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Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

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Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#141

Post by malvosenior »

jmfayard wrote: post #93
md224 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a different perspective: Twitter is a digital Public Sphere, and Public Spheres are always noisy. "Controversy" is just another name for clashes of opinions that have occurred since the beginning of humankind and will likely continue to occur until the extinction of our species. These clashes occur within discursive spaces, and Twitter is one such space. This is why I'm bullish on Twitter. It's a space for con…

The parent comment was not about Twitter Reddit Facebook coexisting or not peacefully, but about the logic of all of them competing against our public health. IMHO we should regulate the hell out of them each time a significant harm on society can be proved, like we did for any other things that humans ever invented. But tech evangelists will say that time is different because 0 and 1 are being exchanged

Tech evangelists will say that not because "it's different" but because we never agreed with regulation so we've built tools and platforms that embrace free speech. That's the entire point of something like Twitter.

Or at least it used to be until the politics of the employees shifted to be more mainstream.

The end-goal for a lot of us is a fully decentralized internet that is technologically impossible to regulate.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#142

Post by AgentME »

md224 wrote: post #84
Steeeve wrote: post #18

Twitter loves Trump. It's not just twitter... the whole profit center around online communities is based on active communities. Most topics are cyclical - once the Superbowl is over, it's hard to keep a football community active. Only so many people are interested in the draft, in coaching changes, etc. But throw in some controversy and all of a sudden everything lights up again. The problem, or _a_ problem, is that…

I have a different perspective: Twitter is a digital Public Sphere, and Public Spheres are always noisy. "Controversy" is just another name for clashes of opinions that have occurred since the beginning of humankind and will likely continue to occur until the extinction of our species. These clashes occur within discursive spaces, and Twitter is one such space. This is why I'm bullish on Twitter. It's a space for con…

Yeah, controversies are natural, but they're not the only reason for discourse, and if controversies crowd out everything else because they're addictive or because they're encouraged to keep activity high, then that's a problem.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#143

Post by visarga »

jjrh wrote: post #87

I'm still amazed how bad the Twitter.com UI is. The fact stuff like Hootsuite,tweetdeck and a zillion similar tools exist to effectively make twitter usable if you follow more than a dozen people is crazy. There is a whole bunch of innovation waiting to happen: for instance Twitter could build a community around creating and sharing 'lists' for just about any topic. I wanted to make a 'list' for every Canadian MP but…

You can make lists on Twitter and see other people's lists.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#144

Post by visarga »

craftyguy wrote: post #81
grad_ml wrote: post #67

Twitter is the world's news paper now. I think, as world newspaper, it is worth it's value.

It's not a 'news paper', it's a street corner in medieval Europe lined with 'prophets' all spewing shit in an attempt to attract followers.

> it's a street corner in medieval Europe

One laaarge street corner.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#145

Post by malvosenior »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #95
md224 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a different perspective: Twitter is a digital Public Sphere, and Public Spheres are always noisy. "Controversy" is just another name for clashes of opinions that have occurred since the beginning of humankind and will likely continue to occur until the extinction of our species. These clashes occur within discursive spaces, and Twitter is one such space. This is why I'm bullish on Twitter. It's a space for con…

Twitter is a digital Public Sphere, and Public Spheres are always noisy. When in human history have public spheres like Twitter existed? The public sphere up until about 50 years ago for most people was strictly local. You could not broadcast dumb narcissistic ignorance for free to millions of people. It wasn't possible. Twitter is not good at what it does. It does not elevate public discourse. It's the equivalent of…

I find the concept of "elevated" public discourse to be very questionable. Elevated to what? Your standards? Your opinions?

That tweet gave 32k people a chance to voice their opinion on the topic. You may not want to hear it but I bet they appreciated the platform that gave them a voice.

I'm really glad we live in a society that gives people more tools than a voting booth to express themselves.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#146

Post by IgorPartola »

tyrust wrote: post #121
chisleu wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has become very much the same as Tumbler and Twitter became. It's no longer a tool for expression and conversation. It's an echo chamber with separate factions occupying separate areas... downvoting and banning every opinion that goes against the "reddit circle jerk". Hacker News has become the only place I can have reasoned conversations about science, politics, etc without so much of an issue. The requiremen…

Reddit is fine if you subscribe to small [0] or heavily moderated [1]. Default and large subreddits have practically always been as you describe. >requirement of quality comments Ha. You won't have shitposts or rehashed jokes, but you also won't always have quality. I'll refer to a past comment of mine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16154688 [0] - Usually niche interest or specific geographic [1] - e.g. /r/ask…

Reddit is insta-community. Here's how I use Reddit: I pick up a new hobby, say knitting. I go to reddit.com/r/knitting and suddenly I have a bunch of experts there who I can ask questions, exchange ideas with, or brag to about my accomplishments. There is an instant community already existing on Reddit for pretty much every activity I can think of.

Where this gets dicey is politics. If you are suddenly a black libretarian baptist who believes in evolution, but not gravity, there's probably a /r/blbwbiebng already waiting for you. And if any of those gravity believing scum show up, the mods will ban them.

My ex used to study these little fish from Alaska who evolved in basically tiny separated ponds as the water level dropped and they all got separated. This is what's happening with Reddit. Silos where evolution happens completely independently of anything in the outside world.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#147

Post by thraw_awaii »

kirRoyale wrote: post #58
bad_user wrote: post #42

I've been very active on Twitter in the past 2 years and not due to Trump or other controversies. A lot of developers I want to follow are active on Twitter. So it might be due to Trump, don't know, but I'm glad it's going well for them.

Twitter has become so bloated with advertisements and "artificial" trending topics that its nearly useless.

Try an alternative client or maybe TweetDeck and make some lists and get into the habit of checking them more than the timeline and you'll be able to see much less of the ads/bloat/meaningless trends and more of actual posts from accounts you're interested in

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#148

Post by anonacct37 »

Steeeve wrote: post #18

Twitter loves Trump. It's not just twitter... the whole profit center around online communities is based on active communities. Most topics are cyclical - once the Superbowl is over, it's hard to keep a football community active. Only so many people are interested in the draft, in coaching changes, etc. But throw in some controversy and all of a sudden everything lights up again. The problem, or _a_ problem, is that…

> The social health issue is one for all companies that compete in the social media space to figure out.

Our traditional media organizations haven't figured this out in millennia. I'm not that hopeful. It's a fundamental conflict of interest between selling ads and creating informed citizens.

Some will tell you that's why they have the "church and state". I don't know. I'm not sure it's an effective policy and with native advertising the point is moot because they've given up on even the pretense.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#149

Post by [deleted] »

iamdave wrote: post #140
nerfhammer wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

regulating speech is a practically and legally thorny issue not just because tech bros are dumb and lazy

I'm not immediately seeing the connection between legal arguments of curtailing speech and "tech bros" and their intellect or work ethic. Can you clarify what you mean?

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#150

Post by thraw_awaii »

jjrh wrote: post #87

I'm still amazed how bad the Twitter.com UI is. The fact stuff like Hootsuite,tweetdeck and a zillion similar tools exist to effectively make twitter usable if you follow more than a dozen people is crazy. There is a whole bunch of innovation waiting to happen: for instance Twitter could build a community around creating and sharing 'lists' for just about any topic. I wanted to make a 'list' for every Canadian MP but…

Hm, found this. Doesn't seem to work anymore. Wonder what happened: https://audiense.com/search-lists-twitter/

Also, scouring peoples profiles for lists (they've made or belong to) seems to be a thing according to this: https://www.postplanner.com/how-to-find-twitter-lists-in-nic...

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