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Over the past three years, the ways in which I've engaged on twitter has changed. When you have a small account (less than 500 followers, like 95% of Twitter users) the effects of your behavior are dramatically different from when you have a large or huge account.
I've been on the receiving end of a lot of piles-on, and I have accidentally triggered a few myself. These bad experiences have led me to develop a general framework for engaging on Twitter. My goal is to set the fewest possible guidelines to make twitter more tolerable and positive.
No death threats or threats of violence
Never quote tweet a smaller account with a negative comment
Almost never yell at government staff and bureaucrats
Go ahead and yell at elected officials
Steelman your opponent's argument
Block aggressively
When in doubt, mute
1. No death threats or threats of violence
I shouldn't even have to say this, but: never send death threats or threats of violence.
Every time I get quote-tweeted by a DSA member it immediately escalates to threats of violence. DSA accounts are extremely quick to threaten to shoot, hang, or guillotine you. I've received DMs from the rose emoji crowd threatening to find where I live and attack me. Their entire political philosophy is based on conflict, so violence is inherent in the thoughts and behaviors of DSA membership.
This is the reason I maintain such a large blocklist. Whenever I get a death threat I follow this pattern: I block the person who made the quote tweet that led to the death threat, I block & report everyone posting threats, and I block everyone who liked, retweeted, or piled on. The growth of my blocklist has slowed now that I've blocked the worst DSA accounts in San Francisco.
Corollary: If you quote tweet someone and you see your followers engaging in bad behavior, you have an obligation to call them out, block them, and delete the tweet.
2. Never quote tweet a smaller account with a negative comment
Getting retweeted by a big account is exhilarating -- Attention! New followers! Hundreds of likes! But when the big account quote tweets you with a dunk then suddenly you're swarmed with their reply guys harassing you, dunking more, and generally just making your life hell for 24 hours. The pile-on may even result in you losing your job.
Never dunk on smaller accounts. The hit of dopamine you get can alter a stranger's life forever. Your dunk can cause a cascade of attacks, devoid of any original context, and ruin someone's life. As Ezra Klein said:
A person’s Google results can shape the rest of that person’s life, both economically and otherwise. And yet people have almost no control over what’s shown in those results [...]
Unless something that is said is truly dangerous and you actually want to see that person fired from their current job and potentially unable to find a new one — a high bar, but one that is sometimes met — you shouldn’t use social media to join an ongoing pile-on against a normal person.
A Different Way of Thinking About Cancel Culture, by Ezra Klein
2.a Ideally, never negatively quote tweet anyone
The world has enough negativity -- do you really need to send that tweet?
3. Almost never yell at government staff or bureaucrats
Government staff are hard working and underpaid. They don't get to choose their work, so don't attack them for doing what they're told. A well-functioning government requires a bureaucracy that is responsive to the will of the electorate, which means implementing and enforcing policies elected leaders set.
There are some exceptions to this rule: if the staff person is violating the law or using their discretion to hurt someone or a group of people, then have at 'em.
4. Go ahead and yell at elected officials
Look, you’re not going to convince anybody or make real change by yelling at people. But sometimes politics involves riling up the base so they get more involved. Elected officials signed up for this. But please, see rule #1.
5. Steelman your opponent's argument
Steelmanning is the opposite of strawmanning. It means to take whatever someone said and to engage with the strongest version of their argument you can construct. Not only will this make you a better thinker, you will also raise the collective quality of conversation.
6. Block aggressively
This grew out of my experience with rule #1. If someone threatens you, block them. If they're a jerk, block them. If they are an annoying reply guy, block them. No one is entitled to your time or attention. If they bring negativity into your life then you have every right to cut them out.
7. When in doubt, mute
If you find yourself not wanting to see someone's opinions pop up on your feed, then do yourself a favor and mute them. I mute friends who I think have bad or obnoxious opinions. I mute some reply guys. I mute keywords that are suddenly popular and which I don't care about.
I wish more people muted me. I have many strong opinions, and even more weakly held opinions that annoy a lot of my friends. That's ok -- I don't mind people thinking I'm wrong. But jeez, if I annoy you constantly then just mute me! We can still be friends :)
Future essays
Here’s a preview of what I’m working on:
The ADA is the only good thing about American urban planning
How to solve street homelessness in five years
The (high?) cost of social housing
Current Projects
I’m working on some tools to work with the San Francisco voter file, to help campaigns validate their petition signatures, and to analyze election results. Utilities from these projects will be open sourced on GitHub as they reach maturity.