[pacala]

Bingo! That's why Twitter is so distopian: they can craft any narrative by choosing which tweets to show in your timeline. The ultimate out-of-context quoting machine. 140 character limits was set in place for a reason.

[lukebitts]

The reason being SMS character limits... right?

[aeternum]

Quotes have been cherry-picked and taken out of context since language was invented.

The only difference with Twitter and Facebook is that they can now do it automatically and at impressive scale.

[dominotw]

> Bingo! That's why Twitter is so distopian

not sure if gp's point has anything to do with twitter itself or character limits.

[pacala]

gp is complaining about third parties quoting tweets out of context. When Twitter's raison d'être is out of context quoting. He saw trees, I'm glad to point at the whole forest.

[V-eHGsd_]

gp wasn't talking about tweets being taken out of context. they were talking about reporters using an entire tweet from a random person to support a random theory.

[pacala]

Tweets are mass produced quotable out of context discourse. To be harvested to support arbitrary theories.

[V-eHGsd_]

it seems like your beef is with twitter generally, but gp (at least by my reading) was more complaining about the journalists that rely on it in this particular way, not the underlying platform.

I agree that twitter is a cesspool and does not encourage thoughtful communication, but it feels a little forced to me in this conversation.

[segmondy]

It's 280 btw.