If he says he didn't do something, the pitchfork mob will simply tell each other that he is lying. They will do this in the most confused and twisted way possible, driven by lack of understanding of what was happening combined with a need to drive outrage and thereby advertise their work.
If he says he didn't intend to do that thing, this is still compatible with a later update that he didn't do that thing, but immediately dampens the outrage machine. The reader who knows nothing about either side relaxes -- "No need for me to get worked up, because we won". Conveniently, saying he didn't intend to do the thing is also compatible with a later reveal that he was doing the thing (perhaps for later release, since he wasn't clearly doing the thing here).
Therefore, regardless of whether he was doing what he was accused of doing, this is the lowest energy response, and probably the default unless this was the hill he wanted to defend.
The best response, for us all collectively, is to always ignore everyone's opinion online. There is zero value in anything on reddit, twitter, facebook, the media these days.
Just ignore it. All of it. Outrage or not.
I see downvotes, but I mean it. You know who you listen to? Your friends. Your neighbours. Your local community. You listen to PEOPLE, not sockpuppets. You listen to legitimate human beings, not AI generated blather, or curated news stories, or groups working together to generate hate, outrage, to stoke anger, upset.
You listen to actual, real PEOPLE.
You want to go to reddit? Twitter? Anything? Fine. But treat it as 100% fiction, pure entertainment, and never let it affect YOU.
> Your neighbours. Your local community. You listen to PEOPLE, not sockpuppets. You listen to legitimate human beings, not AI generated blather, or curated news stories, or groups working together to generate hate, outrage, to stoke anger, upset.
You either have a significantly better social circle than I do or are glossing over a bunch of nuance.
Some of my family back east have been getting their brains rotted by fox news and the likes for literal decades now.
Some of those family members were also shaped by insular groups (their 'community') with fucked up thinking
As for the friends who I choose to associate with today, I indeed like and prefer their opinions (probably why we've self selected to be friends), but I assure you they have nonzero exposure to online communication.
I agree Twitter is shit and always has been due to the lack of context, but I often prefer reddit to real life conversations because I can actually take my time to think about my thoughts and even dig up sources. It also exposes me to more diverse viewpoints than I'd get solely in my physical circle of friends.
Now, I don't really use reddit after the most recent shenanigans, but here I am back on hackernews like I was slashdot before reddit. I don't think I'd ever want to abstain completely from online communications or forums.
I said nothing of abstainment. In fact, I am posting!
Ignoring online comments, especially criticism, does not mean disregardment. And note, context is important.
Note what I am replying to.
Simply put, on a medium where one person can sockpuppet appear as 1000, where one person can rally 1000 useful idiots with one disingenuous post, one cannot care what is said.
Ignore it.
We already have 30 year old adults, trying to discuss political nuance online, not realising that they may be piled on by a dozen 8 year olds. People presume the person behind the text is real, the person is their approximate age, or at least an adult, that the person is debating in good faith.
None of this is necessarily true, and in any large group of responses, the above chicanery is happening.
No one should care what a bunch of "people" on Twitter say.
This is not twitter, with its tiny little snippets of text, which are useless for meaningful communication, and its culture which incites groupthink. This is not Reddit, with its hostile, hate filled voting system, with its peer pressure laden culture. This is not Facebook, literally designed to drive hate, and anger, and upset, to increase engagement.
This is Hackernews. It's not perfect, but it's far more palatable. And it's certainly not like any of the above.
Lastly, my advice still applies. When I detect hate here, I ignore it. When I detect peer pressure, I don't care.
Your two comments here could each fit in a Tweet and Reddit has basically the same voting mechanism as HN. There is also plenty of groupthink here too. That was basically the reason behind my comment to see what distinction you are making. People here seem to often deride social media while pretending HN is not social media.
HN is effectively just Reddit with only a few subreddits and moderation that is stronger than average, but within the range you will find on certain subreddits.
Well, there is hate and then there is criticism, and lots of people confuse the two, to the point where they just label any critics as "haters". Hate is worth totally disregarding, but criticism, as long as it's genuine and done in good faith, it's probably valuable.
One of the problems is, if you're .. I don't know, say in your neighbourhood. Or maybe at a small local gathering. You do something which deserves criticism, or mild, but polite rebuke.
You hear it a few times.
Online, you may hear 100k of the same, and most of the politeness and empathy is gone. It's all about scale. About reach. And about the more of that there is, the less empathy there is.
I still remember the days when I saw Reddit as simple entertainment. in the last 10 years its reach has only grown. I identify with you sentiment, but have also become entrenched deeper inside the mindset of the online. The top comment tells the truth. The votes count. A judgement based on groupthink instead of individual discussion.
Many here don't agree, but I wonder if their attention to the beautiful divide between people has been obscured by groupthink.
4Chan /b/ is such a toxic community that I never spent long there without remembering the words that reflect its value at the top.
>The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.
If he says he didn't intend to do that thing, this is still compatible with a later update that he didn't do that thing, but immediately dampens the outrage machine. The reader who knows nothing about either side relaxes -- "No need for me to get worked up, because we won". Conveniently, saying he didn't intend to do the thing is also compatible with a later reveal that he was doing the thing (perhaps for later release, since he wasn't clearly doing the thing here).
Therefore, regardless of whether he was doing what he was accused of doing, this is the lowest energy response, and probably the default unless this was the hill he wanted to defend.