February 18, 2021

Horse 2809 - Name 8 Digits

 If there is one thing that I have learnt during my lifetime that has repeatedly made itself known, it is that everyone is terrible and selfish; without exception. That fact is the basis of many religions, it is the base assumption of economics, and it is the reason why the entire of criminal law exists.

Maybe you'd like a breakdown:

- 88% of people are terrible.

- 11% of people are truly evil.

-1% is either a correctional or rounding error (though some hospice care nurses may be here).

I do not wish to write a piece about the universal terribleness of people (even though I could easily write several thousand words on the subject) however it is a useful plank to build the frame of this house from. Also be aware that I am included in the 88% of people who are terrible and that if I was in the 11% of people who are truly evil, I wouldn't tell you about it. Neither would you.

The members and users of social media platforms are composed almost entirely of terrible and selfish people and they also include the people who are truly evil.  The actual composition of the membership of those platforms differs from platform to platform though. Facebook is composed of slightly older people who have learned that the world is made up of terrible people but at least they're trying to get by. Tik Tok is made up of terrible people who don't yet know that they are terrible and are trying to be cool.

Twitter and Parler on the other hand, are made up of terrible people who are slightly more concerned with the way that the world works and with the news. Parler appears to be a magnet for right-wing authoritarian people who have decided that if the world is full of terrible people, then they have no problem with weaponsing selfishness to achieve their terrible and evil ends.

If Facebook is the lunch room of media platforms, then Twitter is the town square. We tend not to have places of public oratory and places where people stand on actual soapboxes any more; so Facebook and Twitter tend to function as those places online.

However, Twitter in particular because it is a short messaging service which operates like the old Usenet global spaces, has an exceptionally low barrier to entry and so you end up with the rather strange phenomenon of Name 8 Digits accounts. Name 8 Digits accounts (because I can't think of a better name) come with the handle in the form of a Name followed by 8 digits. I am currently on a train as I write this; so to generate an example, I will take the name of the first street sign that I see followed by the first 8 digits that I see: Charlotte 89500125. BAM!

The excuse often given as to why people have Name 8 Digits account is that that is the default format that Twitter generates. The problem with that excuse is that is instantly gives away the fact that the user cares so little about the account that they can not even bothered to change the default handle. This is further compounded by the issue that many Twitter accounts are merely fake accounts with computer generated handles. 

The obvious question which arises is 'why would anyone want a Name 8 Digits account?'. Social media along with being a platform where terrible people have terrible and inane conversations, is also a tremendous place for generating both outrage and weaponsing that outrage to achieve terrible and evil ends. You can achieve those terrible and evil ends more effectively through brute force of numbers by creating Twitter bots. In reality though, most of those are human-machine hybrids where there is a meatbag human behind the accounts that controls the machine but much of the activity is automated anyway. When trends are being analysed, automating the process to generate the trends, for the ends of influencing popular opinion and public policy, seems like a logical if sinister (read: terrible and selfish) outcome. Remember, if the world is full of terrible people, then they have no problem with weaponsing selfishness to achieve their terrible and evil ends.

What makes Name 8 Digits accounts different to most other accounts, is that they are almost exclusively operated as accounts for the transmission of deliberately outrageous posts, or more often than not purely for hurling abuse at public figures who are mainly women. While they aren't 100% authoritarian and economically right-wing in nature, progressive politics doesn't tend to operate Name 8 Digits accounts, and economically left-wing and socialist politics don't either.

If you call out a Name 8 Digits account, they are more than likely to do nothing because the person at the other end is operating lots of them in an opinion farm, or directly hurl abuse at you, or will be genuinely bewildered. What this says to me is that Name 8 Digits accounts are either burner accounts or people working in a troll farm. If they work in an opinion farm, they probably don't have a lot of thought beyond the script which is in front of them. If their account is purely for the generation of abuse, then simply reflecting said abuse with the statement that it is exactly that, is usually enough to stop them dead in their tracks

I write this as someone whose handle on various accounts is Rollo75; which on the face of it looks incredibly hypocritical. I will point out though that I have used that handle since before Eternal September and have played with that as a kit number in football and in other various online games where you need a number. I very much doubt that you would use a number with 8 digits for anything that you weren't forced to. 

I actually do remember a time day in the early days of Twitter when it was mainly populated by journalists and people interested in the news. Politics wasn't any nicer but at least back then Twitter wasn't populated by semi-automated traffic. Despite this, the platform is still perfect for well placed bon-mots and witticisms; even if the Name 8 Digits accounts exist.

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