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Very fine Article at The Atlantic. Remember, think of the children, and comment responsibly.
It's harder and harder to have an honest debate on the internet. Social-media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook Groups are rife with trolls; forums are plagued by archaic layouts and spambots. Teenagers who are looking to talk about big issues face additional frustrations, like the fact that most adults on these platforms don't take them seriously.
Naturally, they've turned to Instagram. Specifically, they've turned to "flop" accounts—pages that are collectively managed by several teens, many of them devoted to discussions of hot-button topics: gun control, abortion, immigration, President Donald Trump, LGBTQ issues, YouTubers, breaking news, viral memes.
Just when I get a Facebook account, they have all moved!
The accounts post photos, videos, and screenshots of articles, memes, things, and people considered a "flop," or, essentially, a fail. A flop could be a famous YouTuber saying something racist, someone being rude or awful in person, a homophobic comment, or anything that the teen who posted it deems wrong or unacceptable. Some of the teens who run a given account know one another in real life; more likely, they met online.
Uh-oh, I am starting to suspect something.
"Flop accounts bring attention to bad things or bad people that people should be aware of. We also post cringeworthy content for entertainment purposes," said Alma, a 13-year-old admin on the flop account @nonstopflops.
According to teens, flop accounts began as a way to make fun of celebrities and popular YouTubers, but sometime over the past year they've morphed into something more substantive: a crucial way to share and discuss opinions online.
"Content [on flop accounts] is centralized around things that we think are factually or morally wrong, and it's how we critique them," said Taylor, a 15-year-old in Illinois who is an admin on a flop account. "Today, for instance, I posted a flop that was this lady making fun of someone for being homeless. That's a horrible thing to do."
Kids! Huh! What do they know?
The main thing teens who engage with flop accounts share is a strong distrust of the news media. Teens said they turned to flop accounts specifically because they didn't believe what they read in the news, saw on TV, or even were taught in their U.S.-history class, since, as one teen saw it, their teacher is just one person giving an opinion. Teen flop-account admins and followers said they found information on flop accounts to be far more reliable because it could be crowdsourced and debated.
Wow. Well. We just wait for the next generation, eh? Worked before. The barbarians actually cleaned up nicely.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 01 2018, @02:41AM (11 children)
You think history books nowadays are written by the winners? That's hilarious. History books today are increasingly written by political activists who think their nations are the most evil thing on earth ever in the history of the universe.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01 2018, @02:56AM (10 children)
You don't know anything, more propaganda nonsense from buzzy.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01 2018, @03:12AM
In the case of teens on flop accounts on instagram it seems that scepticism is healthy. In the case of the Malingering Buzztard, the scepticism has gone septic, which, combined with a Ron Paul-ish retro Libertarian cultivated ignorance, draws us ever further from truth and beauty, and closer, for some reason, to a steaming pile of rotting offal.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 01 2018, @03:17AM (8 children)
It saddens me for you every time you speak. I mean, seriously, I'm a loudmouth on a mostly unknown website and you have to follow me around and ride my barely existent coattails for anyone to notice your sad little attempts at trolling. Take some pride in your vocation, man!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01 2018, @06:10AM (7 children)
Heh, riding your coat tails? Eww.
Nah just calling out your bullshit. There are books that won't teach actual science, that distort history in a massively propagandist manner, and here you're being the typical loudmouth declaring black is white and wrong is right. The problem is not with textbooks trying to correct history and show the national shame we SHOULD feel. I guess this just makes you uncomfortable so you lash out and believe in the elitist liberal academic conspiracy to, uh, destroy your way of life?
I post as AC and there are plenty others that call you out, so stop being a douche and maybe you won't get douche behavior in response. If you can't manage that then at least learn the difference between trolling and insulting someone.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 01 2018, @11:10AM (6 children)
Yes, it really, really is. History books are supposed to teach facts not feelings. There is no more justification for using them to shit all over your nation than there is to declare your nation the best there ever was. "Should" is not the business of history. But you lot can't have people knowing the facts and forming their own opinions or you'd quickly become as politically influential as the guy on the corner yelling about how the lizard people are stealing people's brains and replacing them with cheese dip.
You genuinely believe there's not one? Wow. That's on the order of believing the entire Himalayan range an optical illusion. Flat earthers (the ones who aren't just trolling) have a tighter grip on reality than that. Here, let's have a quick rundown of the facts: over 80% of academia self-identify as progressive/liberal and most of the rest refuse to answer, getting hired into academia once you have any record of anti-progtard opinion is fairly impossible, getting fired for holding anti-progtard opinions is extremely easy even if you have tenure, the current standard response to anyone disagreeing with progtard scripture is "REEEEEEE! NO PLATFORM!" but you also have professors calling for and even perpetrating actual physical violence simply for the crime of heresy. And that's just what I can remember from the past year without google's help before I've finished my first cup of coffee.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday August 01 2018, @02:08PM (4 children)
I was going to mod your post up for this, which is spot-on... before I read the rest of it, which is... not. :)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 01 2018, @02:30PM (3 children)
The rest of the post is more factual than the first bit, which is opinion. Easily verified facts even.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday August 01 2018, @03:38PM (2 children)
Well, you have fun with your "elitist liberal academic conspiracy" then. Seems to me you're right in there with your flat earthers on that one.
Protip: biased on outlook (valid or not) != conspiracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01 2018, @03:44PM
Thanks for hopping in, Buzzy is starting to act like I am the only one who thinks he is pretty often wrong.
He misinterpreted my words to mean"teach how you feel" when it was "teach the truth even if it is shameful". I also would like to see his examples.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 02 2018, @02:20PM
Dude, this ain't a conspiracy theory. It's a matter of public record. You're going to make me google shit, aren't you? Fine.
Let's start off with self-reported political views from 2013-2014 as collected by HERI [ucla.edu]. We'll even use the numbers of all Bacc institutions that include Catholic and other religious schools. Far left: 11%, Liberal: 48.8%, Middle of the road: 27.4%, Conservative: 12.1%, Far right: 0.7%. Now contrast this with the general population [gallup.com] who break down as 30% Democrats, 41% Independents, and 26% Republicans in the latest monthly snapshot (over time both parties appear to stay around 30%, give or take). 59.8% for the left is just barely under twice the representation in the general public and 12.8% is less than half the representation for the right. This tells me that both the mean and median that might be mentally used for judging "middle of the road" in academic settings is significantly left of what it is in the nation as a whole and many of those who believe that is what they are are likely quite incorrect. That would require further study to prove though.
So, yes, academia is extremely left of center though the 80% I stated was higher than the 60% I can currently provably claim.
As for the no-platforming. It's not even worth debating. It happens [google.com]. Regularly. Denying it would be as foolish as denying gravity.
Professors calling for and perpetrating violence? Yeah [youtube.com], unfortunately [youtube.com] that [cbslocal.com] absolutely [mercurynews.com] happens [washingtontimes.com] too [theblaze.com].
Insane levels of resistance to any political views but far left ones being allowed in faculty? How about one from the past month? I know you're going to hate this source [dangerous.com] so feel free to ignore the biased commentary, focus on the provable facts, and check them yourself. He's an asshat but he's a meticulous asshat when he's doing proper reporting.
And that's in a field not fully dominated by the radical left, yet.
How about calling them organized? That's your primary complaint, yeah? I want you to consider something. When Congress is made up of over 50% Republicans, you call it a Republican Congress because nothing but Republican policies will even be considered, yes? Now think about how many types of academic faculty organizations there are. Even entirely discounting the university level and the department level, pretty much every field of study has its own intercollegiate organization, sometimes multiple, and there are quite a few broader category organizations as well. The only ones you will find with anything even approaching an ideological demographic distribution comparable to the general population are business/economics organizations. So, yes, they are not only organized, they are extremely organized; they just don't have one central leadership hierarchy.
Now, tell me again why you think I'm wrong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01 2018, @03:11PM
What is an example of a widely-used history book that teaches feelings instead of facts?