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We don’t need a new Twitter
- tonmoy 3y agoHaven’t we seen the same public discourse time and time again? A lot of people left FB half a decade ago, before that it was something else. I suspect we’ll keep seeing the same thing again. People want to be consumed by social network probably to their own detriment
- ksey3 3y agoMichael Goldharber said it best - people have limited attention to give anything, but unlimited capacity to receive attention. Exploitation of that inequality keeps the Attention Economy afloat. Its also why HN stays afloat, even though the architecture ensures the amount of content consumed is a small insignificant fraction of the content produced. Ideally we track content consumed/content produced gives us a ratio of the information waste an architecture is producing. And all these architectures are producing a whole lot of waste.
- jacquesm 3y ago> people have limited attention to give anything, but unlimited capacity to receive attention. Oh that's a great quote. I'm off to build a 1-900 service that will just say 'yes' and 'wow' and 'sure, but what about you' whenever the speaker pauses long enough.
- todd3834 3y agoWow if I didn’t use the app every day I’d stay totally clear of it after reading these quotes right from the beginning of the article. This really doesn’t represent my experience at all. Am I alone or has the experience actually improved? I don’t follow people who are toxic because I don’t enjoy their content. It’s mostly software engineers and the #buildinpublic community and it’s a beautiful place with them. What has changed that has made the platform worse? It feels subjectively better in my experience. > designed to steal market share from Twitter, which continues to struggle under the leadership of Elon Musk > interested in a less angry place for conversations.” > interested in having a platform that is sanely run.”
- coldpie 3y agoRemoving verification was a major decline in usability. Verified accounts were good to know that you'd found the correct account for an organization or person you were looking for, but that's gone now. Verification was also a good first approximation that the account is at least somewhat notable, and not just some random online person, but that's gone now, too. With verification, Twitter used to be a moderately trustworthy source of news, now it's just a big pile of low-trust accounts saying things. You can certainly do the work to build your own trust network, but that's exactly what I mean by "decline in usability."
- moojd 3y agoI agree that 'real' verification was useful, but on the other hand removing it had the nice side-effect of 'breaking the spell' of twitter's imagined importance. People take it way less seriously now which I think is positive.
- coldpie 3y agoTo provide a concrete example, Twitter was nice for getting bus service updates from whatever transit agency operates in the city I happen to be in. I used to be able to look at a bus sign and see the service agency here is called "Metro Transit", so I could search "Metro Transit" on Twitter and somewhere early in the search results a verified account would pop up with something like "Twin Cities Metro Transit" in the description. I can be almost certain that's the account I want to look at. Now that verification is gone, I have to try way harder to find the right account in the sea of conversations, spam, inactive accounts, etc etc. Or go outside Twitter to find the agency's website and dig around for their social contacts, blah blah. Nothing to do with "importance" here, I just want to know what's going on with the bus service. Twitter used to be good for that, now it's a chore.
- bachmeier 3y agoNot sure why you're getting downvotes, but it's absolutely getting worse for me. They shut down Tweetdeck to anyone that doesn't pay about $100 a year (until the inevitable increase). The Twitter web client is far worse, infected with an overwhelming number of ads and run by an algorithm that thinks I'm looking for racist content. I had no intention of leaving after Elon took over, but he managed to find a way.
- ulrischa 3y agoOne important part is missing in this article: RSS Feeds! The missing aggregation of news can be done easily with RSS. I'm waiting for a online service that adds tue conversation part to the aggregation part that RSS feeds offer for years
- adminu 3y agoThat sounds interesting. Are you thinking about a comment system build into RSS? I am interested in potential future RSS capabilities. Would you mind a chat about that? If so, please drop me an email, see profile.
- ulrischa 3y agoYes something like this. Or a commenting system build around rss. I send you an email
- BlueTemplar 3y agoGoogle Reader used to have that. Then Google shut it down, probably because they wanted people to use Google+ instead.
- romusha 3y agoPeople still use twitter?
- CharlesW 3y agoNo, but they use X.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Dan_Sylveste 3y agoIt's as popular as it's ever been.
- Bye_Felicia 3y ago[flagged]
- phailhaus 3y agoIt is stupid easy for governments to control centralized private platforms. Just pass a law. The problem is that Twitter has trouble adhering to the most basic requirements while also running cheap, e.g., preventing CSAM content.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dgan 3y ago>> A global platform is too difficult for governments to control How is that? I claim the opposite. It's far easier to control onr entity instead of multiple separated ones.
- Swizec 3y agoAs a long-time enjoyer and early promoter of social media, I disagree with your translation. The real problem is that either due to algorithms or some inherent quirk of human nature, global public social media has become awful. Let me characterize the awfulness with a joke that showcases the vibe shift. You tweet/post: “I love sandwiches” 2009 twitter: “Omg I too love sandwiches! Let’s be friends, follow me back” 2023 twitter: “How dare you speak against my brethren who cannot eat gluten!?!? You are an awful human being and I hope you rot in hell.”
- phailhaus 3y agoThis is a natural consequence of Twitter's design, which rewards attention and users with high follower counts. "Omg I too love sandwiches" is not going to get a lot of likes, whereas outrage sells. There's no way to punish toxic behavior, so the only direction is up.
- Swizec 3y ago> which rewards attention Hence my thought that this is a quirk of human nature. We give attention to the wrong things. All ad-based media suffers from this problem. Twitter’s algorithm is but a reflection of our revealed preferences. It doesn’t care what we say we want, only what we show we want with our actions.
- abhv 3y agoSee also this thread from yesterday, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37147914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37147914 "Thousands of scientists are cutting back from Twitter" Essentially, a survey published in Nature about twitter usage among scientists dropping, in part, because of the phenomena mentioned in this New Yorker article. Eg: "Žiga Malek, an environmental scientist at the Free University of Amsterdam, mentioned in the survey that he had started seeing a lot of “strange” political far-right accounts espousing science denialism and racism in his feed. He has to block them constantly. “Twitter has always been not so nice let’s say, but it is a mess right now,” he said."
- hotdogscout 3y ago[flagged]
- klodolph 3y agoScientists are on average a little left-leaning but science denialism, somehow, is something that crops up in both far-left and far-right spaces (just not equally). If you were in a leftist bubble, you’d have been seeing science denialism for a while now. Far-left science denialism starts with the “only use natural products, chemicals are bad for you, vaccines are bad for you” crunchy lifestyle accounts. Sometimes I think the political spectrum is more of an S1 topology.
- eastof 3y ago> somehow Science is funded by government, so researchers come to conclusions that support them. I'm not suggesting any conspiracy, just incentives. Researchers just see which proposals get funded, and it happens those are the ones that support the mainstream narrative that the government would like to push. So it makes sense that if you are against the mainstream narrative, this would also pit you against some mainstream science. Disclaimer: I'm not trying to lend support to science denialism (I'm somewhat centrist). Just trying to explain why hard liners would tend to engage in it.
- 3y ago
- m3kw9 3y agoPeople needed a new twitter because they hate Elon, which is just another fad. They eventually learn to ignore his antics and just enjoy everyone else’s tweets. They always come back. Just check out Threads timing, it coincides with max Elon hate, can’t be more clear.
- cbeach 3y agoThe Two Minutes Hate against Elon Musk has elements of Trump Derangement Syndrome, where commentators on the Left seem to compete amongst each other to hate the man hardest. Or to be seen to hate him, at least. It’s how they signal tribal affiliation.
- hotdogscout 3y agoJust use Mastodon (?).
- alexcannan 3y agoZero mention of the increasingly popular federated alternatives just seems like bad, corpocentric journalism
- nmz 3y agoSpecifically, an instance for each branch of science would be nice.
- the_snooze 3y agoIt's not about the platform, but the people. Mastodon is nice for some of the techy stuff I'm interested in. But it's useless for other things I used to follow on Twitter: hyper-local news and weather, sports banter, and other researchers in my field.
- kubb 3y agoWhat if I want a platform without open antisemitism (or any for that matter), and that doesn't promote emotionally charged content as much?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Covzire 3y agoFree speech is a fundamental human right.
- ryandvm 3y agoMaking another company host your speech is not.
- Covzire 3y agoI agree. Monopolies muddy the waters though.
- Dan_Sylveste 3y agoMaking telcos carry your speech is, thanks to common carrier legislation. I hope we can see the expansion of this legislation soon to cover the modern ways in which people communicate and the modern town square.
- w0de0 3y agoFreedom of association - the right to tell someone to get off your lawn, or your website - is free speech too.
- Dan_Sylveste 3y agoYes, and it's restricted in the case of providers of infrastructure deemed essential to the operation of a civil society. Electricity and landline providers can't decline to serve either the KKK or the Black Panthers. Twitter, being the de facto modern public square, should soon be covered by this type of legislation.
- orwin 3y agoThe only left-wing group i followed on twitter was banned so quickly i thought they posted CP or violence. They did not[0]. [0]https://fr.crimethinc.com/2022/11/25/elon-musk-bans-crimethinc-from-twitter-on-request-from-far-right-troll https://fr.crimethinc.com/2022/11/25/elon-musk-bans-crimethi...
- chilmers 3y agoThe article presents small discussion forums as safe and cosy, which they can be, but their insular nature also makes them a perfect breeding ground for extremist views. We shouldn’t ignore that most of the radical politics and conspiracy theories swirling Twitter are born in such small forums.
- minton 3y agoI purposefully expose myself to alternate viewpoints from my own. It’s how to prevent the frog from boiling into an extremist (L or R) without noticing. I have enough conviction in my beliefs that I can read contradictory views without getting emotional. I don’t understand the desire to surround yourself with clones of yourself.
- BothSidesVirus 3y agoSome people/opinions are so intellectually bankrupt, unless you’re there to correct them (fruitless), you’re wasting oxygen by consuming the content. > I don’t understand the desire to surround yourself with clones of yourself. Every society ever follows the formula of being with people who share similar characteristics one way or another. Not that crazy.
- mbg721 3y agoIt's good to do that when you're prepared for it, but it's exhausting having political screeds permeate every discussion. I miss when it was a faux-pas to bring up matters of religion and politics.
- imbnwa 3y agoI mean are we really comparing the niche impact of 00s 4Chan w/ modern Twitter? 00s 4Chan didn't radically alter political discourse in America, and as far as conspiracies go, I mean its not even comparable.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago4chan isn't your typical forum though. Especially not circa 2014, though I would guess that Twitter might have a worse effect now.
- add-sub-mul-div 3y agoLeave the eternal September on Twitter and Threads. Let early adopters enjoy Mastodon/Lemmy for a long while before the followers very predictably ruin the things that leaders like about small/medium communities.
- mattbgates 3y agoSoon as the takeover happened, my account got hacked, used for crypto spam, and banned. I can't use X. Had that account ever since the early days of Twitter. Tried putting in an appeal but its automated. Am I really missing out on anything?
- gmane 3y agoNo. A few months after the takeover I blocked Twitter at the DNS level for my house. I went back into the office for work one day and in some down time, I went to Twitter while it wasn't DNS blocked. It's a ghost town. I miss the old Twitter, but that's clearly never coming back.
- Dan_Sylveste 3y agoThat's weird, because I'm seeing as much activity, engagement and interaction as I've always seen. There are a lot fewer insane takes being posted by accounts that may or may not be bots, but I'm not really missing that as they just derailed the conversation. I get the impression that more 'normal' people are now using the platform; the quality and ... coherence ... of replies has gone way up. Also happy to see a lot less engagement from 'people' that post insane takes then meme out and block when questioned.
- cbeach 3y agoI agree. Twitter/X seems more “alive” now than it was before. I’m really enjoying being on the platform now. I’m glad that scientists such as Dr Robert Malone have been unbanned. I’m not an expert in his field so I cannot tell if he is a crazed paranoid lunatic, or if he is the most important whistleblower of the 21st century. Either way, I want to hear him out and see his arguments judged by the wisdom of the crowds. While science converges on the truth, it SHOULD be messy and there should be disagreement with consensus views occasionally. When disagreement is silently removed, we’re not doing science anymore.
- zzzeek 3y agooh whatever, says "The New Yorker" that would like to keep making $12 a print issue and whatever crazy amount they charge for online. Come to us! not them. you need us to feel connected.
- kazinator 3y agoNot mentioning Mastodon (not even just to disparage it as not being worth further remarks) makes the article look blinkered. Threads is related to and interoperates with Mastodon; so Mastodon is relevant to an article in which Threads is the main topic.
- gunapologist99 3y ago> Threads is related to and interoperates with Mastodon Threads has far more integration with Instagram than with Mastodon, despite repeated promises to the contrary. If you want Mastodon, you should just do that and not Threads.
- jdblair 3y agoI'm a little surprised the article didn't mention Mastodon. It has its warts and issues (i mean, ahem, features) like no full-text search and no quote-posting, but Mastodon does generate the small discussion forum feel, but with the ability to link out to other communities.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[dupe] from earlier? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37156730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37156730
- LikelyABurner 3y agoWe don’t need social media, period. Social media is a fundamentally flawed model that you have can have human communication on a global scale with a “The Algorithm” used to cleanly order high quality capital-C “Content” into numeric categories that can be parceled out to drive capital-E “Engagement”. If you told people about this 30 years ago, they would have laughed at you, and not because of some garbage about people expecting horses instead of cars (Christ how I’ve come to hate this quote, it needs to die a painful death) but because it is a fundamentally stupid idea that only an autist that doesn’t actually communicate with people could have come up with. This is not how people communicate, this is how computers operate, and we’ve been shoving humans pegs into computer-sized boxes using addiction to dopamine hits to keep them firmly wedged in there, and now we’re wondering why everything’s going to shit as a result. The old ways were best. An ecosystem of small forum communities where the only ordering is time (the ordering none of us can escape) and the subject of the conversation, and the community itself evolves its rules organically through migration, not what a committee of managers in Silicon Valley thinks its CoC’s should look like this month.
- jryle70 3y agoYou are participating in a social media site, with "Show HN", "Ask HN", upvotes, downvotes, with appearance controlled by "The Algorithm", all of the hallmark of social media. Your comment is typical social media, with language that provokes extreme emotion ("period", "hate", "stupid", "going to shit"). You fit right in with what you feel outraged about.
- TrevorJ 3y agoPerson A: "I think the ship is sinking!" Person B: "Haha, you are ON the ship, you hypocrite!"
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]