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I resigned from Twitter

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Re: I resigned from Twitter

#441

Post by akomtu »

spion wrote: post #386
jMyles wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If feed-generating algorithms were dispassionate - amplifying liked content rather than massaging feeds for advertising and other behavior manipulation - then your assessment of the results as "brain viruses" might be more accurate. And the world might actually benefit from them.

The thing is, the "natural selection" of this network is decided by people on average spending 5 seconds of thought before getting outraged/scared/intrigued etc (also, whatever is that emotion that says "look world, I found something really clever that y'all have missed!") and clicking retweet. I find that incredibly unlikely to yield any great content whatsoever.

It's a clever trick. Short tweets with pictures skip the rational thinking part of the brain, for those tweets don't have anything to think about, and go straight to the emotional animalistic part of the brain. So twitter turns into a sort of colossus stadium where millions of apes screaming at each other. Usually, the stadium splits into a few big chunks where apes chant the same meme.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#443

Post by streamofdigits »

This surely signals the end of an era. Not sure i) if there will be an NFT of the resignation tweet in the manner of the first tweet? [0] and ii) if the future will be "better" than the past in any meaningful way... The stock market reaction suggests it will be not.

[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/23/tech/jack-dorsey-nft-twee...

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#444

Post by latexr »

tootie wrote: post #127
user-the-name wrote: post #18

About time. Twitter has been absolutely floundering for years under his control, since he has absolutely no idea why anyone is using the site and has just been throwing random ideas copied from others at the wall to see what sticks (nothing, so far), and cryptocurrency garbage nobody wants.

Not to sound like a Boomer, but I still genuinely don't get what Twitter is for. I actually finally created an account a year ago and most of my follows are pretty high-brow (journalists, various industry experts, some big shots in my outer circle) and I still get almost no value from it. They use twitter to post inside jokes or promos to web content that I didn't have trouble finding without twitter. Maybe 1 out of…

> most of my follows are pretty high-brow (…) and I still get almost no value from it. They use twitter to post (…) promos to web content that I didn't have trouble finding without twitter.

Have you considered you’re not getting value from it because your follows are high-brow?

Instead of following big shots with their own marketing teams, follow small creators in areas that interest you (e.g. indie game developers).

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#446

Post by dragontamer »

spion wrote: post #352

Twitter and other social media are probably the biggest problem of our time. By providing simple rules of information flow: small amount of content, retweet, followers) and rewards (likes), they've created the most efficient engines for finding and spreading novelty at the expense of everything else. There are no incentives to improve accuracy, increase thoughtfulness, paint nuance. Fact checking gets lost in the win…

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011647630/

William Randolph Hearst (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst) did all of this first in the early 1900s. (Along with his rival Pulitzer. But the image above is clearly in Hearst's image, a fact probably lost to the modern audience)

The "problems" you state are far older than Twitter, and its best to study history and the problem of "Yellow Journalism". Over 100 years ago, people were complaining about false-outrage that manipulates the American public.

The only thing that has changed is that the American public has _forgotten_ what it was like to live in a outrage-fueled society, and we have to relearn the lessons of the past now. We need laws and society to change and recognize that all this fake-outrage is damaging ourselves, our psyche, and ultimately, our society.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#447

Post by Nasrudith »

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #383
spion wrote: post #352

Twitter and other social media are probably the biggest problem of our time. By providing simple rules of information flow: small amount of content, retweet, followers) and rewards (likes), they've created the most efficient engines for finding and spreading novelty at the expense of everything else. There are no incentives to improve accuracy, increase thoughtfulness, paint nuance. Fact checking gets lost in the win…

I wonder how much your mind would have to distort reality for you to believe you're providing the world with a good service when you're at the helm of Twitter or Facebook.

You just need to respect human agency instead of thinking you inherently know better than the world how to use it. It is a sentiment which is very out of current zeitgeist with its "boy who cried dystopia" bent.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#448

Post by mardifoufs »

xeromal wrote: post #277
mardifoufs wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did dorsey stand up to anything? They are trying to monetize twitter just as much, with extremely annoying dark patterns to boot. They just don't seem to succeed as well. The way they redesigned feeds, made linking to tweets a coin toss because of how often they just show "oops something went wrong" if you aren't logged in, or if you are lucky made it so Twitter threads just don't show anything but the single lin…

https://twitter.com/jack/status/1349510769268850690?lang=en Here's an example off the top of my head. Banning Trump I felt was pretty courageous.

Even then, he waited at the last minute to make sure there was no possible retaliation. Sure, that's a good business move. But how does that prove any courage? It's the opposite. At least zuck can say that he wants to keep his platform open, that facebook is open to challenging point of views or whatever but that Trump didn't leave them a choice at that point....and he'd at least be coherent. Dorsey can't, because he mostly doesn't care for any "big idea" that isn't related to his weird crypto fascination. So I guess I was wrong & he did show a backbone for something... Consistently not doing anything about crypto spam. Afterall, Twitter is notorious for being filled with crypto scams and being ground zero for most shady crypto schemes!

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#449

Post by Dumblydorr »

cletus wrote: post #419
spion wrote: post #352

Twitter and other social media are probably the biggest problem of our time. By providing simple rules of information flow: small amount of content, retweet, followers) and rewards (likes), they've created the most efficient engines for finding and spreading novelty at the expense of everything else. There are no incentives to improve accuracy, increase thoughtfulness, paint nuance. Fact checking gets lost in the win…

The real problem here is people, not the platforms or the products. How do I know this? Because the problems have existed far longer than any of the platforms. Maybe people here are too young to remember how toxic, argumentative, irrational and judgmental everything else was that came previously: forums, mailing lists, Usenet, you name it. Sure products can influence user behaviour but they can't totally change it. A…

If humans are inherently violent, why hand them free guns? If they're inherently greedy, why hand them free credit cards? If humans are inherently toxic and disingenuous and biased, why hand them the free reach to thousands of gullible minds?

I'm in agreement humans are flawed, but why should we allow billionaires, who mostly want power and wealth, to decide how to referee our public discourse?

To me, these companies are run by humans and used by humans, so like drinking and driving, speed limits, personal safety, and all other kinds of laws: we need guardrails against bad actions.

We need some rudimentary policing, for as Hamilton stated: "if men were angels, no government would be necessary"

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#450

Post by dnautics »

Swizec wrote: post #409
dnautics wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I had a very selective strategy for purging: - follow only tech people/tech-adjacent people - unfollow any tech people/tech-adjacent people who post too much off-topic and/or do too much clickbait or too much emotionally taxing stuff and moving forward I do: - follow a more diverse (race, ethnicity, country, political leaning, gender) people, while following the above guidelines. - follow some people who "post i…

To sum it up: Most worthwhile twitter follows are a mini publishing house in disguise. They talk about a few things, regularly, but aren't using twitter to shoot the shit with friends. This is the exact opposite of how twitter felt in the beginning – a massively global IRC chatroom for people to shoot the shit.

I wouldn't say that, a few of the people I follow are shooting the shit with friends. That counts as "potentially interesting shit" and that sort of long-tail content does wind up on my feed.
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