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Twitter is just a nasty place. At first I thought I would just ignore people who made me want to argue. But then twitter had to remind me what the trending ha

Twitter is just a nasty place. At first I thought I would just ignore people who made me want to argue. But then twitter had to remind me what the trending hashtags were, and they were enough to make me facepalm. It's a shame, because there's quite a few technologists who do cool shit that talk on twitter. But I'm just over being in an environment where overly sensitive people vomit their ill thought out political opinions at me.

zamadatix 5y ago
Nitter is everything I wished Twitter was. Well except the upcoming support for following folks. Viewing the same profile in each is like viewing 2 completely different platforms with how different the displayed content is.
- tonguez 5y ago
  nitter is just the same censorship and rage. you still have to click Load More 100 times to read the full 3% of opinions that were not completely censored. it’s a place for stupid people to go and say things like “I support Will Smith” and pretend they are an internet celebrity
  - zamadatix 5y ago
    Nitter has an autoload option, it's not enabled by default because it requires JS and it doesn't want to assume JS but once ticked it works fine. In regards to celebrity gossip and such I guess it depends who you follow. With Nitter if you only associate with people that simply don't partake in those kind of discussions you won't see such discussions. On Twitter it's hell bent on trying to show you what is popular instead of what you asked to see so the same is not true.
rvz 5y ago
Do not engage at all. The only way to win is to not play the game in the first place. Let them fight it out in their echo-chambers. They will get bored really soon and realize that there is more to life than screaming and banning each other in the blue bird site. Some things just need to be ignored and left alone. The outrage that is happening on the blue bird site is one of them. It is not worth it.
- silisili 5y ago
  One thing I find weird is that what seem to be prevailing ideas on Twitter are nonexistent in the real world. Did sane people just give up on the site? Or does Twitter just promote the crazies?
  - somenameforme 5y ago
    There was an interesting point in a different post [1] in this topic. Essentially Twitter not only has a largely biased sample in terms of who uses it, but there's also an extreme bias in terms of who actually posts on it. About 22% of Americans (2019) use Twitter and, of that 22%, 10% are generating 80% of the posts. So Twitter is primarily driven by a bubble of 2.2% of Americans who skew younger and more liberal than the average. I would hypothesize (though it was not stated by the sources given) that the 2.2% who are posting like crazy also likely skew more radical than average as well. It's quite dangerous because sites like Twitter can give people the imaginary perspective that they're interacting with hundreds of millions of people, when in reality they're generally communicating with an extremely unrepresentative and small sample of the world, or even of the "Western world". And now factor in the growth of tools, such as this, that add wide-range and spider-style ban/censor/muting of anybody who expresses a view you really dislike. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30838517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30838517
  - t-3 5y ago
    Social platforms seem to be largely segregated by social class. Children and young people have their own stuff, likewise different generations and socioeconomic groups have their own fora. Twitter is something like the urban-cosmopolitan-progressive-educated-professional-30+ forum, and the politics reflect that.
rileyphone 5y ago
Twemex replaces the useless trending panel with more useful context.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
slyall 5y ago
I changed my Explore location to Japan. I don't read Japanese so it is easy to ignore.
- jakecopp 5y ago
  Does this make all suggested algorithmic content Japanese?!
  - slyall 5y ago
    No. Just the "What's Happening" section on the website or all the tabs (For you, trending, etc) under the search section of the app. The stuff inserted into my timeline is the usual.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
The thing that I dislike the most on twitter are the posts where so many people liked it twitter decides to show it to me even though I am not following the person who wrote it. I understand why they are doing this, but most of it is noise. I feel like if I had a way to browse twitter without any posts with more than 1,000 likes, it would be a much better experience.
- misnome 5y ago
  Use an App that only gives you a timeline of people you follow, and their retweets (if you haven’t turned off retweets for that person).
- opan 5y ago
  Sounds like the fediverse. Most posts don't get a lot of interaction there.
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    No this is different. The issue is not that posts get more interaction on twitter. The issue is that twitter's algorithm shows me posts by people I am not following if the post is popular. But the kind of tweets that get 50k likes are just hot one liners that I don't care about. If twitter just showed me tweets only from my friends, this would not happen. I am also on the fediverse but I want twitter to behave differently because I like the people I am following on twitter, not all the random popular tweets by people I don't follow.
LewisVerstappen 5y ago
Use Tweetdeck. Using Twitter's homepage or mobile app is just a complete shitshow.
josephg 5y ago
I have similar thoughts... Not long after twitter started showing me algorithmic recommendations, it decided to show me some comments that were so vile I couldn't help but call them out. The person responded by asking "Who are you and what are you doing in my replies?". Which was a valid question. Why was I there? I didn't want to be talking to that person. Why did I even see that content? Was I rewarding the algorithm's choice by responding? Gross. Is that the new normal for twitter? Do I have to wade through enraging AI content as payment for following the creators I love? No. If thats the trade, its a bad trade to make. I deleted twitter and I haven't looked back. There's some fantastic creators on twitter doing cool things. But there's too many interesting ways I could be spending my time to waste time dealing with that.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > I couldn't help but call them out. Rule #1 of any algorithmic feed is that you get more of what you interact with. If you're the type of person who can't resist engaging with things that make you angry, algorithmic feed websites are not for you. For people who have no problem scrolling past dumb comments and pressing the like button on things they actually want to see (a lot of people refuse to "like" on principle, to their own detriment) then Twitter is actually not a bad place. But if you're easily triggered and you gravitate toward the things that make you angry, it's best to just stay away.
  - LAC-Tech 5y ago
    > If you're the type of person who can't resist engaging with things that make you angry, algorithmic feed websites are not for you. I think I am that kind of guy, to an extent. I don't always indulge - but it is always a constant temptation. Probably why I exiled myself from FB and Twitter.
Karrot_Kream 5y ago
Twitter made me so angry I just stopped going there for my own mental health. The other day my partner linked me to a well liked thread featuring two people on Twitter arguing why it was or was not ethical to travel to Hawaii now given the oil spill in the aquifer by the Navy. One was arguing that visiting Hawaii in light of the spill would be unethically affecting hard-working everyday Hawaiians. The other argued that tourism dollars buoy the economy. After first 5 hot takes by both with many likes, you get to the bottom of the thread and realize than one of them is a European teenager and the other an Australian, neither having ever even visited Hawaii in their lives let alone lived there.
jmspring 5y ago
It's a cesspool for sure. Depending on your interest in Twitter, the crack down on BS from Russia and related areas has made some of it more tolerable.
kens 5y ago
> But then twitter had to remind me what the trending hashtags were I use Adblock Plus to block Twitter's trending topics and it is a huge improvement; the topics are just annoying things that get engagement. Another thing that makes Twitter tolerable is to mute words with abandon, e.g. everything from "supreme court" to "wordle". Finally, I block anyone who tweets something stupid.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
unsupp0rted 5y ago
I haven't found any technologists on Twitter who avoid posting or interacting with political or social-issues stuff. Everybody has an opinion on Trump, Biden, BLM, Trans Rights, Free Speech, racism, sexism, religion, immigration, abortion, war... the list goes on. I'd actually pay money to follow technologists whose opinions on anything outside the tech in question I have no good guesses about. The standard refrain is "well all tech is political". Well no: it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from when you're talking about a quirk of CSS or a cool e-ink project... or at least it doesn't interest me who you are or where you come from: I'm interested in what you're learning/teaching/doing with the tech.

zamadatix 5y ago

Nitter is everything I wished Twitter was. Well except the upcoming support for following folks. Viewing the same profile in each is like viewing 2 completely different platforms with how different the displayed content is.

tonguez 5y ago
nitter is just the same censorship and rage. you still have to click Load More 100 times to read the full 3% of opinions that were not completely censored. it’s a place for stupid people to go and say things like “I support Will Smith” and pretend they are an internet celebrity
- zamadatix 5y ago
  Nitter has an autoload option, it's not enabled by default because it requires JS and it doesn't want to assume JS but once ticked it works fine. In regards to celebrity gossip and such I guess it depends who you follow. With Nitter if you only associate with people that simply don't partake in those kind of discussions you won't see such discussions. On Twitter it's hell bent on trying to show you what is popular instead of what you asked to see so the same is not true.

rvz 5y ago

Do not engage at all. The only way to win is to not play the game in the first place. Let them fight it out in their echo-chambers. They will get bored really soon and realize that there is more to life than screaming and banning each other in the blue bird site. Some things just need to be ignored and left alone. The outrage that is happening on the blue bird site is one of them. It is not worth it.

silisili 5y ago
One thing I find weird is that what seem to be prevailing ideas on Twitter are nonexistent in the real world. Did sane people just give up on the site? Or does Twitter just promote the crazies?
- somenameforme 5y ago
  There was an interesting point in a different post [1] in this topic. Essentially Twitter not only has a largely biased sample in terms of who uses it, but there's also an extreme bias in terms of who actually posts on it. About 22% of Americans (2019) use Twitter and, of that 22%, 10% are generating 80% of the posts. So Twitter is primarily driven by a bubble of 2.2% of Americans who skew younger and more liberal than the average. I would hypothesize (though it was not stated by the sources given) that the 2.2% who are posting like crazy also likely skew more radical than average as well. It's quite dangerous because sites like Twitter can give people the imaginary perspective that they're interacting with hundreds of millions of people, when in reality they're generally communicating with an extremely unrepresentative and small sample of the world, or even of the "Western world". And now factor in the growth of tools, such as this, that add wide-range and spider-style ban/censor/muting of anybody who expresses a view you really dislike. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30838517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30838517
- t-3 5y ago
  Social platforms seem to be largely segregated by social class. Children and young people have their own stuff, likewise different generations and socioeconomic groups have their own fora. Twitter is something like the urban-cosmopolitan-progressive-educated-professional-30+ forum, and the politics reflect that.

rileyphone 5y ago

Twemex replaces the useless trending panel with more useful context.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

slyall 5y ago

I changed my Explore location to Japan. I don't read Japanese so it is easy to ignore.

jakecopp 5y ago
Does this make all suggested algorithmic content Japanese?!
- slyall 5y ago
  No. Just the "What's Happening" section on the website or all the tabs (For you, trending, etc) under the search section of the app. The stuff inserted into my timeline is the usual.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

The thing that I dislike the most on twitter are the posts where so many people liked it twitter decides to show it to me even though I am not following the person who wrote it. I understand why they are doing this, but most of it is noise. I feel like if I had a way to browse twitter without any posts with more than 1,000 likes, it would be a much better experience.

misnome 5y ago
Use an App that only gives you a timeline of people you follow, and their retweets (if you haven’t turned off retweets for that person).
opan 5y ago
Sounds like the fediverse. Most posts don't get a lot of interaction there.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  No this is different. The issue is not that posts get more interaction on twitter. The issue is that twitter's algorithm shows me posts by people I am not following if the post is popular. But the kind of tweets that get 50k likes are just hot one liners that I don't care about. If twitter just showed me tweets only from my friends, this would not happen. I am also on the fediverse but I want twitter to behave differently because I like the people I am following on twitter, not all the random popular tweets by people I don't follow.

LewisVerstappen 5y ago

Use Tweetdeck. Using Twitter's homepage or mobile app is just a complete shitshow.

josephg 5y ago

I have similar thoughts... Not long after twitter started showing me algorithmic recommendations, it decided to show me some comments that were so vile I couldn't help but call them out. The person responded by asking "Who are you and what are you doing in my replies?". Which was a valid question. Why was I there? I didn't want to be talking to that person. Why did I even see that content? Was I rewarding the algorithm's choice by responding? Gross. Is that the new normal for twitter? Do I have to wade through enraging AI content as payment for following the creators I love? No. If thats the trade, its a bad trade to make. I deleted twitter and I haven't looked back. There's some fantastic creators on twitter doing cool things. But there's too many interesting ways I could be spending my time to waste time dealing with that.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> I couldn't help but call them out. Rule #1 of any algorithmic feed is that you get more of what you interact with. If you're the type of person who can't resist engaging with things that make you angry, algorithmic feed websites are not for you. For people who have no problem scrolling past dumb comments and pressing the like button on things they actually want to see (a lot of people refuse to "like" on principle, to their own detriment) then Twitter is actually not a bad place. But if you're easily triggered and you gravitate toward the things that make you angry, it's best to just stay away.
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  > If you're the type of person who can't resist engaging with things that make you angry, algorithmic feed websites are not for you. I think I am that kind of guy, to an extent. I don't always indulge - but it is always a constant temptation. Probably why I exiled myself from FB and Twitter.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago

Twitter made me so angry I just stopped going there for my own mental health. The other day my partner linked me to a well liked thread featuring two people on Twitter arguing why it was or was not ethical to travel to Hawaii now given the oil spill in the aquifer by the Navy. One was arguing that visiting Hawaii in light of the spill would be unethically affecting hard-working everyday Hawaiians. The other argued that tourism dollars buoy the economy. After first 5 hot takes by both with many likes, you get to the bottom of the thread and realize than one of them is a European teenager and the other an Australian, neither having ever even visited Hawaii in their lives let alone lived there.

jmspring 5y ago

It's a cesspool for sure. Depending on your interest in Twitter, the crack down on BS from Russia and related areas has made some of it more tolerable.

kens 5y ago

> But then twitter had to remind me what the trending hashtags were I use Adblock Plus to block Twitter's trending topics and it is a huge improvement; the topics are just annoying things that get engagement. Another thing that makes Twitter tolerable is to mute words with abandon, e.g. everything from "supreme court" to "wordle". Finally, I block anyone who tweets something stupid.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

unsupp0rted 5y ago

I haven't found any technologists on Twitter who avoid posting or interacting with political or social-issues stuff. Everybody has an opinion on Trump, Biden, BLM, Trans Rights, Free Speech, racism, sexism, religion, immigration, abortion, war... the list goes on. I'd actually pay money to follow technologists whose opinions on anything outside the tech in question I have no good guesses about. The standard refrain is "well all tech is political". Well no: it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from when you're talking about a quirk of CSS or a cool e-ink project... or at least it doesn't interest me who you are or where you come from: I'm interested in what you're learning/teaching/doing with the tech.