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The cynic in me is concluding that twitter have measured that this would actually cause users to leave their platform. Again I have no data to back this up, so

The cynic in me is concluding that twitter have measured that this would actually cause users to leave their platform. Again I have no data to back this up, so this is purely anecdotal - the amount of people I see sending re-tweets of probably-a-bot bullshit has me convinced that a huge part of twitter's "success" is built on it.

account73466 7y ago
Hmm, it seems that you are good at hiding your preferences, otherwise propaganda would be much better tailored.
- Jestar342 7y ago
  Quite. I think it's also indicative that the 1st goal of this tailored propaganda is not to find the recipients that will be convinced. No, that comes second to _keeping it away from those who will/can question it, and by extension, refute it_.
  - account73466 7y ago
    Nigerian prince does not want to waste his time, he is only interested in easy-to-manipulate people.
    - nothrabannosir 7y ago
      I can’t remember where I read this but someone put this forth as a motivation behind the “obviously” fake nature of SPAM: an early filter for people who would call it out. Seems like a plausible theory.
      - dillonmckay 7y ago
        Good spam follows best-practices for email deliverability.
    - im3w1l 7y ago
      It's not just that. It's about isolating the gullible from people who could protect them by posting refutations.
sj4nz 7y ago
Twitter in ~2007-2008 was an amazing place when you interacted with actual people. But now the "frog has boiled" and the humanity has long left Twitter. Practically every interaction between entities on Twitter now is generated by some kind of bot or script that you're essentially trying to communicate with nothing. If there weren't Twitter API limits it would consume more energy and data storage than all the crypto coins combined (slightly hyperbolic). I've left Twitter and I have no desire to return. However, if Twitter decided to "embrace humanity" and use the API limit system (which already exists) for accounts to increase the value of an interaction they might have a chance to bring back that earlier magic. Scarcity would increase the value, and if you could only post 5-10 new tweets per day you would certainly spend more time considering what you do on Twitter and make it easier for Twitter to identify the sources of noise in the signal.
- pjc50 7y ago
  That would ruin both the "live commentary on TV" and "giant thread" twitter genres. If it includes replies as well .. well, you might as well remove the reply feature entirely and save everyone a lot of pain. I find it OK, but I'm fairly selective about who I read and liberal with the block button. 500 follows on the regular account, 100 on the Eurovision one (more used for reading hashtags)

account73466 7y ago

Hmm, it seems that you are good at hiding your preferences, otherwise propaganda would be much better tailored.

Jestar342 7y ago
Quite. I think it's also indicative that the 1st goal of this tailored propaganda is not to find the recipients that will be convinced. No, that comes second to _keeping it away from those who will/can question it, and by extension, refute it_.
- account73466 7y ago
  Nigerian prince does not want to waste his time, he is only interested in easy-to-manipulate people.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    I can’t remember where I read this but someone put this forth as a motivation behind the “obviously” fake nature of SPAM: an early filter for people who would call it out. Seems like a plausible theory.
    - dillonmckay 7y ago
      Good spam follows best-practices for email deliverability.
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    It's not just that. It's about isolating the gullible from people who could protect them by posting refutations.

sj4nz 7y ago

Twitter in ~2007-2008 was an amazing place when you interacted with actual people. But now the "frog has boiled" and the humanity has long left Twitter. Practically every interaction between entities on Twitter now is generated by some kind of bot or script that you're essentially trying to communicate with nothing. If there weren't Twitter API limits it would consume more energy and data storage than all the crypto coins combined (slightly hyperbolic). I've left Twitter and I have no desire to return. However, if Twitter decided to "embrace humanity" and use the API limit system (which already exists) for accounts to increase the value of an interaction they might have a chance to bring back that earlier magic. Scarcity would increase the value, and if you could only post 5-10 new tweets per day you would certainly spend more time considering what you do on Twitter and make it easier for Twitter to identify the sources of noise in the signal.

pjc50 7y ago
That would ruin both the "live commentary on TV" and "giant thread" twitter genres. If it includes replies as well .. well, you might as well remove the reply feature entirely and save everyone a lot of pain. I find it OK, but I'm fairly selective about who I read and liberal with the block button. 500 follows on the regular account, 100 on the Eurovision one (more used for reading hashtags)