4 ms·

Why Twitter’s Dying (And What You Can Learn from It)

30 points by jaxondu 11y ago

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Oh shucks. And here I was thinking about trying it. I guess my inertia has saved me from kilohours of wasted time and effort!
pavel_lishin 11y ago
> Twitter could have been a town square. But now it’s more like a drunken, heaving mosh pit. Nitpick: every mosh-pit I've ever been to has been a safe and supportive place. If someone falls down, they're picked up. If they get hurt, the mosh pit instantly clears out a space so they can be helped. If someone's being an asshole, they're kindly escorted (cough) out of the pit, and likely out of the venue.
- protomyth 11y ago
  I remember the mosh pit in the Fargo Civic Center in the 90's and it sure as heck wasn't that polite or safe.
tonomics 11y ago
In a nutshell, as these companies grew(number of users), the utility of the community started to decline. Think about it: what's the main use of Twitter? It might have fostered a great community in the past, but it's become too broad and filled with fake users, shallow communities and users. Not self-promoting, but I've written about how many companies are facing the same issue as Twitter. http://tonomics.xyz/2015/09/28/Stay-for-the-tool.html http://tonomics.xyz/2015/09/28/Stay-for-the-tool.html
yoodenvranx 11y ago
Why the fuck is there a 420 kb image on top of the article? I really really hate this kind of modern minimalist webdesign. Just show me that article and don't include any unnecessary images.
- protomyth 11y ago
  So, would the author consider this yoodenvranx's comment as abuse or criticism? I tend to believe its the later but think the author would consider it the former. Why I'm at it, the hyperbole in the article (e.g. school shootings) makes it hard to take any of the rest seriously. The lack of examples is also troubling.
- asgard1024 11y ago
  I would agree with you on the webdesign, although I actually liked the image. It's a nice one as a wallpaper.
pervycreeper 11y ago
> The problem of abuse is the greatest challenge the web faces today. It is greater than censorship, regulation, or (ugh) monetization. It is a problem of staggering magnitude and epic scale, and worse still, it is expensive: it is a problem that can’t be fixed with the cheap, simple fixes beloved by tech: patching up code, pushing out updates. Abuse = services being used in ways that are not intended, or approved of, or sanctioned by... someone. It is inherently hard to classify behaviour as either abusive or not, and for those who are sure, it's inherently impossible to reach consensus. Furthermore, "patching code", and "pushing out updates" should not be seen as being necessarily cheap and simple (that's kindof a lot of the hard part, on the contrary). The way users use a service stems from how it is designed (although perhaps not always predictably or even deterministically).
gaius 11y ago
This is what Facebook are tackling with their real names policy. Now I like this policy, and have openly said so. I think anonymity on the Internet was fine back in the day when it was a small community of like-minded people with the unwritten but unbreakable rule "what goes online stays online". But it doesn't scale to the general population. And the most abuse I get on FB is when I say this, usually by friends-of-friends, whom I sort-of know IRL and what they really want is just to keep on using the same "gothic" nickname they had on IRC or LJ... I haven't reported anyone because that's not my style, but I'm getting a bit bored now of being called "transphobic" by someone who goes by a name something like "Prince Darkbat".
- DanBC 11y ago
  Plenty of people are fucking arseholes under their real names on Facebook or newspaper comments are a bunch of other places on the Internet. http://blog.angryasianman.com/2014/12/facebook-features-sikh-man-in-video.html http://blog.angryasianman.com/2014/12/facebook-features-sikh...
- delecti 11y ago
  The problem with the policy is that there's a difference between someone not adapting to the intended purpose of FB with a name of "Prince Darkbat" and someone using, for example, their real first name and an alias last name. That could be because of persecution due to homophobia, transphobia, an abusive ex, religious extremism, or just a person who is only known in their community by a name that isn't their legal name. I know several individuals who only ever go by a stage name or alias. I assume it isn't their legal name, but every interaction I've had with them or I've witnessed others having with them used their aliases. Is it really less honest to have that be the name on their FB account? And yes, I also know trans people who have lost access to their FB accounts because of inability to change their legal name to their chosen name. I don't think it makes you transphobic to hold your view, but I do think it's an overly polarized stance on a very nuanced issue.
  - gaius 11y ago
    I do think it's an overly polarized stance on a very nuanced issue I have thought about this you know, and the issue is, who decides group A get to be anonymous but group B don't, and on what grounds? The only way to operate at scale is to be even-handed and impartial.
inthewoods 11y ago
Interesting theory, but for me it does not hold up. The problem isn't people feeling abused in various ways - it is that people don't know what to do with Twitter. So they sign up, have a poor experience and churn. I don't have data on it, but I expect there is an enormous number of people who signed up, sent a single tweet and never came back.
dbspin 11y ago
Literally everything about this is without merit. It's a polemic, not a thesis. This evidence free diatribe glorifies a non-specific past where 'abuse' and 'electronic violence' were apparently less prevalent, and raises 'abuse' above censorship on the list of things that threaten the web. Where to start... Twitter, like all other such public blogging services, offers simple quick block and mute tools. These tools won't prevent brigading, but then luckily 'electronic violence', being imaginary, can't harm you. Smaller communities (such as subreddits) are free to exclude members on whatever basis they like - and hence overly sensitive web users can reside in their digital safe spaces to their hearts content. However, when you reside in the commons, you are open to public criticism. To participate in the digital commons is to open oneself up to numerous confounding psychocultural narratives. Some of which are vehement to the point of incoherence. But to close oneself off from the possibility of discussion because of 'abuse' is to be so afraid of disagreement as to wilfully cut oneself off from the possibility of learning from disagreement. Twitter certainly isn't growing at the same rate, but to describe it as 'dying' is ludicrously over the top. Further, to suggest a more virtuous, less 'abusive' past is to engage in a golden age fallacy. Certainly the intellectually and socioeconomically elite users of the early days of the web were more utopian. But to cite 'abuse' as the reason for the authors perceived decline, rather than censorship, balkanisation, advertising, and of course the 'eternal September' is absurd. The kind of 'abuse' the author seems to be arguing against - i.e.: not threats, but vehement group criticism, can be upsetting. But it is of course 'trivial'. Since it can be escaped entirely by switching ones electronic device off, or simply logging off a given service for a few days. It's quite distinct on the one hand, from the relatively rare and extreme mass public shamming addressed by John Ronson's new book. And genuinely threatening harassment (already illegal everywhere in the West) on the other. The writer's solutions 'humility, gratitude, reality' are phatic, non specific and without direction or meaningful content. As is his critique.
Karunamon 11y ago
I flagged this article, since IMO, it's a tired, uninteresting, zero-evidence screed that pushes a discredited and dangerous narrative (i.e. that incivility is a bigger problem than censorship)
- kobayashi 11y ago
  I agree that the article was a waste of time, but why is that worth a flag?
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    That's pretty much the purpose of the flag if I interpret it right. If you post and upvote things you think are interesting and legitimate, then by converse, you should flag things that are boring and illegitimate. It's more of a "Knowing what I know of Hacker News, I don't think this fits"
    - kobayashi 11y ago
      Yeah, fare enough. Mine was a stupid question, anyway. I just took a stroll the the HN guidelines, and interestingly it advised not commenting that you've flagged something after actually flagging it.
    - gaius 11y ago
      I interpreted more to mean "this requires the attention of a moderator".
cmacpher 11y ago
I'm skeptical that the core issue with twitter is abuse. It is certainly rampant and should be addressed. I'm skeptical an average users with 130 followers(a guess) experiences any abuse. The on boarding of new users and the echo chamber effect seem like a much bigger issue.
- gaius 11y ago
  There's still a chilling effect of knowing that if you put a foot wrong, a mob of random strangers will do their best to lose you your job, just because that's their idea of fun. We're not immune from it here either https://twitter.com/hashtag/hnwatch https://twitter.com/hashtag/hnwatch

30 points by jaxondu 11y ago

Oh shucks. And here I was thinking about trying it. I guess my inertia has saved me from kilohours of wasted time and effort!

pavel_lishin 11y ago

> Twitter could have been a town square. But now it’s more like a drunken, heaving mosh pit. Nitpick: every mosh-pit I've ever been to has been a safe and supportive place. If someone falls down, they're picked up. If they get hurt, the mosh pit instantly clears out a space so they can be helped. If someone's being an asshole, they're kindly escorted (cough) out of the pit, and likely out of the venue.

protomyth 11y ago
I remember the mosh pit in the Fargo Civic Center in the 90's and it sure as heck wasn't that polite or safe.

tonomics 11y ago

In a nutshell, as these companies grew(number of users), the utility of the community started to decline. Think about it: what's the main use of Twitter? It might have fostered a great community in the past, but it's become too broad and filled with fake users, shallow communities and users. Not self-promoting, but I've written about how many companies are facing the same issue as Twitter. http://tonomics.xyz/2015/09/28/Stay-for-the-tool.html http://tonomics.xyz/2015/09/28/Stay-for-the-tool.html

yoodenvranx 11y ago

Why the fuck is there a 420 kb image on top of the article? I really really hate this kind of modern minimalist webdesign. Just show me that article and don't include any unnecessary images.

protomyth 11y ago
So, would the author consider this yoodenvranx's comment as abuse or criticism? I tend to believe its the later but think the author would consider it the former. Why I'm at it, the hyperbole in the article (e.g. school shootings) makes it hard to take any of the rest seriously. The lack of examples is also troubling.
asgard1024 11y ago
I would agree with you on the webdesign, although I actually liked the image. It's a nice one as a wallpaper.

pervycreeper 11y ago

> The problem of abuse is the greatest challenge the web faces today. It is greater than censorship, regulation, or (ugh) monetization. It is a problem of staggering magnitude and epic scale, and worse still, it is expensive: it is a problem that can’t be fixed with the cheap, simple fixes beloved by tech: patching up code, pushing out updates. Abuse = services being used in ways that are not intended, or approved of, or sanctioned by... someone. It is inherently hard to classify behaviour as either abusive or not, and for those who are sure, it's inherently impossible to reach consensus. Furthermore, "patching code", and "pushing out updates" should not be seen as being necessarily cheap and simple (that's kindof a lot of the hard part, on the contrary). The way users use a service stems from how it is designed (although perhaps not always predictably or even deterministically).

gaius 11y ago

This is what Facebook are tackling with their real names policy. Now I like this policy, and have openly said so. I think anonymity on the Internet was fine back in the day when it was a small community of like-minded people with the unwritten but unbreakable rule "what goes online stays online". But it doesn't scale to the general population. And the most abuse I get on FB is when I say this, usually by friends-of-friends, whom I sort-of know IRL and what they really want is just to keep on using the same "gothic" nickname they had on IRC or LJ... I haven't reported anyone because that's not my style, but I'm getting a bit bored now of being called "transphobic" by someone who goes by a name something like "Prince Darkbat".

DanBC 11y ago
Plenty of people are fucking arseholes under their real names on Facebook or newspaper comments are a bunch of other places on the Internet. http://blog.angryasianman.com/2014/12/facebook-features-sikh-man-in-video.html http://blog.angryasianman.com/2014/12/facebook-features-sikh...
delecti 11y ago
The problem with the policy is that there's a difference between someone not adapting to the intended purpose of FB with a name of "Prince Darkbat" and someone using, for example, their real first name and an alias last name. That could be because of persecution due to homophobia, transphobia, an abusive ex, religious extremism, or just a person who is only known in their community by a name that isn't their legal name. I know several individuals who only ever go by a stage name or alias. I assume it isn't their legal name, but every interaction I've had with them or I've witnessed others having with them used their aliases. Is it really less honest to have that be the name on their FB account? And yes, I also know trans people who have lost access to their FB accounts because of inability to change their legal name to their chosen name. I don't think it makes you transphobic to hold your view, but I do think it's an overly polarized stance on a very nuanced issue.
- gaius 11y ago
  I do think it's an overly polarized stance on a very nuanced issue I have thought about this you know, and the issue is, who decides group A get to be anonymous but group B don't, and on what grounds? The only way to operate at scale is to be even-handed and impartial.

inthewoods 11y ago

Interesting theory, but for me it does not hold up. The problem isn't people feeling abused in various ways - it is that people don't know what to do with Twitter. So they sign up, have a poor experience and churn. I don't have data on it, but I expect there is an enormous number of people who signed up, sent a single tweet and never came back.

dbspin 11y ago

Literally everything about this is without merit. It's a polemic, not a thesis. This evidence free diatribe glorifies a non-specific past where 'abuse' and 'electronic violence' were apparently less prevalent, and raises 'abuse' above censorship on the list of things that threaten the web. Where to start... Twitter, like all other such public blogging services, offers simple quick block and mute tools. These tools won't prevent brigading, but then luckily 'electronic violence', being imaginary, can't harm you. Smaller communities (such as subreddits) are free to exclude members on whatever basis they like - and hence overly sensitive web users can reside in their digital safe spaces to their hearts content. However, when you reside in the commons, you are open to public criticism. To participate in the digital commons is to open oneself up to numerous confounding psychocultural narratives. Some of which are vehement to the point of incoherence. But to close oneself off from the possibility of discussion because of 'abuse' is to be so afraid of disagreement as to wilfully cut oneself off from the possibility of learning from disagreement. Twitter certainly isn't growing at the same rate, but to describe it as 'dying' is ludicrously over the top. Further, to suggest a more virtuous, less 'abusive' past is to engage in a golden age fallacy. Certainly the intellectually and socioeconomically elite users of the early days of the web were more utopian. But to cite 'abuse' as the reason for the authors perceived decline, rather than censorship, balkanisation, advertising, and of course the 'eternal September' is absurd. The kind of 'abuse' the author seems to be arguing against - i.e.: not threats, but vehement group criticism, can be upsetting. But it is of course 'trivial'. Since it can be escaped entirely by switching ones electronic device off, or simply logging off a given service for a few days. It's quite distinct on the one hand, from the relatively rare and extreme mass public shamming addressed by John Ronson's new book. And genuinely threatening harassment (already illegal everywhere in the West) on the other. The writer's solutions 'humility, gratitude, reality' are phatic, non specific and without direction or meaningful content. As is his critique.

Karunamon 11y ago

I flagged this article, since IMO, it's a tired, uninteresting, zero-evidence screed that pushes a discredited and dangerous narrative (i.e. that incivility is a bigger problem than censorship)

kobayashi 11y ago
I agree that the article was a waste of time, but why is that worth a flag?
- Karunamon 11y ago
  That's pretty much the purpose of the flag if I interpret it right. If you post and upvote things you think are interesting and legitimate, then by converse, you should flag things that are boring and illegitimate. It's more of a "Knowing what I know of Hacker News, I don't think this fits"
  - kobayashi 11y ago
    Yeah, fare enough. Mine was a stupid question, anyway. I just took a stroll the the HN guidelines, and interestingly it advised not commenting that you've flagged something after actually flagging it.
  - gaius 11y ago
    I interpreted more to mean "this requires the attention of a moderator".

cmacpher 11y ago

I'm skeptical that the core issue with twitter is abuse. It is certainly rampant and should be addressed. I'm skeptical an average users with 130 followers(a guess) experiences any abuse. The on boarding of new users and the echo chamber effect seem like a much bigger issue.

gaius 11y ago
There's still a chilling effect of knowing that if you put a foot wrong, a mob of random strangers will do their best to lose you your job, just because that's their idea of fun. We're not immune from it here either https://twitter.com/hashtag/hnwatch https://twitter.com/hashtag/hnwatch