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Quit Twitter (2019)
- stanislavb 6y agoIt'd be interesting to know what's the percentage of HN users that use Twitter actively.
- Jaxan 6y agoI use it to follow a bunch of academics. They share papers and ideas. It is nice as long as you avoid politics.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ian-g 6y agoWhat would you define as active?
- QuinnWilton 6y agoI started using Twitter a few months ago and it's been a pretty universally positive experience for me. I'm more connected than ever with the Elixir community, am able to stay on top of new libraries and developments more effectively than I ever have in the past, and am able to ask questions of experts in fields I'm still new to. This has directly led to me being more involved in open source, submitting talks to conferences I'd previously felt are out of my league, and has demystified hard topics like formal methods. Twitter, like all social media, seems to be what you make of it.
- ratsmack 6y agoI've never made a Twitter or Facebook account. Many people pressured me over the years and even one company tried to force me into a Facebook account, but later relented. Seeing what a dumpster fire they are today, I'm happy that I resisted making accounts.
- mynegation 6y agoAlso, quit Medium while you are at it.
- Antoninus 6y agoQuit all social media and spent more time offline.
- cblconfederate 6y agobut first get on all social media to debate quitting all social media ad infinitum
- rvz 6y agoGenerally, there really is no point to using Twitter. There's evidence of manipluation of threads [0], shadow-banning / blacklisting of users on the 'platform' in light of the admin tool leak [1] Not only 'Trends' are subject to manipluation artificially, but it now matters more about 'who's tweets' actually do show up on Top or Trending sections; even with similar Likes, hearts and comments. Take this tweet [2] for example which proves that they are 'shadow-banned' on the trends section and still has similar stats like the trending tweet. I won't be suprised to see the same in Instagram, TikTok or many others these days. [0] https://twitter.com/ArcVRArthur/status/1282436347421171712 https://twitter.com/ArcVRArthur/status/1282436347421171712 [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxd3d/twitter-insider-access-panel-account-hacks-biden-uber-bezos https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxd3d/twitter-insider-ac... [2] https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1287903462689103872 https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1287903462689103872
- detaro 6y agoYou can use Twitter completely fine without ever paying any attention to "Trending" or things like that. For many, it probably makes the experience better not to do so. (other recommendation: Twitter lets you mute specific people and phrases. make liberal use of that). (semi-OT: I'm also surprised how those screenshots are paraded around as "aha! caught them!". Did anyone seriously think there wasn't any moderation of trends etc going on before?)
- napolux 6y agoThat's what I'm doing. The only thing I'm noticing in the dev community is the rise of many weird account of "self made developers" that tweet stupid things like "how to add 2 + 1 in JS" that are gaining a lot of followers in a short amount of time. Looks like there's a network of these guys, doing RTs and talking with their group in order to gain followers. Most of them sell courses and ebooks.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- yakshaving_jgt 6y ago
- blisseyGo 6y agoI would actually be curious if one were to start charging for each social media, which of them most people would be willing to pay vs which ones would disappear. Out of: Snapchat TikTok Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Twitter Reddit Quora HN
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- aww_dang 6y agoprivate forums would continue to outshine all of them
- blisseyGo 6y agoWhat type of private forum? Any examples?
- hombre_fatal 6y agoPrivate forums only compete with Reddit and HN on that list. Quora already seems like Xenforo with a highly custom skin. Forums were basically never used for socializing with people you met irl. Nor could I imagine a scenario where I'm using a forum to stay in contact with irl friends except the rare case where my squad somehow set one up in 2006.
- rydre 6y agoHN/bookface only. Reddit once used to be good for real reviews/opinions. But now it's full of shills/manipulation bots who do not disclose themselves. The conversation and comments do not feel organic either and highly manipulated on international/news/geopolitical/political/sensitive things. It's like someone wants to force us to change our views.
- kristianc 6y agoThis comes up a lot, and it feels like my response is the same every time. Twitter’s great, but you need to be careful who you follow. Ruthlessly unfollow or mute those who pander to the lowest common denominator, avoid general interest politics at all costs, follow only experts in their field and keep following count below 200. Refuse to play the game of becoming internet popular - unless you have a blue check, it’s rigged against you anyway.
- numpad0 6y agoRT what you’d upvote, quote URL for what you’d downvote, reply if there’s something to be said, and just keep posting ideas and arts in general(and don’t repost) Quitting it is arguably better tho
- snowwrestler 6y agoI love Twitter, it is my favorite social network and I get tremendous value out of it. For me the keys were: - Be fast to follow and unfollow accounts. It's hard to build a valuable feed, and requires a lot of experimentation. Some accounts I felt sure would be valuable are not (for example, info security researchers who only tweet complaints about travel rewards programs). And some accounts that seemed marginal turned out to be great, like some socialist/leftists who are also hilarious. - Don't write tweets. Seriously, unless you are really trying to build a personal brand, there's no reason to tweet. Same with retweets. - Remember any tweet you enjoyed and might want to see again. You can do this with the "like" button, or by bookmarking. - Block or force-unfollow anyone following you, who you don't like. A force-unfollow is done by blocking and then immediately unblocking that account. Doing this silently knocks them off your follower list. - Ultimately I made my account private to make it easier to focus on reading.
- rydre 6y agoTwitter trends are manipulated. Do not take them seriously. They're a tool of social engineering.
- scollet 6y agoIt's worth studying the trends.
- searchableguy 6y agoI am getting a dejavu from this thread. Arguments used to justify twitter always rely on certain users of the platform. I am not sure how that makes twitter good as a platform. By staying on the platform, you are forcing other developers and people to use it to announce their projects and keep you up-to-date aka networks effect.
- detaro 6y agoI follow people on Twitter because they post on Twitter. If they'd post somewhere else, I'd probably follow them there (within some limits). That doesn't mean I post updates about my stuff there - if others want to follow my updates, they can go where those are.
- ckastner 6y agoAs Jack Dorsey said [1] in an interview a while ago: "I also don’t feel good about how Twitter tends to incentivize outrage, fast takes, short term thinking, echo chambers, and fragmented conversation and consideration." I see Twitter as an almost pure outrage machine. I generally avoid it but when I do visit it and the Tweet I'm reading is about a topic that has two or more sides, most of the replies shown in response are the just the most vicious and aggressive attacks by the other side. Just punch lines or insults. [1] https://twitter.com/jack/status/1095457906848231424 https://twitter.com/jack/status/1095457906848231424
- randomsearch 6y agoRecently I started muting people on Twitter according to a few rules: anything where they were telling people how to behave (“i don’t know who needs to hear this but it’s not ok to do X”); anything very sanctimonious; anything attacking a person rather than debating their views; anything discriminating against someone based on their skin, their background, etc. The end result, after many weeks of muting, was fascinating: firstly, twitter became much more considered and informative. And secondly, it became far, far, less engaging! I’d read something and think “huh, that’s useful” or “seems reasonable” and with a yawn close the app. Enragement is engagement. Twitter (the business) has failed to figure out what problem it solves, what its really _for_, and that vacuum of leadership has been filled by the emergent consequences of its algorithms.
- mastazi 6y agoHow to remove Twitter Trends permanently, both on the site and on the mobile app: 1. Open Twitter in a desktop browser (should work the same on mobile but I did this on desktop) 2. Go to Settings -> Content Preferences -> Explore Settings 3. De-select "Show content in this location" 4. Click on "Explore locations" and select Bhutan 5. Ignore the warning informing you that Buthan's Trending section does not exist, and save.
- 54351623 6y agoThe person who wrote this should probably talk to a therapist about his obsession with hunting people down online instead of blaming a social network site.
- systematical 6y agoSo I deleted my old twitter, which suffered from some of the problems the author points out. After six months or so I agreed to create a new one and only post things related to software development and technology, positive things. Mostly engaging with development communities and promoting my own libraries. Likewise, the people I follow pretty much stick to tech. I don't mind if they post family photos here and there, but mostly people I follow stick to tech. That's it.... I created an anonymous account for everything else.
- drosan 6y ago> Quit Twitter (2019) (medium.com) > medium oh the irony.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoI happen to like Twitter. Me and Facebook have never gotten on well. To each his own.
- CaptArmchair 6y agoI joined Twitter back in 2007. Early days. It was great as a micro-blogging platform. People mostly just logged about what was going on in their lives. Most already had a digital presence elsewhere as bloggers and such. And there was a lot of experimentation going on. Then things picked up and there was a massive influx of people and companies. That's when things changed. In and of itself, the public debate isn't a bad thing: it's, above all, a function of a larger, more diverse audience trooping in one place. The fact of the matter is that Twitter, as a private company, never had any incentive to create the affordances to cater to the complexities and intricacies that come with hosting the public debate. On the contrary. I just stopped using Twitter at the end of last year, for the sake of my own mental well being. That doesn't exclude me from being concerned or being reflective about the topics and current events that are on everyone's mind these days. Not being on Twitter helped me reclaim mental bandwidth to reflect on my own life, here and now, and allows me to consider the world in a critical and compassionate way without sapping my energy.
- jraedisch 6y agoJust wanted to mention https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ in case someone did not know it. No 3rd party, no trends, tweets in order, etc..
- badrabbit 6y agoLet's just be clear, as companies Twitter is much better than facebook. A lot of the "toxicity" hate against twitter had to do with people on the platform not the platform itself. That said, I hope mastodon improves quite a bit more to be competitive.
- konart 6y agoI love twitter. I follow great number of artists and tech guys and people I used to be friends with in Livejournal (some of them I met in person). I always wonder how people even come across problems such as hate speech and toxic people over there. Politic threads with people who have no understanding of the topic they are talking about? Stop joining trashy and pointless discussions - problem solved.
- scollet 6y agoSometimes it's worth the effort to extend yourself into less than desirable situations because the message is more than worth its debate. I'm not saying argue ad infinitum, but inject a piece of reason in a place of disillusionment.