8 ms·

" you know that you could leave at any time and you know that you will not." I have no problem. The press needs to take more responsibility for this as they a

" you know that you could leave at any time and you know that you will not." I have no problem. The press needs to take more responsibility for this as they are the primary enablers of Twitter. Tweets are presented all the time in articles as expression of legitimate opinion, and often used as the basis for some kind of rally bad straw-man argument the author wants to make. I think Twitter will wane but it won't go away as those who make their business making noise, either celebs or those who report on them, will just keep going with it. It may become purely PR providence though - I can see regular people giving up the notion of actively tweeting entirely.

mc32 8y ago
Yep. I find Twitter useful by following accounts which tailor to my taste in information consumption. They typically broadcast very useful information, and stay clear of politics and especially stay clear of politicizing for brownie points. Now, I can see Twitter being a very annoying place if all you are following are accounts which are looking to "engage" their audience and get retweets and mentions, etc., and try to be cool, set tone, influence, and throw signals --all of these mostly add noise.
rococode 8y ago
I feel that many regular people have given up the notion of actively tweeting their own content. The friends I follow on Twitter don't tweet very often nowadays, and when they do it's often in response to a tweet made by an account with a large following. I mostly stay on Twitter to keep up to date with news from certain groups and organizations (for example, YC). To me, at least, it doesn't really feel like "Facebook with short posts only" anymore, but more "place where you can read and comment on casual thoughts and updates from your favorite celebs and companies".
- ndnxhs 8y ago
  >place where you can read and comment on casual thoughts and updates from your favorite celebs and companies Sounds like hell
  - oblio 8y ago
    Why?
    - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
      hell is a place where you actually have favorite companies and engage in conversations with those companies. it is said that you should never meet your heroes (or I suppose your favorite celebs). Hell is a place where you are exposed to your heroes' casual thoughts. maybe it would just be hell for me; but a personality change so extreme that I ended up with favorite companies afterwards does sound like the plot to a dystopian novel.
      - oblio 8y ago
        People do want to meet their heroes, there's a reason we have terms such as "fans", "groupies", etc.
        teddyh 8y ago
        Dogs chase cars, but it usually does not go well if they catch one.
        bryanrasmussen 8y ago
        a fan does not necessarily want to meet their hero, whereas it is of course true that a groupie does. Nonetheless, the saying still exists that you should never meet your heroes, even if fans and groupies do want to do that which they should never.
onion2k 8y ago
Tweets are presented all the time in articles as expression of legitimate opinion What is it about tweets that would mean they're not legitimate expressions of opinion? People write them, and publish them, and it'd be a bit unreasonable to assume they have some motive other that stating their opinion, so I don't really understand why you think tweets are something else.
- User23 8y ago
  I believe the parent's point is that many of the opinions people tweet are somehow illegitimate. I won't hazard to guess what criteria or authority is supposed to determine legitimacy.
  - dstick 8y ago
    What I read is that random tweets gain extra credibility by being shown on a big screen on a news show. And they’re cherry picked to support whatever topic and angle is being covered. You could go out on the street; but finding and then having someone say something on camera is -very- different to finding and showing a tweet. I feel pretty confident in saying that a lot of people tweet stuff they’d never say live in front of a camera. Hence the argued bad practice of presenting tweets on news shows as well thought through and relevant opinions.
    - watwut 8y ago
      > Hence the argued bad practice of presenting tweets on news shows as well thought through and relevant opinions. Why would they be irrelevant? It is opinion that people think. It migh be wrong, but they still vote on that, choose schools on that, make decisions and judgements about real life people around them etc.
      - sonnyblarney 8y ago
        They are irrelevant when they are cited as in any way representative. "People are clamouring for more of X in Y" and then they show three tweets. When really maybe nobody cares. Or maybe they care in the other direction entirely.
eksemplar 8y ago
The only people I know with twitter accounts are journalists. One friend in particular has a hard time understanding how you can function without twitter. I tried using it, like most people, but when you work a job that doesn’t involve trolling the internet for news, it’s really hard to use twitter in any meaningful manner. You’ll post something and a few days later you’ll have time to post a reply. Or you’ll follow a few interest points and miss everything they post because you don’t visit every hour and it’ll drown in the feed if you don’t. I honestly think all the regular people on twitter are either unemployed or spending so much work time on social media that they ought to be fired. I like social media by the way, but I don’t think it has a lot of value when it’s done primarily with strangers. I mean, my friends use Facebook groups and events to organize stuff and it’s really, really good at that. We use discord/WhatsApp chats to keep in touch on day to day chitchat - which would be better in person but we live in different cities/have children etc. So that sort of social media is great. But talking with strangers? I mean, I’m home in bed with the flu right now, and we’re having this conversation, except I can’t be sure you’ll ever read what I post or if you’ll find it interesting or reply, and even if we do get to have a talk, we’ll likely never have another one. So it doesn’t hold a lot of real value aside from wasting time, and that’s kind of what twitter is all of the time.
- 1337biz 8y ago
  Twitter truly feels like a dangerous mixup of mostly journalist, social activists and social media gurus, who all reaffirm their existance on the platform.
- wingerlang 8y ago
  Or you’ll follow a few interest points and miss everything they post because you don’t visit every hour and it’ll drown in the feed if you don’t. As long as you don't feel the need to see everything they post you should be fine. I honestly think all the regular people on twitter are either unemployed or spending so much work time on social media that they ought to be fired. I'm a regular that finds some value in Twitter, I follow only a few people and I think Twitter does a fairly good job of surfacing interesting tweets. It also takes me only 2-3 screens to get caught up after a few days. It doesn't have to be an uncontrollable firehose of shit content unless you let it become that way (see: following 1000 active accounts).
friedman23 8y ago
>I have no problem. Yet you are on hacker news. After some reflection I've realized that hacker news and reddit are just as bad for me as facebook is to others. I am reading unfiltered opinions from all people and I don't think that is particularly valuable or healthy.
BeniBoy 8y ago
It is sometimes even worse than that. My girlfriend used to work at a gouvernement service which specialised in "social media surveillance". Her job was basically to screenshot outrage reaction from random people on tweeter and sending that to government officials in a newsletter. The idea was for them to feel how the populace was reacting to current events.. The ultimate echo room!
- cuboidGoat 8y ago
  Wire that to a neural implant, and you almost have the plot of the book "Interface" by Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George.
Chazprime 8y ago
It’s become more and more common to see op-eds sourcing selected tweets of few outraged randoms on Twitter around any significant cultural event. Boom. Instant manufactured outrage.
tpush 8y ago
Considering the political shit storms on Twitter that occur what feels like every 5 minutes, I’m actually really happy for Twitter’s(and social media’s in general) relatively low popularity in Germany.
MrMember 8y ago
I see it all the time. An article with a title like "People are outraged about [topic author wants you to be outraged about]," and then the "article" is nothing but two tweets from random people.

mc32 8y ago

Yep. I find Twitter useful by following accounts which tailor to my taste in information consumption. They typically broadcast very useful information, and stay clear of politics and especially stay clear of politicizing for brownie points. Now, I can see Twitter being a very annoying place if all you are following are accounts which are looking to "engage" their audience and get retweets and mentions, etc., and try to be cool, set tone, influence, and throw signals --all of these mostly add noise.

rococode 8y ago

I feel that many regular people have given up the notion of actively tweeting their own content. The friends I follow on Twitter don't tweet very often nowadays, and when they do it's often in response to a tweet made by an account with a large following. I mostly stay on Twitter to keep up to date with news from certain groups and organizations (for example, YC). To me, at least, it doesn't really feel like "Facebook with short posts only" anymore, but more "place where you can read and comment on casual thoughts and updates from your favorite celebs and companies".

ndnxhs 8y ago
>place where you can read and comment on casual thoughts and updates from your favorite celebs and companies Sounds like hell
- oblio 8y ago
  Why?
  - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
    hell is a place where you actually have favorite companies and engage in conversations with those companies. it is said that you should never meet your heroes (or I suppose your favorite celebs). Hell is a place where you are exposed to your heroes' casual thoughts. maybe it would just be hell for me; but a personality change so extreme that I ended up with favorite companies afterwards does sound like the plot to a dystopian novel.
    - oblio 8y ago
      People do want to meet their heroes, there's a reason we have terms such as "fans", "groupies", etc.
      - teddyh 8y ago
        Dogs chase cars, but it usually does not go well if they catch one.
      - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
        a fan does not necessarily want to meet their hero, whereas it is of course true that a groupie does. Nonetheless, the saying still exists that you should never meet your heroes, even if fans and groupies do want to do that which they should never.

onion2k 8y ago

Tweets are presented all the time in articles as expression of legitimate opinion What is it about tweets that would mean they're not legitimate expressions of opinion? People write them, and publish them, and it'd be a bit unreasonable to assume they have some motive other that stating their opinion, so I don't really understand why you think tweets are something else.

User23 8y ago
I believe the parent's point is that many of the opinions people tweet are somehow illegitimate. I won't hazard to guess what criteria or authority is supposed to determine legitimacy.
- dstick 8y ago
  What I read is that random tweets gain extra credibility by being shown on a big screen on a news show. And they’re cherry picked to support whatever topic and angle is being covered. You could go out on the street; but finding and then having someone say something on camera is -very- different to finding and showing a tweet. I feel pretty confident in saying that a lot of people tweet stuff they’d never say live in front of a camera. Hence the argued bad practice of presenting tweets on news shows as well thought through and relevant opinions.
  - watwut 8y ago
    > Hence the argued bad practice of presenting tweets on news shows as well thought through and relevant opinions. Why would they be irrelevant? It is opinion that people think. It migh be wrong, but they still vote on that, choose schools on that, make decisions and judgements about real life people around them etc.
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      They are irrelevant when they are cited as in any way representative. "People are clamouring for more of X in Y" and then they show three tweets. When really maybe nobody cares. Or maybe they care in the other direction entirely.

eksemplar 8y ago

The only people I know with twitter accounts are journalists. One friend in particular has a hard time understanding how you can function without twitter. I tried using it, like most people, but when you work a job that doesn’t involve trolling the internet for news, it’s really hard to use twitter in any meaningful manner. You’ll post something and a few days later you’ll have time to post a reply. Or you’ll follow a few interest points and miss everything they post because you don’t visit every hour and it’ll drown in the feed if you don’t. I honestly think all the regular people on twitter are either unemployed or spending so much work time on social media that they ought to be fired. I like social media by the way, but I don’t think it has a lot of value when it’s done primarily with strangers. I mean, my friends use Facebook groups and events to organize stuff and it’s really, really good at that. We use discord/WhatsApp chats to keep in touch on day to day chitchat - which would be better in person but we live in different cities/have children etc. So that sort of social media is great. But talking with strangers? I mean, I’m home in bed with the flu right now, and we’re having this conversation, except I can’t be sure you’ll ever read what I post or if you’ll find it interesting or reply, and even if we do get to have a talk, we’ll likely never have another one. So it doesn’t hold a lot of real value aside from wasting time, and that’s kind of what twitter is all of the time.

1337biz 8y ago
Twitter truly feels like a dangerous mixup of mostly journalist, social activists and social media gurus, who all reaffirm their existance on the platform.
wingerlang 8y ago
Or you’ll follow a few interest points and miss everything they post because you don’t visit every hour and it’ll drown in the feed if you don’t. As long as you don't feel the need to see everything they post you should be fine. I honestly think all the regular people on twitter are either unemployed or spending so much work time on social media that they ought to be fired. I'm a regular that finds some value in Twitter, I follow only a few people and I think Twitter does a fairly good job of surfacing interesting tweets. It also takes me only 2-3 screens to get caught up after a few days. It doesn't have to be an uncontrollable firehose of shit content unless you let it become that way (see: following 1000 active accounts).

friedman23 8y ago

>I have no problem. Yet you are on hacker news. After some reflection I've realized that hacker news and reddit are just as bad for me as facebook is to others. I am reading unfiltered opinions from all people and I don't think that is particularly valuable or healthy.

BeniBoy 8y ago

It is sometimes even worse than that. My girlfriend used to work at a gouvernement service which specialised in "social media surveillance". Her job was basically to screenshot outrage reaction from random people on tweeter and sending that to government officials in a newsletter. The idea was for them to feel how the populace was reacting to current events.. The ultimate echo room!

cuboidGoat 8y ago
Wire that to a neural implant, and you almost have the plot of the book "Interface" by Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George.

Chazprime 8y ago

It’s become more and more common to see op-eds sourcing selected tweets of few outraged randoms on Twitter around any significant cultural event. Boom. Instant manufactured outrage.

tpush 8y ago

Considering the political shit storms on Twitter that occur what feels like every 5 minutes, I’m actually really happy for Twitter’s(and social media’s in general) relatively low popularity in Germany.

MrMember 8y ago

I see it all the time. An article with a title like "People are outraged about [topic author wants you to be outraged about]," and then the "article" is nothing but two tweets from random people.