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Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless

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Re: Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless

#101

Post by boxed »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #91
boxed wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could also say that his complaint is that he used to be a bigger fish relative to the pond, but now that there are more users on the platform he is getting more competition.

So you are going back on your previous advice to him and now suggesting he'd find better things to read by letting the algorithm choose?

No. I don't see how you could say that.

I think there are two things:

1. he wants to see good things (use the "following" tab)

2. he wants to be seen (can't do much about that except be more rage-inducing)

Re: Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless

#102

Post by ZeroGravitas »

boxed wrote: post #101
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are going back on your previous advice to him and now suggesting he'd find better things to read by letting the algorithm choose?

No. I don't see how you could say that. I think there are two things: 1. he wants to see good things (use the "following" tab) 2. he wants to be seen (can't do much about that except be more rage-inducing)

He presumably considers his content "good things" and wants relevant people to see it, and at one point they did. Just as he found good content.

He thinks they're now being shown rage-inducing bullshit instead by the algorithm.

You seem to agree with this analysis from the point of view of a reader, but think from a writers point of view he's just being outcompeted by better content. That seems inconsistent.

So what is his move, to get good non rage bait content to an audience, except to leave twitter?

Re: Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless

#103

Post by mrmlz »

lukan wrote: post #11

"The changes to the algorithm turned the platform into a form of attention roulette." Twitters artificial limit of 140 character made the plattform always a shallow clickbait rage addiction thing to me. I never ever enjoyed reading anything there, before or after Musk aquired it. Anything good I did find, always would have been nicer to read as an ordinary blog post. But blog posts don't get as much attention as clic…

Meh, i've read and continue to read many great twitter-threads of linked posts. Sure 10 years ago that might have been a blogg post.

Really the content you get on twitter is 110% dependent on those you follow (on the for-me tab at least), I follow about 90-100 people and you really notice when you follow someone who reposts crap how quickly your feed deteriorates. Its a sensitive beast but can be quite good actually.

Re: Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless

#104

Post by lukan »

mrmlz wrote: post #103
lukan wrote: post #11

"The changes to the algorithm turned the platform into a form of attention roulette." Twitters artificial limit of 140 character made the plattform always a shallow clickbait rage addiction thing to me. I never ever enjoyed reading anything there, before or after Musk aquired it. Anything good I did find, always would have been nicer to read as an ordinary blog post. But blog posts don't get as much attention as clic…

Meh, i've read and continue to read many great twitter-threads of linked posts. Sure 10 years ago that might have been a blogg post. Really the content you get on twitter is 110% dependent on those you follow (on the for-me tab at least), I follow about 90-100 people and you really notice when you follow someone who reposts crap how quickly your feed deteriorates. Its a sensitive beast but can be quite good actually.

But don't you enjoy one coherent post more, than a fragmented series of short posts, all mixed with distracting side elements for enhanced engagement?

So I get, that people still use twitter to get interesting content, but yeah, I do not get, how one can really like the experience.

Re: Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless

#106

Post by coldtrait »

panosfilianos wrote: post #48
rasz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with YT. Use https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions exclusively

I have put some thought into this and my stack includes an assortment of Chrome extensions to observe the behavior I like. - Hide Youtube Shorts - Hide Youtube Watched - uBlock Filter to remove Upcoming videos from the subscription page - Unhook with most options turned on I do the same for Twitter with the Just Arrived extension tweaked from gh.

> Just Arrived extension tweaked

This one? https://github.com/tecoholic/Just-Arrived

What about mobile? I find myself scrolling on my phone a lot and I use a modded app because Android, thankfully. I feel like the best solution is to just delete the app, ultimately.

Re: Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless

#107

Post by zzleeper »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #95
mrtksn wrote: post #62

My feed looks like this: 1) "Facebook style" post are proliferating, that is memes from last year and images/videos from 5 years ago 2) Too many "cookie cutter" posts, that is variation of formats like "100 million people are using AI but %99 are using it wrong" 3) Propaganda accounts pushing narratives, that is something like "before everything was great, now everything is bad. what changed?", then with flood of rep…

It's not like there is a huge Following tab that shows only posts by people you follow.

There's no reason why someone like Richard Hanania should be in my "For You". It is as far away from anything I interact or follow that the only reason why it could be there for me is if it was being pushed intentionally for whatever stupid reasons.

The change is quite recent, my feed suddenly became utter crap overnight.

Re: Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless

#108

Post by beej71 »

mrtksn wrote: post #62

My feed looks like this: 1) "Facebook style" post are proliferating, that is memes from last year and images/videos from 5 years ago 2) Too many "cookie cutter" posts, that is variation of formats like "100 million people are using AI but %99 are using it wrong" 3) Propaganda accounts pushing narratives, that is something like "before everything was great, now everything is bad. what changed?", then with flood of rep…

Sounds joyful.

I switched to Mastodon some time ago. The first posts in my feed are currently:

A historic photo of 50s America

A question about parsing JSON in Rust

A historic fact about Scotland

A panoramic photo from a mountaintop

A selection from Francis Grose’s “Dictionary Of The Vulgar Tongue”

A picture of a hiking trail sign

A guide on how to change your shell in Linux

etc.

It's not the same as Twitter, but on the other hand, it's not the same as Twitter.

Re: Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless

#109

Post by boxed »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #102
boxed wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I don't see how you could say that. I think there are two things: 1. he wants to see good things (use the "following" tab) 2. he wants to be seen (can't do much about that except be more rage-inducing)

He presumably considers his content "good things" and wants relevant people to see it, and at one point they did. Just as he found good content. He thinks they're now being shown rage-inducing bullshit instead by the algorithm. You seem to agree with this analysis from the point of view of a reader, but think from a writers point of view he's just being outcompeted by better content. That seems inconsistent. So what…

That's true. There is a problem with the platform even having an algorithm at all. Mastodon does not, so that's a good option.

Threads is much worse at least...

Re: Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless

#110

Post by rakoo »

perkolator wrote: post #86
dulvui wrote: post #14

This is the reason I really like Mastodon. No algorithm, just timesorted posts by who you follow.

I wanted to love Mastodon. While slightly better, both seem to me like an utter waste of time to me. There is just an unsolvable, signal to noise problem when it comes to a personal optimal feed for me. The content I will like best will not be popular. If that is true then it is hopeless for me because of the scaling properties of the assumptions of the system and incentives for users of the system. I am better off j…

> The content I will like best will not be popular. If that is true then it is hopeless for me because of the scaling properties of the assumptions of the system and incentives for users of the system.

I don't understand. The content you want is accessiblto you and anyone who wants it, where is the scaling problem ?

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