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It's always been confusing to me what twitter is as a company -- it feels more like a utility, or like the public service part of 20th century journalism withou

It's always been confusing to me what twitter is as a company -- it feels more like a utility, or like the public service part of 20th century journalism without the profit model In many ways it's more important to society than FB & G (picking them as the 2 of the big 5 that are pure information plays), in that it hosts semi-public conversations and helps experts stay informed Would be interesting for some small country to create public utility versions of twitter and linkedin and see what the effect is. Sucks for free speech but great for experimental economics and welfare programs.

pjc50 7y ago
Network effects are pretty huge for these things. A country could e.g. spin up its own Mastodon instance, but good luck getting people to use it. The country-based LinkedIn might work, since that's inherently local, and lots of countries have some kind of state job advert service tied to their unemployment benefits. It would be a bit nasty to make "you have to be on BritLinkedIn to recieve unemployment benefit" a condition but I can absolutely see someone coming up with that idea. At the other end of hyperlocal, I've always been surprised that Edinburgh has its own dominant property market website (ESPC).
- sefrost 7y ago
  Interestingly the "BritLinkedIn" kind of did exist in the UK. It was called Universal Jobmatch and was built by Monster. Universal Credit claimants were required to use it. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jobseekers-required-to-use-universal-jobmatch https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jobseekers-required-to-us...
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's nice to have many more localized or focused platforms, as it protects against some of the nastier side of the modern market economy. On the other hand, whenever I need to move between or interact with multiple such platforms, I badly wish for a unified interface merging them all.
luckylion 7y ago
> In many ways it's more important to society than FB & G (picking them as the 2 of the big 5 that are pure information plays), in that it hosts semi-public conversations and helps experts stay informed. Out of all interactions on Twitter I've witnessed, conversations comes to mind the least to describe them. It's either people screaming at each other which barely makes it past a scripted dialogue of replies, or it's somebody saying ABC and all their fans saying "wow, so smart/brave/true". I don't see any value in those, and they make up the super majority on twitter. The "helping experts stay informed" part is true though, there are some small communities where it's used to provide easy methods to contact others. That's a small benefit compared to the giant damage it does to actual dialogue. Twitter's default mode is a school yard brawl where you have plenty of "followers" egging the fighters on. That's a utility if you want to destroy a society, but important to society?
- johannes1234321 7y ago
  The length limitation makes proper discussions hard. I can't even discuss the Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz a German law on labeling meat, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-_und_Rindfleischetikettierungs%C3%BCberwachungsaufgaben%C3%BCbertragungsgesetz https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-_und_Ri...) in a tweet. Little space for more than a troll bit or a link.
  - TsomArp 7y ago
    The problem seems to be more how crazy long some word in German are ;)
  - iamaelephant 7y ago
    > Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz About this soundlisten (help·info) (RkReÜAÜG) So you can.
    - johannes1234321 7y ago
      Of course and I could say "that labeling law" or something. Point is: The short length is nice for consuming tweets, but you can't use it for discussion. Quoting that term was ment for emphasizing.
ForHackernews 7y ago
It is genuinely frightening to me that influential people apparently believe this. Twitter is terrible. Even smart people sound like idiots on Twitter. The format deliberately rewards controversial hot takes and inaccurate garbage "breaking news". I can't think of another major internet property that's less in the public interest. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/twitter-is-not-america/587770/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/twitt...
- thosakwe 7y ago
  That's just an opinion, and one far removed from reality at that. There's an entire world of content on there besides "American politics takes," one that you probably haven't interacted with.
- meowface 7y ago
  It's the same if you try to argue politics in a bar. It doesn't mean bars don't provide value in other ways. And although it certainly is anathema to constructive political discussion and debate, I suspect the vast majority of the people tweeting/retweeting/arguing about politics all the time wouldn't sound much smarter or less sucked into the shitstorm if they were using something long-form.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  I've seen good ideas bubble up from the population, through the blue checks, and to the right people in places of power multiple times. One recent example is to temporarily allow doctors to practice medicine across state lines using tele-medicine in order to help combat covid19. Another idea bubbling up is giving people a "right to try" experimental medications, again regarding covid19. The regular populace has never had this kind of access to political leadership in the history of the planet. Not participating on Twitter is like not voting on the referendums section of your ballot.
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    Both of those ideas are the sort of bog standard think tank proposals that get trotted out any time somebody points out that one US party has no healthcare plan beyond a quixotic repeal campaign. > The regular populace has never had this kind of access to political leadership in the history of the planet. Am I to understand that your contention is twitter has been a positive development for politics in western democracies?

pjc50 7y ago

Network effects are pretty huge for these things. A country could e.g. spin up its own Mastodon instance, but good luck getting people to use it. The country-based LinkedIn might work, since that's inherently local, and lots of countries have some kind of state job advert service tied to their unemployment benefits. It would be a bit nasty to make "you have to be on BritLinkedIn to recieve unemployment benefit" a condition but I can absolutely see someone coming up with that idea. At the other end of hyperlocal, I've always been surprised that Edinburgh has its own dominant property market website (ESPC).

sefrost 7y ago
Interestingly the "BritLinkedIn" kind of did exist in the UK. It was called Universal Jobmatch and was built by Monster. Universal Credit claimants were required to use it. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jobseekers-required-to-use-universal-jobmatch https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jobseekers-required-to-us...
TeMPOraL 7y ago
I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's nice to have many more localized or focused platforms, as it protects against some of the nastier side of the modern market economy. On the other hand, whenever I need to move between or interact with multiple such platforms, I badly wish for a unified interface merging them all.

luckylion 7y ago

> In many ways it's more important to society than FB & G (picking them as the 2 of the big 5 that are pure information plays), in that it hosts semi-public conversations and helps experts stay informed. Out of all interactions on Twitter I've witnessed, conversations comes to mind the least to describe them. It's either people screaming at each other which barely makes it past a scripted dialogue of replies, or it's somebody saying ABC and all their fans saying "wow, so smart/brave/true". I don't see any value in those, and they make up the super majority on twitter. The "helping experts stay informed" part is true though, there are some small communities where it's used to provide easy methods to contact others. That's a small benefit compared to the giant damage it does to actual dialogue. Twitter's default mode is a school yard brawl where you have plenty of "followers" egging the fighters on. That's a utility if you want to destroy a society, but important to society?

johannes1234321 7y ago
The length limitation makes proper discussions hard. I can't even discuss the Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz a German law on labeling meat, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-_und_Rindfleischetikettierungs%C3%BCberwachungsaufgaben%C3%BCbertragungsgesetz https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-_und_Ri...) in a tweet. Little space for more than a troll bit or a link.
- TsomArp 7y ago
  The problem seems to be more how crazy long some word in German are ;)
- iamaelephant 7y ago
  > Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz About this soundlisten (help·info) (RkReÜAÜG) So you can.
  - johannes1234321 7y ago
    Of course and I could say "that labeling law" or something. Point is: The short length is nice for consuming tweets, but you can't use it for discussion. Quoting that term was ment for emphasizing.

ForHackernews 7y ago

It is genuinely frightening to me that influential people apparently believe this. Twitter is terrible. Even smart people sound like idiots on Twitter. The format deliberately rewards controversial hot takes and inaccurate garbage "breaking news". I can't think of another major internet property that's less in the public interest. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/twitter-is-not-america/587770/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/twitt...

thosakwe 7y ago
That's just an opinion, and one far removed from reality at that. There's an entire world of content on there besides "American politics takes," one that you probably haven't interacted with.
meowface 7y ago
It's the same if you try to argue politics in a bar. It doesn't mean bars don't provide value in other ways. And although it certainly is anathema to constructive political discussion and debate, I suspect the vast majority of the people tweeting/retweeting/arguing about politics all the time wouldn't sound much smarter or less sucked into the shitstorm if they were using something long-form.
Consultant32452 7y ago
I've seen good ideas bubble up from the population, through the blue checks, and to the right people in places of power multiple times. One recent example is to temporarily allow doctors to practice medicine across state lines using tele-medicine in order to help combat covid19. Another idea bubbling up is giving people a "right to try" experimental medications, again regarding covid19. The regular populace has never had this kind of access to political leadership in the history of the planet. Not participating on Twitter is like not voting on the referendums section of your ballot.
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  Both of those ideas are the sort of bog standard think tank proposals that get trotted out any time somebody points out that one US party has no healthcare plan beyond a quixotic repeal campaign. > The regular populace has never had this kind of access to political leadership in the history of the planet. Am I to understand that your contention is twitter has been a positive development for politics in western democracies?