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I certainly hope this information is still publicly accessible in some form, particularly for the sake of researchers and public watchdogs, but this could be an

I certainly hope this information is still publicly accessible in some form, particularly for the sake of researchers and public watchdogs, but this could be an interesting step forward for social media. Many people decide their opinions based on what seems to be the most popular because they fear looking dumb and being rejected from the popular crowd. Forcing people to look at the merits of peoples' arguments rather than things such as Like Counts that can be manipulated might be a great thing.

verdverm 3y ago
When you aren't an expert, or lack the context, to make such determination, the wisdom of the crowd, has traditionally, been a reliable metric The tweet also states that this will only be on the feed, and clicking into the tweet will still show those interaction metrics
- EA-3167 3y ago
  I'm not sure that the 'crowd' over on Twitter ever had much wisdom to offer even before it entered this death spiral, what remains certainly lacks wisdom. When the paywall goes up the ratio of users:wisdom will asymptotically approach 0.
  - pathartl 3y ago
    It depends on the crowd. If you're just sampling the general population, yeah you're going to have problems. The best conversations on Twitter are done in more niche communities.
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      It's a bit like walking into a packed nightclub, and all you see are people fighting, snorting drugs, and barfing on each other. Maybe in some private back rooms there's a meeting of the greatest minds in history, but that won't be the impression anyone gets. Worse, who's going to spend time in an absolute hellscape of a dive in hopes of maybe finding some diamonds in the turds? I'd rather miss out on the niche communities in favor of a "club" that isn't on fire, there are after all niche communities elsewhere on places like Mastodon, and here.
KyleBerezin 3y ago
I recently watched a video from 6 months ago about some ICEsat-like Chinese satellite that was taking readings around Hawaii for some reason. It looks really spooky because it is a green laser coming down from space. It was picked up by some long exposure camera near an observatory. The part that concerned me was the comment section, it seemed people had come to the consensus that these lasers caused the wild fires 5 months later, and even more wild claims like it has also caused the fires in Canada and Colorado. I find it hard to believe that so many people could become so convinced and angered by such a baseless idea. Maybe it was just that people who already had this idea flocked to the comment section, but it still stuck with me.
Zigurd 3y ago
Re "I certainly hope this information is still publicly accessible in some form..." That's a worthy thing to hope for, but the purpose is not to be publicly embarrassed by Xitter's performance.
- logicalmonster 3y ago
  > the purpose is not to be publicly embarrassed by Xitter's performance I think you have a valid theory, but a point against this is if X was really embarrassed about their performance and this was their motivation, it would not be very hard for them to fake activity numbers for the sake of maintaining public appearances. Perhaps X just thinks this would be an improvement for social media? A big part of the motivation for bots, for example, is inflating the counts on their posts/comments/profiles for the sake of appearing popular. Reducing those stats in importance could flip the cost-benefit analysis for a lot of bot activity and make a platform much better. That incentive to pump up the visible numbers drives a lot of nefarious social media activity. PS: Comments that hint at mind-reading are pretty off-putting to me. I think you have a valid theory, but de facto stating that you know the exact purpose for X doing something is incorrect unless you are Professor Xavier, Counselor Deanna Troi, or some other fictional character with mind-reading powers.

verdverm 3y ago

When you aren't an expert, or lack the context, to make such determination, the wisdom of the crowd, has traditionally, been a reliable metric The tweet also states that this will only be on the feed, and clicking into the tweet will still show those interaction metrics

EA-3167 3y ago
I'm not sure that the 'crowd' over on Twitter ever had much wisdom to offer even before it entered this death spiral, what remains certainly lacks wisdom. When the paywall goes up the ratio of users:wisdom will asymptotically approach 0.
- pathartl 3y ago
  It depends on the crowd. If you're just sampling the general population, yeah you're going to have problems. The best conversations on Twitter are done in more niche communities.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    It's a bit like walking into a packed nightclub, and all you see are people fighting, snorting drugs, and barfing on each other. Maybe in some private back rooms there's a meeting of the greatest minds in history, but that won't be the impression anyone gets. Worse, who's going to spend time in an absolute hellscape of a dive in hopes of maybe finding some diamonds in the turds? I'd rather miss out on the niche communities in favor of a "club" that isn't on fire, there are after all niche communities elsewhere on places like Mastodon, and here.

KyleBerezin 3y ago

I recently watched a video from 6 months ago about some ICEsat-like Chinese satellite that was taking readings around Hawaii for some reason. It looks really spooky because it is a green laser coming down from space. It was picked up by some long exposure camera near an observatory. The part that concerned me was the comment section, it seemed people had come to the consensus that these lasers caused the wild fires 5 months later, and even more wild claims like it has also caused the fires in Canada and Colorado. I find it hard to believe that so many people could become so convinced and angered by such a baseless idea. Maybe it was just that people who already had this idea flocked to the comment section, but it still stuck with me.

Zigurd 3y ago

Re "I certainly hope this information is still publicly accessible in some form..." That's a worthy thing to hope for, but the purpose is not to be publicly embarrassed by Xitter's performance.

logicalmonster 3y ago
> the purpose is not to be publicly embarrassed by Xitter's performance I think you have a valid theory, but a point against this is if X was really embarrassed about their performance and this was their motivation, it would not be very hard for them to fake activity numbers for the sake of maintaining public appearances. Perhaps X just thinks this would be an improvement for social media? A big part of the motivation for bots, for example, is inflating the counts on their posts/comments/profiles for the sake of appearing popular. Reducing those stats in importance could flip the cost-benefit analysis for a lot of bot activity and make a platform much better. That incentive to pump up the visible numbers drives a lot of nefarious social media activity. PS: Comments that hint at mind-reading are pretty off-putting to me. I think you have a valid theory, but de facto stating that you know the exact purpose for X doing something is incorrect unless you are Professor Xavier, Counselor Deanna Troi, or some other fictional character with mind-reading powers.