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X confuses the masses by removing all details from links

theregister.com

11–20 of 84 posts

Re: X confuses the masses by removing all details from links

#13
post #6

Are there any platforms that show only the twitter:image and other twitter:* meta tags in HTML (ie: don't fall back on OpenGraph's og:*) ? Looks like the perfect time to shave a few bytes off our pages and go OG-only. Ironically, X is perfectly fine with just og:images.

OG: has been the standard for years now as major platforms were supporting the main components of it so duplication for twitter wasn't needed.

Re: X confuses the masses by removing all details from links

#14

If twitter really wants to "boost engagement" I'd suggest maybe not forcing people to log in or have JS enabled, but maybe that's just me. I haven't viewed anything on the platform itself since they made those changes.

> or have JS enabled

For 99% of users, they don't even know what Javascript is, let alone that you can disable it, let alone that they _should_ disable it on any site.

Not saying if that's a good thing or not, but I doubt allowing JS to be disabled would have any real effect on their engagement. In fact, I'm sure the frontend team at X would argue all the visual stuff enabled by JS increases engagement.

Re: X confuses the masses by removing all details from links

#15

If twitter really wants to "boost engagement" I'd suggest maybe not forcing people to log in or have JS enabled, but maybe that's just me. I haven't viewed anything on the platform itself since they made those changes.

> or have JS enabled > but maybe that's just me

To be fair there are probably a least a couple dozen people who do this.

Re: X confuses the masses by removing all details from links

#17
post #16

> "Our algorithm tries to optimize time spent on X, so links don't get as much attention, because there is less time spent if people click away," the billionaire said. ... at that point he might as well say "maximize" instead of "optimize"

He’s wrecking the utility of X. Without that, engagement has less purpose and reward.

Re: X confuses the masses by removing all details from links

#18
post #3

I think the “the masses” implies there are actually a lot of people still reading Twitter… perhaps it's just my bubble, but I feel not many actual humans are impacted by this change.

Use of that phrase tends to either signal that the author thinks that their little bubble is larger than it really is or that they have some sort of paternalistic need to inform this not-me-but-most-everyone-else group of people (or be concerned on their behalf). Or both.

Or it's self-aware mockery from a website that deliberately riffs on breathless and overblown British tabloid journalism.

Re: X confuses the masses by removing all details from links

#20
post #3

I think the “the masses” implies there are actually a lot of people still reading Twitter… perhaps it's just my bubble, but I feel not many actual humans are impacted by this change.

For the past decade the most use of twitter, in my experience, has been the media reporting from/about it.

I've known 1 or 2 people in real life who use it

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