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I never used Twitter much, but one change I noticed is that there is more "angry political commentary" than before. Twitter has always been politically polarizi

by rcme 3y ago

I never used Twitter much, but one change I noticed is that there is more "angry political commentary" than before. Twitter has always been politically polarizing, but I feel like angry comments pop up on every thread now. For instance, when Musk announced he had picked a new CEO and referred to to her as "she", one of the replies visible at the top was how this specific Twitter user didn't want to use a product run by a woman.

nailer 3y ago
Huh weird I didn’t see that at all. I use Twitter throughout my day. The changes I have noticed are: I can now access the Babylon bee account. There are basic encrypted messages now. There is a non-algorithmic tab on the homepage.
- rcme 3y ago
  I just went to the Babylon Bee's twitter page and looked at their latest tweet, which a Zelda joke about banning cross dressing in Florida: https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1657101451569537025 https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1657101451569537025 The top reply says "I'm the thickest 18 year old on Twitter" and has an NSFW profile. The 5th reply tags a number of republican politicians and was posted by someone whose Twitter tagline is simply "Patriot". The 6th reply is an image that says "It was justified" and the person's profile posts and retweets a bunch of pro-Trump and pro-gun tweets. It really feels impossible to escape these types of political statements on the platform now.
  - nailer 3y ago
    > It really feels impossible to escape these types of political statements on the platform now. Following Babylon Bee isn't mandatory. If you do, nor is reading the replies. FWIW I see memes not the thickest 18 year old on Twitter.
    - rcme 3y ago
      As I said, it’s basically on every post, even a non-political post like announcing that a new Twitter CEO has been chosen. I used Babylon Bee as an example because you said that you didn’t see this trend and mentioned that you read the Babylon Bee.
      - nailer 3y ago
        > As I said, it’s basically on every post, even a non-political post like announcing that a new Twitter CEO has been chosen. OK I think I understand what you're saying - every discussion turns political? Twitter has been that way since 2015. It's the world's public square. Only difference is people are allowed to disagree with Californian liberals.
        robbiep 3y ago
        It’s not the worlds public square. It’s a gladiatorial arena (maybe WWE/performance art would be an even better metaphor) for the US culture wars. If they could please get it over with soon so we can return to normal programming, that would be great
        nailer 3y ago
        Yep that too. I’ve often said twitter is a MOBA and it’s always been that way, way before October 2022. I once spent an awful morning having Jake Archibald and his 40K followers abuse me because I didn’t like the ’fetch’ spec.
  - slily 3y ago
    English-language Twitter has always had a huge amount of inflammatory political commentary. I gave up on the platform for many years because I couldn't follow artists, film directors, or engineers without seeing their political opinions plastered all over my feed and I found it distracting and obnoxious. As others have pointed out, you're looking at the comment section of an account that posts political satire. What do you mean by "these types of political statements"? Right-wing ones?
    - rcme 3y ago
      > As others have pointed out, you're looking at the comment section of an account that posts political satire. Which account is political satire? The Babylon Bee or Elon Musk’s personal account? I kid. > What do you mean by "these types of political statements"? Right-wing ones? I intentionally didn’t label it. Where on the spectrum does a statement like “women can’t run companies” lie? To me, the issue isn’t political. It’s that people whose entire identity is founded upon fighting a culture war seem to be the loudest voices on Twitter. It makes the product very unpleasant.
      - slily 3y ago
        Oh, I get that. It's just that you also wrote: > The 5th reply tags a number of republican politicians and was posted by someone whose Twitter tagline is simply "Patriot". Which is labeled and is not particularly egregious, so that weakens your point. I don't recall comment sections of popular or political accounts ever being respectful or interesting. But in some cases, the bots that used to plague every popular account's comments do seem preferable to that kind of stuff.
- iudqnolq 3y ago
  huh? Twitter has always had chronological timelines. Only thing Musk added in that regard is a buggy even more magic "For You" that's harder to ignore. On my phone at least the app switched to the For You tab every restart and on many of my refreshes.
  - dmix 3y ago
    That’s not true. Twitter hid the chronological feed behind a small button barely anyone knew about. And before that there was a multi-year period where the only way to get chronological tweets was via using Lists. Which was extremely frustrating. I’m happy Twitter has made the followers only feed a prominent two-tab UI. The algorithmic one was always completely useless. If Twitter can do what YouTube did to their feeds recommendations feeds Twitter can do very well but without TikTok style engagement metrics with videos are well suited for I have a feeling it’s always going to be bad on Twitter. I get the feeling the only people who (ever) liked and engaged with the Twitter AI feeds are the same people who like Reddits r/all, which aren’t the sort of people I want to interact with anyway.
    - iudqnolq 3y ago
      That's a fair point, I'd forgotten it was hard to discover. That's because it worked well for me. I looked it up at one point and then I had it configured how I want. The new system is much more annoying for me, but it might be nicer for someone who wouldn't be able to learn about the old button.

by rcme 3y ago

nailer 3y ago

Huh weird I didn’t see that at all. I use Twitter throughout my day. The changes I have noticed are: I can now access the Babylon bee account. There are basic encrypted messages now. There is a non-algorithmic tab on the homepage.

rcme 3y ago
I just went to the Babylon Bee's twitter page and looked at their latest tweet, which a Zelda joke about banning cross dressing in Florida: https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1657101451569537025 https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1657101451569537025 The top reply says "I'm the thickest 18 year old on Twitter" and has an NSFW profile. The 5th reply tags a number of republican politicians and was posted by someone whose Twitter tagline is simply "Patriot". The 6th reply is an image that says "It was justified" and the person's profile posts and retweets a bunch of pro-Trump and pro-gun tweets. It really feels impossible to escape these types of political statements on the platform now.
- nailer 3y ago
  > It really feels impossible to escape these types of political statements on the platform now. Following Babylon Bee isn't mandatory. If you do, nor is reading the replies. FWIW I see memes not the thickest 18 year old on Twitter.
  - rcme 3y ago
    As I said, it’s basically on every post, even a non-political post like announcing that a new Twitter CEO has been chosen. I used Babylon Bee as an example because you said that you didn’t see this trend and mentioned that you read the Babylon Bee.
    - nailer 3y ago
      > As I said, it’s basically on every post, even a non-political post like announcing that a new Twitter CEO has been chosen. OK I think I understand what you're saying - every discussion turns political? Twitter has been that way since 2015. It's the world's public square. Only difference is people are allowed to disagree with Californian liberals.
      - robbiep 3y ago
        It’s not the worlds public square. It’s a gladiatorial arena (maybe WWE/performance art would be an even better metaphor) for the US culture wars. If they could please get it over with soon so we can return to normal programming, that would be great
        nailer 3y ago
        Yep that too. I’ve often said twitter is a MOBA and it’s always been that way, way before October 2022. I once spent an awful morning having Jake Archibald and his 40K followers abuse me because I didn’t like the ’fetch’ spec.
- slily 3y ago
  English-language Twitter has always had a huge amount of inflammatory political commentary. I gave up on the platform for many years because I couldn't follow artists, film directors, or engineers without seeing their political opinions plastered all over my feed and I found it distracting and obnoxious. As others have pointed out, you're looking at the comment section of an account that posts political satire. What do you mean by "these types of political statements"? Right-wing ones?
  - rcme 3y ago
    > As others have pointed out, you're looking at the comment section of an account that posts political satire. Which account is political satire? The Babylon Bee or Elon Musk’s personal account? I kid. > What do you mean by "these types of political statements"? Right-wing ones? I intentionally didn’t label it. Where on the spectrum does a statement like “women can’t run companies” lie? To me, the issue isn’t political. It’s that people whose entire identity is founded upon fighting a culture war seem to be the loudest voices on Twitter. It makes the product very unpleasant.
    - slily 3y ago
      Oh, I get that. It's just that you also wrote: > The 5th reply tags a number of republican politicians and was posted by someone whose Twitter tagline is simply "Patriot". Which is labeled and is not particularly egregious, so that weakens your point. I don't recall comment sections of popular or political accounts ever being respectful or interesting. But in some cases, the bots that used to plague every popular account's comments do seem preferable to that kind of stuff.
iudqnolq 3y ago
huh? Twitter has always had chronological timelines. Only thing Musk added in that regard is a buggy even more magic "For You" that's harder to ignore. On my phone at least the app switched to the For You tab every restart and on many of my refreshes.
- dmix 3y ago
  That’s not true. Twitter hid the chronological feed behind a small button barely anyone knew about. And before that there was a multi-year period where the only way to get chronological tweets was via using Lists. Which was extremely frustrating. I’m happy Twitter has made the followers only feed a prominent two-tab UI. The algorithmic one was always completely useless. If Twitter can do what YouTube did to their feeds recommendations feeds Twitter can do very well but without TikTok style engagement metrics with videos are well suited for I have a feeling it’s always going to be bad on Twitter. I get the feeling the only people who (ever) liked and engaged with the Twitter AI feeds are the same people who like Reddits r/all, which aren’t the sort of people I want to interact with anyway.
  - iudqnolq 3y ago
    That's a fair point, I'd forgotten it was hard to discover. That's because it worked well for me. I looked it up at one point and then I had it configured how I want. The new system is much more annoying for me, but it might be nicer for someone who wouldn't be able to learn about the old button.