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Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

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Re: Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

#211

Post by jojosbuddy »

"can have extremely polarized views" usually results when people want [extreme] attention in a sea of chatter.

"feel the need to defend their polarized but flawed viewpoint at any cost" usually results when people want [extreme] attention in a sea of chatter.

"are virtue signaling others but refuse to take any accountability whatsoever" a tactic typically used when people want [extreme] attention in a sea of chatter.

"have less and less attention span" Time is money, and it's better to waste your time reading/bickering about your tweet for ads that wasting time writing a meaningful tweet that'll be obsolete in 10min.

"only consume the content that aligns with their views" usually results when people want [extreme] attention and creates an echo chamber.

Conclusion: we got a lot of narcissistic people on twitter. The ultimate digital soapbox.

Re: Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

#212

Post by jedberg »

There is no fix, it's human nature. Most people are rational and balanced and willing to hear the opinions of others. And until recently the only way to have an interactive conversion was in person, or one on one remotely. Only very recently has the public square moved online.

And being online gives people protection to say what they really think without fear of repercussions from others.

The only way to fix it is to move discussion of heated topics to being in person only. But this will never happen.

But Twitter could easily fix this with technology -- all they have to do is go back to your feed being a chronological list of the tweets from people you follow. Or create two feeds -- one that is heavily moderated and has advertising, and one that is unmoderated with no ads.

Of course they won't do either one, because it lowers engagement with advertising, which is how they make money. And that makes sense, they are a for profit company. They are optimizing for their customers, the advertisers.

Re: Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

#213

Post by dqpb »

phailhaus wrote: post #126
dqpb wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You agree and then list a bunch of technical problems.

Those aren't technical problems. They have nothing to do with the tech stack of Twitter, how it scales, whether it's centralized or decentralized, etc. It's entirely how the experience is structured and what users are allowed to do, how site is designed independent of implementation details.

Those are technical problems. "Technical" doesn't just mean tech stack.

Re: Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

#214

Post by mbesto »

mFixman wrote: post #14

I used to agree with you until I created a new Twitter account from scratch. I'm not American and I specifically put non-political things in my interests. Yet, the second I signed up I got the following: 1. A notification about a smug reply a rando made to a Republican Congressman. 2. Posts from a meme page with a Pepe the frog avatar showing homeless people fighting in San Francisco. 3. Somebody I don't follow accus…

> The problem with Twitter is that it needs high engagement, so it strongly recommends posts that are low on quality but high on emotion.

Which is not a technical problem and is exactly the OP's point.

Re: Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

#215

Post by joe_the_user »

paulusthe wrote: post #83
mFixman wrote: post #14

I used to agree with you until I created a new Twitter account from scratch. I'm not American and I specifically put non-political things in my interests. Yet, the second I signed up I got the following: 1. A notification about a smug reply a rando made to a Republican Congressman. 2. Posts from a meme page with a Pepe the frog avatar showing homeless people fighting in San Francisco. 3. Somebody I don't follow accus…

That's definitely the problem, but the answer isn't to change Twitter's algorithms. We must ask why Twitter's algorithms ended up where they did, and the answer is that it's more profitable to do what Twitter does than the alternative. It's not like Twitter's creators maliciously set out to become the flaming hellscape it is now. It responded to market forces and user behavior. Neither of those factors have changed,…

It's not like Twitter's creators maliciously set out to become the flaming hellscape it is now. It responded to market forces and user behavior.

Ah, a variation of "don't hate the player, hate the game". Well, we can and should do both.

Re: Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

#216

Post by mFixman »

mbesto wrote: post #214
mFixman wrote: post #14

I used to agree with you until I created a new Twitter account from scratch. I'm not American and I specifically put non-political things in my interests. Yet, the second I signed up I got the following: 1. A notification about a smug reply a rando made to a Republican Congressman. 2. Posts from a meme page with a Pepe the frog avatar showing homeless people fighting in San Francisco. 3. Somebody I don't follow accus…

> The problem with Twitter is that it needs high engagement, so it strongly recommends posts that are low on quality but high on emotion. Which is not a technical problem and is exactly the OP's point.

Twitter gets bad content because Twitter promotes bad content, and that happens because Twitter's work culture prioritises engagement metrics over meaningful interactions.

The underlying problem is a problem of Twitter-the-company, the actual problem of Twitter-the-product is technical and can be solved by going easier on engagement-based recommendations.

Re: Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

#217

Post by ljw1001 »

pjc50 wrote: post #143
legitster wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. Somebody I don't follow accusing another person I don't follow of being a nazi. I cannot believe how much of Twitter is exactly this.

This isn't just Twitter now. This is mainstream politics, it's all name calling. The UK Home Secretary blaming the "tofu-eating wokerati" from the dispatch box a couple of weeks ago.

First it was twitter. Then it became mainstream

Re: Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

#218

Post by joe_the_user »

noxer wrote: post #116
mFixman wrote: post #14

I used to agree with you until I created a new Twitter account from scratch. I'm not American and I specifically put non-political things in my interests. Yet, the second I signed up I got the following: 1. A notification about a smug reply a rando made to a Republican Congressman. 2. Posts from a meme page with a Pepe the frog avatar showing homeless people fighting in San Francisco. 3. Somebody I don't follow accus…

Everyone takes shortcuts these days so by Godwin's law directly calling the other person on the internet with which you disagree a nazi is peak optimization /s On a serious note I think the problem is actually the heavy moderation and algorithmic bubble creation. Then you had certain famous and controversial people who operated above all bubbles and the different bubble started clashing. The only way I see to fix thi…

On a serious note I think the problem is actually the heavy moderation

I think the problem is crude filtering falsely labeled moderation. What you'd want is a moderator who demands decent quality arguments on the topic at hand.

What you have is just removal of everyone not agreeing with a given viewpoint and allowing intemperate advocates of the given viewpoint to make the position garbage.

Re: Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

#219

Post by noxer »

kibwen wrote: post #182
noxer wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it isn't a crime or spam then it is in fact disagreement. There is no inherent different from calling someone a "racist" or "nazi" to calling someone a "groomer". On Twitter these "slurs" are used by different sides (bubbles) but other than that there is no difference. It might be a baseless allegation or there could be more to it but either way it is clearly an opinion and disagreeing is fine no need to prevent a…

> But whatever it was, why does it bother you? What exactly is so horrible about posting something "wrong" and deleting it? It wasn't just "wrong", it was a propaganda article designed to dismiss a right-wing terrorist attack that almost killed the husband of the third highest ranking official in the country by painting the attack as a "false flag" designed to cover up homosexual infidelity. And Musk is the richest m…

As I said I think Musk posted it as satire. The article read as if it was from Babylon Bee. At no point I even questioned if he was serious about this. He does troll like that all the time, its really silly to blame him when after all this time people still take everything he says at face value.

If you actually read that article (and not just the media complaining about that he linked it) and came to the conclusion that Musk though the story was legit, then maybe reevaluate the intelligence you attribute to him. You may not like his opinion on things but he can not be that stupid.

Also the "right-wing terrorist attack" is you spreading propaganda.

Re: Tell HN: The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve

#220

Post by nawgz »

freedomben wrote: post #199
danaris wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> a significant proportion of the American right wing is, by any meaningful, objective definition, substantially aligned with the Nazi party, fully on board with authoritarian fascism, and ready and willing to murder people for opposing them. Are you being serious or missing a /s?

It's pretty clear that's serious.

I find it strange you would read this as sarcasm - it's been pretty hard to miss the descent into fascism of the American right wing.

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