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> Twitter was ... a walled garden controlled by mainstream media and government officials in an unethical manner. > Twitter is now a more ethically managed sh

> Twitter was ... a walled garden controlled by mainstream media and government officials in an unethical manner. > Twitter is now a more ethically managed shithole that doesn't manipulate audiences for narrative alignment. > That means a lot of people who liked Twitter before ... now have to contend with the reality that not everyone agrees with them or likes them. That also means they are exposed to more of the toxicity that was always there. There are several case studies that make me doubt whether one can make any conclusions about the trajectory of Twitter and the walls of its garden. Exhibit one: preventing publication of tweets or updates to one's profile that contained links to Mastodon. Rolled back, as far as I understand; but wtf? Exhibit two: blocking publication of tweets containing links to Substack. Also rolled back apparently (Matt Taibbi is still on Twitter despite his threats to move to Substack notes); but wtf??!! Exhibit three: Elon suggesting that they can reassign NPR account to another person or company if NPR doesn't tweet. WTF??!!! Exhibit four. There's an online personality called Scott Ritter. He has strongly — perhaps obnoxiously so — pro-Russian opinions about the ongoing conflict. His account got suspended. I understand that he pisses lots of people off; that he may be an idiot, a tool, and a horrible human being; whatever. But, suspending his account does not fit the narrative of a new Twitter that defends freedom of speech and does not care about toxicity, or about who agrees with whom.

alxlaz 3y ago
Also, "the kind of service that social media and privacy reformists have been asking for" is very much a stretch. There's been no substantial change to the Twitter policy, and the whole thing is still centered on an algorithm-driven timeline. It's exactly the same Twitter as before, except it's got a paid subscription. There's no "flipping" in the economy -- automatically driving the right story to the right users is still the main proposition and user attention is still the main product, except some of them are also paying for it now, for some reason. Edit: also, remember that time when Twitter banned the ElonJet dude (okay, doxxing, makes total sense), then a bunch of journalists who covered the ElonJet story, then journalists who covered Twitter banning a bunch of journalists who covered the ElonJet story?

alxlaz 3y ago

Also, "the kind of service that social media and privacy reformists have been asking for" is very much a stretch. There's been no substantial change to the Twitter policy, and the whole thing is still centered on an algorithm-driven timeline. It's exactly the same Twitter as before, except it's got a paid subscription. There's no "flipping" in the economy -- automatically driving the right story to the right users is still the main proposition and user attention is still the main product, except some of them are also paying for it now, for some reason. Edit: also, remember that time when Twitter banned the ElonJet dude (okay, doxxing, makes total sense), then a bunch of journalists who covered the ElonJet story, then journalists who covered Twitter banning a bunch of journalists who covered the ElonJet story?