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A perfect example with the recent changes at Twitter: > Most Twitter users barely tweet and don't care about followers - a "heavy user" tweets on average less
by wunderland 3y ago
A perfect example with the recent changes at Twitter:
> Most Twitter users barely tweet and don't care about followers - a "heavy user" tweets on average less than three times a week. So if someone is posting regularly enough to be willing to pay $8 a month for a blue tick, but has not built up a sizeable following organically, this is a very strong signal that the posts they are producing are no good.
> It is exactly that content that Twitter's new model relies on promoting - and those newly-minted blue ticks are quickly learning that there is no magic behind the checkmarks. New followers are not magically heading their way. The problem wasn't a biased liberal algorithm, it was that their tweets are no good.
> That means lots of blue ticks stop paying - but everyone else is forced to read the low-quality content that the remaining blue ticks produce. This is what is powering the enshittification of Twitter.
(From: https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/the-slow-sad-death-of-twitter/ https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/the-slow-sad-death-of-twitt...)
- Proven 3y agoGarbage "analysis". Heavy users I follow tweet more than 3 times a day. > The problem wasn't a biased liberal algorithm, it was that their tweets are no good. No, it was a biased algo that's still being removed (as recently as 2-3 weeks ago they discovered another throttle which was impacting many users, including Elon). The main problem is that all centralized platforms have to deal with government-mandated censorship in large markets such as the EU, which kills content and engagement and also negatively impacts paying users (because despite the payment, their content still gets shadow-banned). That's not Twitter's fault, but they're relatively more impacted than social networks that focus on art and have no political content.
- dcow 3y agoI think the strong response is to your opening statement. Cory is a thoughtful writer. The analysis may be inaccurate in your opinion, but that doesn't make it garbage. I happen to agree with your actual take: biased unfair algos are the result of platforms being coerced (internally and/or externally) to ultimately serve some socio-political agenda, and thus their content enshittifies. No blue checkmarks needed.
- pjc50 3y agoI'm interested to know what your examples of content would be that is (a) good and (b) banned by "government-mandated censorship in large markets such as the EU". > relatively more impacted than social networks that focus on art and have no political content Funnily enough a lot of artists also want uncensored platforms so they can post NSFW art, but this is completely orthogonal to the political questions.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago> uncensored platforms so they can post NSFW art, but this is completely orthogonal to the political questions. Its not orthogonal, the center of american politics is neo-puritanism. This is specifically the attitude of american elites, and they force it on the rest of the world. They deny access to banking and payment to anyone who does not comply.
- eimrine 3y ago> I'm interested to know what your examples of content would be that is (a) good and (b) banned by "government-mandated censorship in large markets such as the EU". War videos and pirated books.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago> government-mandated censorship in large markets such as the EU Twitter censors nudity and pornography, and import American neo-puritanism to the rest of the world. No-one in EU mandates this. But american brain is incapable of putting two and two together, they have it wired into their brain that opression cannot be private, only government. If modern right-wingers existed in 1500, they would be defending the rirht of a feudal lord to sleep with your wife because he isnt a government and your signed up for it when you were born as a peasant.
- actionfromafar 3y agoPretty much what really happened.
- beepbooptheory 3y agoThis is a pretty good example of what is called kettle logic: 1. The analysis is wrong 2. The analysis is correct, but it is the algorithms fault. 3. The analysis is correct, but actually its really state censorship that is culprit here!
- pyrale 3y ago> they're relatively more impacted than social networks that focus on art and have no political content. Most art is political, you probably just can't take a hint.
- jterrys 3y agoThat's not really the art in question though. There's a lot of 'art' on twitter which is, for a lack of a better term, porn.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago[flagged]
- wunderland 3y agoHere’s an example of a Nazi poll that went mega-viral yesterday: https://twitter.com/rightwingcope/status/1676980329905528832 https://twitter.com/rightwingcope/status/1676980329905528832 (screenshot because @christgnosis went private after outing themselves as full-Nazi)
- MSFT_Edging 3y agoThat was the poll in reference but I've also been seeing a ton more lately.
- fsckboy 3y ago> enough to be willing to pay $8 a month you realize $8 a month is nothing to the majority of adults who would be in the "knowledge worker" category? a month? a couple of coffees is $10 and that's a day.
- pjc50 3y agoThose aren't the good content people, though. (Long ago I suggested that Twitter should have allowed people to contribute towards premium accounts for other people, a bit like Reddit Gold. Since a large part of the value derives not from your own posting but other people's.)
- Etheryte 3y agoIn my opinion, the question is generally not whether something is a lot of money or not, but if it feels worthwhile relative to other similar things. For example, $8/mo is in the same ballpark as Spotify or Apple music and right now Twitter's blue tick doesn't come anywhere close to providing similar value.
- everdrive 3y ago$8 a month might feel like a waste if you don’t get anything out of it.
- criddell 3y agoWhat I thought was stupid was removing the blue check from people who are worth far more than that per month to Twitter. I thinking about people like Stephen King and large news outlets.
- ComposedPattern 3y ago[dead]
- manuelabeledo 3y agoThis is true only in a handful of places, for a handful of people. $8 a month is pretty much the monthly cost of a cellphone plan across Europe. One could also get Spotify, or Netflix, at the same price point. Comparatively speaking, paying $8 to have unlimited access to generally low quality content, at the same price point where other platforms offer actual good content, is a waste.
- rsynnott 3y agoI'm still amazed they went with the $8-for-attention model. Everyone _already knows_ this doesn't work well; the dating site industry has been trying to make it work for literally decades. It's also kind of a Pandora's box; even if they removed the attention boost, the taint is already there, and people will be suspicious of bluetick replies forever.
- cubefox 3y agoThey get also other features like longer tweets and editing.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y agoFar, far more than that, now. The ability to organize your own feed via Tweetdeck is also being limited to blue checks, as well as security options like MFA.
- drzaiusx11 3y agoThe fact that a basic security feature is behind a paywall boggles the mind.
- Dalewyn 3y agoIt's only for SMS 2FA, which was phased out because of valid security concerns. Other forms of 2FA are still available to everyone.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- stirfish 3y ago>as well as security options like MFA. Incredible. I had to see it for myself. https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/two-factor-authentication https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/two-factor... Maybe that's only for text messages, and you can still use totp?
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoActually it is the algo. Twitter often doesn't bother showing the tweets of NPCs (with fewer than a few thousand followers) no matter how good they are. But I think you have to be quite naive to believe that a New Blue Tick™ will game that.
- PM_me_your_math 3y agoAh yes, because a steady stream of Yoel Roth approved leftist propaganda was good content.
- winternett 3y agoPeople tweeting are not usually paid to post. Discussing the quality of posts as if entertaining people with unpaid labor is a need is the fatal flaw of social media sites. They keep pushing the narrative that posters should work for attention and struggle when winning in the current mold is albeit impossible without lots of funding or the specific attributes that make people overlook marginal skill and talents. The truth of the matter is these platforms always invent wacky schemes to sedate people into a false narrative that they can go viral, or even that they can be recognized for their talent or wisdom, but undercover the platform does nothing to promote individuals, and often does a lot to DEMOTE individual posters on them. If one truly understands how things work, these platforms often have millions of people as a potential audience for content. They only show posts to an ever shrinking fraction of 1 percent of that multi-million user audience initially (in between all the paid ads), often they barely do that and give users less than 300 views by an audience they know is not a good demographic fit for their post (e.g showing a post about penguin migration to a rapper promoting his music in LA, rather than showing the content to a known animal scientist who would be much more likely to click on "like") . As a result of frustration with low views and limited validation/affirmation of their work and time, many users pay for ad boosting, which still now usually does not work in their favor, because the audience is never properly aligned with the content for viewing there again. Even an audience of 20k people on a platform of millions is measley. The platform has no interest in making users more popular, because they will log in less, spend less on ads, and possibly relocate their activities to another platform if they grew in popularity. If you take an honest look at the type of content that trends, it's often not funny, not creative, not the best, but now it's there because it had healthy funding for ads behind it, to get it to the right audience that liked it (if it's not boosted by nefarious -bots= etc...). The truth is, that if each content poster was exposed/promoted to a much wider audience, they'd find their niche, SIMILAR to how original Twitter was, this is why no one is getting followers any more,because the audiences who can view posts have become too small out of shear manipulation for ad profit. It's not about post quality, that's simply a lie that coddles wealthy and celebrity posters and maintains the status quo of limiting upward mobility on social media sites. Paying for visibility on a social media service is far too manipulative, there should be a simple flat fee for access in my opinion because paying for visibility creates an inherent inequality. Deceptively promoting a service as free with tiers also deceives people into signing up for a service that is deceptively handicapped/neutered until they figure out they need to pay monthly for only slightly a less handicapped tier (still far below wealthy individuals and celebrities on each platform). It's a self defeating cycle that only social platforms profit from. It would be better if content creators truly recognized that and saw through the others with tons of cash and the sponsored (undercover social media company employees) all faking their success to make these casino companies look legit.