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Same here. At least in Facebook you mostly communicate with people you've chosen to accept as friends, and know who they really are. Reddit and Twitter on the

Same here. At least in Facebook you mostly communicate with people you've chosen to accept as friends, and know who they really are. Reddit and Twitter on the other hand show all the bad sides of anonymity to the fullest. Way too much blind tribalism and conflict seeking, few adults actually capable of real discussion. So it's not only a waste of time, but one that gives you a bad mood as well.

yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
The echo chamber is real. I went cold turkey on Twitter after using it for 10 years and gaining about 6k followers. Twitter was the #1 source of left-wing extremist noise in my life. I'm sure there were/are right-wing extremists on that platform too, but one seemed to appear in my algorithmic feed more than the other. Or perhaps it was confirmation bias. Who knows! Good riddance.
- numpad0 7y ago
  Both side's on it. In fact there's no sides. Just that Twitter is competent at removing constructive elements and distilling hatred/rage/anger for profit and it's working against you. There are few ways to strip out some of their 10-year "improvement" and oh how deserted it looks under there...
  - yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
    I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I'm quite convinced certain subcultures are overrepresented on Twitter, and that while Twitter is open to all, that doesn't mean it's a representative cross-section of the general population. I think this is true of most social networks, and is more obvious in certain cases, e.g., Tumblr.
    - japanoise 7y ago
      It's pretty notable on the left - for example, tankies, who are almost nonexistant irl, flood that website.
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      The internet attracts people who are marginalized in meatspace. Queer people and neonazis are both marginalized.
  - philpem 7y ago
    Message to the shareholders: "Millions of active users, billions of messages" The truth: most of those messages are angry and argumentative, and most of those "active users" are just the same people being angry and tribal towards each other. It makes for good stats, but like all stats, they're just numbers if presented without the context and analysis behind them.
    - numpad0 7y ago
      It makes for good stats and it makes revenues. For those angered victims they would express sympathy if that's what you are going to ask for I guess...? My fear is this is going to destroy the society in a decade or two but then not many company survive that long so in financial risktaking standpoint this can't be significant.
  - collyw 7y ago
    Both sides are indeed on Ttwitter but it feels like it has a strong skew to the left. And as Time Pool discussed on Joe Rogan, the platform itself censors right wing opinion far more than left wing opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbTXqrS9l5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbTXqrS9l5E
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      There are more than two sides.
GekkePrutser 7y ago
I actually like Reddit for this. Not being locked in the same circle with the same baby pictures etc. Of course it depends a lot which subreddits you use. Some are toxic. The more technically oriented ones are fine in my experience.
thosakwe 7y ago
People on Hacker News, by and large, don't seem to grasp the concept of using Twitter for things other than having debates/arguments. The criticisms of it here typically boil down to it not being a good platform for discussion, when in reality, that's just not the point of Twitter! Most people are using Twitter for the memes, the (often educational) content, the news, and direct messaging. The average person is probably not there to look for people to have a long form discussion with, especially if that person is a stranger who is trying to argue with them.

yakshaving_jgt 7y ago

The echo chamber is real. I went cold turkey on Twitter after using it for 10 years and gaining about 6k followers. Twitter was the #1 source of left-wing extremist noise in my life. I'm sure there were/are right-wing extremists on that platform too, but one seemed to appear in my algorithmic feed more than the other. Or perhaps it was confirmation bias. Who knows! Good riddance.

numpad0 7y ago
Both side's on it. In fact there's no sides. Just that Twitter is competent at removing constructive elements and distilling hatred/rage/anger for profit and it's working against you. There are few ways to strip out some of their 10-year "improvement" and oh how deserted it looks under there...
- yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
  I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I'm quite convinced certain subcultures are overrepresented on Twitter, and that while Twitter is open to all, that doesn't mean it's a representative cross-section of the general population. I think this is true of most social networks, and is more obvious in certain cases, e.g., Tumblr.
  - japanoise 7y ago
    It's pretty notable on the left - for example, tankies, who are almost nonexistant irl, flood that website.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    The internet attracts people who are marginalized in meatspace. Queer people and neonazis are both marginalized.
- philpem 7y ago
  Message to the shareholders: "Millions of active users, billions of messages" The truth: most of those messages are angry and argumentative, and most of those "active users" are just the same people being angry and tribal towards each other. It makes for good stats, but like all stats, they're just numbers if presented without the context and analysis behind them.
  - numpad0 7y ago
    It makes for good stats and it makes revenues. For those angered victims they would express sympathy if that's what you are going to ask for I guess...? My fear is this is going to destroy the society in a decade or two but then not many company survive that long so in financial risktaking standpoint this can't be significant.
- collyw 7y ago
  Both sides are indeed on Ttwitter but it feels like it has a strong skew to the left. And as Time Pool discussed on Joe Rogan, the platform itself censors right wing opinion far more than left wing opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbTXqrS9l5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbTXqrS9l5E
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    There are more than two sides.

GekkePrutser 7y ago

I actually like Reddit for this. Not being locked in the same circle with the same baby pictures etc. Of course it depends a lot which subreddits you use. Some are toxic. The more technically oriented ones are fine in my experience.

thosakwe 7y ago

People on Hacker News, by and large, don't seem to grasp the concept of using Twitter for things other than having debates/arguments. The criticisms of it here typically boil down to it not being a good platform for discussion, when in reality, that's just not the point of Twitter! Most people are using Twitter for the memes, the (often educational) content, the news, and direct messaging. The average person is probably not there to look for people to have a long form discussion with, especially if that person is a stranger who is trying to argue with them.