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Goodbye, Twitter

sneak.berlin

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Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#11

Post by sneak »

speakberlin wrote: post #9

This author's posts are always ridiculously sensationalized and usually lean on a bunch of misrepresentations to try to make everything sound more dramatic. For this one, he took the time to write a hyperbolic 2500-word rant using both high-minded language and profanity to compare the topic to human rights violations and abusive relationships, but couldn't find the time to remove the TWO Twitter accounts linked in th…

I just deleted it yesterday, and I'm updating the sidebar now (and also switching from Jekyll to Hugo in the process, which is why it's taking a little while). (I also need to update the index page, and probably some others. Will grep.)

As for sensationalized: https://sneak.berlin/20201029/traffic/

I'm sorry you didn't like it. I wrote about it because it was a big deal for me, having been a daily user of the site for a huge chunk of my adult life on the internet.

Twitter was one of those things that started out somewhat hackerly and interesting, welcoming bots and API users and third party clients, and is now a horse of a different color entirely. I thought that warranted a post, because it made me sad to see something really cool and fun become a victim of its own scale and popularity.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#12

Post by ATsch »

spinach wrote: post #7

I only really became aware of how bad Twitter's censorship was when I became 'gender critical', as in, I believe in biological reality and don't think that male-bodied people should be in women's prisons, rape shelters, women's sports, with young girls in changing rooms, etc. Then I saw how Twitter (and other social media sites) blocked and banned women (and to a lesser extent, men) from talking about it. It has been…

This is a great endorsement of Twitter, but unfortunately they are much more tolerant towards hate mobs than this post would imply.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#13

Post by novok »

xwdv wrote: post #5

Did you know some people that write these big dramatic goodbye posts to a social network sometimes never even used that network in the first place? They’re just farming for clicks and clout. It’s easy to get away with because a deleted account is indistinguishable from one that never existed in the first place. Always be skeptical.

This one has been using twitter seriously for over a decade. You can even see their past history from some tweet archive service if you do some research.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#14

Post by trav4225 »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #6

I always considered Twitter's standard of holding even private conversations in public and always publicly disclosing your follower/following graph extremely dangerous for privacy, and I wouldn't be surprised if the "public-by-default" also contributed to the toxic "Twitter mob" culture because when every communication is public, everyone on the platform is much more encouraged to virtue signal (or attack those who s…

Yeah, what is the deal with that, anyway? Twitter is constantly giving me the "something went wrong" message or telling me that I'm being rate-limited even though I only hit the site about 10 times a week.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#15

Post by rukuu001 »

Twitter (and every other social media platform) is

- Always under pressure to increase engagement to improve returns

- A marketing and lead generation opportunity for businesses

- A place to share useful information

- A place to share harmful information

- Creates opportunities for harm in the real world (bullying, misinfo from hacked accounts/state leaders using dumb passwords)

- A source of support/power for community and political organisations

And plenty more. This matches the definition of a wicked problem.

The worst part? If you leave, the problem is still there. There's no solution to this problem other than turning all social media off and banning all new social media.

(edit for formatting)

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#16

Post by whoisjuan »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #6

I always considered Twitter's standard of holding even private conversations in public and always publicly disclosing your follower/following graph extremely dangerous for privacy, and I wouldn't be surprised if the "public-by-default" also contributed to the toxic "Twitter mob" culture because when every communication is public, everyone on the platform is much more encouraged to virtue signal (or attack those who s…

Is there anyone using Twitter with some expectation of having private conversations? I mean even the name of the service indicates the total opposite.

I doubt Twitter would even exist without its current nature. 40% of Twitter users are lurkers and according to Twitter they have 500 million dormant users (people that visit Twitter without signing in).

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#17

Post by vitiral »

That was entertaining and somewhat informative, for someone who hasn't used social media outside of hacker news for a few years. However, if you are being honest with your feelings I'm concerned at your level of anger. Try to keep in mind: you have very little control over these things, being emotionally attached is therefore not useful. Check out Stoicism or Buddhism for inspiration. Accepting this will likely improve your ability to enact change, as well as improve your own well-being considerably.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#18

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

whoisjuan wrote: post #16
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #6

I always considered Twitter's standard of holding even private conversations in public and always publicly disclosing your follower/following graph extremely dangerous for privacy, and I wouldn't be surprised if the "public-by-default" also contributed to the toxic "Twitter mob" culture because when every communication is public, everyone on the platform is much more encouraged to virtue signal (or attack those who s…

Is there anyone using Twitter with some expectation of having private conversations? I mean even the name of the service indicates the total opposite. I doubt Twitter would even exist without its current nature. 40% of Twitter users are lurkers and according to Twitter they have 500 million dormant users (people that visit Twitter without signing in).

The problem is, sometimes you don't have a choice because the people you need to talk to are only reachable through Twitter.

I once bought tickets for a sold-out conference that way (at face value, not a scalper, just someone who had a ticket and couldn't go). I had to wire the money and would only learn at the entrance to the conference whether I got scammed or not. A quick scroll down the Twitter timeline of that person convinced me that I can most likely trust them, while at the same time clearly showing how much of a privacy disaster Twitter is.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#19

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

trav4225 wrote: post #14
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #6

I always considered Twitter's standard of holding even private conversations in public and always publicly disclosing your follower/following graph extremely dangerous for privacy, and I wouldn't be surprised if the "public-by-default" also contributed to the toxic "Twitter mob" culture because when every communication is public, everyone on the platform is much more encouraged to virtue signal (or attack those who s…

Yeah, what is the deal with that, anyway? Twitter is constantly giving me the "something went wrong" message or telling me that I'm being rate-limited even though I only hit the site about 10 times a week.

My guess is their bot/scraper detection not liking anything that's not a 100% standard, extension-free browser.

Although I've heard that even people without privacy extensions are getting hit by it, so it may just be a super aggressive bot detection that's randomly hitting everyone or some other bug that Twitter doesn't care because it presumably a) doesn't affect logged in users b) non-logged-in users who go there really want/need to see something (e.g. whether the US president is about to deport them) so they will put up with it and reload.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#20

Post by sneak »

sebastien_b wrote: post #10

I read about half way through. Some valid arguments, and some not so valid (some clear misunderstanding of S.230), but it’s all worded such that it sounds like it’s coming from a right-wing nut with a chip on his shoulder (which brings the validity of the arguments several notches down).

Out of curiosity, what part of the post suggested to you "right-wing nut"? My email address is in my profile.
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