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I agree. I hate to post anything longer than random thoughts on Twitter, but this is an unfortunate consequence of the culture shift in past 10 years driven by

I agree. I hate to post anything longer than random thoughts on Twitter, but this is an unfortunate consequence of the culture shift in past 10 years driven by the social media giants. Like it or not, Twitter is now the center of gravity of the entire Internet, and currently the most effective online platform to make posts with high visibility is Twitter... Other platforms like forums declined, even forums did nothing wrong by themselves, and they are in fact much more suitable for real discussion. But the culture is already changed, people got used to make random 20 words posts on their mobile phones instead of reading a long threads of discussion, microblog-like, social-media-like platforms would prevail in the shortterm future. The only thing we can do is to promote a OStatus-based, open, alternative social media implemented by GNU/Social, Mastodon, etc, to make the situation less harmful. I'm happy that we can still have real discussion on Hacker News.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
As of the end of 2016, 24% of active internet users in America use Twitter. According to Twitter, they have 335 million active users, which is declining - thanks largely to declines in America [2]. One can only speculate on the percent of those that are bots. By contrast Facebook still has north of 2billion monthly active users. Both sites, on top of bots, of course also have an incentive to count as loosely as possible within the realm of plausible deniability. Ultimately, if Twitter is the center of gravity of the internet, then Pluto must be the center of gravity of our solar system. The only reason I mention this is because I find people make the sort of arguments like you're making to convince themselves that they're not just wasting time on these platforms. I don't think there's been any shift in culture. There probably has been a shift in demographics as the internet has become much more common among less technically oriented individuals, but I think the real player is simply that these platforms are designed to be addictive, and they are. People keep using them even when they want to quit or do not find the time spent on them beneficial. Dopamine's a hell of a drug. [1] - http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-20... [2] - https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/27/twitter-loses-1-million-monthly-users-in-q2-2018-revenue-grows-to-711-million/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/27/twitter-loses-1-million-m...
saltcured 8y ago
I think there are sub-populations who think Twitter encompasses all, particularly in the pop culture and journalism crossroads. I had a strange professional experience encountering media school academics about 5-7 years ago who were all so gung-ho about it. This was when the "firehose" could be acquired with a budget plausible within a grant-funded research group, and they seemed to imagine themselves having total information awareness like they had joined the five eyes. They spoke as if they were on the cusp of a future where this tool replaced all other forms of polling and data-gathering for social science, with no apparent concern for the incompleteness of this perspective nor of the ethical quandaries if it really were that powerful.
marssaxman 8y ago
Twitter is now the center of gravity of the entire Internet Journalists and celebrities certainly seem to think so, and I'm glad they do, because I can easily avoid them by simply ignoring Twitter.
- mirimir 8y ago
  Same here. Maybe if there were decent tools for aggregating and filtering. But there aren't.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

As of the end of 2016, 24% of active internet users in America use Twitter. According to Twitter, they have 335 million active users, which is declining - thanks largely to declines in America [2]. One can only speculate on the percent of those that are bots. By contrast Facebook still has north of 2billion monthly active users. Both sites, on top of bots, of course also have an incentive to count as loosely as possible within the realm of plausible deniability. Ultimately, if Twitter is the center of gravity of the internet, then Pluto must be the center of gravity of our solar system. The only reason I mention this is because I find people make the sort of arguments like you're making to convince themselves that they're not just wasting time on these platforms. I don't think there's been any shift in culture. There probably has been a shift in demographics as the internet has become much more common among less technically oriented individuals, but I think the real player is simply that these platforms are designed to be addictive, and they are. People keep using them even when they want to quit or do not find the time spent on them beneficial. Dopamine's a hell of a drug. [1] - http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-20... [2] - https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/27/twitter-loses-1-million-monthly-users-in-q2-2018-revenue-grows-to-711-million/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/27/twitter-loses-1-million-m...

saltcured 8y ago

I think there are sub-populations who think Twitter encompasses all, particularly in the pop culture and journalism crossroads. I had a strange professional experience encountering media school academics about 5-7 years ago who were all so gung-ho about it. This was when the "firehose" could be acquired with a budget plausible within a grant-funded research group, and they seemed to imagine themselves having total information awareness like they had joined the five eyes. They spoke as if they were on the cusp of a future where this tool replaced all other forms of polling and data-gathering for social science, with no apparent concern for the incompleteness of this perspective nor of the ethical quandaries if it really were that powerful.

marssaxman 8y ago

Twitter is now the center of gravity of the entire Internet Journalists and celebrities certainly seem to think so, and I'm glad they do, because I can easily avoid them by simply ignoring Twitter.

mirimir 8y ago
Same here. Maybe if there were decent tools for aggregating and filtering. But there aren't.