14 ms·

On Using Twitter

81 points by polm23 6y ago

pratio 6y ago
I was about start complaining about how an article on using twitter is posted on medium and it will have the usual discussion about the influence of social media platforms. But it is a surprisingly well written how-to document. I would suggest others to give it a glance. Most of us are probably aware of the topics discussed but i still enjoyed it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
raziel2p 6y ago
This article has good advice, but doesn't really help me. I actually really want to use Twitter more, but I cannot get over the fact that most of the people I find interesting post 20% interesting stuff, but 80% in-jokes, casual conversations, or memes. This is fine for the people who post once a day, but if there are 10s of them per day I get sick of it. I don't know how I'm meant to deal with this other than just blindly trusting Twitter's algorithm of what ends up on my home feed (which I don't really want to). Maybe what I want is for Twitter to differentiate between announcement/public style posts and posts that are intended for a smaller community of followers, but that probably goes against the nature of the medium. I hold myself responsible for this whenever I tweet something as well, but it seems like the only way to do it 100% is to make different accounts for different topics (e.g. one account for tech/programming, one for politics, and one for casual life stuff).
- dandellion 6y ago
  I had the same experience, a few times I've tried to follow a few interesting accounts. It's always the same: a couple of accounts posting memes or sharing random things drown everything else. When I want to waste time with that sort of stuff I can do it more efficiently on reddit.
- PikachuEXE 6y ago
  I am having a similar but different need. I want multiple streams like circles from Google Plus (yes the dead Google Plus). It was the only thing I found on Google+ which is missing from all other social medias I am using.
  - twic 6y ago
    Lists? https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-lists https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-lists
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  i think twitter's model pushes people to post often, so they post more memes/political stuff which i find garbage. I wish it would keep the stuff from interesting people at the top for more days, but it s not happening.
eertami 6y ago
One thing this article doesn't mention is that it is worth remembering Twitter has no meaning or importance on the real world. The only people who care about what happens on twitter are other people on twitter. Regular people simply don't care (nor are aware) about twitter. Think of it like any other social network feed and try not to take it seriously.
- twic 6y ago
  On the one hand, yes, but on the other hand, "the real world" is just the concatenation of many equally irrelevant spaces.
- mercacona 6y ago
  I agree. Even though, the echoes in mass media of twitter conversations, or political debates by political actors on the network, makes Twitter much more influential to the people doesn’t care about what’s on twitter (like me).
- onion2k 6y ago
  Donald Trump's tweets make headlines around the world.
  - Rompect 6y ago
    Technically yes, but what impact do they actually have? It's pretty much irrelevant what he says there. Journalists simply like to use it for clicks.
    - zimpenfish 6y ago
      > what impact do they actually have? It's pretty much irrelevant what he says there They literally cannot be irrelevant because they're official presidential communications - "The Department of Justice on Monday told a federal district court judge In Washington, D.C. that Donald Trump’s tweets are “official statements of the President of the United States.”" https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/government_says_trumps_tweets_are_official_presidential_statements https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/government_says_trum...
twic 6y ago
> My field (#NLProc) is working to maintain fully anonymous review. In such conditions, it’s important to be careful when tweeting about work (your own or others) that is under review. Interesting! I wasn't aware that anyone was doing double-anonymous peer review. I would love to know how that is working out.
- probably_wrong 6y ago
  I have been reviewer in this field (ACL-related conferences) for a couple years now. Based on the results of the yearly surveys: One of the biggest challenges was to decide what to do about ArXiv and pre-prints in general - most researchers keep track of new papers on their area, and therefore it is likely that they will be assigned as reviewers for a paper that they have already seen (and for which they already know who the authors are). This issue came up for a vote a couple years ago, and the chosen answer was to not disqualify papers for this outright but to kindly ask authors to refer from doing so. At the same time, "88% consider double-blind reviewing at ACL conferences to be important", and only 14% of reviewers would penalize a paper for not including a relevant pre-print. This seems to me like a fair compromise. There is also work in progress to either talk to ArXiv to allow for author masking, and/or to create a new pre-print server that allows it. There is a very detailed report on the results of the survey in [1]. A second issue is whether the reviews should be made public, because it could compromise the double-blind process. The general result of the survey [2] was against it, where "support for public review tended to be inversely correlated with reviewing experience (and) female respondents were less likely to support public review than male respondents". [1] https://www.aclweb.org/portal/sites/default/files/SurveyReport2017.pdf https://www.aclweb.org/portal/sites/default/files/SurveyRepo... [2] http://acl2019pcblog.fileli.unipi.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ReportACL2019ReviewingSurvey.pdf http://acl2019pcblog.fileli.unipi.it/wp-content/uploads/2019...
- mkeeter 6y ago
  SIGGRAPH switched from single-blind (reviewers know the authors but not vice versa) to double-blind, starting in the 2019 conference: https://blog.siggraph.org/2018/10/the-magic-of-technical-papers.html/ https://blog.siggraph.org/2018/10/the-magic-of-technical-pap...
Zealotux 6y ago
I have an honest question for Twitter users of HN: what's the net positive value of Twitter to your life? It feels like using Twitter or not has been an uninterrupted argument for years, even on HN, as if on one end your rational brain knows Twitter is detrimental to your mental health, but on the other end: it's a great dopamine, and outrage dispenser.
- esperent 6y ago
  It's the place where most of the people in my industry (WebGl) seem to gather and showcase their work. Hanging out there too lets me connect with them and has gotten me a considerable amount of work over the last couple of years and allowed me to make professional connection that I would have otherwise missed. I also showcase and advertise my own work there. I'm extremely careful not to engage in anything related to identity or politics on Twitter. I've added a big list of muted words and accounts (trump, politics, gender, queer, republican, democrat, sanders, etc.). Many of these are topics I find interesting and discussion worthy, but the twitter format doesn't allow space for anyone to formulate actual cohesive thoughts so the result of discussing anything contentious is just people shouting at each other. Once I avoid these topics and stick to discussing tech, twitter is fine.
  - catacombs 6y ago
    > I've added a big list of muted words and accounts (trump, politics, gender, queer, republican, democrat, sanders, etc.). Muting is makes using Twitter much easier, when it's working. Sometimes muted words and phrases find their way through the cracks.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  I follow people I think are smart or interesting who do things beyond tweet. They might tweet to say they've published a new podcast, made a video, etc. They also share articles or perspectives or write up Twitter threads.
- jpab 6y ago
  I follow several artists and get lovely art that I wouldn't otherwise have seen, and wouldn't have sought out. I follow several people in the game development industry, and historically used to see a lot of interesting technical articles being shared on Twitter within this community. That seems to have declined unfortunately, though there is still some. I follow various people who have a habit of posting dumb funny jokes (usually puns) and memes. Not everyone likes that style of humour, but I do. I mute or unfollow people if too many of the things they choose to share are things I don't want to see (like outrage bait).
johnnujler 6y ago
My advice would be to create your own echo chamber, not the bad ideologically biased one, but the one that helps you put yourself and your work out there while being able to stay updated on the developments within the community. I feel that twitter is a far better platform to learn than quora, reddit, and what not because of its mainstream nature and authenticity where you can interact with real experts without falling into the linkedin trap(networking for the sake of it and spamming people). The only thing is you will have to excercise at least a little bit of caution and restraint on the side of meandering around mindlessly.
abdullahkhalids 6y ago
My guide to using twitter: 1. Follow people with high signal to noise ratio. These are people whose full time job is creation, and no marketing. Eg. Scientists and engineers and certain types of artists. Politicians not so much. 2. Use the mute feature liberally. Go into settings and mute the name of every major politician in your country, or politicians that are popular world over. On every part of the political landscape. Go to their accounts and block them too. Politics is a mind-killer. 3. Some people tweet good stuff, but retweet crap. You can go to their page and mute their retweets. 4. Follow people you disagree with ideologically. Don't get trapped in echo-chambers. 5. Create lists of people for stuff you are interested in, but don't want to pollute your main timeline with. There you can tolerate a bit lower SNR.
- pjc50 6y ago
  > 4. Follow people you disagree with ideologically. Don't get trapped in echo-chambers. > 2. Use the mute feature liberally No point in following them if I've muted everything they say. Seriously, there are very few people remaining I've seen on the right who are prepared to make arguments that aren't immediately infuriating, based on something clearly wrong, or in support of people and policies who are harmful to my friends.
- iamwpj 6y ago
  Echo chambers develop when you are only reading things you already know, not things you agree with. It's about learning new things vs. keeping your worldview narrow. Like if you have an opinion on climate change, reading arguments from deniers doesn't expand your worldview. Reading about how climate change affects different social classes can expand your worldview -- and all be from people you already agree with.
  - abdullahkhalids 6y ago
    That's not what I mean. Climate-change denial is a very specific issue, and empirical in nature. When I say ideological difference, I mean people who have different fundamental values. Say socialism vs capitalism. People from both those camps can disagree with each other, but still respect the arguments others make and learn from those arguments. Obviously, when I say arguments I mean academia level arguments, not party-rally-slogan level arguments.
jpistell 6y ago
> First, social address: I’m a white, cis, female, straight, abled Stopped reading there
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Rompect 6y ago
  Same. Honestly I was surprised it took so long, given that it was an article about Twitter.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Why?
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    Because the author is immediately pandering to the potential twitterati reaction to his article?
    - pjc50 6y ago
      Her article. As they told you in that sentence. And their byline. (I know there's some weird campaign against pronouns but that doesn't mean that all people writing on the internet are now "him")
      - secondcoming 6y ago
        oops, my mistake
  - rgoulter 6y ago
    That phrasing like that is a shibboleth. (It shows the person's beliefs/political attitudes). From that statement, you can predict what the author's statements on various things will be. Or at least, it's unsurprising. Listening to a variety of viewpoints in good faith is a good idea. Tribal, internecine discussion is usually much more predictable than that, though. I liked the term "internet of beefs" for that. I do like the idea of recognizing that people are human, and not just political abstractions. But, I can also understand how natural the 'internet of beefs' stuff makes political abstractions the most convenient way of viewing people.
henrik_w 6y ago
I am using Twitter instead of a bookmarking service: I tweet links I find interesting. If I ever want to find it again, I search my own twitter user for a relevant key-word. I also tweet out e.g. git or bash tips that I like (and similarly can search for them afterwards). It's not my only use of Twitter, but I like how this way both stores the link and shares them at the same time. (btw, @henrikwarne)
flippinburgers 6y ago
My advice: don't use twitter. It is a terrible way to communicate. PS I'm old school in the sense that I don't have any inclination to tell you about who I am, but rather delight in the simple act of sharing ideas.
mayankkaizen 6y ago
Earlier I used to follow all sorts of famous twitter accounts and had joined all sorts of (ugly debate). I really liked Twitter in comparison to FB in the sense that it introduced me people of millions types from all over the world. On FB, everyone was already known to me so there was no novelty in what I was browsing. However, later on I realized that Twitter is actually a "outrage generating machine". Everyone is outraging over every trivial, even wrong, thing at every chance. This was very toxic. And since I was addicted to Twitter, it was affecting my mental sanity in very subtle ways. Later on I unfollowed 90% accounts and stuck to those accounts which strictly tweets only about programming, math, history and other such stuffs in robotic manner (I.e. without any hidden agenda or connotations). I unfollowed everyone who have even a slightest chance of tweeting about politics. Also I stopped tweeting and replying to anybody. Suddenly Twitter became a bit nicer place and now I only spend may be 5-10 min there. If you can discipline yourself and carefully choose whom to follow, Twitter is great, otherwise it is a toxic hell.Just don't follow any political figure or any people who outrages on daily basis. And don't even try to debate there. It is not a debate plateform. It is broadcasting platform.
- city41 6y ago
  Like the article states, I think Tweetdeck is more powerful and more useful than normal Twitter. You can see a much broader and deeper view of the topics you are interested in, and see it both at a glance and deeply if you decide to dig in. It's also excellent for watching trends in real time (such as many people tweeting about a conference). Your normal feed forces you into a much more "all or nothing" approach. Someone who often tweets useful stuff but also lots of noise, you either have to put up with the noise or miss their good stuff. In Tweetdeck, just their good stuff shows up.
- balaam 6y ago
  This is the best way to use twitter. You get a clear stream of useful, relevant content. Unfortunately this also gets framed as a "filter bubble". I want a filter bubble. The problem in practice is that twitter actively fights you doing this. It tries to pour raw sewage into your nice clean stream and you can't stop it. You see what other people have liked, or what's popular or lots of other things I don't want to see. At this point in time the biggest value of twitter is it's userbase, it's critical mass, people are on twitter, they're not on mastodon.
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
Copy this article into a text editor, search replace "Twitter" for "Reddit" and look at how absurd the whole thing reads. They're both internet forums with 330M Active users, both have basically the same content and same level of discussion. Think we need to start being more honest about what Twitter actually is and stop pretending it's the real world.
Scea91 6y ago
> Snitch tagging: You may come across a conversation where people are discussing someone else and be tempted to reply by tagging the person discussed. This is snitch tagging and it’s frowned upon. [...] Hearing about 'snitch tagging' for the first time (I have to admit I am not a frequent twitter user). Is it really frowned upon? I know the act of 'talking about someone and not tagging them' is called subtweeting and it is also frowned upon isn't it? The takeaway for me is to stay away from threads like this. Also the advice to 'let the third party know about the conversation privately' is interesting. I can see how it may help you evade backslash but from game-theoretical point of view it seems to me to be worse for the 'subtweeters' as it provides them with less information.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  So it's confirmed then! Twitter is a kindergarten
- pjc50 6y ago
  X tweeting about Y without naming them is doing so because they wish to avoid a fight. Doubly so when Y has a known angry set of followers. One may even have the other blocked. By snitch tagging you're trying to start a fight between X and Y and potentially Y's followers. Snitch-tagging is for people who want X to be sent death threats but aren't willing to put their own name on them. Subtweeting is usually just venting about someone or something. And by its nature it's ambiguous. > The takeaway for me is to stay away from threads like this. Correct. There's enough fighting on twitter already.
duxup 6y ago
>Cultivate a good set of accounts to follow Man I'm so done with that. Even cultivating a group of accounts on say a topic ... they're still people so I get their angry rants about whatever issue. And I respect their right to be a person and tweet about what they want, but that's a double edged sword as far as my interest goes. I really don't want to see a twitter spat, ever. Even if I AGREE with someone I'm following I don't want to see them act like a child or sort of yell at me / the world whatever concerns them at the moment ... I just don't, it's not helpful, I'm not learning anything, it's just yelling much of the time. >Who has time for this? Amen.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  This mirrors my experience. Adding one more point, a lot of non-outraged content is manufactured. It was nice at first but then it was plain boring and kind of manipulatistic in nature. I think it's US-centric though (at least from how I used twitter). The same is true for India and few other countries where you can only find manufactured content. Maybe it's related to population size. Social media and twitter segregate based on countries rather than states more. Given cities in India have more people than entire countries, the end result of more averages combined will be the same? Another relevant comment I found: Only something like 10% of users tweet regularly. I wouldn't be surprised if most twitter accounts are run by PR firms, bots and blue check marks. The other active ones are probably alts of power users who were self aware of their behavior and decided to be anonymous. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/22/21148516/twitter-suspends-mike-bloomberg-facebook-google-platform-manipulation https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/22/21148516/twitter-suspends... https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17990946/twitter-russian-trolls-bots-election-tampering https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17990946/twitter-russian-trol... https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/20/859814085/researchers-nearly-half-of-accounts-tweeting-about-coronavirus-are-likely-bots https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24072286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24072286 Easier to explain by manipulation from wealthy and state?
- clairity 6y ago
  i haven't used twitter in a while (and even then was barely a user because it was so overwhelming), but i suspect a lot of the twitter and social media backlash is an impedance mismatch between our signal-seeking antennas and the tidal wave of signal (and noise) that's 300M people chatting at once. a single human isn't evolutionarily equipped to tease out useful information from that much constant and ever-present signal. we're designed to tell if an eye crinkle means the coincident stream of words are more likely true or false. we're also constantly making attribution errors via twitter in the same vein, attributing to individuals things that only apply to systems and groups (akin to the idea that there is no average person), generalizing in ways that are bound to be flawed but unable to help our collective selves. i say all this to disagree with the idea that avoiding (angry) opinion is necessarily the "right way to use twitter". it's maybe a way for an individual to avoid drowning in the deluge of signal, but it does nothing to find the truths that must be washing over us at the same time.
tarkin2 6y ago
Twitter is mob media. It is only social in the most twisted sense of the word. Rarely do you interact in a positive way.
- bob33212 6y ago
  That is by design. I follow a security researcher who generally get 10-20 comments/likes on his posts. He and his girlfriend broke up. She has 50 follows on Twitter and posted something vaguely implying the break-up was because he was intimidated by her intelligence. He responded saying that it was more complicated than that. That generated thousands of comments. A lot of the comments were related to the me-too movement. The twitter algorithm must had know this would get people engaged and showed it to a lot of people. From a hundred words I have no idea if he was guilty of some sort of sexism or not, and I have no idea how anyone else could come to a conclusion either. But Twitter algorithm doesn't care about the quality of the conversation, only the fact that it keeps people engaged.
- justinzollars 6y ago
  * mob of uninformed
tinyhouse 6y ago
The fact that the social justice conversation in America talks only about black people, as this post does as well, shows the majority of people only care about social justice issues when the minority group becomes big and loud enough. I just skimmed through the article (it's long, I don't have time to read the entire thing). I completely disagree about her overall statement. I prefer not to talk politics in my public twitter account that is used to follow people on topics I'm interested in (politics is not one of them). That doesn't mean I don't comment on issues like police brutality, human rights, sexual harassment, etc. But for me those things have nothing to do with politics.
- tonystubblebine 6y ago
  Just FYI, that's not fact. The social justice movement talks a lot about trans people for instance. It's hard to go to a black lives matter event and not see black trans lives matter signs. And then literally, the post does mention gender and trans.
  - faitswulff 6y ago
    Right. GP is factually incorrect. The blog post notes a few axes (hence the term intersectionality) commonly under consideration in social justice spheres, most of which are not solely about black people (though there are black people who experience all of the variations along these axes): > I’m a white, cis, female, straight, abled (currently; this can change) US citizen with a PhD, raised by parents with advanced degrees. Gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, citizenship, education, and affluence, respectively. Another notable one would be incarceration status, at least in the USA.
- duxup 6y ago
  > the social justice conversation in America On Twitter... There have been efforts, advocacy, and 'conversation' about lots of such topics beyond just what folks yell about on twitter. Twitter is a weird little world, and it is not 'in America'.... and arguably there is very little 'conversation' on their either.
- kgonza 6y ago
softwaredoug 6y ago
I recently wrote about how political twitter is actually the opposite of activism[1]. In short, political twitter gives us false sense of agency. Really we're draining themselves of energy needed to do the real work in their lives. And frankly, we have so little control over political events in the end... 1 - https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2020/08/06/political-twitter-opposite-of-activism.html https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2020/08/06/political-twitter-o...
prophesi 6y ago
Unless your business revolves around social media, there's absolutely no reason to use Twitter. You gain nothing but addiction and frustration, tailoring all of your tweets to the whims of the Algorithm and potential audience.
drosan 6y ago
> On Using Twitter > (medium.com) oh the irony
katsume3 6y ago
Interesting the author didn't mention lists which are my favorite way to escape the firehose of Twitter. The trick is to add just /one/ account to a list, and then you can visit that 'list' when you want, rather than that account being forced upon you randomly when you fire up the app. It's also a quick way to access an account without having to search for the account each time. You're probably thinking that defeats the purpose of a 'list' if there's just one account in it, but it's been my go-to method for a long time now, and I have bookmarked so many useful tweets, and I sometimes even reference these gems in blogposts, or share the tweet with friends on other social media channels. It's all about having the time to /mull/ and assimilate knowledge rather than drinking from a firehose.
vlucas 6y ago
Weird timing. I recently just quit Twitter and deleted everything. I wrote about it: https://vancelucas.com/blog/scorched-earth-quitting-twitter-and-deleting-everything/ https://vancelucas.com/blog/scorched-earth-quitting-twitter-...
AzzieElbab 6y ago
I have a private account, I follow people by private lists only, and never participate. People on twitter are best source of information(hint; do not follow more than two journalists), but Twitter as a discussion platform failed miserably.
nfriedly 6y ago
I tend to use Twitter as a write-only medium. If there's something I want to share with the world, I might tweet about it. But I almost never log in and just start scrolling. I guess I also use it for occasionally for 1-on-1 communication via DM's and @mentions.
ecoled_ame 6y ago
twitter is for scene kids like myspace was; it's ruined by adults with opinions and their job descriptions in their bios.
justinzollars 6y ago
I deleted Twitter. 2020 has made it a very very dark place. I'm immediately less anxious.
jpindar 6y ago
For those who use Tweetdeck, you should know that there is a browser add-on called Better TweetDeck that makes it, well, better.
tristor 6y ago
I have a Twitter account. I think I've logged into it on average about once every year for all of 5 minutes. It's actually surprising to me how much engagement I have on Twitter, I guess people find me organically because I gave a talk at a conference or something. I usually have quite a few mentions from months before when I check it. Nonetheless, I thought Twitter was doomed to create terrible outcomes from the moment it was born. You cannot share any new, meaningful, and serious thought in 140 characters. Every single one of my experiences and attempts to use it afterwards just confirmed my initial belief. I would much rather interact with people on IRC, via mailing lists, or on HN than do so via Twitter. Twitter is a cesspool.
- catacombs 6y ago
  > I would much rather interact with people on IRC Which servers do you prefer?
  - tristor 6y ago
    Most of the networks I used to hang out on no longer exist, but I am still primarily on Rizon. I can be found on some other smaller specialty networks as well. I will eventually make the effort to set Matrix up again to see if it's gotten better because at least one of the networks I used to hang on has been revived on Matrix.
    - catacombs 6y ago
      > some other smaller specialty networks as well Like what?
draw_down 6y ago
It seems nobody here actually likes Twitter or wants to use it- which is fair enough! But everyone still wants to talk about it. That’s funny.

81 points by polm23 6y ago

I was about start complaining about how an article on using twitter is posted on medium and it will have the usual discussion about the influence of social media platforms. But it is a surprisingly well written how-to document. I would suggest others to give it a glance. Most of us are probably aware of the topics discussed but i still enjoyed it.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

raziel2p 6y ago

This article has good advice, but doesn't really help me. I actually really want to use Twitter more, but I cannot get over the fact that most of the people I find interesting post 20% interesting stuff, but 80% in-jokes, casual conversations, or memes. This is fine for the people who post once a day, but if there are 10s of them per day I get sick of it. I don't know how I'm meant to deal with this other than just blindly trusting Twitter's algorithm of what ends up on my home feed (which I don't really want to). Maybe what I want is for Twitter to differentiate between announcement/public style posts and posts that are intended for a smaller community of followers, but that probably goes against the nature of the medium. I hold myself responsible for this whenever I tweet something as well, but it seems like the only way to do it 100% is to make different accounts for different topics (e.g. one account for tech/programming, one for politics, and one for casual life stuff).

dandellion 6y ago
I had the same experience, a few times I've tried to follow a few interesting accounts. It's always the same: a couple of accounts posting memes or sharing random things drown everything else. When I want to waste time with that sort of stuff I can do it more efficiently on reddit.
PikachuEXE 6y ago
I am having a similar but different need. I want multiple streams like circles from Google Plus (yes the dead Google Plus). It was the only thing I found on Google+ which is missing from all other social medias I am using.
- twic 6y ago
  Lists? https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-lists https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-lists
cblconfederate 6y ago
i think twitter's model pushes people to post often, so they post more memes/political stuff which i find garbage. I wish it would keep the stuff from interesting people at the top for more days, but it s not happening.

eertami 6y ago

One thing this article doesn't mention is that it is worth remembering Twitter has no meaning or importance on the real world. The only people who care about what happens on twitter are other people on twitter. Regular people simply don't care (nor are aware) about twitter. Think of it like any other social network feed and try not to take it seriously.

twic 6y ago
On the one hand, yes, but on the other hand, "the real world" is just the concatenation of many equally irrelevant spaces.
mercacona 6y ago
I agree. Even though, the echoes in mass media of twitter conversations, or political debates by political actors on the network, makes Twitter much more influential to the people doesn’t care about what’s on twitter (like me).
onion2k 6y ago
Donald Trump's tweets make headlines around the world.
- Rompect 6y ago
  Technically yes, but what impact do they actually have? It's pretty much irrelevant what he says there. Journalists simply like to use it for clicks.
  - zimpenfish 6y ago
    > what impact do they actually have? It's pretty much irrelevant what he says there They literally cannot be irrelevant because they're official presidential communications - "The Department of Justice on Monday told a federal district court judge In Washington, D.C. that Donald Trump’s tweets are “official statements of the President of the United States.”" https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/government_says_trumps_tweets_are_official_presidential_statements https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/government_says_trum...

twic 6y ago

> My field (#NLProc) is working to maintain fully anonymous review. In such conditions, it’s important to be careful when tweeting about work (your own or others) that is under review. Interesting! I wasn't aware that anyone was doing double-anonymous peer review. I would love to know how that is working out.

probably_wrong 6y ago
I have been reviewer in this field (ACL-related conferences) for a couple years now. Based on the results of the yearly surveys: One of the biggest challenges was to decide what to do about ArXiv and pre-prints in general - most researchers keep track of new papers on their area, and therefore it is likely that they will be assigned as reviewers for a paper that they have already seen (and for which they already know who the authors are). This issue came up for a vote a couple years ago, and the chosen answer was to not disqualify papers for this outright but to kindly ask authors to refer from doing so. At the same time, "88% consider double-blind reviewing at ACL conferences to be important", and only 14% of reviewers would penalize a paper for not including a relevant pre-print. This seems to me like a fair compromise. There is also work in progress to either talk to ArXiv to allow for author masking, and/or to create a new pre-print server that allows it. There is a very detailed report on the results of the survey in [1]. A second issue is whether the reviews should be made public, because it could compromise the double-blind process. The general result of the survey [2] was against it, where "support for public review tended to be inversely correlated with reviewing experience (and) female respondents were less likely to support public review than male respondents". [1] https://www.aclweb.org/portal/sites/default/files/SurveyReport2017.pdf https://www.aclweb.org/portal/sites/default/files/SurveyRepo... [2] http://acl2019pcblog.fileli.unipi.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ReportACL2019ReviewingSurvey.pdf http://acl2019pcblog.fileli.unipi.it/wp-content/uploads/2019...
mkeeter 6y ago
SIGGRAPH switched from single-blind (reviewers know the authors but not vice versa) to double-blind, starting in the 2019 conference: https://blog.siggraph.org/2018/10/the-magic-of-technical-papers.html/ https://blog.siggraph.org/2018/10/the-magic-of-technical-pap...

Zealotux 6y ago

I have an honest question for Twitter users of HN: what's the net positive value of Twitter to your life? It feels like using Twitter or not has been an uninterrupted argument for years, even on HN, as if on one end your rational brain knows Twitter is detrimental to your mental health, but on the other end: it's a great dopamine, and outrage dispenser.

esperent 6y ago
It's the place where most of the people in my industry (WebGl) seem to gather and showcase their work. Hanging out there too lets me connect with them and has gotten me a considerable amount of work over the last couple of years and allowed me to make professional connection that I would have otherwise missed. I also showcase and advertise my own work there. I'm extremely careful not to engage in anything related to identity or politics on Twitter. I've added a big list of muted words and accounts (trump, politics, gender, queer, republican, democrat, sanders, etc.). Many of these are topics I find interesting and discussion worthy, but the twitter format doesn't allow space for anyone to formulate actual cohesive thoughts so the result of discussing anything contentious is just people shouting at each other. Once I avoid these topics and stick to discussing tech, twitter is fine.
- catacombs 6y ago
  > I've added a big list of muted words and accounts (trump, politics, gender, queer, republican, democrat, sanders, etc.). Muting is makes using Twitter much easier, when it's working. Sometimes muted words and phrases find their way through the cracks.
ALittleLight 6y ago
I follow people I think are smart or interesting who do things beyond tweet. They might tweet to say they've published a new podcast, made a video, etc. They also share articles or perspectives or write up Twitter threads.
jpab 6y ago
I follow several artists and get lovely art that I wouldn't otherwise have seen, and wouldn't have sought out. I follow several people in the game development industry, and historically used to see a lot of interesting technical articles being shared on Twitter within this community. That seems to have declined unfortunately, though there is still some. I follow various people who have a habit of posting dumb funny jokes (usually puns) and memes. Not everyone likes that style of humour, but I do. I mute or unfollow people if too many of the things they choose to share are things I don't want to see (like outrage bait).

johnnujler 6y ago

My advice would be to create your own echo chamber, not the bad ideologically biased one, but the one that helps you put yourself and your work out there while being able to stay updated on the developments within the community. I feel that twitter is a far better platform to learn than quora, reddit, and what not because of its mainstream nature and authenticity where you can interact with real experts without falling into the linkedin trap(networking for the sake of it and spamming people). The only thing is you will have to excercise at least a little bit of caution and restraint on the side of meandering around mindlessly.

abdullahkhalids 6y ago

My guide to using twitter: 1. Follow people with high signal to noise ratio. These are people whose full time job is creation, and no marketing. Eg. Scientists and engineers and certain types of artists. Politicians not so much. 2. Use the mute feature liberally. Go into settings and mute the name of every major politician in your country, or politicians that are popular world over. On every part of the political landscape. Go to their accounts and block them too. Politics is a mind-killer. 3. Some people tweet good stuff, but retweet crap. You can go to their page and mute their retweets. 4. Follow people you disagree with ideologically. Don't get trapped in echo-chambers. 5. Create lists of people for stuff you are interested in, but don't want to pollute your main timeline with. There you can tolerate a bit lower SNR.

pjc50 6y ago
> 4. Follow people you disagree with ideologically. Don't get trapped in echo-chambers. > 2. Use the mute feature liberally No point in following them if I've muted everything they say. Seriously, there are very few people remaining I've seen on the right who are prepared to make arguments that aren't immediately infuriating, based on something clearly wrong, or in support of people and policies who are harmful to my friends.
iamwpj 6y ago
Echo chambers develop when you are only reading things you already know, not things you agree with. It's about learning new things vs. keeping your worldview narrow. Like if you have an opinion on climate change, reading arguments from deniers doesn't expand your worldview. Reading about how climate change affects different social classes can expand your worldview -- and all be from people you already agree with.
- abdullahkhalids 6y ago
  That's not what I mean. Climate-change denial is a very specific issue, and empirical in nature. When I say ideological difference, I mean people who have different fundamental values. Say socialism vs capitalism. People from both those camps can disagree with each other, but still respect the arguments others make and learn from those arguments. Obviously, when I say arguments I mean academia level arguments, not party-rally-slogan level arguments.

jpistell 6y ago

> First, social address: I’m a white, cis, female, straight, abled Stopped reading there

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Rompect 6y ago
Same. Honestly I was surprised it took so long, given that it was an article about Twitter.
pjc50 6y ago
Why?
- secondcoming 6y ago
  Because the author is immediately pandering to the potential twitterati reaction to his article?
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Her article. As they told you in that sentence. And their byline. (I know there's some weird campaign against pronouns but that doesn't mean that all people writing on the internet are now "him")
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      oops, my mistake
- rgoulter 6y ago
  That phrasing like that is a shibboleth. (It shows the person's beliefs/political attitudes). From that statement, you can predict what the author's statements on various things will be. Or at least, it's unsurprising. Listening to a variety of viewpoints in good faith is a good idea. Tribal, internecine discussion is usually much more predictable than that, though. I liked the term "internet of beefs" for that. I do like the idea of recognizing that people are human, and not just political abstractions. But, I can also understand how natural the 'internet of beefs' stuff makes political abstractions the most convenient way of viewing people.

henrik_w 6y ago

I am using Twitter instead of a bookmarking service: I tweet links I find interesting. If I ever want to find it again, I search my own twitter user for a relevant key-word. I also tweet out e.g. git or bash tips that I like (and similarly can search for them afterwards). It's not my only use of Twitter, but I like how this way both stores the link and shares them at the same time. (btw, @henrikwarne)

flippinburgers 6y ago

My advice: don't use twitter. It is a terrible way to communicate. PS I'm old school in the sense that I don't have any inclination to tell you about who I am, but rather delight in the simple act of sharing ideas.

mayankkaizen 6y ago

Earlier I used to follow all sorts of famous twitter accounts and had joined all sorts of (ugly debate). I really liked Twitter in comparison to FB in the sense that it introduced me people of millions types from all over the world. On FB, everyone was already known to me so there was no novelty in what I was browsing. However, later on I realized that Twitter is actually a "outrage generating machine". Everyone is outraging over every trivial, even wrong, thing at every chance. This was very toxic. And since I was addicted to Twitter, it was affecting my mental sanity in very subtle ways. Later on I unfollowed 90% accounts and stuck to those accounts which strictly tweets only about programming, math, history and other such stuffs in robotic manner (I.e. without any hidden agenda or connotations). I unfollowed everyone who have even a slightest chance of tweeting about politics. Also I stopped tweeting and replying to anybody. Suddenly Twitter became a bit nicer place and now I only spend may be 5-10 min there. If you can discipline yourself and carefully choose whom to follow, Twitter is great, otherwise it is a toxic hell.Just don't follow any political figure or any people who outrages on daily basis. And don't even try to debate there. It is not a debate plateform. It is broadcasting platform.

city41 6y ago
Like the article states, I think Tweetdeck is more powerful and more useful than normal Twitter. You can see a much broader and deeper view of the topics you are interested in, and see it both at a glance and deeply if you decide to dig in. It's also excellent for watching trends in real time (such as many people tweeting about a conference). Your normal feed forces you into a much more "all or nothing" approach. Someone who often tweets useful stuff but also lots of noise, you either have to put up with the noise or miss their good stuff. In Tweetdeck, just their good stuff shows up.
balaam 6y ago
This is the best way to use twitter. You get a clear stream of useful, relevant content. Unfortunately this also gets framed as a "filter bubble". I want a filter bubble. The problem in practice is that twitter actively fights you doing this. It tries to pour raw sewage into your nice clean stream and you can't stop it. You see what other people have liked, or what's popular or lots of other things I don't want to see. At this point in time the biggest value of twitter is it's userbase, it's critical mass, people are on twitter, they're not on mastodon.

whywhywhywhy 6y ago

Copy this article into a text editor, search replace "Twitter" for "Reddit" and look at how absurd the whole thing reads. They're both internet forums with 330M Active users, both have basically the same content and same level of discussion. Think we need to start being more honest about what Twitter actually is and stop pretending it's the real world.

Scea91 6y ago

> Snitch tagging: You may come across a conversation where people are discussing someone else and be tempted to reply by tagging the person discussed. This is snitch tagging and it’s frowned upon. [...] Hearing about 'snitch tagging' for the first time (I have to admit I am not a frequent twitter user). Is it really frowned upon? I know the act of 'talking about someone and not tagging them' is called subtweeting and it is also frowned upon isn't it? The takeaway for me is to stay away from threads like this. Also the advice to 'let the third party know about the conversation privately' is interesting. I can see how it may help you evade backslash but from game-theoretical point of view it seems to me to be worse for the 'subtweeters' as it provides them with less information.

secondcoming 6y ago
So it's confirmed then! Twitter is a kindergarten
pjc50 6y ago
X tweeting about Y without naming them is doing so because they wish to avoid a fight. Doubly so when Y has a known angry set of followers. One may even have the other blocked. By snitch tagging you're trying to start a fight between X and Y and potentially Y's followers. Snitch-tagging is for people who want X to be sent death threats but aren't willing to put their own name on them. Subtweeting is usually just venting about someone or something. And by its nature it's ambiguous. > The takeaway for me is to stay away from threads like this. Correct. There's enough fighting on twitter already.

duxup 6y ago

>Cultivate a good set of accounts to follow Man I'm so done with that. Even cultivating a group of accounts on say a topic ... they're still people so I get their angry rants about whatever issue. And I respect their right to be a person and tweet about what they want, but that's a double edged sword as far as my interest goes. I really don't want to see a twitter spat, ever. Even if I AGREE with someone I'm following I don't want to see them act like a child or sort of yell at me / the world whatever concerns them at the moment ... I just don't, it's not helpful, I'm not learning anything, it's just yelling much of the time. >Who has time for this? Amen.

searchableguy 6y ago
This mirrors my experience. Adding one more point, a lot of non-outraged content is manufactured. It was nice at first but then it was plain boring and kind of manipulatistic in nature. I think it's US-centric though (at least from how I used twitter). The same is true for India and few other countries where you can only find manufactured content. Maybe it's related to population size. Social media and twitter segregate based on countries rather than states more. Given cities in India have more people than entire countries, the end result of more averages combined will be the same? Another relevant comment I found: Only something like 10% of users tweet regularly. I wouldn't be surprised if most twitter accounts are run by PR firms, bots and blue check marks. The other active ones are probably alts of power users who were self aware of their behavior and decided to be anonymous. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/22/21148516/twitter-suspends-mike-bloomberg-facebook-google-platform-manipulation https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/22/21148516/twitter-suspends... https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17990946/twitter-russian-trolls-bots-election-tampering https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17990946/twitter-russian-trol... https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/20/859814085/researchers-nearly-half-of-accounts-tweeting-about-coronavirus-are-likely-bots https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24072286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24072286 Easier to explain by manipulation from wealthy and state?
clairity 6y ago
i haven't used twitter in a while (and even then was barely a user because it was so overwhelming), but i suspect a lot of the twitter and social media backlash is an impedance mismatch between our signal-seeking antennas and the tidal wave of signal (and noise) that's 300M people chatting at once. a single human isn't evolutionarily equipped to tease out useful information from that much constant and ever-present signal. we're designed to tell if an eye crinkle means the coincident stream of words are more likely true or false. we're also constantly making attribution errors via twitter in the same vein, attributing to individuals things that only apply to systems and groups (akin to the idea that there is no average person), generalizing in ways that are bound to be flawed but unable to help our collective selves. i say all this to disagree with the idea that avoiding (angry) opinion is necessarily the "right way to use twitter". it's maybe a way for an individual to avoid drowning in the deluge of signal, but it does nothing to find the truths that must be washing over us at the same time.

tarkin2 6y ago

Twitter is mob media. It is only social in the most twisted sense of the word. Rarely do you interact in a positive way.

bob33212 6y ago
That is by design. I follow a security researcher who generally get 10-20 comments/likes on his posts. He and his girlfriend broke up. She has 50 follows on Twitter and posted something vaguely implying the break-up was because he was intimidated by her intelligence. He responded saying that it was more complicated than that. That generated thousands of comments. A lot of the comments were related to the me-too movement. The twitter algorithm must had know this would get people engaged and showed it to a lot of people. From a hundred words I have no idea if he was guilty of some sort of sexism or not, and I have no idea how anyone else could come to a conclusion either. But Twitter algorithm doesn't care about the quality of the conversation, only the fact that it keeps people engaged.
justinzollars 6y ago
* mob of uninformed

tinyhouse 6y ago

The fact that the social justice conversation in America talks only about black people, as this post does as well, shows the majority of people only care about social justice issues when the minority group becomes big and loud enough. I just skimmed through the article (it's long, I don't have time to read the entire thing). I completely disagree about her overall statement. I prefer not to talk politics in my public twitter account that is used to follow people on topics I'm interested in (politics is not one of them). That doesn't mean I don't comment on issues like police brutality, human rights, sexual harassment, etc. But for me those things have nothing to do with politics.

tonystubblebine 6y ago
Just FYI, that's not fact. The social justice movement talks a lot about trans people for instance. It's hard to go to a black lives matter event and not see black trans lives matter signs. And then literally, the post does mention gender and trans.
- faitswulff 6y ago
  Right. GP is factually incorrect. The blog post notes a few axes (hence the term intersectionality) commonly under consideration in social justice spheres, most of which are not solely about black people (though there are black people who experience all of the variations along these axes): > I’m a white, cis, female, straight, abled (currently; this can change) US citizen with a PhD, raised by parents with advanced degrees. Gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, citizenship, education, and affluence, respectively. Another notable one would be incarceration status, at least in the USA.
duxup 6y ago
> the social justice conversation in America On Twitter... There have been efforts, advocacy, and 'conversation' about lots of such topics beyond just what folks yell about on twitter. Twitter is a weird little world, and it is not 'in America'.... and arguably there is very little 'conversation' on their either.
kgonza 6y ago

softwaredoug 6y ago

I recently wrote about how political twitter is actually the opposite of activism[1]. In short, political twitter gives us false sense of agency. Really we're draining themselves of energy needed to do the real work in their lives. And frankly, we have so little control over political events in the end... 1 - https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2020/08/06/political-twitter-opposite-of-activism.html https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2020/08/06/political-twitter-o...

prophesi 6y ago

Unless your business revolves around social media, there's absolutely no reason to use Twitter. You gain nothing but addiction and frustration, tailoring all of your tweets to the whims of the Algorithm and potential audience.

drosan 6y ago

> On Using Twitter > (medium.com) oh the irony

katsume3 6y ago

Interesting the author didn't mention lists which are my favorite way to escape the firehose of Twitter. The trick is to add just /one/ account to a list, and then you can visit that 'list' when you want, rather than that account being forced upon you randomly when you fire up the app. It's also a quick way to access an account without having to search for the account each time. You're probably thinking that defeats the purpose of a 'list' if there's just one account in it, but it's been my go-to method for a long time now, and I have bookmarked so many useful tweets, and I sometimes even reference these gems in blogposts, or share the tweet with friends on other social media channels. It's all about having the time to /mull/ and assimilate knowledge rather than drinking from a firehose.

vlucas 6y ago

Weird timing. I recently just quit Twitter and deleted everything. I wrote about it: https://vancelucas.com/blog/scorched-earth-quitting-twitter-and-deleting-everything/ https://vancelucas.com/blog/scorched-earth-quitting-twitter-...

AzzieElbab 6y ago

I have a private account, I follow people by private lists only, and never participate. People on twitter are best source of information(hint; do not follow more than two journalists), but Twitter as a discussion platform failed miserably.

nfriedly 6y ago

I tend to use Twitter as a write-only medium. If there's something I want to share with the world, I might tweet about it. But I almost never log in and just start scrolling. I guess I also use it for occasionally for 1-on-1 communication via DM's and @mentions.

ecoled_ame 6y ago

twitter is for scene kids like myspace was; it's ruined by adults with opinions and their job descriptions in their bios.

justinzollars 6y ago

I deleted Twitter. 2020 has made it a very very dark place. I'm immediately less anxious.

jpindar 6y ago

For those who use Tweetdeck, you should know that there is a browser add-on called Better TweetDeck that makes it, well, better.

tristor 6y ago

I have a Twitter account. I think I've logged into it on average about once every year for all of 5 minutes. It's actually surprising to me how much engagement I have on Twitter, I guess people find me organically because I gave a talk at a conference or something. I usually have quite a few mentions from months before when I check it. Nonetheless, I thought Twitter was doomed to create terrible outcomes from the moment it was born. You cannot share any new, meaningful, and serious thought in 140 characters. Every single one of my experiences and attempts to use it afterwards just confirmed my initial belief. I would much rather interact with people on IRC, via mailing lists, or on HN than do so via Twitter. Twitter is a cesspool.

catacombs 6y ago
> I would much rather interact with people on IRC Which servers do you prefer?
- tristor 6y ago
  Most of the networks I used to hang out on no longer exist, but I am still primarily on Rizon. I can be found on some other smaller specialty networks as well. I will eventually make the effort to set Matrix up again to see if it's gotten better because at least one of the networks I used to hang on has been revived on Matrix.
  - catacombs 6y ago
    > some other smaller specialty networks as well Like what?

draw_down 6y ago

It seems nobody here actually likes Twitter or wants to use it- which is fair enough! But everyone still wants to talk about it. That’s funny.