Hacker News Reader

Comment by lliamander | Hacker News Reader

What does "liking" on a social platform like Twitter even mean?

When you only have a limited range of reacting to to something (like, retweet, comment) a lot of complex reactions often get lumped together.

View on HN

There is one correct move. If you don't know what to do, don't do anything.

As they say, if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all.

Actually applying the golden rule would probably be the death of social media's business model

Life shouldn't be lived as if you're talking to a police officer all the time.

When you're up voting a beheading, it definitely should.

I'm dismayed I need to spell this out.

I was responding to a suggested general rule.

Are you suggesting that up voting a beheading should be a crime? That would be a pretty terrible take.

In a society where the government surveils your social media account and where freedom of speech is not enshrined in law and precedent, sure.

But what determines whether what I am "saying" is or is not "good" in the context of a "like"?

"Keep your mouth shut if you don't want to get in trouble."

A few years ago the “like” button was more of a bookmark; now it has evolved into a signal of approval. Twitter changed the icon from a checkmark to a heart on Tweedeck, for example. I’m pretty sure that there are users who still think of it as a bookmark (but I don’t know anything about the guy in the article).

Often I see the "like" button used as a means for amplifying something that is noteworthy. For example, lots of people "liked" stories that reported on the riots of this past summer, but I don't think anyone would argue that this was somehow an endorsement of the events reported on.

That’s another important point.

This is important. Without any of the other context(that could be found in the article), this case sounds absurd. What does it mean to like something on social media? Am I liking something because I endorse x, or because I abhor x, and want more people to see it? I think a distinction could be made by having a "bump" button in addition to like/dislike.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com