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Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

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Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

#281

Post by [deleted] »

elondaits wrote: post #274
mcv wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > virtue signaling > I despise this term. You don't know people's motivations. These may be genuinely important issues that they are using their audience and reach to magnify and promote. Accusations of virtue signalling get misused a lot, especially by people opposed to those important issues. But it's absolutely a real thing. I think the most notable form of virtue signalling is public prayer on TV by politicians…

It’s impossible to know people’s intentions, because we even can’t really explain 100% the things we do ourselves. So, it’s a bad starter for an argument… It’s better to judge people for their actions, rather, because even if someone does something involuntarily they should be responsible for it.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

#282

Post by notacoward »

Probably some ActivityPub-based megasite, federated with smaller (even self hosted) sites everywhere. Mastodon seems to be on the right track here. Personally, I think an updated version of good old NNTP - the protocol underlying Usenet when it was at its largest - would be far better than ActivityPub as it exists, but there seems to be little developer/hoster appetite for that.

Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

#283

Post by wccrawford »

Aldipower wrote: post #270
mcv wrote: post #171

Isn't Mastodon pretty much a drop-in replacement for Twitter? And it has the advantage of being distributed and it supports Fediverse cross-platform sharing (with Friendica, GnuSocial, etc). I'm on Friendica so I can follow people on both Mastodon and Diaspora (which would be the drop-in replacement for Facebook). Still, I think we need something better. I'd like to see a social network with all of that, and support…

To be successful in Germany, Mastodon needs to change his name first. It just sounds disgusting to my ears. Similar like the German word "Mastdarm". SCNR

As an American, "Mastodon" brings to mind an image of huge, lumbering animal with no a lot of brain power. It just trudges along, mindlessly.

That is not a great mental image for your product unless you're selling a bulldozer.

Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

#284

Post by heresie-dabord »

remarkEon wrote: post #138

The vast majority of commenters here fundamentally misunderstand what Twitter is, or rather what it has become. It's not a "social network" anymore. I mean, it is in the technical sense - you and I can both sign up for an account. But what it is today is an elite coordination mechanism, and Twitter became this because it was the first of it's kind and some sort of momentum or technological inertia put us where we're…

> What is Twitter?

    * a purveyor of short announcements ("news-breaking tweets from politicians and celebrities") and shared content. [1]

    * a purveyor of advertising. "Twitter's revenues are mainly derived from advertising rather than its user base." [0] "Advertising services generated $4.5 billion, or about 89%, of Twitter's revenue in FY 2021. [...] Twitter generates most of its advertising revenue by selling promoted products, including Promoted Ads and Twitter Amplify, Follower Ads, and Twitter Takeover, to advertisers. [1]

    * a speculative investment whose investors want to maximise profit. "Listed on the New York Stock Exchange for just under nine years, Twitter has posted a net loss every year, except 2018 and 2019 when it made a profit of just over $1 billion." [0]

    * according to Musk, the product could be a "public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive [...] extremely important to the future of civilization." [0]
[0] https://www.barrons.com/news/can-twitter-become-more-profita...

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/120114/how-does-twi...

Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

#285

Post by manfre »

Tozen wrote: post #47
tayo42 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The content you see Instagram is up to you. I don't get any of that. Clean up what you follow! Lol

Maybe soft porn is a bit of a reach or possibly not the best way to describe it, but it does seem people come for the visuals, not the text. Instagram comes off as much more sexualized (even if indirectly) and female oriented.

> it does seem people come for the visuals

It's an image/video sharing site...

Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

#286

Post by verisimi »

blitzar wrote: post #163
verisimi wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confused. Expressing your opinion, even on twitter, is an act of (written, typed) speech. Preventing someone from expressing themselves, when they have done no wrong, is an action.

An act of speech is an action. Preventing someone from expressing themselves is an action.

To clarify, I mean an action against another person.

This is as per the golden rule, do no harm. If you speak, you are doing no harm. If you prevent someone speaking, you are.

Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

#287

Post by mariusor »

jaxn wrote: post #269
mariusor wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that people don't remember how silly twitter, twitting, twit were considered by serious people when the service launched back at the end of the naughties.

But it had a cute bird. And the fail whale. It was approachable and silly. People didn’t take it seriously, but they weren’t intimidated by it. Don’t underestimate the benefit of being underestimated.

That's exactly what Mastodon has: a cute mascot - the mastodon, a silly verb: tooting, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

#288

Post by worldsayshi »

borbulon wrote: post #233
worldsayshi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to have the social networking site handle the privacy information. You could integrate eId as identity providers and for a site like Twitter only provide guarantee that this is a human and this identity is unique for this human on this service. You wouldn't be anonymous but you could be anonymous towards everyone but the identity providers.

That’s not completely true; you would be anonymous towards everyone but the identity providers and any government or organization powerful enough to wield influence over the identity providers. Which completely defeats the most important reason people choose to remain anonymous.

Ah, yeah I implicitly meant that the identity providers basically have to be government owned so yes.

I don't really see a way around this if the aim is to prove human-ness though.

Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

#289

Post by blitzar »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #192
blitzar wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wtf is an "elite" anyway? The richest people in the world ... but not the ones that agree with me? The politicians ... but not the ones on my side? The athletes ... except for my team?

In the context talked about in the OP, an elite are a group of people that have a larger/an ousized amount of power in a specific social context. So yes, business leaders, high-ranking politicians and very wealthy people are generally part of the elite in our society. Note that a 'social context' can be society at large, but also much smaller, the board of a HOA can form an elite in a small town for example. That soc…

So Elon Musk is an "Elite".

The President of the US / any country on earth is an "Elite". Despite many claiming to fight against the Elites.

> Trump famously was never really a part of the NYC wealthy elite

However, he clearly was part of the NYC wealthy elite. His towers would get planning permission, politicians lobbied on his behalf, he was in Whos Who, he was invited to the Met Gala every year.

Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?

#290

Post by pyinstallwoes »

remarkEon wrote: post #138

The vast majority of commenters here fundamentally misunderstand what Twitter is, or rather what it has become. It's not a "social network" anymore. I mean, it is in the technical sense - you and I can both sign up for an account. But what it is today is an elite coordination mechanism, and Twitter became this because it was the first of it's kind and some sort of momentum or technological inertia put us where we're…

Twitter is the most valuable database in the world because it mimics human conversation better than any other tech company. This is priceless for training AI with the goal of AGI. Once you extrapolate that, it makes more sense. It’s literally the hive.

We probably are simulated from the Twitter in the Other universe.

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