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Yep. My account got suspended a few years ago. But to be honest, it was a blessing in disguise. Twitter for me was a huge time sink, even though I followed real

Yep. My account got suspended a few years ago. But to be honest, it was a blessing in disguise. Twitter for me was a huge time sink, even though I followed really interesting people talking about things I was really interesting. But once I got a forced detox, I realised I just gained back hours a week to do other things. Get off Twitter. Even better, turn off that TV.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
That is basically how I feel about my LinkedIn. Now I am actually working on a personal replacement of that online presence piece. Frankly, it was high time.
breck 4y ago
I find Twitter amazing. (though I'm currently suspended again - https://twitter.com/breckyunits https://twitter.com/breckyunits). The trick is not to have a smart phone. When I'm coding I can pop in and out of Twitter. But then when I close the lid I'm unplugged.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  But why do you keep getting suspended?
  - htrp 4y ago
    No smart phone... and no twitter app install.
    - mikro2nd 4y ago
      Not so. I, too, have no smartphone and no Twitter app. Not ever been suspended (yet).
  - commandlinefan 4y ago
    Stratechery interviews?
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    This is basically unanswerable by anyone except Twitter employees, since nobody else has any insight into their banning algorithm.
    - psychphysic 4y ago
      My understanding is that Twitter makes your delete the offending tweets. So it seems like people should know at least what got them banned.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    There’s a lot of abuse reporting abuse. If you interact with people, there are psychos who will put you in some sort of list and constantly report you. I have a friend who is a minor public figure who gets taken down this way regularly.
    - psychphysic 4y ago
      I do wonder if people are tweeting out of character because twitter seems so good at provoking people. The result is people get banned without objectively looking at the reasons. That said I also know Twitter has quite odd rules about where it takes hardlines.
  - breck 4y ago
    https://youtu.be/giXco2jaZ_4?t=36 https://youtu.be/giXco2jaZ_4?t=36
  - bigbillheck 4y ago
    I started poking around his tweets, which led me to his reddit account, in which he complains about getting his Fidelity account suspended for what turned out to be posting his account number in public. I also found his blog, in which he has a post interacting with an obvious scammer and along the way gave out his social security number (it's still up there buddy, I'd think about blurring it out if I were you). Anyway if that's a pattern it might have something to do with that.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  I took Twitter off my laptop and kept it only on my phone. This keeps it from competing with work. (Unfortunately now HN competes with work.)
  - breck 4y ago
    Sorry can't write a long reply I'm working right now ;)
- throw10920 4y ago
  > When I'm coding I can pop in and out of Twitter. That sounds like an amazing way to become slower and worse at programming...
_madmax_ 4y ago
At this point in time I think I am comfortable saying the web is more detrimental to humans than Television ever was.
- capableweb 4y ago
  It's almost like tools/technology comes with both good and bad sides, TV and other things included. Internet has made humans more connected than ever, which means both the good and the bad from being connected becomes amplified.
- breck 4y ago
  If you just stick to the sites that are public domain without ads, it's an amazing place. And of course the "purple app" that everyone is talking about (https://www.farcaster.xyz/ https://www.farcaster.xyz/) is incredible.
  - pc86 4y ago
    I mean that's sort of like saying that TV is great as long as you stick to public access channel available over-the-air from 10:30AM to noon. Isn't that describing an extremely small niche of website? Almost everything has ads. A lot of sites have login walls, many (maybe even most?) have paywalls, especially once you step away from personal blogs.
  - djbusby 4y ago
    You are the first person I've heard mention FarCaster.
    - breck 4y ago
      Disclosure: I'm often wrong about these things. user: breck created: August 24, 2007
      - djbusby 4y ago
        What? I don't care how old your account is. It's still first I've heard of a thing "everyone" is talking about. Which is a surprise right? Given how popular it is on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=FarCaster&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
capableweb 4y ago
If it was only so easy. If you're running a business, you most likely need to meet people where they are at. Sometimes, your target audience are mostly on Facebook, then you most likely need to be at Facebook in order to reach them. Sometimes they are on Twitter, then you need to be there. Other times, you're doing something completely different, like running a restaurant, then you need to be visible on Google Maps/Tripadvisor, otherwise you'll lose out on ton of business. It's really hard to just start a business without having any place for finding users for it, and sometimes the best place is Twitter but you're shit out of luck if you get banned...
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  > Sometimes they are on Twitter, then you need to be there. Wow, that's a depressing thought. I think I'd prefer to find a different line of business, if it were me.
  - dimitrios1 4y ago
    It's a false choice. If your customers are somewhere, you could be there too, and that often has the least amount of friction or is the easiest choice, so it's understandable why so many people elect to do it. But another thing you could do is bring them to where you are.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      If your business outreach succeeding requires you to first convince people that they should stop using some platform that is important to them, you might as well give up on your original business because you're probably going to spend all your time on that effort.
      - dimitrios1 4y ago
        What if I told you I own a bookstore?
selykg 4y ago
No Twitter account for me after several run ins with just shitty people being shit. I'm not going to say it was life changing, but it is stress that is now gone. Would highly recommend to anyone that has higher stress levels, it's possible SOME of it is coming from your social media use. In my case, it was work that was the big cause, but, removing myself from social media resulted in a noticeable improvement.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  You have to be aware of the origins of the stress and they are likely many. Even here on HN I find myself making the decision to not continue to engage with someone who's responded to one of my posts because I can already predict it's going to race down a rabbit hole of pointless arguments. It's simply not worth talking to some people. I think part of the problem is that people don't realize that a lot of what they are doing is contributing to their own stress.
  - manimino 4y ago
    This is a good policy in general. Say everything you want to say in one comment, and do not reply back to anything. Replies are where people start getting defensive. Even if the discussion is friendly, once you've said your piece, it is usually best to let others reply. The discussion gets better the more unique perspectives are in it. Same goes for meetings, ideally.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > This is a good policy in general. Say everything you want to say in one comment, and do not reply back to anything. Replies are where people start getting defensive. Easier said than done, especially when a reply criticizes you, but this is probably right. I've greatly regretted many HN back-and-forth exchanges. It almost never ends well.
    - knewter 4y ago
      I prefer ugly discourse
AlfeG 4y ago
I got my Amazon account deleted. I have old credit card linked to AWS with billing address in one city of Ukraine. Few weeks later after city been occupied I got message from Amazon that my account is locked due to sanctions. They give me ability to comply by removing offending credit card. But I can't do this because account is locked. I've got zero human response only broken scripts from support that I need to login and change my details.
- MikePlacid 4y ago
  I’ve stopped using Amazon after AWS started political censorship. Actually, saves you a lot of money: much less impulse buying. It appears a lot of my impulse buying was caused by my trust in Amazon return policy :)
  - briffle 4y ago
    that is not political censorship, it is illegal for US businesses to do business with Russia because of sanctions. The sanctions themselves are political, but not following them is not a choice for US businesses.
    - rjzzleep 4y ago
      The treasury has no business banning books. It has nothing to do with sanctions. It's purely political. Whatever happened to all the people shouting that "Republicans are banning books"? Banning books is okay, but only if it's for the right now?
    - pentae 4y ago
      When they decided to terminate Parler not even giving them time to move hosts, that wasn't political censorship?
      - morby 4y ago
        There were extremists on the site making calls to violence. A *private* entity deciding they don’t want to do business with a company because of that is neither censorship as a society would consider it nor is it problematic. More people and businesses should be willing to refuse business to entities that seek to harass, abuse, or promote violence to another group of people. What you’re worried about is governmental action and is not equivalent here.
TLLtchvL8KZ 4y ago
This is my experience too, I honestly believe that for anyone using twitter being permanently suspended is the best thing that can happen to them. It's just an awful place. Spam, bots, fake stories, constant outrage. It's miserable but people seem to become addicted.
- tomashubelbauer 4y ago
  Twitter taught me to suppress the impulse to react with snark to things or share only negative opinions. The app does incite these compulsions in me, but I've realized over time it's not just Twitter, I could stand to be a nicer person in general. Since then I only let myself post on Twitter if I have something neutral or nice to say. I don't always succeed but I think I've legit grown thanks to this and by extension to Twitter, however sad that sounds. People have a point when they say Twitter is a toxic place in general, but as an individual user, you have all the power to make your Twitter circle whatever you want it to be. It doesn't have to be that way for you.
  - godshatter 4y ago
    The old saw "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all", basically.
trillic 4y ago
I might be better off if my hacker news account was permanently banned

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago

That is basically how I feel about my LinkedIn. Now I am actually working on a personal replacement of that online presence piece. Frankly, it was high time.

breck 4y ago

I find Twitter amazing. (though I'm currently suspended again - https://twitter.com/breckyunits https://twitter.com/breckyunits). The trick is not to have a smart phone. When I'm coding I can pop in and out of Twitter. But then when I close the lid I'm unplugged.

psychphysic 4y ago
But why do you keep getting suspended?
- htrp 4y ago
  No smart phone... and no twitter app install.
  - mikro2nd 4y ago
    Not so. I, too, have no smartphone and no Twitter app. Not ever been suspended (yet).
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  Stratechery interviews?
- josephcsible 4y ago
  This is basically unanswerable by anyone except Twitter employees, since nobody else has any insight into their banning algorithm.
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    My understanding is that Twitter makes your delete the offending tweets. So it seems like people should know at least what got them banned.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  There’s a lot of abuse reporting abuse. If you interact with people, there are psychos who will put you in some sort of list and constantly report you. I have a friend who is a minor public figure who gets taken down this way regularly.
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    I do wonder if people are tweeting out of character because twitter seems so good at provoking people. The result is people get banned without objectively looking at the reasons. That said I also know Twitter has quite odd rules about where it takes hardlines.
- breck 4y ago
  https://youtu.be/giXco2jaZ_4?t=36 https://youtu.be/giXco2jaZ_4?t=36
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  I started poking around his tweets, which led me to his reddit account, in which he complains about getting his Fidelity account suspended for what turned out to be posting his account number in public. I also found his blog, in which he has a post interacting with an obvious scammer and along the way gave out his social security number (it's still up there buddy, I'd think about blurring it out if I were you). Anyway if that's a pattern it might have something to do with that.
matthewdgreen 4y ago
I took Twitter off my laptop and kept it only on my phone. This keeps it from competing with work. (Unfortunately now HN competes with work.)
- breck 4y ago
  Sorry can't write a long reply I'm working right now ;)
throw10920 4y ago
> When I'm coding I can pop in and out of Twitter. That sounds like an amazing way to become slower and worse at programming...

_madmax_ 4y ago

At this point in time I think I am comfortable saying the web is more detrimental to humans than Television ever was.

capableweb 4y ago
It's almost like tools/technology comes with both good and bad sides, TV and other things included. Internet has made humans more connected than ever, which means both the good and the bad from being connected becomes amplified.
breck 4y ago
If you just stick to the sites that are public domain without ads, it's an amazing place. And of course the "purple app" that everyone is talking about (https://www.farcaster.xyz/ https://www.farcaster.xyz/) is incredible.
- pc86 4y ago
  I mean that's sort of like saying that TV is great as long as you stick to public access channel available over-the-air from 10:30AM to noon. Isn't that describing an extremely small niche of website? Almost everything has ads. A lot of sites have login walls, many (maybe even most?) have paywalls, especially once you step away from personal blogs.
- djbusby 4y ago
  You are the first person I've heard mention FarCaster.
  - breck 4y ago
    Disclosure: I'm often wrong about these things. user: breck created: August 24, 2007
    - djbusby 4y ago
      What? I don't care how old your account is. It's still first I've heard of a thing "everyone" is talking about. Which is a surprise right? Given how popular it is on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=FarCaster&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

capableweb 4y ago

If it was only so easy. If you're running a business, you most likely need to meet people where they are at. Sometimes, your target audience are mostly on Facebook, then you most likely need to be at Facebook in order to reach them. Sometimes they are on Twitter, then you need to be there. Other times, you're doing something completely different, like running a restaurant, then you need to be visible on Google Maps/Tripadvisor, otherwise you'll lose out on ton of business. It's really hard to just start a business without having any place for finding users for it, and sometimes the best place is Twitter but you're shit out of luck if you get banned...

Turing_Machine 4y ago
> Sometimes they are on Twitter, then you need to be there. Wow, that's a depressing thought. I think I'd prefer to find a different line of business, if it were me.
- dimitrios1 4y ago
  It's a false choice. If your customers are somewhere, you could be there too, and that often has the least amount of friction or is the easiest choice, so it's understandable why so many people elect to do it. But another thing you could do is bring them to where you are.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    If your business outreach succeeding requires you to first convince people that they should stop using some platform that is important to them, you might as well give up on your original business because you're probably going to spend all your time on that effort.
    - dimitrios1 4y ago
      What if I told you I own a bookstore?

selykg 4y ago

No Twitter account for me after several run ins with just shitty people being shit. I'm not going to say it was life changing, but it is stress that is now gone. Would highly recommend to anyone that has higher stress levels, it's possible SOME of it is coming from your social media use. In my case, it was work that was the big cause, but, removing myself from social media resulted in a noticeable improvement.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
You have to be aware of the origins of the stress and they are likely many. Even here on HN I find myself making the decision to not continue to engage with someone who's responded to one of my posts because I can already predict it's going to race down a rabbit hole of pointless arguments. It's simply not worth talking to some people. I think part of the problem is that people don't realize that a lot of what they are doing is contributing to their own stress.
- manimino 4y ago
  This is a good policy in general. Say everything you want to say in one comment, and do not reply back to anything. Replies are where people start getting defensive. Even if the discussion is friendly, once you've said your piece, it is usually best to let others reply. The discussion gets better the more unique perspectives are in it. Same goes for meetings, ideally.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > This is a good policy in general. Say everything you want to say in one comment, and do not reply back to anything. Replies are where people start getting defensive. Easier said than done, especially when a reply criticizes you, but this is probably right. I've greatly regretted many HN back-and-forth exchanges. It almost never ends well.
  - knewter 4y ago
    I prefer ugly discourse

AlfeG 4y ago

I got my Amazon account deleted. I have old credit card linked to AWS with billing address in one city of Ukraine. Few weeks later after city been occupied I got message from Amazon that my account is locked due to sanctions. They give me ability to comply by removing offending credit card. But I can't do this because account is locked. I've got zero human response only broken scripts from support that I need to login and change my details.

MikePlacid 4y ago
I’ve stopped using Amazon after AWS started political censorship. Actually, saves you a lot of money: much less impulse buying. It appears a lot of my impulse buying was caused by my trust in Amazon return policy :)
- briffle 4y ago
  that is not political censorship, it is illegal for US businesses to do business with Russia because of sanctions. The sanctions themselves are political, but not following them is not a choice for US businesses.
  - rjzzleep 4y ago
    The treasury has no business banning books. It has nothing to do with sanctions. It's purely political. Whatever happened to all the people shouting that "Republicans are banning books"? Banning books is okay, but only if it's for the right now?
  - pentae 4y ago
    When they decided to terminate Parler not even giving them time to move hosts, that wasn't political censorship?
    - morby 4y ago
      There were extremists on the site making calls to violence. A *private* entity deciding they don’t want to do business with a company because of that is neither censorship as a society would consider it nor is it problematic. More people and businesses should be willing to refuse business to entities that seek to harass, abuse, or promote violence to another group of people. What you’re worried about is governmental action and is not equivalent here.

TLLtchvL8KZ 4y ago

This is my experience too, I honestly believe that for anyone using twitter being permanently suspended is the best thing that can happen to them. It's just an awful place. Spam, bots, fake stories, constant outrage. It's miserable but people seem to become addicted.

tomashubelbauer 4y ago
Twitter taught me to suppress the impulse to react with snark to things or share only negative opinions. The app does incite these compulsions in me, but I've realized over time it's not just Twitter, I could stand to be a nicer person in general. Since then I only let myself post on Twitter if I have something neutral or nice to say. I don't always succeed but I think I've legit grown thanks to this and by extension to Twitter, however sad that sounds. People have a point when they say Twitter is a toxic place in general, but as an individual user, you have all the power to make your Twitter circle whatever you want it to be. It doesn't have to be that way for you.
- godshatter 4y ago
  The old saw "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all", basically.

trillic 4y ago

I might be better off if my hacker news account was permanently banned