4 ms·

What we lost? Who is this we?

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
heh, I came in here to say "we lost nothing". people who were addicted to twitter are now addicted to X, people who weren't don't really care.
mikecoles 3y ago
Bitter, former Twitter employees.
the_snooze 3y ago
It's easy to crap on Twitter, but I found it very useful as a one-stop shop for hyperlocal news and keeping up with the latest work from researchers in my field. Very niche things that managed to coalesce in one place. It's not just Twitter mobs and stupid online fights. X still has all the stupidity but none of the niche value I found in Twitter. Thanks Elon.
- Podgajski 3y ago
  I’m on Twitter and I have not seen any of my news sources or research sources being diminished after must took over. And the fact that I can actually talk about zinc as being an immuno stimulant now without it being shadow banned is refreshing.
- scottyah 3y ago
  I'm pretty bummed a lot of people left because of their hate for Elon (or support of their friends who hate Elon). What I'm still looking for is what exactly he did that drove the people away? Was it just the layoffs and his personality? The site seems to be operating mostly the same.
  - jfengel 3y ago
    There are substantial differences in the way the site works. It no longer privileges genuine celebrities; the "blue check" is for sale cheap. And it's heavily used by people with deeply unpleasant opinions, which tend to be more heavily promoted. The network effects of communication mean that your entire experience becomes more filled with that unpleasantness. People left because Twitter was no longer enjoyable to them. The changes shifted the equilibrium that made the community work, and they left. Some of that was just exemplified by Musk himself, who is a deliberately abrasive person, and made changes that amplified other abrasive people. He made a big deal about the right to speak, and so he has it. But he seems to have missed that other people have the right to not listen, and people's fear of losing that right drove them off the platform even before their feeds degraded.
    - Podgajski 3y ago
      > And it's heavily used by people with deeply unpleasant opinions, which tend to be more heavily promoted There’s absolutely zero evidence for this. It shipped to the community all right it shifted it from being biased to being more open. I know people don’t like that, but I would prefer an open conversation rather than one dominated by a particular bubble. There is no right not to listen that exist anywhere. But there is a right to free speech. You can still block people on Twitter all you want are you can even not go onto Twitter. But if you want to be in the public Square and you’re an advocate for free speech, then you can’t tell other people to shut up because it’s invading on your “right to listen“. That has to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard and you’re probably one of the people who left Twitter.
  - Podgajski 3y ago
    In my opinion, it was all organized propaganda. There were people who had very tight control over the narrative on Twitter, because it was not as open to speech as it is now. I discovered the word “zinc“ was being shadow banned during Covid. To me as an amateur researcher that was totally frustrating. But for people who were susceptible to the propaganda anything but the vaccine was a conspiracy theorist. It was really dominated by left-wing, and by left wing I mean people aligned with the Democrats. Those are most of the people who are upset.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    > What I'm still looking for is what exactly he did that drove the people away? I have a personal policy to try to support horrible people as little as possible. Elon is a horrible person[1] and having a Twitter account means supporting him financially and through his power over the platform. Deleting my Twitter account was not a big hardship for me, so that's what I did. [1] e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38882249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38882249 plus his support for anti-trans policies & politicians.
    - Podgajski 3y ago
      I’m wondering what big-ish tech company you work for that is run is not a horrible person… And just because you let people who have anti-transsexual ideologies speak, does not mean you support them.
  - the_snooze 3y ago
    There's a Simpsons episode where Rev. Lovejoy's congregation leaves to follow Marge Simpson. Lovejoy says, "I'm a shepherd without a flock. What have I done to lose them?" Then he has a vision of a saint who responds, "The real question is, what have you done to keep them?" Musk simply hasn't been a good steward of the site. Twitter had many legitimate problems when he acquired it, but it also had many healthy communities and subcultures in it as well. I used it to follow my local government who would post updates on road and bike trail closures. My research community would use it to live-tweet conference presentations and discussions. But the reckless and capricious changes Musk brought about (e.g., blue checks for sale, amplifying random "verified" accounts over non-verified accounts users have opted in to follow) showed that his priorities aren't aligned with those "boring" uses, so eventually my local government stopped using Twitter and my research community did the same. I still follow them on X, but I rarely ever see content from them on my feed.
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    He spoke out against the narrative, you do not need to search any further than that. He took what was a reliable narrative amplifier and turned it into a channel where not just who followed the herd could bleat - I mean tweet - out their 180 characters but also those who disagreed without immediately being reach-limited, greylisted, shadowbanned or outright banned. Nearly all other 'big tech' companies are narrative followers and Twitter was one of them. Now they are no longer and with that they are bad.

heh, I came in here to say "we lost nothing". people who were addicted to twitter are now addicted to X, people who weren't don't really care.

mikecoles 3y ago

Bitter, former Twitter employees.

the_snooze 3y ago

It's easy to crap on Twitter, but I found it very useful as a one-stop shop for hyperlocal news and keeping up with the latest work from researchers in my field. Very niche things that managed to coalesce in one place. It's not just Twitter mobs and stupid online fights. X still has all the stupidity but none of the niche value I found in Twitter. Thanks Elon.

Podgajski 3y ago
I’m on Twitter and I have not seen any of my news sources or research sources being diminished after must took over. And the fact that I can actually talk about zinc as being an immuno stimulant now without it being shadow banned is refreshing.
scottyah 3y ago
I'm pretty bummed a lot of people left because of their hate for Elon (or support of their friends who hate Elon). What I'm still looking for is what exactly he did that drove the people away? Was it just the layoffs and his personality? The site seems to be operating mostly the same.
- jfengel 3y ago
  There are substantial differences in the way the site works. It no longer privileges genuine celebrities; the "blue check" is for sale cheap. And it's heavily used by people with deeply unpleasant opinions, which tend to be more heavily promoted. The network effects of communication mean that your entire experience becomes more filled with that unpleasantness. People left because Twitter was no longer enjoyable to them. The changes shifted the equilibrium that made the community work, and they left. Some of that was just exemplified by Musk himself, who is a deliberately abrasive person, and made changes that amplified other abrasive people. He made a big deal about the right to speak, and so he has it. But he seems to have missed that other people have the right to not listen, and people's fear of losing that right drove them off the platform even before their feeds degraded.
  - Podgajski 3y ago
    > And it's heavily used by people with deeply unpleasant opinions, which tend to be more heavily promoted There’s absolutely zero evidence for this. It shipped to the community all right it shifted it from being biased to being more open. I know people don’t like that, but I would prefer an open conversation rather than one dominated by a particular bubble. There is no right not to listen that exist anywhere. But there is a right to free speech. You can still block people on Twitter all you want are you can even not go onto Twitter. But if you want to be in the public Square and you’re an advocate for free speech, then you can’t tell other people to shut up because it’s invading on your “right to listen“. That has to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard and you’re probably one of the people who left Twitter.
- Podgajski 3y ago
  In my opinion, it was all organized propaganda. There were people who had very tight control over the narrative on Twitter, because it was not as open to speech as it is now. I discovered the word “zinc“ was being shadow banned during Covid. To me as an amateur researcher that was totally frustrating. But for people who were susceptible to the propaganda anything but the vaccine was a conspiracy theorist. It was really dominated by left-wing, and by left wing I mean people aligned with the Democrats. Those are most of the people who are upset.
- coldpie 3y ago
  > What I'm still looking for is what exactly he did that drove the people away? I have a personal policy to try to support horrible people as little as possible. Elon is a horrible person[1] and having a Twitter account means supporting him financially and through his power over the platform. Deleting my Twitter account was not a big hardship for me, so that's what I did. [1] e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38882249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38882249 plus his support for anti-trans policies & politicians.
  - Podgajski 3y ago
    I’m wondering what big-ish tech company you work for that is run is not a horrible person… And just because you let people who have anti-transsexual ideologies speak, does not mean you support them.
- the_snooze 3y ago
  There's a Simpsons episode where Rev. Lovejoy's congregation leaves to follow Marge Simpson. Lovejoy says, "I'm a shepherd without a flock. What have I done to lose them?" Then he has a vision of a saint who responds, "The real question is, what have you done to keep them?" Musk simply hasn't been a good steward of the site. Twitter had many legitimate problems when he acquired it, but it also had many healthy communities and subcultures in it as well. I used it to follow my local government who would post updates on road and bike trail closures. My research community would use it to live-tweet conference presentations and discussions. But the reckless and capricious changes Musk brought about (e.g., blue checks for sale, amplifying random "verified" accounts over non-verified accounts users have opted in to follow) showed that his priorities aren't aligned with those "boring" uses, so eventually my local government stopped using Twitter and my research community did the same. I still follow them on X, but I rarely ever see content from them on my feed.
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  He spoke out against the narrative, you do not need to search any further than that. He took what was a reliable narrative amplifier and turned it into a channel where not just who followed the herd could bleat - I mean tweet - out their 180 characters but also those who disagreed without immediately being reach-limited, greylisted, shadowbanned or outright banned. Nearly all other 'big tech' companies are narrative followers and Twitter was one of them. Now they are no longer and with that they are bad.