[toolatenohate]

I quit Twitter a while back when it was showing me anti-Muslim tweets. Mostly retweets and likes by some of right leaning tech leaders that I respected and followed. Many of these influential accounts were spreading obviously false tweets. Even when it was true, they would retweet if suspect was a Muslim. But if suspect turned out to be not Muslim, then these accounts would stay quite.

I support free speech but I don't want to see hateful speech when I eating my breakfast. Especially when I am the target of hate & harassment.

Sorry cannot hide behind freedom of speech when your real motive is money. Now people are leaving your platform, so you all of sudden care about controlling hate and harassment on your platform.

There are real life victims because of hate and harassment that these companies protected for so long.

[wolco]

The people you followed shared that content. Not sure it's twitters fault here. Why follow or continue to follow tech leaders who post content you find offensive?

At what point are you responsible?

[abnry]

It is because on twitter, your favorite tech person can mostly tweet boring tech stuff, but will be unable to resist, like the rest of us on twitter, retweeting the inflammatory extremist tweets when they show up in their own feed.

I am more and more convinced that one of the root issues with the current state of Twitter is the retweet button. So easy to spread misinformation when you can act on impulse.

[toolatenohate]

Agreed, add a barrier. I have been tempted to retweet false tweets too cause they enrage you and you want to do something. But I had a rule, never retweet a tweet within an hour of reading it.

I don't think these people really go out of their way, but when they see something that confirms their preexisting biases, they are tempted to retweet immediately.

[SmellyGeekBoy]

Indeed. It's sometimes hard to acknowledge when the people you admire and look up to turn out to be horrible people.

[growlist]

> I quit Twitter a while back when it was showing me anti-Muslim tweets

Without wanting to be provocative, I have the same feeling about the BBC website but for the opposite reason. Why the need to push pro-Muslim/PC stories all the time? I have to sift through the agenda-driven pieces to get to the actual news, and anything that does not support the globalist/leftist agenda is given cursory treatment and buried hard. I want things to go back to normal! Just show me proper news! Not another story about Lena Dunham's endometriosis..

[eahman00]

That is funny. The reason I don't follow tech people on Twitter is that they spend all day posting about left-leaning US politics, feminism, LGBTQ-whatever, etc. which are things I couldn't care less about.

That's one of the bad things of social media: you want to read about tech or movies or sports or whatever so you follow someone in the field but you also have to read his political opinions, see pictures of his kids, see the latte he just ordered, etc. Insufferable.

[dev_dull]

Exactly one of the few reasons I still enjoy coming to hacker news. I hope we can keep our little community here.

[busterarm]

That's been increasingly less likely though, as some of our more prominent posters freely post their politics.

I've taken to flagging politically motivated topics with some amount of success.

[toolatenohate]

I am more of center and care about right-leaning issues. At least, I want to be informed. So I follow not only tech leaders but also other right-leaning leaders too.

And when I say tech leaders, they may not be celebrities like Mark or Jack but they are still leaders in their smaller communities. I am talking about developers who built frameworks, people from here, and other communities like Indie Hackers etc.

I won't out anyone but one example is some these leaders were complaining about lack of coverage on CNN of Hamas firing rockets into Israel. Of course, CNN covered it and many people refuted them by posting links/screenshots. But these same leaders have never complained about lack of coverage on Fox/CNN when Muslims or other minorities are victims.

[beaconstudios]

everyone has a favourite injustice in online politics. It's somewhat understandable as there are so many injustices happening around the world that it's impossible to pay attention to all of them. So we pay attention to the ones the media covers - if the coverage is perceived as biased in one direction or the other, the other side will charge in with whatabout-isms. The Israel-Palestine conflict is a classic example of this.

[geodel]

Heh, what you said I find it absolutely true. Now instead of being influenced by their political opinions I find their tech opinions dodgy. They work like anti-influencers on me.

[dev_dull]

> Mostly retweets and likes by some of right leaning tech leaders that I respected and followed. Many of these influential accounts

Influential right-wing tech leaders? Do such people still exist?

The right-leaning people I know around silicone valley have been driven into hiding. I don’t know a single one who would show their hand on twitter. People are fired for tweets these days.

[toolatenohate]

They are there. Look in the smaller communities.

Unless you are looking for extremist/racists, most of these rightwing tech leaders have very reasonable views.

[beaconstudios]

libertarianism and classical liberalism are still alive and well in tech. Just depending on how loud the far left is, they may go into hiding in specific circles.