Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Quitting Twitter

blog.nindalf.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 292 posts

Re: Quitting Twitter

#211

Post by tilolebo »

WorldMaker wrote: post #188
chaosharmonic wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Removing everyone else doesn’t take as much work as I expected, as long as you’re not hesitant to unfollow (or even block) those who distract from your desired timeline. It's also not even necessarily them . Twitter is enthusiastic in assuming that, because you're engaging with one person, you must also be interested in what they're engaging with. My efforts to have reasoned debate with one person in my life who wa…

Yeah, I think the rise of "follow-of-a-follow" "engagement" content and promoted tweets were where I heavily started to lose any impression at all that I could control/curate my Twitter timeline, and started to lose a lot of interest in Twitter altogether. (Algorithmic reshuffling of the "timeline" into something that wasn't purely time-based didn't help either, but seemed a modest symptom to the other two problems.)

Twitter lists are a good way to regain control of your timeline.

Create lists and unfollow everyone. This way you only get the content you want.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#212

Post by skybrian »

chaosharmonic wrote: post #172
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #71

My approach to Twitter has been to aggressively unfollow anyone posting content that I don’t want to be consuming. That ranges from constantly dunking on every opportunity to people who simply tweet too many times per day. The best content and discussion comes from small groups of people with similar interests who aren’t using Twitter simply to fill time or to build their personal brand. Removing everyone else doesn’…

> Removing everyone else doesn’t take as much work as I expected, as long as you’re not hesitant to unfollow (or even block) those who distract from your desired timeline. It's also not even necessarily them . Twitter is enthusiastic in assuming that, because you're engaging with one person, you must also be interested in what they're engaging with. My efforts to have reasoned debate with one person in my life who wa…

Maybe try realtwitter.com, which is a redirect to a useful search that only includes posts from people you follow.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#213

Post by ywei3410 »

gonehome wrote: post #94
randomsearch wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I found with blocking and muting people is that twitter continues to show tweets from people I don’t follow - entirely in the hope of engaging me of course, which most of the time means trying to pull me into an argument.

Sometimes it introduces you to new people though that are interesting to follow (usually because people in your network liked their post or something). I find this generally valuable. If you want to be extreme about it, you can put everyone in lists and then this won't happen. You can also use a third party client that doesn't do this. My main Twitter complaint is the ads. There are so many and they suck. I'd much ra…

That's quite surprising; I've found the ads to be fairly unobtrusive compared to almost any other website. I would prefer there to be a text only mode though - every so often, the ad repaint will cause the UI to "jump".

Re: Quitting Twitter

#214

Post by chc »

chrisco255 wrote: post #132
chc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems exactly equivalent to following those people and not posting, but more work. How is this better?

It's not. I don't have to rely on Twitter's algo to pump irrelevant crap, replies, etc. I don't have to scroll an infinite feed. I just check the influencers that I care about, to get whatever they posted that day. I don't need to see all the noise. It takes me 15-20 minutes a day to catch up and then I move on.

You don't have to do that anyway. Just set your feed to "latest" and there's no algorithm besides "when did this appear on the timeline of someone you follow?"

Re: Quitting Twitter

#215

Post by chc »

randomsearch wrote: post #123
chc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems exactly equivalent to following those people and not posting, but more work. How is this better?

Because twitter will constantly try to show you content you don’t want in order to engage/enrage you.

Only if you tell it to. You can choose an algorithmic feed or a chronological feed. I don't know why anybody would choose the algorithmic feed, because you're right that it sucks, but there's also no pressure to do so.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#216

Post by Baeocystin »

bhaak wrote: post #149
Baeocystin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This SMBC was written in 2013, and I still think it's the most accurate simplified explanation of how social media on the internet tends to work I've come across: https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2939 I don't have a solution. But it's a real problem.

Aren't we now seeing a reaction to this with the cancel culture? Getting rid of the assholes as vehemently as possible? Even though cancel culture is probably overreacting, I'm not sure if there is another way than to get rid of the toxic loud minority. I'm a mod in a subreddit that has a very toxic circle jerk sister subreddit. Like "jokes about the recently died father of one of the persons the main subreddit is ab…

The problem with mass banning on a large scale driven by whoever is loudest is that it very, very quickly devolves into witch hunts. Nobody wins.

I used to run my own BBS back in the dialup days. Even then, the problems would be recognisable to a modern forum mod.

The only workable solutions I've found are that the more focused a board on a select number of topics, the easier it is to effectively moderate in a humane manner, and that it is impossible to rules-lawyer your way to success. In the end, you have to spend significant brain-time evaluating behavior on a case-by-base basis, and be willing to ban, listen, and revise in equal measures. It's hard work, and generally unappreciated.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#217

Post by rubyist5eva »

liminal wrote: post #180
garmaine wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to be outraged?

There's a lot of stuff I want to know about that I don't know where else to find out about it, and much of this is outraging. For example, a lot of my Twitter feed is people pointing out how the Canadian media misrepresents events with a pro-conservative bias. Perhaps ignorance would be bliss, but I opt for a daily dose of poison to keep my tolerance up.

Have you ever thought that you think your perception of Canadian media is that way because Twitter is full of outraged leftists who think everything right of Marx is "far right propoganda"? Because as a Canadian that stays off of twitter because I find it toxic and not useful, I have to say when you wrote that Canadian media is pro-conservative I kinda laughed out loud a little.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#218

Post by allenu »

I stopped using Twitter last summer and have had similar feelings as the author here.

It definitely warps your view of the world because it's biased towards certain types of posts. It's terrible for any nuanced discussion.

For me, I just got sick of people getting upset over everything and feeling they had to retweet or share everything that was upsetting. I get it that the world is an awful place, but it's draining to just keep seeing negative post after negative post. Even not engaging in the hot topic of the day can make you seem out of touch. And yes, you can choose not to care to engage in those things, but you get addicted to the engagement of twitter, trying to get more followers, more comments, more retweets, more likes, and on and on.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#219

Post by rayxi271828 »

For the first few days of unfollowing everyone and putting them into my private lists, I'd wondered why the use of lists wasn't much more widespread.

After about a week, I realized something else: with lists only, Twitter is a lot less addictive. The contents are still interesting and useful, but the rage-building contents ("That's outrageous! I have to find out more!") that I'd get from the "normal" Twitter flow are gone.

I ended up checking Twitter multiple times a day to once every few days. I think I'm better off now, but I can't help but feel something is missing--and I do realize it's probably withdrawal symptoms.

I understand why lists aren't more widespread: it's way worse at feeding your outrage addiction.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#220

Post by iujjkfjdkkdkf »

dmix wrote: post #169
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #71

My approach to Twitter has been to aggressively unfollow anyone posting content that I don’t want to be consuming. That ranges from constantly dunking on every opportunity to people who simply tweet too many times per day. The best content and discussion comes from small groups of people with similar interests who aren’t using Twitter simply to fill time or to build their personal brand. Removing everyone else doesn’…

I did this for years and then Trump rolled around and every developer and interesting person thought it was their duty to use their feeds as some form of resistance. I remember one case in particular where the guy was a genius at posting niche Middle Ages history and then every other tweet became political and I was so sad, because I absolutely loved his content. As an a-political person who tried hard (but failed oc…

I think even if Twitter made it easier to tag posts as political, the problem remains that so many people feel like their political views belong everywhere, and will actively try and break into other discussions to interject with politics. Like the Expensify guy who thought it was appropriate to email customers and tell them who to vote for. To me it comes back to the trend that people who support a cause treat it as if it has to be a top priority for everyone, and if you don't prioritize the cause in the same way you are actively working against it.

And I think this probably is a byproduct of the "attention economy" where there has been an arms race for mindshare (I'd like to find a way to put that better but hopefully it's clear)

Post reply on HN