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posted by chromas on Tuesday July 31 2018, @11:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the smells-like-teen-spirit-Nirvana dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday August 01 2018, @02:08PM (4 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday August 01 2018, @02:08PM (#715667) Journal

    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.

    I was going to mod your post up for this, which is spot-on... before I read the rest of it, which is... not. :)

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 01 2018, @02:30PM (3 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday August 01 2018, @02:30PM (#715679) Homepage Journal

    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)

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday August 01 2018, @03:38PM (#715735) Journal

      The rest of the post is more factual than the first bit

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01 2018, @03:44PM (#715741)

        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

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday August 02 2018, @02:20PM (#716231) Homepage Journal

        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.