3 ms·
I know it's an unpopular opinion but hear me out: 1) Now the lists are prominent feature, pick accounts that specialise and put them in lists. I find it especi
by mrtksn 3y ago
I know it's an unpopular opinion but hear me out:
1) Now the lists are prominent feature, pick accounts that specialise and put them in lists. I find it especially useful if I want to keep an eye on stuff that I don't necessarily want to engage everyday. For example, I have a list of conspiracy theorists and misogynist who are quite influential but I can't stand to see their BS all the time. I also have a list of economists that I would like to be able to glance over when there's some developments.
2) Community notes, which was developed as "birdwatch" pre-takeover but never released, is actually super useful.
3) Seeing the number of views is very interesting to have an idea about the reach of something. It's probably very inaccurate considering what constitutes a view but its useful to compare one content to another
4) Removing the headlines of link previews makes you click it before forming an opinion. IMHO headlines are harmful.
5) I love that Musk was exposed as free speech NIMBY. His position is now cemented, can no longer claim being free speech absolutist and be takes seriously.
6) And the Nazi stuff that Evans mentions, IMHO is harmless because it's challenged. I'm much more free speech absolutists than Musk and I don't believe that de-platforming people, making them congregate in specialised platforms helps anybody. They just get crazier and crazier and then shoot people or conspire to do things. It's much better when this happens in open and they BS is called out.
I don't know if Twitter pushes that many nutjobs to everyone or I end up seeing so many because I have a list full of them but I think it's important to be exposed to all kind of trends in the society - even though some of those are extremely unpleasant. Every now and then, they have a point or they are the only ones that address a pain point of concern and can get lot's of supporters when that happen. If you keep eye on these issues you can act before its too late.
And if some those people actually attempt do something harmful, that's the law enforcements job to take care of it.
Maybe it's bad business but it's a better product and I don't see any point of leaving it. A cesspool you don't see doesn't seize existing. An anti-vaxxer trend, for example, will end up effecting you even if you don't have a Twitter account because there are people actively working for it and leaving a platform will simply make their job easier.
- nkozyra 3y ago> 4) Removing the headlines of link previews makes you click it before forming an opinion. IMHO headlines are harmful. This doesn't make any sense. If I click it, I see the headline. Why is the context of a picture any better than the context of a headline + picture? Musk was transparent about this - he only cared about the aesthetics.
- mrtksn 3y agoYou already made an effort to open the article, you might end up check out what it is all about. It might be about aesthetics but IMHO has an effect of actually displaying the articles. Musk can't plan for everything.
- nkozyra 3y ago> You already made an effort to open the article, you might end up check out what it is all about. No, I'm never, ever clicking on a blind link of an image. Might as well give a hint what I'm clicking.
- mrtksn 3y agoI click. How else I'm supposed to know what's this all about? When there were headlines, I "knew" without clicking anything.
- nkozyra 3y agoI doubt you're clicking every blind link image. Who has that kind of time? Consider this on any other site. Consider HackerNews where there's no headline and just a random image: it makes no sense. I think you're just giving Musk a lot of passes.
- mrtksn 3y agoI click all the times when the discussion seems interesting or I would like to know why that person says what he/she says. HN without headlines are Image boards like 4Chan, I guess. Those boards are very engaging and people commenting tend to to have an idea about the stuff they post about - albeit in 4Chan's case a lot of the times can be toxic. Despite the notoriety of the communities of these website, the format seems to have some benefits.
- nkozyra 3y ago
- ZuLuuuuuu 3y ago2) Community notes (birdwatch) was already released before Elon Musk took over. Elon just changed the name and maybe sped up the availability of it that's all. 3) Reply and retweet numbers already gave a pretty good idea of how much a post was popular compared to others. Having also the view count would be welcome but the algorithm on how a view is counted is not clear and the numbers seem inflated, so in its current state I am not sure if it is actually helpful, other than showing ad providers some inflated numbers. 4) The text of the tweet itself acts like the headline now, which is even worse than having the headline. Also when you click on the image, it takes you to the page where you see the headline first anyway. So I don't see how removing the headlines helped anything. In my opinion it just made it confusing to differentiate images from links.
- mrtksn 3y agoThe release timing of birdwatch is unimportant, it wasn't available for my region. Great feature anyway and Twitter is better now, I don't really care who takes the credit for it. Anyway, I don't know why one wouldn't click an article in a tweet to see what's all about but fine - maybe doesn't work the same for everyone. AFAIK We don't have other option than sticking to anecdotes and personal experience since no credible study was made on it. I always click on articles if I can't form my opinion from a headline. No, the person posting the article doesn't count because I click the article to check out why this person says this thing.
- agapon 3y agoBoosting some accounts and "deboosting" others. Disappearing likes. Yeah, all cool features, free speech absolutism at its best.