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This comment is based upon n two assumptions: 1) Twitter has imploded, and is on the road to Myspace level relevance 2) that implosion is due to a removal of

This comment is based upon n two assumptions: 1) Twitter has imploded, and is on the road to Myspace level relevance 2) that implosion is due to a removal of moderation I'll try to keep it politically neutral. But this and other Facebook announcements means inexorable collapse is on the medium term horizon, because they mirror what Twitter did These actions could possibly be done with social network circa early to mid 2010s. But since the rise of massive online campaigns of disinformation or propaganda, and then rocket fueled by AI... It means not only will left-wing people run away in droves, but then toxicity explodes and successive waves of moderates and apolitical people get driven away. It's interesting because people seem to have forgotten what the word moderation means. It's keeping out the extremes. In particular, the extremes of emotions. Which then cloud any sort of productive discussion. Without moderation, especially with the organized ai and misinformation and other social Network phenomena, The pure outrage cycle while individually effective for posts, very rapidly makes the overall ecosystem completely intolerable. Because one thing at the political extremes I would argue more strongly on the right but definitely on the left, is intolerance.

pkkkzip 2y ago
by that same logic Bluesky should be overtaking X but it isn't X is growing even bigger and has international reach which Bluesky doesn't
- eapressoandcats 2y ago
  It simply hasn’t been long enough. I wouldn’t necessarily bet that it will, but X has lost net users and Bluesky is gaining them so if trends continue (they might not) Bluesky will overtake X, but Twitter also wasn’t built in a year.
  - pkkkzip 2y ago
    > X has lost net users and Bluesky is gaining them X grew by about 47% last year so im not sure what net loss you are talking about Bluesky gained X users but that rate has now almost certainly slowed down Many who publicly advertised they were quitting X for Bluesky are back on X as they don't get anywhere near the engagement they are used to.
    - n4r9 2y ago
      > X grew by about 47% last year Do you have a source for this? I thought Twitter stopped releasing user stats when Musk took over. One thing we do know is that yearly revenue is plummeting: https://www.demandsage.com/twitter-statistics/ https://www.demandsage.com/twitter-statistics/
lokar 2y ago
I mostly agree. FB is trying to “sell” (the price is data / ads) a product. They have to decide if that will be a “moderate” product or an extreme product. But, I’m not excluding that they have reasonably concluded that a more extreme product will generate more revenue (perhaps from fewer people).
Animats 2y ago
> 1) Twitter has imploded, and is on the road to Myspace level relevance Revenue is down, yes. But when a head of state wants to say something to the world, they put it in a tweet. 189 countries have an official presence on X.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
  Sure, but government bureaucracies are also famously slow to adapt and move on. Is it actually a vote of continued confidence?
  - Animats 2y ago
    Yes, it is. Here's a list of world leaders congratulating Trump on his election. Almost all of them did it on X.[1] Now that's market share. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/list-of-world-leaders-congratulating-donald-trump/ar-AA1tBNYv https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/list-of-world-leaders-c...
    - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
      I think you missed my point. Government policy right now is to use Twitter, yes, but is that because everyone has confidence in it, or because they are simply slow to change? Twitter is quickly losing it's claim to being the digital town square both as users flee it and it becomes more difficult to use. I can't even navigate twitter anymore because I don't have an account. I can see single tweets at best. A new default choice has yet to appear, but what are the odds everyone is going to stick around if Bluesky continues to gain a following? To me it seems like momentum more than anything else. And really, if you were going to publicly congratulate the Tweeter in Chief and wanted to make sure he saw, how would you do it?
      - Animats 2y ago
        > And really, if you were going to publicly congratulate the Tweeter in Chief and wanted to make sure he saw, how would you do it? Good point. The old approach was to broadcast something on your countries' official radio station. The CIA used to have something called the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, with people listening to Radio Albania and such, just in case somebody announced something important.
jandrese 2y ago
We've already run the experiment on what an unmoderated discussion forum looks like once it grows beyond a trivial number of users. It's called 4chan, specifically /b/. Twitter/X is just reinforcing the previous findings as it rapidly shifts into being another version of /b/. The shameless and the trolls push out the sensible people. It quickly devolves into conspiracy theories, grifts, porn, and propaganda.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  4chan is moderated.
  - jandrese 2y ago
    For some of the channels yes, but /b/ mostly stops at "delete the obvious child porn". Even the more moderated channels take a fairly light touch, only mostly removing off topic threads in addition to the blatantly illegal stuff.
mossTechnician 2y ago
It's strange Facebook would follow in the path of Twitter explicitly, because at least on paper Facebook is (and has been) the more profitable of the companies. But I do understand a willingness to abandon "moderation" and allow extremes, because things like extreme emotion could lead to arguments that lead to increased user attention and thus, platform usage.
mempko 2y ago
I created a new account on Twitter to see what new users see and the website is unusable. It's basically 4chan now with Elon Musk and sports. Anyone defending people should try it. See how long you don't see and Elon Musk post or other hateful far right content.
- rendang 2y ago
  I use it every day and my feed is full of intelligent, thoughtful analysis and discussion. Even the edgy humor is much more clever and subtle than what you'd find on Reddit or 4chan
  - smy20011 2y ago
    Do you have an example of such account? Most of the thing I saw is engagement bait.
  - mempko 2y ago
    Read my post again. Try creating a new account and see the content you get.
pessimizer 2y ago
> It means not only will left-wing people run away in droves, but then toxicity explodes and successive waves of moderates and apolitical people get driven away. Left-wing people haven't left twitter. Some extreme Democratic Party partisans, many with histories on twitter too ugly and venomous to possibly clean up, have left twitter. Others have created accounts on Bluesky, but still post twice as often on twitter as they do on Bluesky. Bluesky showed hockey stick active usage growth in the two weeks after Trump's election, peaked on November 20th, and has been steadily dropping ever since. https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats There was a little inauguration bump, but Bluesky should be at its pre-election activity level within a few months unless they do something drastic. The real threat to Twitter is Threads, and only after this announcement. Zuckerberg is promising exactly what Musk promised, but is not as erratic as Musk (who is happy to attack users based on his own personal whims.) If he actually delivers, formally and professionally, a 2015 twitter experience, he'll win.
- TranquilMarmot 2y ago
  I'd be curious to see the same graphs for X / Threads, but I don't think we'll ever get that data.
stockerta 2y ago
Facebook already was a cesspool, now they add the shit into it.
Tiktaalik 2y ago
What is there at this point that is going to stop FB from having the same advertising problems that Twitter has had? You used to have major corporations advertising on Twitter but they bailed out when they realized that their ads were appearing amidst people posting insane bigoted screeds. It would seem like there is now a severe risk of a revenue collapse at Facebook if advertising corporations behave the same way they did with Twitter.
- tim333 2y ago
  I can't see FB becoming like X. If nothing else FB has a real names policy so everyone can see who said what whereas on X you can be anonymous or set up a million bot accounts or whatever.
tim333 2y ago
https://www.statista.com/statistics/303681/twitter-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/303681/twitter-users-wor... shows users down from 368 to 335 million. Down but not really imploded. Musk has approx doubled his net worth from $200bn to $400bn. It's not really Myspace.

pkkkzip 2y ago

by that same logic Bluesky should be overtaking X but it isn't X is growing even bigger and has international reach which Bluesky doesn't

eapressoandcats 2y ago
It simply hasn’t been long enough. I wouldn’t necessarily bet that it will, but X has lost net users and Bluesky is gaining them so if trends continue (they might not) Bluesky will overtake X, but Twitter also wasn’t built in a year.
- pkkkzip 2y ago
  > X has lost net users and Bluesky is gaining them X grew by about 47% last year so im not sure what net loss you are talking about Bluesky gained X users but that rate has now almost certainly slowed down Many who publicly advertised they were quitting X for Bluesky are back on X as they don't get anywhere near the engagement they are used to.
  - n4r9 2y ago
    > X grew by about 47% last year Do you have a source for this? I thought Twitter stopped releasing user stats when Musk took over. One thing we do know is that yearly revenue is plummeting: https://www.demandsage.com/twitter-statistics/ https://www.demandsage.com/twitter-statistics/

lokar 2y ago

I mostly agree. FB is trying to “sell” (the price is data / ads) a product. They have to decide if that will be a “moderate” product or an extreme product. But, I’m not excluding that they have reasonably concluded that a more extreme product will generate more revenue (perhaps from fewer people).

Animats 2y ago

> 1) Twitter has imploded, and is on the road to Myspace level relevance Revenue is down, yes. But when a head of state wants to say something to the world, they put it in a tweet. 189 countries have an official presence on X.

SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
Sure, but government bureaucracies are also famously slow to adapt and move on. Is it actually a vote of continued confidence?
- Animats 2y ago
  Yes, it is. Here's a list of world leaders congratulating Trump on his election. Almost all of them did it on X.[1] Now that's market share. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/list-of-world-leaders-congratulating-donald-trump/ar-AA1tBNYv https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/list-of-world-leaders-c...
  - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
    I think you missed my point. Government policy right now is to use Twitter, yes, but is that because everyone has confidence in it, or because they are simply slow to change? Twitter is quickly losing it's claim to being the digital town square both as users flee it and it becomes more difficult to use. I can't even navigate twitter anymore because I don't have an account. I can see single tweets at best. A new default choice has yet to appear, but what are the odds everyone is going to stick around if Bluesky continues to gain a following? To me it seems like momentum more than anything else. And really, if you were going to publicly congratulate the Tweeter in Chief and wanted to make sure he saw, how would you do it?
    - Animats 2y ago
      > And really, if you were going to publicly congratulate the Tweeter in Chief and wanted to make sure he saw, how would you do it? Good point. The old approach was to broadcast something on your countries' official radio station. The CIA used to have something called the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, with people listening to Radio Albania and such, just in case somebody announced something important.

jandrese 2y ago

We've already run the experiment on what an unmoderated discussion forum looks like once it grows beyond a trivial number of users. It's called 4chan, specifically /b/. Twitter/X is just reinforcing the previous findings as it rapidly shifts into being another version of /b/. The shameless and the trolls push out the sensible people. It quickly devolves into conspiracy theories, grifts, porn, and propaganda.

throwaway48476 2y ago
4chan is moderated.
- jandrese 2y ago
  For some of the channels yes, but /b/ mostly stops at "delete the obvious child porn". Even the more moderated channels take a fairly light touch, only mostly removing off topic threads in addition to the blatantly illegal stuff.

mossTechnician 2y ago

It's strange Facebook would follow in the path of Twitter explicitly, because at least on paper Facebook is (and has been) the more profitable of the companies. But I do understand a willingness to abandon "moderation" and allow extremes, because things like extreme emotion could lead to arguments that lead to increased user attention and thus, platform usage.

mempko 2y ago

I created a new account on Twitter to see what new users see and the website is unusable. It's basically 4chan now with Elon Musk and sports. Anyone defending people should try it. See how long you don't see and Elon Musk post or other hateful far right content.

rendang 2y ago
I use it every day and my feed is full of intelligent, thoughtful analysis and discussion. Even the edgy humor is much more clever and subtle than what you'd find on Reddit or 4chan
- smy20011 2y ago
  Do you have an example of such account? Most of the thing I saw is engagement bait.
- mempko 2y ago
  Read my post again. Try creating a new account and see the content you get.

pessimizer 2y ago

> It means not only will left-wing people run away in droves, but then toxicity explodes and successive waves of moderates and apolitical people get driven away. Left-wing people haven't left twitter. Some extreme Democratic Party partisans, many with histories on twitter too ugly and venomous to possibly clean up, have left twitter. Others have created accounts on Bluesky, but still post twice as often on twitter as they do on Bluesky. Bluesky showed hockey stick active usage growth in the two weeks after Trump's election, peaked on November 20th, and has been steadily dropping ever since. https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats There was a little inauguration bump, but Bluesky should be at its pre-election activity level within a few months unless they do something drastic. The real threat to Twitter is Threads, and only after this announcement. Zuckerberg is promising exactly what Musk promised, but is not as erratic as Musk (who is happy to attack users based on his own personal whims.) If he actually delivers, formally and professionally, a 2015 twitter experience, he'll win.

TranquilMarmot 2y ago
I'd be curious to see the same graphs for X / Threads, but I don't think we'll ever get that data.

stockerta 2y ago

Facebook already was a cesspool, now they add the shit into it.

Tiktaalik 2y ago

What is there at this point that is going to stop FB from having the same advertising problems that Twitter has had? You used to have major corporations advertising on Twitter but they bailed out when they realized that their ads were appearing amidst people posting insane bigoted screeds. It would seem like there is now a severe risk of a revenue collapse at Facebook if advertising corporations behave the same way they did with Twitter.

tim333 2y ago
I can't see FB becoming like X. If nothing else FB has a real names policy so everyone can see who said what whereas on X you can be anonymous or set up a million bot accounts or whatever.

tim333 2y ago

https://www.statista.com/statistics/303681/twitter-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/303681/twitter-users-wor... shows users down from 368 to 335 million. Down but not really imploded. Musk has approx doubled his net worth from $200bn to $400bn. It's not really Myspace.