5 ms·

Say what you will about Elon, if he ends up driving Twitter into the ground, he'll arguably have done a public service.

macspoofing 3y ago
>Say what you will about Elon, if he ends up driving Twitter into the ground, he'll arguably have done a public service. I don't know ... Twitter as a news aggregator was (could have been) a public good. I think it was probably the least bad out of the group of: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat
- Miraste 3y ago
  Twitter is the only one that became embedded in corridors of power around the world. Even if it has less misinformation and ragebait than the others (which I doubt), it does more damage because of the people engaging with it.
  - macspoofing 3y ago
    >Twitter is the only one that became embedded in corridors of power around the world. Even if it has less misinformation and ragebait than the others (which I doubt), it does more damage because of the people engaging with it. Can you elaborate? Isn't that a good thing to have those in the corridors of power directly communicating with the global public? I'm not a big fan of the Ayatollah of Iran, or Putin, but I want to know their perspective on current events, even if that perspective is 'regebait' and full of 'misinformation' ... and we had that, for a little bit of time, and we're losing that. What is the alternative? That news is filtered through some cabal of the 'chosen ones'?
    - bunderbunder 3y ago
      You know how we often talk about how publicly-traded companies' executives seem to have a tendency to make incredibly short-sighted decisions whose only clear motive is the immediate-term impact on stock price? It's like that but for politics.
- bunderbunder 3y ago
  I guess? I always felt like Twitter (or any social media, really) as a news aggregator was a classic example of quantity over quality. Once upon a time, we'd wait a day for journalists to make sense of what was happening, and they would boil it down to a series of pyramid-structured article that you could read as far into as you want depending on how much detail you cared to know. And then you could skim through that over breakfast or during your coffee breaks and be, for all practical purposes, just as informed with less effort. But this new iteration of the attention economy demands frequent shallow engagement, and in order to serve it journalists are now asked to basically just straightpipe information into articles in a race to be the first to trend on Twitter or Facebook or wherever. And if you frame it that way then I think that Twitter might actually be the worst of the lot because it created the greatest sense of haste.
  - macspoofing 3y ago
    >and in order to serve it journalists are now asked to basically just straightpipe information into articles in a race to be the first to trend on Twitter or Facebook or wherever. That isn't going away. If Twitter goes bankrupt, something else will play that role. And this trend has been happening for generations. Books/Scrolls -> Newspapers -> Newspapers + Telegraph ('wire services') -> Radio / TV / Cable 24/7 news -> Internet ... If some technology provides a faster way to share information and news then people will make use of it.
- psunavy03 3y ago
  A news aggregator potentially could have been a public good. But it's impossible to have adult discussions about the nuanced, difficult topics of the day in 140/280 character sound bites. This caused the loudest, most obnoxious, immature, and simplistic takes to rise to the top. Like a drunken argument at a house party between undergrads, Twitter promoted discourse that was literally sophomoric, and it was a direct cause of the toxic culture war environment in the US today.
r0ckarong 3y ago
I still believe that this was the intention all along and doing it in such a way that it would be blamed on incompetence and not hostility. If he had announced he was going to buy the platform to shut it, there would've been much more of a backlash. Now it just gets diluted more and more until it dies naturally and the effect on free speech will be the same. It's not his money so he can play the long game.
pelagicAustral 3y ago
Well, I think the problem is that I personally see Twitter/X as a contention board. Similar to what /b/ or /pol/ effect on the rest of 4chan. Without these boards, the already saturated environment becomes exponentially worse for everyone else.
doodpants 3y ago
Plus, driving Twitter into the ground is better than driving it into pedestrians.
ryandvm 3y ago
Indeed. For his own sake, he ought to start spinning the narrative that this was all just 12-dimensional chess to rid humanity of the dopamine dirty bomb that Twitter has always been. If there's anything the last decade has taught us it's that people will believe anything (they want) if you just give them the flimsiest of excuses. His devotees would totally eat it up if he started telling us all that he bought Twitter and intentionally scuttled it as a service to us... Earthlings.
drivingmenuts 3y ago
I didn’t hate Twitter before, but I didn’t care much for or about it, either. But I seriously dislike Elon Musk and Twitter catches the overflow of my dislike. So it goes.
HumblyTossed 3y ago
It's not all or nothing. If you curate your feed, twitter can be a good service.

>Say what you will about Elon, if he ends up driving Twitter into the ground, he'll arguably have done a public service. I don't know ... Twitter as a news aggregator was (could have been) a public good. I think it was probably the least bad out of the group of: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat

Miraste 3y ago
Twitter is the only one that became embedded in corridors of power around the world. Even if it has less misinformation and ragebait than the others (which I doubt), it does more damage because of the people engaging with it.
- macspoofing 3y ago
  >Twitter is the only one that became embedded in corridors of power around the world. Even if it has less misinformation and ragebait than the others (which I doubt), it does more damage because of the people engaging with it. Can you elaborate? Isn't that a good thing to have those in the corridors of power directly communicating with the global public? I'm not a big fan of the Ayatollah of Iran, or Putin, but I want to know their perspective on current events, even if that perspective is 'regebait' and full of 'misinformation' ... and we had that, for a little bit of time, and we're losing that. What is the alternative? That news is filtered through some cabal of the 'chosen ones'?
  - bunderbunder 3y ago
    You know how we often talk about how publicly-traded companies' executives seem to have a tendency to make incredibly short-sighted decisions whose only clear motive is the immediate-term impact on stock price? It's like that but for politics.
bunderbunder 3y ago
I guess? I always felt like Twitter (or any social media, really) as a news aggregator was a classic example of quantity over quality. Once upon a time, we'd wait a day for journalists to make sense of what was happening, and they would boil it down to a series of pyramid-structured article that you could read as far into as you want depending on how much detail you cared to know. And then you could skim through that over breakfast or during your coffee breaks and be, for all practical purposes, just as informed with less effort. But this new iteration of the attention economy demands frequent shallow engagement, and in order to serve it journalists are now asked to basically just straightpipe information into articles in a race to be the first to trend on Twitter or Facebook or wherever. And if you frame it that way then I think that Twitter might actually be the worst of the lot because it created the greatest sense of haste.
- macspoofing 3y ago
  >and in order to serve it journalists are now asked to basically just straightpipe information into articles in a race to be the first to trend on Twitter or Facebook or wherever. That isn't going away. If Twitter goes bankrupt, something else will play that role. And this trend has been happening for generations. Books/Scrolls -> Newspapers -> Newspapers + Telegraph ('wire services') -> Radio / TV / Cable 24/7 news -> Internet ... If some technology provides a faster way to share information and news then people will make use of it.
psunavy03 3y ago
A news aggregator potentially could have been a public good. But it's impossible to have adult discussions about the nuanced, difficult topics of the day in 140/280 character sound bites. This caused the loudest, most obnoxious, immature, and simplistic takes to rise to the top. Like a drunken argument at a house party between undergrads, Twitter promoted discourse that was literally sophomoric, and it was a direct cause of the toxic culture war environment in the US today.

r0ckarong 3y ago

I still believe that this was the intention all along and doing it in such a way that it would be blamed on incompetence and not hostility. If he had announced he was going to buy the platform to shut it, there would've been much more of a backlash. Now it just gets diluted more and more until it dies naturally and the effect on free speech will be the same. It's not his money so he can play the long game.

pelagicAustral 3y ago

Well, I think the problem is that I personally see Twitter/X as a contention board. Similar to what /b/ or /pol/ effect on the rest of 4chan. Without these boards, the already saturated environment becomes exponentially worse for everyone else.

doodpants 3y ago

Plus, driving Twitter into the ground is better than driving it into pedestrians.

ryandvm 3y ago

Indeed. For his own sake, he ought to start spinning the narrative that this was all just 12-dimensional chess to rid humanity of the dopamine dirty bomb that Twitter has always been. If there's anything the last decade has taught us it's that people will believe anything (they want) if you just give them the flimsiest of excuses. His devotees would totally eat it up if he started telling us all that he bought Twitter and intentionally scuttled it as a service to us... Earthlings.

drivingmenuts 3y ago

I didn’t hate Twitter before, but I didn’t care much for or about it, either. But I seriously dislike Elon Musk and Twitter catches the overflow of my dislike. So it goes.

HumblyTossed 3y ago

It's not all or nothing. If you curate your feed, twitter can be a good service.