What would a philosophy of the hashtag appear like?
How do you are feeling about utilizing # (pound) for teams. As in #barcamp [msg]? — Chris Messina, (“factoryjoe”), August 23, 2007
That’s the delivery second of the Twitter hashtag proper there, exactly eleven years in the past right this moment. The idea of tagging phrases with a hash signal was already frequent earlier than. It was utilized in IRC to call channels, for instance, and in HTML to leap to a selected place inside the identical webpage. A pleasant historical past of the hashtag is here.
The hashtag is a curious factor. Its defining function, the hash character, doesn’t also have a correct identify. From England comes the identify ‘pound signal,’ however the hash character is the whole lot however. A pound signal seems to be like that: “£.” The one motive why somebody known as it ‘pound signal’ is that the British keyboard has its (correct) pound character on the similar place (Shift-3) because the hash character. One of many inventors of the character apparently known as it (God forbid) the ‘octothorpe’:
Hash characters don’t have a lot of a that means themselves. They modify the that means of the phrase that comes after them. On this approach, they’re markup relatively than content material, much like quote characters or the sequence “<i>” in HTML. However, versus these, their objective is to not be displayed or to change the way in which issues are displayed. They’re semantic markup, meant to group objects of content material into unfastened clusters.
As markup, they’re horrible to work with. First, what for those who want a #multi #phrase #hashtag? The impossibility of escaping the area character is certain to infuriate each programmer who tries to make use of them effectively.
Then, they’re susceptible to small permutations that ought to not have an effect on that means. #Donald, #donald, #the #donald, #the-donald, #doland are most likely all meant to consult with the identical factor, however there’s fairly a little bit of algorithmic magic concerned find out which similar-looking tags are literally referring to the identical factor and which aren’t. To not point out that fully totally different tags, like #trump and #potus, also needs to be understood to consult with the identical real-world entity; besides if we’re speaking about #disney #donald #duck.
Since there’s just one degree of markup and no hierarchical construction, it’s additionally unimaginable to differentiate #cloud #storage from #cloud #rain if the person solely searches for #cloud.
Tags unfold by way of populations in ways in which have aroused the curiosity of scientists: “A brand new perspective on Twitter hashtag use: Diffusion of innovation concept” (Chang, 2011) gives a theoretical framework to explain hashtag adoption.
The social trigger marker
However hashtags have additionally had a way more central operate in society.
#MeToo is probably probably the most distinguished instance of a viral hashtag that really created a web based, worldwide group of people that shared a standard curiosity. It’s arduous to think about the MeToo motion with out their hashtag. The hashtag right here grew to become each an figuring out image for the group that used it (in order that it ended up on T-Shirts and mugs, the place, in fact, it isn’t purposeful in any respect), and a way of connecting to and contributing to a selected discourse. On this approach, a hashtag creates a digital, on-the-fly publication that’s targeted on one specific matter and that’s open to contributions from anybody, with out the opportunity of exercising any editorial management.
Though this may be empowering and helpful, it additionally helps unfold misinformation and may, in some cases, create on-line mobs by amplifying sentiments of discontent and sharing them amongst spontaneously generated on-line communities. As a result of lack of entry management to those communities, their fast worldwide attain, the communicative energy that they confer on their members, and the low price of participation in them, digital hashtag-constituted communities have a tendency to draw every kind of customers. Not solely those that even have one thing to say, but in addition those that simply need to get consideration, pursue another agenda, or simply hurt and troll others.
Photograph by Giacomo Ferroni on Unsplash
It’s not clear what (if something) may or must be executed about this. Dictatorships have discovered it prudent to fully ban entry to Twitter because of this.
However democracies even have an curiosity in a civil and orderly discourse, and will search to suppress contributions which might be solely meant to hurt different residents or the society at massive with out offering precise worth. This, in fact, is against the thought of freedom of speech. So every society should discover its personal approach of balancing freedom of speech, entry to a public voice, and minimising hurt. This was simpler when the one public media the place managed newspapers and TV channels with their gatekeepers. It was additionally nonetheless straightforward so long as participation within the Web meant organising one’s personal news- or http server. However entry management has turn out to be unimaginable in a world the place each citizen carries a telephone that enables her or him to enter any dialogue at any second by typing out a hashtag.
In order that’s it. The hashtag. It seems to be so easy: simply 4 strains. Two crosses printed a bit off from one another. But it surely has severely affected fashionable democratic discourse. It has introduced us completely new ranges of democratic participation, but in addition of trolling and the creation of mobs that may, in excessive circumstances, even threaten democracy and the rule of legislation.
Maybe entry to the hashtag must be regulated? Ought to now we have a hash-tax? A keyboard driver that connects Shift-3 to at least one’s bank card, in order that the state can deduct 0.1 cents each time the person presses that key? Or ought to now we have keyboards with and with out hashtags? A hashtag driving licence?
I don’t know. In the interim all I can say is: #Glad #Birthday, #hashtag!
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