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Twitter acquires Revue

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Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#141

Post by the_reformation »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #138
jhunter1016 wrote: post #56

This is a smart move by Twitter. Substack has taken off considerably. Rather than watch all their prized users go publish long form content on a platform outside their orbit, Twitter just pulled a platform into their orbit. The thing I’m curious about is how creative Twitter will get with integrating the platforms. There have been a lot of missed opportunities with previous Twitter acquisitions IMO.

I don’t thin substack crowd would trust Twitter with their content.

The Substack crowd is already on Twitter, and is where they got their audience from.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#142

Post by lesstenseflow »

Why are comments about twitter's censorious nature being downvoted? The two main topics here (in my view) are 1. Twitter's response to Substack and how this move will impact the two companies and 2. the fact that some of Substack's most prominent users are writers who are refugees from other platforms (Andrew Sullivan from New York magazine, Bari Weiss from the New York Times etc.) who left because of the suppression-of-unpopular-speech trends that Twitter is now famous for.

So Revue is what, Substack minus fees plus twitter viewpoint-enforcement? In any event I think this topic (censorship) at least bears discussion and I encourage users here not to downvote the discussion in the name of "suppressing right wingers" or similar. Twitter does not just ban right wingers. Take a look at the list of prominent people banned from twitter[0], it includes people such as Talib Kweli, Zuby (both rappers), "The IT Crowd" creator Graham Linehan, numerous political satire accounts, numerous feminists, and numerous artists and others for death threats towards such potential victims as "the Planters mascot Mr. Peanut," "a dead mosquito" and "the country Austria" (issued by an Austrian artist).

If you have strong contrary views, you are probably in the danger zone for getting a twitter suspension or ban if someone wants to make a point of reporting you. Censorship should definitely be part of this discussion of Revue.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions#List_of_no...

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#143

Post by cblconfederate »

whimsicalism wrote: post #132
cblconfederate wrote: post #117

I ve seen people talking about owning their twitter audience but the suggestion was to move away from twitter and towards self-hosting. Substack is promoted as a temporary in-between. Interesting that twitter thinks authors want to lock long-form content in there. What happens after the inevitable next Purge?

> What happens after the inevitable next Purge? Most authors are not going to be "purged" full stop.

The good ones won't go to a platform that purges speech. It may be OK for content marketers, but i don't see journalists that don't like to mince their words (e.g. greenwald) choosing to host their content on twitter.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#144

Post by thebean11 »

corobo wrote: post #130
user-the-name wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An edit button does not make sense for a service like Twitter. There are way to many ways to abuse it, and any solution that tries to deal with those just ends up being equivalent to what already exists: Delete and repost.

> and any solution that tries to deal with those just ends up being equivalent to what already exists: Delete and repost. I'd love this honestly. Even if it was just a delete and repost under the hood, generally I find I want an edit button just after posting and noticing all the typos. As long as the interface interacted like an edit form rather than have me copy and then rebuild the tweet I'd be good to go.

It would be bad UX. Users would expect it to edit (keeping likes, retweets, replies, timestamp etc) but it would actually delete and repost which is a very different thing on Twitter.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#145

Post by macspoofing »

rightbyte wrote: post #27
siruva07 wrote: post #7

Excellent acquisition. Twitter will definitely compete and take marketshare from Substack with lower fees from 20% to 5%. I hope this acquisition is actually a stepping stone for Twitter to become a much better service. Twitter could absolutely become a paid service and move away from ads as its business model. No political ads to worry about. No interference with the product experience. And believe it or not, if I u…

I am a bit cynical about that Spyware-aaS companies like FB would stop spying just becouse you paid them. I mean I bought a Samsung TV for 1000USD and still it tries to show adds and spy. The temptation to increase margins is high no matter what. I am not that up to date with Twitter. Are they in the same class as FB and Google?

>I am a bit cynical about that Spyware-aaS companies like FB would stop spying just becouse you paid them.

So am I. The problem is that the paying members are also the same members that are most valuable to advertisers (because they have disposable cash and are probably 'power users' of the platform), so there is an incentive to 'sell them' to advertisers as well.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#146

Post by AzzieElbab »

the_reformation wrote: post #141
AzzieElbab wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t thin substack crowd would trust Twitter with their content.

The Substack crowd is already on Twitter, and is where they got their audience from.

That is an overstatement. I might be a dinosaur, but in my case it is the other way around. I mostly follow people I have learned about elsewhere. Also, if Twitter decides to ban one of them, I will still have access to substack where the articles are.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#147

Post by kristiandupont »

Spivak wrote: post #124
ajanuary wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Revision history would still show" Except in a distributed system like Twitter (including client and server) there is no single timeline, and amateur digital forensics will erroneously say "aha, but you retweeted it before it was edited"

As long as RTs and likes are tied to a specific version of the Tweet then it's no real problem.

Perhaps, but you are talking about creating rather complex machinery in order to support a tiny feature. If the only argument in favor is engagement statistics (would those take edits into consideration as well?), I certainly see why Twitter doesn't care too much.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#148

Post by cpeterso »

danielscrubs wrote: post #42
andrew_ wrote: post #21

As someone who moved away from Twitter, the last thing I need in my life is another Twitter-owned property. The politics of the last month aside, Twitter is a foul, trite, snide place where the worst of us are trumpeted to the loudest voice and widest audience. The negativity and incentive to waste hours and focus are pervasive in every community I've participated in. Of course, YMMV. Despite my best efforts, I was u…

I like it but I have a policy to unfollow if they start to tweet about anything they don’t work in. So a programmer that talks about politics is going to be unfollowed. Also they have to consistently be able to educate me and not just say things I agree with. Works pretty well. Main drawback is that it’s just singular focus nerds. A drawback is that people don’t always seem charitable in their thoughts of why I choos…

Muting words related to political topics or the meme of the week can make a huge improvement in your Twitter timeline.

I’m bummed that Twitter limits the mute list to only 200 words. I’m maxed out and have to remove a word when I want to mute a new one.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#149

Post by mcintyre1994 »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #138
jhunter1016 wrote: post #56

This is a smart move by Twitter. Substack has taken off considerably. Rather than watch all their prized users go publish long form content on a platform outside their orbit, Twitter just pulled a platform into their orbit. The thing I’m curious about is how creative Twitter will get with integrating the platforms. There have been a lot of missed opportunities with previous Twitter acquisitions IMO.

I don’t thin substack crowd would trust Twitter with their content.

I think Twitter would be okay if the history professor with the $1m Substack comes over to them and people like Glenn Greenwald stay at Substack though.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#150

Post by kristiandupont »

Spivak wrote: post #122
bachmeier wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because rather than retweeting "I hate the KKK" you just retweeted "I support the KKK".

I mean it's not an insurmountable problem though. As long as likes and RTs are tied to a specific version of a Tweet and you can see the edits and associated likes it's fine.

Even setting aside the UX issues in this, I think this is underestimating the complexity. I don't know anything about Twitters infrastructure but obviously we are not talking about a single postgres instance here. Effectively turning every tweet into a linked list with connected retweets, likes etc. is a significant data model change for a system of this scale.
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