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Realistically, X is better than its ever been; community notes have been a game-changer in terms of fact-checking. Higher quality and much more balanced.
by anon291 2y ago
Realistically, X is better than its ever been; community notes have been a game-changer in terms of fact-checking. Higher quality and much more balanced.
- timeon 2y agoNor really. It used to work for all people with browser now it is only for logged-in.
- brabel 2y agoThat was already the case before Musk bought it.
- AlexandrB 2y agoWhat? No it wasn't! You used to be able to view entire Twitter threads without being logged in. It was also possible to go to someone's account page and see their posts in reverse chronological order. The latter went away shortly after Musk took over. The former took a little longer, but is now gone as well. In many cases you can't even view a single tweet without the site trying to get you to log in.
- brabel 2y agoI clearly remember it wasn't, they would pop up with a login page as soon as you scrolled down.
- throw-away_42 2y agoMaybe for you, but not for most of the rest of the universe. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/tech/twitter-public-access-restricted/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/tech/twitter-public-access-re...
- 998244353 2y agoI remember it being the case before too. It wasn't unconditional like it is now. For example, I distinctly remember being able to scroll through someone's profile in a normal browser window without being logged in, but in an incognito window, I was immediately told to log in or create an account. They may have had other heuristics too that led to inconsistent behavior between users. So it should not be so surprising if some people report that that happened even though it didn't happen to others.
- saagarjha 2y agoThere was a feature flag for this that rolled out in 2021 or so.
- brabel 2y agoYou forgot this already, I see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33769715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33769715 Selective memory perhaps?
- diffxx 2y agoYes, but you could bypass the login page.
- ailun 2y agoNo, it wasn't.
- vehemenz 2y agoWrong. I don't understand why people attempt to make corrections like this. Anyone could browse Twitter anonymously, since the beginning.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoThere was briefly a log-in nag popup that would appear on scroll. That disappeared and Musk got lots of praise for it, probably entirely unwarrented but it was basically the only thing that improved post-Musk. Then it came back with a vengeance.
- brabel 2y agoMate, you're wrong, as many others have said. Here's proof right here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33769715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33769715 Funny that people also found ways to criticize Musk back then for doing that :D. Do you understand now why we make corrections to patently wrong statements like yours?
- jkaplowitz 2y agoNo, it was much more possible to consume without being logged in than it is now, though sometimes tricks like closing a login popup were needed.
- recursive 2y agoThat must have been a very long time ago.
- AlexandrB 2y ago~October 27, 2022. So yeah, about 2 years ago.
- recursive 2y agoI have to admit, I have a loose understanding of what's going on with twitter or even how to use it. But my personal Mandela effect is that it didn't work right if you weren't logged in for a lot longer than that. I'm probably mis-remembering.
- the_mitsuhiko 2y agoYou used to be able to look at people's profiles, tweets and entire threads without being signed in. If you go to my profile today signed out you see tweets from before 2022. If you click on a tweet signed out, you only see that single tweet without context. Some of those changes are only a few months back.
- pcwalton 2y agoIt's pretty undeniable that the bot problem is significantly worse than it was before Musk. (I'm not going to take a position on the value of any of the other changes to the product.)
- wonderwonder 2y agoIt is interesting that they appear to have solved or at least dramatically reduced the porn spam. Still cant open a post though without seeing 10+ posts about something completely unrelated in the comments
- smsm42 2y agoI'm mostly reading political tweets, and for the last year or so I have never noticed that - the comments can be of very varying quality, as always on an unmoderated forum, but I don't remember too much offtopic. Maybe it depends on who do you follow and who the bots are targeting - except Musk, my follows are usually not celebrities, so maybe bots don't bother targeting them.
- fwip 2y agoI don't recall ever seeing porn spam in my ~8 years of using the site pre-Musk. Probably a few incidents here and there, but nothing notable enough that I remember it happening. If the skeleton crew has finally managed to fix it more than a year after causing it, I guess that counts for something.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoNo, they haven't. I have at least one porn bot start following me every day. In any thread, a porn post can just randomly appear. TBH, the rate at which it's getting worse is increasing.
- littlestymaar 2y agoI don't think porn spam reduced at all, but indeed “engagement spam” has skyrocketed which makes porn spam less visible on popular tweets (but it's still prevalent everywhere else). And there's also much more sex workers than ever before advertising their onlyfan…
- anonymoushn 2y agoThe reply section of posts with any reach has become unusable on purpose, and they're making it even worse. Great!
- jerojero 2y agoEvery day I get 5-10 new followers bot followers. I haven't gotten a real follower in months, I don't use the account that much. Other than that, the fyp shows me a lot of right wing content (and particularly Elon Musk posts) that I ignore, but they do show them. Regularly as I'm scrolling down the page, it'll randomly refresh or insert/disappear posts that I'm viewing. Yeah, the site is functional, but it is not better than its ever been. Not by a mile.
- ascorbic 2y agoCommunity notes predate Musk. They're a lot more common now, but they're needed more than ever too. Meanwhile spam is everywhere (except in the "probable spam" section) and all ads are scams.
- Andrew_nenakhov 2y agoCommunity notes by themselves do not do much if the network administration has severe bias vs one side of political spectrum.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoReaders added context they thought people might like to know: Twitter misinformation about a tragedy started far-right riots in the UK the other day. And Musk commented approvingly that civil war was inevitable.
- rhinoceraptor 2y agoI see much more right wing content boosted by the algorithm now, and the paid checkmarks ensures every tweet's replies have low quality and bot replies filtered to the top. The bot problem is also infinitely worse now, I rarely post anything so I have about two dozen legitimate followers, mostly people I know, and then I have a few hundred obvious bot account followers.
- nemo44x 2y agoI think it's because Twitter doesn't bury and ban moderate and conservative opinions now. It feels like there's more balance today. I'd say in my experience I've seen more of the far left voices I follow move away from the platform (although many moved back) and they're not as powerful not that the Twitter team isn't backing them exclusivly.
- dom96 2y agoCommunity notes sometimes provide useful context I'll grant you that... but often they are just a popularity contest to see which side can upvote which community note.
- typon 2y ago* No ability to browse the site without logging in * Hundreds of spam account followers * Sponsored content inserted in replies masquerading as real content * Random bugs with video content constantly * Twitter blue boosting replies to the top, making conversations effectively pay to win. * Bot account spam comprising ~50% of the replies to any popular tweet Despite the above, Twitter is still the best place on the internet to get the latest news and a feel for the zeitgeist. This to me is a testament of the incredible product created by Jack.
- slashdave 2y agoBalanced? Only if you like mob rule. Which maybe is the point.
- Cody-99 2y agoWhat are you talking about? Open any twitter link and there is a pretty good chance it just doesn't work lol. And even if it does work hopefully it isn't a thread because you won't see any of the parent comments or replies.