Read on Twitter
So, here's a thread on a them I have spoken about before several times over the years, on other social networking sites as well on as here.
It's about scale, community, and the limits of knowledge.
It's about scale, community, and the limits of knowledge.
There's a thing that the Tan Who Would Be King does that I reference pretty often, where (as with Juneteenth) he makes the mistake of thinking what he knows is what is known, so that if he knows about something, everybody knows it, and if he just heard about it, no one else knows
The thing is, while the King in Orange is a ridiculous parody of a human being, he's still a parody of a *human being*. This flaw of his, it's a human trait blown all out of proportion.
The mistake he makes constantly on an absolute scale, we all make, frequently, in small ways.
The mistake he makes constantly on an absolute scale, we all make, frequently, in small ways.
On social media, particularly in what you might call an "unwalled" environment like Twitter or Tumblr where you're not browsing particular communities, it's easy to mistake what you see day after day for "what's on the site" and therefore what everybody else sees.
After all, not only do you know that *you* see all the stuff that's all over your timeline, most of the people you interact with are seeing most of the same stuff.
And if you make a reference to something common on your timeline, most of the people who respond will likely get it
And if you make a reference to something common on your timeline, most of the people who respond will likely get it
The first thing I heard about Paul Krueger's pattern of abuse was when I read what I shall call for the sake of form his apology post, minutes ago.
Without preamble or context, I read it over and over again wondering whose statement it was and what he was trying to say about it.
Without preamble or context, I read it over and over again wondering whose statement it was and what he was trying to say about it.
When I saw a reply from a person directed at him, only then did I understand it was his statement, and so I searched for context.
Among the search results was a lot of talk about silence from other authors and people in publishing.
Among the search results was a lot of talk about silence from other authors and people in publishing.
I've never met the man. We were until tonight mutuals but of the "mutual acquaintance"/"friend of a friend" variety. I've enjoyed his Twitter content. Haven't had deep conversations or read is longer work. I don't think I'm who anyone was thinking of when they spoke about silence
And I say this not to absolve anyone who did know and said nothing, but I hope will people will realize that by virtue of the fact that people weren't speaking about it, that also means that whatever it seemed like on your timeline, a lot of other people didn't know.
When we're not all literally in the same room, "shouting networks" fail for the same reason that whisper networks fail. There is no level of "open secret" or "everyone knows" where everyone, in fact knows.
So I have a two-fold plea for the community:
One is that if you *do* know something... and I mean something that has been made public, I'm not saying to vent somebody else's trauma... please do boost/say something/tell your network because "public" does not mean "everyone knows"
One is that if you *do* know something... and I mean something that has been made public, I'm not saying to vent somebody else's trauma... please do boost/say something/tell your network because "public" does not mean "everyone knows"
And the other is that if you're in the know and you've been speaking on it and you're sitting there watching silence resound around you where you expect there to be sound... and I'm not talking about specific individuals, colleagues, people in a position of power...
...but about a larger idea of "The Community" or "Publishing" or "SFF", if you're not seeing the traction you expect, it's not necessarily because all of those people know and aren't saying something.
It's *easy* to miss things on here! People talk about the algorithm burying things but even when stuff was chronological it was easy to miss things. Online is a firehose and in 2020 it's spraying in every direction.
My go-to example for this is always: I'm an author, I write fiction. I can say that even in weeks when I don't have a thousand new followers (hi!) and a thousand or more people, this will be their first clue I do that. And many more will still not see me saying it.
I tell people who are worried about annoying their followers by doing self-promotion: do it twice as much as you think is obnoxious and most people who follow you still won't see it.
It's not the algorithm. It's life, it's time, it's people.
It's not the algorithm. It's life, it's time, it's people.
If you're reading this and going, "I know some of the people she follows, there's no way she just found out about Paul today"... someone else with a similar set of mutuals is reading this thread and going, "Wait, what about Paul?"
Social networks are very inefficient that way.
Social networks are very inefficient that way.
And among the reasons that I'm writing a whole thread that deals with a general basis phenomenon as well as this specific topic is because on a social network like Twitter, a thread has more chances to catch a person's attention and to be shared than an individual tweet does.
If any part of this thread resonates with anyone, if anyone appreciates even a single tweet enough to retweet just that one tweet... the whole thread travels. And each new tweet I add to it is another chance for you the follower to happen to notice it, and read the whole thing.
I am not currently proofreading my tweets because my new glasses are not here yet, so it has just come to my attention I said "a them" in the first tweet when I meant "a theme". Sorry for any confusion.
Anyway.
Share information, hold people accountable, and please do not be dismayed by the idea that there's one singular "Twitter" or "SFF community" or whatever that either knows as a whole or doesn't know, because whatever comes up, a surprising number of people won't know.
Share information, hold people accountable, and please do not be dismayed by the idea that there's one singular "Twitter" or "SFF community" or whatever that either knows as a whole or doesn't know, because whatever comes up, a surprising number of people won't know.
And if you're just hearing about this and don't know what's up... look, I'm still catching up. And the first thing I found out for sure is people are upset that no one's talking about it. Which is understandable. And at the end of the day I don't actually need the deep run-down.
But since I don't have the deep run-down, I'm not the person who can explain this to you.
I can explain something of how information propagates across a social network, though. (And how it doesn't.)
I can explain something of how information propagates across a social network, though. (And how it doesn't.)
...okay, I want to be very clear this is not criticism, but rather more explanation. As I have gone backwards with Twitter searches to find out the details, I've discovered that the way this broke out likely has contributed to the spread being slower.
The thing that jumped out at me is that when I searched for his name I found a lot of people talking about the discussion (and lack thereof) around him, but not so much the discussion and people going, "And another thing about him is..." but not the first thing.
And it's because, as so often happens, the way that this came out seems to that people sharing their stories without saying his name, and then his name was later attached to those stories in QTs or tangent tweets made later, not directly linked to the original thread.
This creates a situation where if you are watching this happen in real time and you catch a lot of it, it's very obvious to you what's happening because you see the content of the threads, you get the context, and it all clicks together.
For somebody who only catches part of it, it might be an isolated story of someone being an abusive jerk with no name attached, just one person venting about their experience. Or it might be a throwaway mention of a guy's name, implying he's got issues.
And if you find out about it later and try to search his name, the stuff talking about what's happening now is more numerous and more frequent than the stuff talking about what he did, with his name actually directly connected to it.
Which, again! This is not a criticism. People didn't get together and plan this out... it happened organically with one person sharing their experience and others speaking up with theirs and the name comes out.
Back in Livejournal days there would be people who would scour the net for all these threads and pull them together to collect the whole picture in one place. Which is a lot of work, and not something Twitter gives us tools for, and still doesn't solve "everyone knows".
Among the reasons that I'm not criticizing is I don't think this is something solvable. It's just how things happen, sometimes.
If you would like my advice, as someone who studies the spread of information, on how to spread it better?
Here it is.
If you would like my advice, as someone who studies the spread of information, on how to spread it better?
Here it is.
When you're sharing a thread about someone's transgressions - and you know the person whose experience it is, is cool with having the perpetrator's name associated with them and their thread and their experience, share it by QTing it with "This is about [perpetrator name]."
This is about Paul Krueger. https://twitter.com/AngrygirLcomics/status/1272979090908250113
And if you read through that thread by Wendy Xu, you'll see an example of what I mean when I say that if you follow it as it happens it's so obvious. She went on to QT somebody who named Paul Krueger and said "this is who I'm talking about."
But Wendy's tweet won't come up on a search for Paul's name, and the other tweet is just one tweet, not a thread, and it's alluding to experiences such as Wendy's but it's less specific.
Anyway. Twitter is more complicated than it looks at a glance, the way information propagates across the timeline and the way that people access that information through search both mean that what seems obvious and known to one person may be obscure to others.
I still feel like I only have like 15%, 20% of the story here but as I said up-thread I don't really need to drill down to specifics. I believe the experiences I've read, I believe that the people I haven't found are telling the truth about theirs, and I've unfollowed.
