The article Hans Bonfigt wrote as a reaction to my ideas about Old White Men (alte weiße Männer) is a kind of ”torrent of hatred” against the Green Party and against Twitter.
? Basically, I am not sure that I understand the connection between Twitter and old white men. Perhaps it is because the current President of the US is very active and a certain CSU Minister of the Interior also announced that he will become active? Both of them are more the exception than the rule when it comes to “old white men”.
Let me name a few positive aspects of Twitter. In a later article, I might well voice my personal opinion on the danger of a fascist eco-dictatorship triggered by the Green Movement and Parties.
For Hans, Twitter is a No-Go. Well, I am fine with that, because I think I know Hans quite well. Although this in itself is an absurd statement, because nobody should profess to “know someone else quite well”. Mostly, we do not even know ourselves well.
I believe Hans is never on Twitter and consequently does not know much about the service. At least I never found his name in twitter.
Back to the “short-message-service”, which, according to Hans Binfigt, is the “toilet wall of the internet”.
Let me try to describe it rationally: In Twitter, you only see your own timeline, i.e. what people whom you follow have published on the internet. In other words: you decide what you see in Twitter by what you select.
Occasionally, I also follow people who publish nonsense or hatred. Simply because I am curious. But mostly, I do not stay there long, because it is really unnerving.
Consequently, one might say that I live in a Twitter bubble of like-minded persons – which means I restrict my choice of persons to those that have the same set and system of values as I. They are quite compatible with me. But then, is that not what we always do in life? We all know the proverb: Birds of a feather flock together . We like to look out for like-minded people. That is also true for the regulars‘ table.
To me, the people I like following on Twitter seem to be very constructive and critical persons. And I receive a huge number of clues and great articles and blog contributions from them. If I wanted assistants or personal reporters to deliver it in the same quality, I would need quite a bit of qualified manpower.
Screenshot of my twitter account in the morning of December, 23, 2018.
In my timeline, you will find media, the international press, publishers, the police, enterprises – among them the Deutsche Bahn – and many people who, like me, use the internet as a network where they can participate. I seem to remember the definition of WEB 2.0, where participants become people who contribute. This is definitely a change that also happens in real life – as is demonstrated quite nicely as classical conferences become Barcamps.
Above all, I follow people who do what I do: as soon as there is something they believe in or something they like, the share it in their timeline. This is how I get a huge number of clues and pieces of advice: they point me towards well-written articles or blog contributions, interesting statistics and facts. And it makes me feel that I am a Prime Minister or politician for whom the assistants select what they think he will find interesting in the world.
Many Twitter partners of mine attend congresses and share (twitter) the most important content of the presentations on a hashtag. That is when I leave my timeline and go into a topic mode. For instance, during my Caribbean Trip in November/December, I found it quite easy to follow the Munich IT summits. The same was true for the CDU party convention.
And many people were there live (either physically or watching TV) and they wrote very diligently. That was very exciting and a lot more efficient than having to spend the time in front of a TV set (which is not easy on the Caribbean, anyway).
On reading the articles, I notice that the quality is extremely high and that many good people are taking part. I would say that, especially on Twitter, you will find the elite, rather than the lowest of the low.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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