@barubary @tomwarren.co.uk Did you know the name of the CEO of Signal, before this exchange went viral? Do you look up the credentials of every person you answer on social media?

I've had many debates with strangers on social media over the years. Sometimes I've even been wrong. But it has never occurred to me that the person I'm speaking to might be a high-level executive with insider information. So I don't blame this guy for not considering that.

@michaelvcooper1 @tomwarren.co.uk

Did you know the name of the CEO of Signal, before this exchange went viral?

Not actively, but the name looked familiar, so I would've taken a second to look at their profile before replying.

Do you look up the credentials of every person you answer on social media?

Why was an answer necessary in this case?

Particularly this answer, which implied familiarity with or insider knowledge of Signal's business strategy ("... likely be timing up with Anthropic's Claude or Perplexity ...") and technical foundations ("... engineers have already began laying out the ground work ..."). Keep in mind, all this was stated as definite fact, not an opinion, speculation or rumor ("They will ... its coming").

And then that same dude doesn't even recognize the name of the person who has been the president of Signal and sitting on its board of directors since 2022.

So what exactly qualifies him to "explain" anything about Signal?

@barubary @tomwarren.co.uk Come on. You need "qualifications" to express an opinion on the internet now? My guess (only a guess) is that this guy was repeating an internet rumor. That makes him gullible perhaps, but nothing more.

Do you know what would have cleared the air instantly? If Ms. Whittaker had simply replied "Hello, this is Meredith Whittaker, CEO of Signal. I'm not sure where you got this information, but I can assure you that there is no truth to it." Not hard.

@michaelvcooper1

I feel like you're twisting words to suit your argument, so I'd like to clarify a few things.

As far as I'm concerned, there is a difference between explaining something and expressing an opinion on something. (But in either case you should be at least passingly familiar with the topic at hand if you want to be taken seriously. There's your "qualifications".) You're seamlessly switching between calling it a man just trying to explain something, an online debate, and someone expressing an opinion. Those are not the same thing.

Explaining things at people (particularly things you know nothing about and your audience does) is patronizing in and of itself.

No one was anonymous.

Whittaker is not the CEO of Signal. (That would be Brian Acton, I believe.)

Why is it that you expect Whittaker to announce her qualifications just to reject something that has been asserted without any justification? Why isn't the onus on Mitchell to provide any evidence for his claims? (Or at least to check her profile to see who he's lecturing. In your words: Not hard.) Those were rhetorical questions; I don't expect an answer. Bye.