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Twitter's Fucked

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Re: Twitter's Fucked

#251

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

Neetpeople wrote: post #105
ivraatiems wrote: post #3

Yep. Yep, yep, yep. And Twitter's response is to ban some, but not all harassers, using the algorithm of "whoever is high profile and we don't like politically." That gives said harassers surprisingly legitimate reasons to claim censorship by Twitter as a company, despite the fact that they were in clear violation of Twitter's ToS and deserved to be banned. I refer of course to the Milo Yiannopoulos situation (edit:…

I have personally lost the belief that you can actually change someone's opinion on almost anything. So an echo chamber doesn't have to be a bad thing. I think people overestimate the value of having your beliefs challenged, does it ever really change someone's mind? If that's the case, you might as well view twitter as entertainment and to clue into the things you care about, in which case it can be pretty useful.

HN changes my opinions. Or at least, helps me understand those opinions.

It helps that I'm not employed in software engineering, so I have a degree of humility. Well, a little.

The rules are: Don't believe anything that isn't substantiated, Do be open to new ideas, but don't be afraid to question them, and don't be afraid to re-evaluate your position. After all, your ideas deserve as much skepticism as anybody else's.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#252

Post by Karunamon »

scholia wrote: post #249
Karunamon wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what, when you gain over some arbitrary amount of followers, you're not allowed to ever tweet about another person? What's the magic number at which you're not allowed to speak about anything but generalities? That's an plainly insane rule. How about Twitter actually ban people who actually break the site rules, act with some small measure of maturity, and stop moderating with a political bias that a child could s…

You're ignoring the context. Milo knew what he was doing. It was deliberate harassment. And thanks to his thuggish role in gamergate, he had plenty of "previous".

Milo knew what he was doing.

What objective facts do you base this on? The tweets themselves are completely innocuous.

And meanwhile, people who post actual harassment and threats are left unscathed (I've personally reported a few myself), and while I'm not privy to what happens in Jack's office, it definitely quacks like it's okay to to harass if you subscribe to one political mindset, but not another.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#253

Post by cptskippy »

Is "Twitter's" a valid contraction? My understanding of contractions was that they were only used with pronouns and helping verbs but I can't find where this is stated in online definitions.

It makes me very uncomfortable.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#254

Post by dabockster »

scholia wrote: post #212
gluelogic wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Removing his blue check was especially ridiculous to me. "Because you are who you are, you can no longer be verified."

If you're Verified, you have access to a Verified Twitter stream, which means you can avoid seeing anything from people who are not verified. This provides a civilized version of Twitter that is mostly populated by smart and funny people. So Twitter removed a professional jerk from the Verified streams while allowing him to continue as a rabble-rouser.

> This provides a civilized version of Twitter that is mostly populated by smart and funny people.

Twitter circa 2009 before Kutcher vs CNN? This still exists?

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#255

Post by bballer »

visakanv wrote: post #228
bballer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I think there's a possibility that the arbitrary enforcement is partially because Twitter knows that if it were consistent in enforcing its own rules, so much of its population of users would disappear that it would be hobbling itself." This x100. If you have no followers and no one is re-tweeting your vitriolic slime, why should twitter care, they simply want you to stay on the platform. Now if your circle has re…

The inverse can also sometimes work. If you're a newsworthy public figure (say, the President of the USA), you get away with violating the rules, shilling your product, etc: https://www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-play-basketball-with-...

The inverse only works when you are a public figure with greater power/sway than those who enforce rules, ToS, standards et cetera, or if you have an insider track with those who enforce the rules who can elevate you above them (the rules), ignore them, or give you a free pass (ie you are friends with a high up employee at twitter).

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#256

Post by st3v3r »

the_economist wrote: post #230
ivraatiems wrote: post #3

Yep. Yep, yep, yep. And Twitter's response is to ban some, but not all harassers, using the algorithm of "whoever is high profile and we don't like politically." That gives said harassers surprisingly legitimate reasons to claim censorship by Twitter as a company, despite the fact that they were in clear violation of Twitter's ToS and deserved to be banned. I refer of course to the Milo Yiannopoulos situation (edit:…

"The man deserved what he got" If Milo deserved to be banned, then so does 30-40% of Twitter. He did nothing wrong, and certainly nothing worse than this: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/756219192878268416

Saying he did nothing wrong is ignoring the entirety of the situation. At the very least, you have to agree that falsifying tweets from another user was against the ToS, and thus earned him his ban.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#257

Post by CM30 »

exolymph wrote: post #120
snaky wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatives are ok with freedom of speech, 'safe zones' are invented by progressives.

What other people choose do with their privately-owned platforms does not limit anyone's freedom of speech, as the law currently stands.

Except online, all platforms are privately owned. Hence you often get de facto censorship. You can technically say something not allowed on those platforms, but then find there's no way to draw any attention to this content/those views. It's like living in a company town where anything the administration don't like isn't allowed.

It's a problem with freedom of speech and private property in general, and why some people have considered the idea of treating large social platforms as closer to utilities rather than businesses.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#258

Post by nostrademons »

Kequc wrote: post #178
criddell wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I would have no problem paying $10 for a year of Twitter, I think it would kill it. For a brief moment, I thought Google had a chance with Google+. The discussion model is better, the moderation tools are better, but it just doesn't have the users. I wonder if they had launched with a read/write API and good developer libraries, would Google+ have achieved critical mass? I'd still love to see Google try this si…

The marketing was all wrong. The rate at which Google admitted new users to the platform left many potential users feeling alienated. It took several days for me to get an invite and I'm pretty saavy. When they launched all the talk was focused on the social network. The focus should have been on the primary product which is that they introduced an account system. The social network just simply came with it for free.…

Google accounts actually came out several years before Google+. I remember that Google already had a unified account system across all products before I started working for them; I think they rolled it out in 2008. Google+ didn't launch as a destination site until 2011.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#259

Post by st3v3r »

snaky wrote: post #89
gadders wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says that Milo didn't deserve what he got, and I agree. You may not agree with his politics but people of all stripes have done worse. I guess we'll end up with a conservative twitter clone, and a liberal twitter, and no-one will ever face the "danger" of seeing viewpoints they disagree with.

Conservatives are ok with freedom of speech, 'safe zones' are invented by progressives.

"Conservatives are ok with freedom of speech"

No, they're not. They're the ones saying that people shouldn't be allowed to protest many things like Chik-Fil-A's support of gay marriage bans, protesting police departments that act like black lives don't matter, etc.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#260

Post by nhangen »

I've been using Twitter since 2006-2007, and for a long period of time I absolutely loved, ranted, and raved about it. The problem is that now, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do on Twitter to offer or receive value.

Last night I was blocked by someone I followed for simply offering a tame retort to a comment they made whilst blocking someone else.

When I tweet, nothing happens. Granted, I'm not the most interested Twitter user in the world, but I'd like to think I have the occasional insight that might be worth reading, favoriting, or sharing.

The only time I actually see engagement is when I'm using it for current events, and respond to strangers. One would think that when this happens, you might be able to cultivate those engagements into future correspondence, but nope...it's all event based, and I have no time for that.

Despite my conservative nature and Jack's recent behavior/antics, I do like Twitter and want it to succeed, but it's not going to be long before I stop using it and eventually stop registering accounts for new businesses. We have more fun with Snapchat.

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