Ad Hominem

Issue #76

I use Twitter a lot, mostly to follow people I like. They tweet cool things about tech and life. I learned a lot.

Please don’t show me the evil sides of the world ~ Michael Learn To Rock - How Many Hours

But there’s also bad side of the story. I see many retweets of people saying bad things about others, mostly in form of Ad Hominem

Attacking the person making the argument, rather than the argument itself, when the attack on the person is completely irrelevant to the argument the person is making.

From Ad Hominem on c2.com

An argumentum ad hominem is any kind of argument that criticizes an idea by pointing something out about the people who hold the idea rather than directly addressing the merits of the idea. ‘’Ad hominem’’ is Latin for “directed toward the man (as opposed to the issue at hand)”. An alternative expression is “playing the man and not the ball”.

Most of these people have the Twitter verified badge. They complain that they have so many followers while they themselves follow hundreds of thousands. They say bad things about others’ hair style and appearance while actively supporting equality. They argue who owns the original gif. They follow one person just to be the first to insult them.

The blue verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic.

Blowing out someone else’s candle doesn’t make yours shine any brighter ~ Anonymous

The only thing I can do is I don't like this tweet 😞