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Twitter's Fucked

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Re: Twitter's Fucked

#261

Post by learc83 »

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.

I've had plenty of my opinions changed, and I've changed many of my friends and families opinions numerous times. I once even managed to change someone's opinion about gun-control, on the internet.

Rational arguments, a bit of rhetorical ability, and persistence are surprisingly effective. The problem is the persistence part requires multiple interactions over months or years, so it's hard to study.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#262

Post by cmurf »

hacker_9 wrote: post #62
ryanmarsh wrote: post #14

Does Twitter have to be Facebook to not be "fucked"? I don't understand these statements that "Twitter is fucked". Twitter could improve filtering and safety but if it never changed I'd probably still get my news from it for the rest of my life. I just can't think of a better app for my use cases. I often like Twitter Moments, like something funny or some pop culture stuff I wouldn't have picked up on. Every time the…

People love to hate Facebook and Twitter, but they ain't going anywhere. The service they provide is too useful, and after so many years they are ingrained in people's social lives.

Facebook is profitable, Twitter isn't.

But you're right, just perhaps not in the way you mean, Twitter isn't going anywhere. $11 billion market cap is nothing to sneeze at, however it's lost about that much value in one year. So is it a going concern? Sure it'll probably still be here in a year, but my confidence level beyond 12 months is weak at best. Five years? shrug 50/50. If it's not profitable, how does it continue to function at a certain point? At what point is it functionally on life support?

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#263

Post by st3v3r »

snaky wrote: post #240
adrianratnapala wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, and in this particular decade it is true that the left is keenest on actual politicking to create censorship. But in terms of the human weakness of not wanting to hear arguments against your own POV, then the right is at least as bad. I think the difference behind the political fireworks is this: conservatives already revel in sub-communities like churches where they can protect themselves from unwanted sp…

Do you have a couple of examples of 'right wing censorship' outside US, let's say in Europe?

Saudi Arabia and China.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#264

Post by adrianratnapala »

jonathankoren wrote: post #232
adrianratnapala wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I can understand that he wants to make a distinction between aggressive word usage, and non-aggressive. But calling it "violence" is hyperbolic, and dangerous to free speech. Threats of and exhortations to violence are universally considered unprotected by free speech. So people who dislike other peoples speech have an incentive to call it "violence".

"Mental anguish" and "harassment" (which is also a a crime, and not protected) are a much better terms for things that are not a threat of actual physical violence. However, trying to dismiss all of this as simply hyperbole is... well... dismissive. See http://femfreq.tumblr.com/post/109319269825/one-week-of-hara... This is a woman who gets vile harassment and actual death threats for doing academic critiques of vide…

A death threat is a threat of violence in the tradtional sense. It might not be violence, but it sure as hell is wrong, illegal, and not protected free speech.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#265

Post by ppod »

If you use twitter as described in this article, then that's the kind of experience you will have. It's kind of like being in a large crowded public space. If you are loud and assertive and determined to stand up for everything you believe in, even with strangers, then you will run into trouble no matter how good your opinions or how polite you are.

"everyone can send anything to everyone" is twitter's USP. I can't think of another many-to-many broadcast (publish-subscribe) platform. That is what makes it successful, and it is vulnerable to competitors who use that model, but I can't think of many. Snapchat kind of works like that, right?

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#266

Post by atria »

SeanDav wrote: post #12

I am probably in a very small minority, but I have never seen the point of Twitter. It has almost limitless potential to destroy your life by taking something out of context and copying it to millions. I shudder to think of the number of times I have made a tasteless throwaway comment or colourful joke that, if taken out of context, would have had dire consequences. It has almost limitless potential to take up all yo…

I deleted my twitter account last week and deleted the twitter app after Milo was banned. I wasn't a follower of his, but I perceived an active bias against conservatives or filtering trending tags that comment on trending news that are negative towards Hillary as just too much, as well as the fact that it is a cesspool of bullying, huckster marketing, plagerism, and cry-bullying.

It was the second time I gave twitter a go. I must not be the target market.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#267

Post by dabockster »

gambler wrote: post #170
hacker_9 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to hate Facebook and Twitter, but they ain't going anywhere. The service they provide is too useful, and after so many years they are ingrained in people's social lives.

As far as I'm concerned, the only useful service Facebook provides is event scheduling. I don't have a Twitter account. Most of the "needs" they fulfill are either entirely imaginary, or aren't fulfilled in any sensible way. (I.e. the whole notion of "staying in touch" with people via Facebook is a sham. It's more of a simulation of staying in touch.) If you use popularity as the main measure of usefulness then yello…

I'm feeling the exact same feelings. All Facebook seems to provide anymore is a way of tracking your friends, not engaging or socializing with them. The platform is engineered to maximize clicks, not foster meaningful social interactions.

I'm just waiting for the rest of the world to realize this so I can dump Facebook Messenger without looking like an idiot.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#268

Post by jdpedrie »

ivraatiems wrote: post #103
snaky wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Definitely not true of current neocons. They use freedom of speech as a cover for "let me say whatever I want to say" while ignoring it when it suits them. As a live-right-now example, the mods of /r/The_Donald on Reddit are preemtively banning users before Trump's AMA to prevent dissent, and have stated plainly they will delete any unflattering questions.

/r/The_Donald is like... the opposite of neocon.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#269

Post by jsmthrowaway »

nardi wrote: post #162
jjnoakes wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, missing one mention equates to not reading the entire article? Amazing indeed.

"Milo" appears nine times in the article. The discussion about him is a large part of the content.

To be fair, the points about that person were almost near the end after heavy points about the product, it "felt" like conclusion territory which I often skip if I've gotten the point already, and to be honest, I about ran out of steam by that point too. Is it so crazy to imagine that someone reads an article that makes its point quite clearly even before the conclusion, and comments upon it after reading solely its meat? Hell, I almost closed the article once I saw that person's name, even.

A lot of people here just are snapping to criticize over this, which is oddly reminiscent of a subtext of the article, not doing this comment section any favors, and specifically discussed in the HN guidelines.

Now that I've made a substantive comment: who cares, seriously?

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#270

Post by visakanv »

pkamb wrote: post #239

If you post a well-shot picture on Instagram you'll immediately get a bunch of random (but not spam) Likes and maybe a comment or two (I assume people search their interests via hashtag: "#architecture" or "#cars" or etc.). Same with Reddit or Hacker News; post a comment and you'll often get an upvote/reply/comment/banter in return. On Facebook your IRL friends will Like your stuff. Without a meaningful number of fol…

My tactic is this, and I've used this in several different circles – look for people who are moderately influential in a field, but not super famous (say less than 2k followers). Then follow them, and tweet positive things at them, or ask genuine questions, and contribute. There's usually a group of people who all talk to each other, and you can gently get into the conversations if you're careful. Once you do that, and you've made decent contributions a couple of times, they'll typically follow you.

Now I can "ask Twitter" a question and get interesting responses from dozens of people. But it takes time and effort, which I suppose most people aren't willing to spend.

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