose it would be difficult to organise a polite, reasoned pile-on to someone like Matt Thompson, pointing out the error of his ways. It would be like having a write-in to a tribe of cannibals.
Are you by any chance related to the M4 service station Leigh? I wrote a sonnet about it a few years ago, which got published in The Hypertexts just before the New Year:- Sonnet 75, by Richard Craven Leigh Delamere, you should have written verse: a minor, whimsical, Pre-Raphaelite, or modernist perhaps, but not too terse, although stooping betimes into the trite. Now come we in our cars to chew your stodge, buy petrol – ludicrously over-priced – take part in orgies in your Travelodge, and moan about your toilets not being nice. Leigh Delamere, I’ve been your Porlock too. I’ve visited your stately pleasure dome skidmarked your nylon sheets and blocked your loos, stolen your towels and bvggered off back home. For these foul desecrations, let this be, Leigh Delamere, my true apology.
UnHerd commenters don’t tend to go in for “ bullying, smearing or even directly threatening someone online” but the point is well made: whether it’s porn or violence, the amount of it washing over us is coarsening and narrowing, rather than expanding and elevating. I know, one isn’t allowed to say that anymore.
The issue is that all this is being enabled by the media (including unHerd and the Spectator).
Let’s not give this nonsense extra space and they will sort themselves out.
In another article in today’s Unherd Freddy gives a back-handed Mia Culpa about a twitter he re-posted (and casually mentions he got 600,000 retweets, or some startling number!)
Funny how life is always full of Jungian Synchronicity, which seems to happen to me a great deal, and one never knows what to make of it, but suspect it should be noted as it seems a bit Karmic, or something.
Thank you for this article. It’s an erudite summary of the growing problem of weaponised crowds. I left Twitter myself after someone posted a tweet of a video in which the Mozambican army shot a naked fleeing woman in the back, with lots of shares attached to it, and comments. I had trouble sleeping for days afterwards. And it reminded me what a savage and inhumane world we live in, where the last moments of a woman fleeing in terror can be shared around with the same emotional reaction as a skateboarding cat.
As a child I wondered how people during medieval times could turn up to public hangings. Since the onset of Twitter I’ve understood it better. A frightening number of Twitter users are the same people. A few hundred years ago many of them would have found themselves chanting “burn in hell, child of Satan!” at some condemned girl on the pyre.
One of the key problems with Fascist thinking, in my observation, is that the Fascist is always convinced of their righteousness. I recall an interviewer asking Henrik Verwoed (the architect of Apartheid) whether he ever doubted himself about his Apartheid vision. Verwoed responded that he had never had a doubt about anything in his life.
That Fasistic belief that you and your chosen few alone know “the truth” is evident in too many on both sides of the political isle right now (though I would say it is more common on the left these days). When someone is utterly convinced of their moral righteousness, and in their cognitive logic, anything and everything is justified.
Add to that the combustible component of language shifts that distort and invert words and soon violence becomes equal to words, and then violence becomes a reasonable response to words.
I no longer use social media, I’d rather not be reminded of the kind of people who live alongside me on this planet.
Thank you for a humane and balanced article.
““burn in hell, child of Satan!””
Bit OTT lurid example there –
Never commented on an Unheard piece before but the folks who aren’t bothered to read the article yet still feel compelled to publicly dismiss it may be the perfect manifestations of the author’s point.
Maybe so, but I have sympathy with those who switch off at the mention of Twitter. It’s my guess that Twitter is used mainly by clebs and media folk – Normal sane people don’t use it and so turn away from articles about it.
You’re both right.
I’m on Twitter. Are you saying I’m insane? No, I’m sane, but curious. There are 199 million active users on Twitter – they surely aren’t all insane, ‘celebs or media folk’.
I’m sure that there indeed 199 million insane, celebs and media folk in this world. I acknowledge that you are a rare exception.
Sorry Terry, you need to get out a bit more if you think that all of Twitter is made up of these people. Not everything on Twitter is angry shouting. There are very sane sports fans, scientists, cooks, pastors, accountants, the girl next door and so on.
All communicating with a maximum of 280 characters a go. When I was a kid I was required to write Christmas thankyou letters to my aunties that were longer than that.
PS: And so were you!
You haven’t come close to 280 characters in any of your three posts here………
I am renowned for terseness
…and uncountable numbers of public sector workers in ‘customer-facing’ pseudo-jobs, who have been told that Twitter is a critical communications tool for interfacing, engagement and advocacy. Alas.
We really shouldn’t switch off from it. It’s real and it’s huge.
Don’t try and sweet talk me Allie.
Ha Ha, I like your dry humour Terry!
My issue is that unHerd, just like pretty much any other news outlet, ENABLES this behaviour by publicising it (and Twitter gets its extra clicks in the process).
Agree with all the points well made in the article.
How is it that a racist tweet or Trump tweet is deleted and the twitter band/suspended yet other acts of violent threats and intimidation and bullying (including Islamic fanatics) are given a free rein to go viral?Twitter controllers must want this to happen.
You write off Twitter spats “flowing” into Old Media as it it’s a natural, unstoppable, process.
It is not. It’s a deliberate action by Old Media journalists.
I have a Twitter account, but I don’t visit it much as a it is a rabbit hole that can suck up ones time and I don’t find its format satisfying.
Besides the extremely bad behaviour that it allows, Twitter is also an ineffective means of communication. It is difficult to mount a persuasive argument because of the format and more importantly there is no ‘dislike’ button, so you either have to respond with a tweet, or scroll on by. I think the latter is the main flaw in the format.
Whether you are on Twitter or not, Twitter has a significant impact on Western society and demands to be discussed. If any one social media platform should be discontinued, Twitter is it.
Everyone on it knows the jig by now surely. Why continue to use it? Anyone who falls foul of a Twitter mob for posting something contentious… well, own it. Suck it up.
I have discovered things on Twitter that I never knew existed. I’m not very active, but not ready to close my account!
It’s simple enough to largely end anonymity on social media – and allow libel/defamation cases to flourish – but governments are too cowed to insist on it.
Removing anonymity would mean one could not post anything against what the radical end of thinking endorsed. I know nothing more horrific than people saying all need to prove their identity to converse on social media. It is like publishing the voter rolls and how you voted. I mean why not, by your standard. ‘If that is how you vote, well own it’.
What you propose is tyranny of the Blackshirts. Thought crime, STFU as snitches get stitches vigilantism.
I have no sympathy at all for anyone who posts deliberately provocative ‘Tweets’, all for attention, and then plays the victim from the inevitable backlash. Giles Coren and Darren Grimes knew what they were doing, so reap what you sow lads.
Just don’t do Twitter, end of. It’s a cesspit. No one needs it, it’s all for vanity and the sooner it fades into obscurity, the better it will be for society.
Twitter would benefit from banning name-calling and empty one-line insults – just remove them – they add zero content – and some of the perpetual smell of the sewer would disappear.
A powerful article I thought, it certainly got across to me the danger we are in.
I don’t know what the answer is to the problem of twitter, it seems to be one of the dark places best avoided like alleyways and towpaths at night, certain nightclubs and tunnels.
” Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side, keep on the sunny side of life.”
but I hope our government realise the potential for the anger to escalate and get out of hand, and have a realistic, adequate strategy in place to deal with it if necessary.
If I walk into the roughest pub in Britain I can expect there to be trouble. I am not to blame if I am randomly assaulted but my judgement in going into that pub in the first place is questionable. That is why I don’t go into Britain’s roughest pub.
If Twitter will not enforce rules of reasonable behaviour on its users and that bothers you then don’t use it.
Always remember, when it comes to social media you are not the customer you are the product. The advertisers are the customers. Go ahead and sign up for Twitter if it is that important to you but make your complaints to Twitter if there are problems, leave the rest of us out of it.
Interesting and well-written article, thanks. Some disturbing stories, generally confirming a widespread impression that lefties get away with deplorable verbal aggression themselves, but twist, fabricate, and put a lot of effort into damaging the careers and home life of righties. I could defend that as using the tools available, and acting lawfully. One problem is well illustrated by the article’s reference to the IRA, where NI catholics were encouraged to feel under attack, and quite a few then resorted to horrible violence. Left and right should find some common ground in wanting to prevent similar violence from “feeling under attack” poor whites in the UK, and something to curb social media one-sidedness and aggression would be a good start.
Is Giles Coren a leftie?
I stopped reading about halfway down. I don’t want to think about Twitter. And I don’t think UnHerd is the place to find people who do. But I did learn the phrase “outrage inflation”, which I shall be reusing, so the time I invested in this article wasn’t completely wasted.
Give it another go Katherine. Yes there are too many Twitter references all over the shop – but this is one of the good analyses!
These new social mores must drive Charlie Brooker to distraction. How do you come up with Black Mirror scripts that can match what is going on in reality? I remember the final two seasons of House of Cards simply couldn’t match what was going on in the 2016 Presidential race and its aftermath in 2017.
In this new world, an LSE Gender Studies student apparently employs the language of incels. Who could have seen that one coming five years, even two years ago? Who would have imagined for one moment that Jezebel magazine, which markets itself as a feminist publication, would deride anyone, particularly a woman, for highlighting a threat against her?
Social media has created a topsy-turvy world where the so-called beacons of liberalism appear now to be demanding that speech be policed and those (again, particularly women) who dare to stray from the approved narratives be issued with instant death-and-rape-threats.
I’m sure there is something ‘good’ about Twitter, but occasionally looking at the so-called discussions in read-only mode (i.e no account) I struggle to identify what it is, beyond a cess-pit of threats and victimhood.
Good article, and the examples are shocking.
I did think the article was going to touch on swatting. Not sure if I am allowed to post a link here, but if you google the name Mark Herring and Tennessee you will find a disturbing story from earlier in the week where a man who was using the Twitter ‘handle’ Tennessee suffered a heart attack and died after police were called to his home (swatting) as part of a campaign of harassment which had begun online and became more serious. The harassment had included having his home address and those of his relatives posted on a chat board and then others were encouraged to engage in intimidation. This was all because the man’s Tennessee was considered to be worth a few thousands of dollars and he would not sell it.
I suppose it would be difficult to organise a polite, reasoned pile-on to someone like Matt Thompson, pointing out the error of his ways. It would be like having a write-in to a tribe of cannibals.
Another article about a twitter story??
Who the BL©©dy cares.
Maybe the article is very good, but I stopped reading about 1/3 of the way down. It is late and really I can’t care less about what happens on Tw@tter.
Well. You could try the Daily Mail and get a regurgitated story from Mumsnet.
Are you by any chance related to the M4 service station Leigh? I wrote a sonnet about it a few years ago, which got published in The Hypertexts just before the New Year:-
Sonnet 75, by Richard Craven
Leigh Delamere, you should have written verse:
a minor, whimsical, Pre-Raphaelite,
or modernist perhaps, but not too terse,
although stooping betimes into the trite.
Now come we in our cars to chew your stodge,
buy petrol – ludicrously over-priced –
take part in orgies in your Travelodge,
and moan about your toilets not being nice.
Leigh Delamere, I’ve been your Porlock too.
I’ve visited your stately pleasure dome
skidmarked your nylon sheets and blocked your loos,
stolen your towels and bvggered off back home.
For these foul desecrations, let this be,
Leigh Delamere, my true apology.
Nylon sheets? Where? Not in the Travelodge.
As for orgies and skidmarks, less said the better.
Poetic licence is the hill which I die on, Mr O’Leary.
Are they the only two options then? The Daily Mail or bloody Twitter spats dissected on Unherd.
No
me neither and never have – are we weird or something ? Or do we have well developed bullsh*t detectors ??
UnHerd commenters don’t tend to go in for “ bullying, smearing or even directly threatening someone online” but the point is well made: whether it’s porn or violence, the amount of it washing over us is coarsening and narrowing, rather than expanding and elevating. I know, one isn’t allowed to say that anymore.
The issue is that all this is being enabled by the media (including unHerd and the Spectator).
Let’s not give this nonsense extra space and they will sort themselves out.
In another article in today’s Unherd Freddy gives a back-handed Mia Culpa about a twitter he re-posted (and casually mentions he got 600,000 retweets, or some startling number!)
Funny how life is always full of Jungian Synchronicity, which seems to happen to me a great deal, and one never knows what to make of it, but suspect it should be noted as it seems a bit Karmic, or something.