4 ms·

How has it become better? AFAIK the number of genuine interactions on site has significantly decreased with platform exodus. The model of being recommended th

How has it become better? AFAIK the number of genuine interactions on site has significantly decreased with platform exodus. The model of being recommended things that people for a checkmark to hope to show you is also definitely orthogonal to how social network interactions foster.

shri_krishna 3y ago
> How has it become better? AFAIK the number of genuine interactions on site has significantly decreased with platform exodus Then that only means you were surrounded by your own small bubble. I had taken a hiatus from Twitter because I despised how the "algorithm" banned accounts that I was following earlier only because it was from the right of political spectrum in my Country (India). One of those accounts was an account that set right historical facts about Indian history which was distorted by leftist historians after India gained Independence. These new facts were cross verified and revealed to be true. So what did Twitter India decide to do? It banned the said account. It was only after Elon took over, all those accounts were re-activated. So I have an opposite experience to you. Most of the accounts that I followed were banned by erstwhile regime have been now reinstated. So it is an opposite of an exodus for me. Quite frankly, this is not just me in India who felt this. I am pretty sure it was widespread as Twitter was extremely left leaning in its ideology (from employees to the CEO). There was actual stifling of alternative viewpoints - though many on that side of the political spectrum will refuse to even acknowledge this. Anyways I only brought this up to counter your point on there being some "platform exodus". There is only disgruntled developers who don't like Elon (especially after he openly said he would prefer voting Republican) and his centre-right leaning ideology and left the site. There is no "rational" reason for the hate. Sorry to put it bluntly. I have always tried to be restricted in what I say lest I get "cancelled" by the woke mob (have been banned twice on HN itself for having contrary opinions). But at this point, I don't care anymore if people feel hurt by my ideological/political/social stances. I am tired of being censored every step of the way. By both Big Tech and Government. I respect your ideological point of view and I hope to get the same treatment back in return. At one point I identified with liberal causes, of being "for free speech" and not against it. Sadly, I find myself moving farther and farther away from what has now become of liberal ideology. It is no longer liberal in that old sense. It has turned fascist. And I can't stand that any more. I find myself on the right side of the aisle which ironically is "for free speech" while the liberal left, which was supposed to stand "for free speech" has adopted cancel culture and censorship as tools to counter opposing viewpoints. People who refuse to see this or accept this are just living in delusion. Sorry for the rant.
- bfeynman 3y ago
  This is hilarious. For one, I don't even have a twitter so I have no "bubble", as I stated this is the default top recommendations for anonymous users, which is super important for converting people onto the platform. The decrease in activity on twitter is also not a personal anecdote, the number of companies advertising and using platform has decreased substantially. And lastly, this is exactly my point, you're concerned about some woke mob cry baby crap when the average user doesn't care about either side, this is the kind of dumb shit I see all over twitter when I'm literally scrolling past a highlight for a sports reel highlight and as I said the recommended tweets are random paid low follower people using hysterics to try to get attention. The reality is people don't care what you have to say, and doubly so if you get wound up about a random website not making you feel better about shouting into the void.
  - shri_krishna 3y ago
    Okay so let me address your points starting from your last statement: > The reality is people don't care what you have to say, and doubly so if you get wound up about a random website not making you feel better about shouting into the void. So why the censorship/bans then? Censorship does nothing but aggravate the situation even more. Isn't it better to just let people "shout into the void" than stifle their expression and cause harm in real world? > when the average user doesn't care about either side, this is the kind of dumb shit I see all over twitter when I'm literally scrolling past a highlight for a sports reel highlight and as I said the recommended tweets are random paid low follower people using hysterics to try to get attention. You say you don't care about it, and yet you are commenting on it. So you do actually care about what is happening on Twitter. If you consider yourself an average user you wouldn't be concerned about Twitter rising in popularity or drowning in loss. You would see your sports reel highlight and close it while being unconcerned about everything else. > The decrease in activity on twitter is also not a personal anecdote, the number of companies advertising and using platform has decreased substantially. What you are saying here is again talking points of MSM. Which is another bubble of its own. Neither you nor I have any access to actual data on how many companies are advertising and if the number has gone up or gone down apart from the few knee jerk reactions in the beginning of the takeover. The only real source of information for this would be Musk himself. And he says things are back to normal so I'll take him at his word [1]. Everything else is just conjectures and speculations as Twitter is no longer a public company. > This is hilarious. For one, I don't even have a twitter so I have no "bubble" I assumed you are a user because you seemed to talk about Twitter from the point of view of an actual user. > I stated this is the default top recommendations for anonymous users, which is super important for converting people onto the platform. Twitter is too big at this point to worry about "converting people onto the platform". It is not like people are discovering Twitter for the first time in 2023. That number (of new users) is going to be very less - possibly those kids who are coming of age and who Twitter is not a target audience for anyways. So Twitter has probably already saturated the market it can tap into and all those who are still joining are just based on whatever is the regular trajectory of Twitter growth. You can't expect any sort of exponential growth in Twitter usage after it has already been in business for over a decade now. It is not an early stage startup where you talk about conversions for anonymous users. Now any conversion metrics that we should focus on would be advertising revenues (not the number of advertisers as that is meaningless), API revenues (which was recently announced with a huge price bump), number of people subscribing to Twitter Blue, number of people subscribing to Creators, MSM/News media subscriptions, paid tweets and lets not forget deals with Governments. This is where the real numbers are going to come from. And unless Twitter releases these numbers we will never know (as Twitter is now a private company). [1]: https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-says-twitter-is-roughly-breaking-even-2023-04-12/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-says-twitter-is... "April 12 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday the social media company is "roughly breaking even," as most of its advertisers have returned and its aggressive cost-cutting efforts have started bearing fruit after massive layoffs."

shri_krishna 3y ago

> How has it become better? AFAIK the number of genuine interactions on site has significantly decreased with platform exodus Then that only means you were surrounded by your own small bubble. I had taken a hiatus from Twitter because I despised how the "algorithm" banned accounts that I was following earlier only because it was from the right of political spectrum in my Country (India). One of those accounts was an account that set right historical facts about Indian history which was distorted by leftist historians after India gained Independence. These new facts were cross verified and revealed to be true. So what did Twitter India decide to do? It banned the said account. It was only after Elon took over, all those accounts were re-activated. So I have an opposite experience to you. Most of the accounts that I followed were banned by erstwhile regime have been now reinstated. So it is an opposite of an exodus for me. Quite frankly, this is not just me in India who felt this. I am pretty sure it was widespread as Twitter was extremely left leaning in its ideology (from employees to the CEO). There was actual stifling of alternative viewpoints - though many on that side of the political spectrum will refuse to even acknowledge this. Anyways I only brought this up to counter your point on there being some "platform exodus". There is only disgruntled developers who don't like Elon (especially after he openly said he would prefer voting Republican) and his centre-right leaning ideology and left the site. There is no "rational" reason for the hate. Sorry to put it bluntly. I have always tried to be restricted in what I say lest I get "cancelled" by the woke mob (have been banned twice on HN itself for having contrary opinions). But at this point, I don't care anymore if people feel hurt by my ideological/political/social stances. I am tired of being censored every step of the way. By both Big Tech and Government. I respect your ideological point of view and I hope to get the same treatment back in return. At one point I identified with liberal causes, of being "for free speech" and not against it. Sadly, I find myself moving farther and farther away from what has now become of liberal ideology. It is no longer liberal in that old sense. It has turned fascist. And I can't stand that any more. I find myself on the right side of the aisle which ironically is "for free speech" while the liberal left, which was supposed to stand "for free speech" has adopted cancel culture and censorship as tools to counter opposing viewpoints. People who refuse to see this or accept this are just living in delusion. Sorry for the rant.

bfeynman 3y ago
This is hilarious. For one, I don't even have a twitter so I have no "bubble", as I stated this is the default top recommendations for anonymous users, which is super important for converting people onto the platform. The decrease in activity on twitter is also not a personal anecdote, the number of companies advertising and using platform has decreased substantially. And lastly, this is exactly my point, you're concerned about some woke mob cry baby crap when the average user doesn't care about either side, this is the kind of dumb shit I see all over twitter when I'm literally scrolling past a highlight for a sports reel highlight and as I said the recommended tweets are random paid low follower people using hysterics to try to get attention. The reality is people don't care what you have to say, and doubly so if you get wound up about a random website not making you feel better about shouting into the void.
- shri_krishna 3y ago
  Okay so let me address your points starting from your last statement: > The reality is people don't care what you have to say, and doubly so if you get wound up about a random website not making you feel better about shouting into the void. So why the censorship/bans then? Censorship does nothing but aggravate the situation even more. Isn't it better to just let people "shout into the void" than stifle their expression and cause harm in real world? > when the average user doesn't care about either side, this is the kind of dumb shit I see all over twitter when I'm literally scrolling past a highlight for a sports reel highlight and as I said the recommended tweets are random paid low follower people using hysterics to try to get attention. You say you don't care about it, and yet you are commenting on it. So you do actually care about what is happening on Twitter. If you consider yourself an average user you wouldn't be concerned about Twitter rising in popularity or drowning in loss. You would see your sports reel highlight and close it while being unconcerned about everything else. > The decrease in activity on twitter is also not a personal anecdote, the number of companies advertising and using platform has decreased substantially. What you are saying here is again talking points of MSM. Which is another bubble of its own. Neither you nor I have any access to actual data on how many companies are advertising and if the number has gone up or gone down apart from the few knee jerk reactions in the beginning of the takeover. The only real source of information for this would be Musk himself. And he says things are back to normal so I'll take him at his word [1]. Everything else is just conjectures and speculations as Twitter is no longer a public company. > This is hilarious. For one, I don't even have a twitter so I have no "bubble" I assumed you are a user because you seemed to talk about Twitter from the point of view of an actual user. > I stated this is the default top recommendations for anonymous users, which is super important for converting people onto the platform. Twitter is too big at this point to worry about "converting people onto the platform". It is not like people are discovering Twitter for the first time in 2023. That number (of new users) is going to be very less - possibly those kids who are coming of age and who Twitter is not a target audience for anyways. So Twitter has probably already saturated the market it can tap into and all those who are still joining are just based on whatever is the regular trajectory of Twitter growth. You can't expect any sort of exponential growth in Twitter usage after it has already been in business for over a decade now. It is not an early stage startup where you talk about conversions for anonymous users. Now any conversion metrics that we should focus on would be advertising revenues (not the number of advertisers as that is meaningless), API revenues (which was recently announced with a huge price bump), number of people subscribing to Twitter Blue, number of people subscribing to Creators, MSM/News media subscriptions, paid tweets and lets not forget deals with Governments. This is where the real numbers are going to come from. And unless Twitter releases these numbers we will never know (as Twitter is now a private company). [1]: https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-says-twitter-is-roughly-breaking-even-2023-04-12/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-says-twitter-is... "April 12 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday the social media company is "roughly breaking even," as most of its advertisers have returned and its aggressive cost-cutting efforts have started bearing fruit after massive layoffs."