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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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe as a private company, they can start to think beyond shallow, short term metrics. Only if Musk operates Twitter as a public service, at a personal expense of at least $700MM/yr. ... Elon's debt service for the purchase exceeds $1BB/yr, for an unprofitable business with $600MM of revenue. If he cuts operating costs by 50% while maintaining revenue (not likely but possible, surely Twitter has too many people to…

Twitters revenue was 5 billion last year.

You're right. I misinterpreted the source -- which on re-read, is a bit of a dog's breakfast: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/30/technology/elon-musk-twit...

~$600MM of "cash flow" (I think they mean EBITDA) to service the $1BB debt, so he's about half-way there, before reducing operating costs below 2021's $3BB.

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

#262
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is so hard about the concept of allowing people to be wrong about things? Because democratic society requires us to agree on basic facts in order to function. "People are wrong about" things like: - who got more votes in the last US presidential election - whether future elections in the US will be fair - whether global warming is real - whether Democratic politicians are literal lizard people who molest child…

> Because democratic society requires us to agree on basic facts in order to function. > - who got more votes in the last US presidential election The Democrats delegitimized the outcome of the 2016 election, the Republicans the 2020, and yet we still have a functioning democracy. We're even about to have a round of elections in a few days! > - whether global warming is real Seriously?

I take it you don't believe in global warming?

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really isn't unbelievable. A mentally ill man was radicalized by right wing propaganda and went to a lawmaker's home to harm her. Her security wasn't there because she wasn't there. End of story. You're looking for conspiracy where there is none. There is nothing "suspicious" unless you're trying to deflect blame.

> Her security wasn't there because she wasn't there. End of story. Instead of waking Paul up and asking for Nancy so he could attack her, suppose he had planted listening devices, or explosive devices, and crept away unnoticed? But you're telling me it's perfectly reasonable to leave the home unguarded when the third in line for the presidency is away. Doesn't that seem like a horrible national security vulnerabilit…

It appears going forward, thanks to MAGA republicans, that all members of congress and their families will need security.

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

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because democratic society requires us to agree on basic facts in order to function. > - who got more votes in the last US presidential election The Democrats delegitimized the outcome of the 2016 election, the Republicans the 2020, and yet we still have a functioning democracy. We're even about to have a round of elections in a few days! > - whether global warming is real Seriously?

I take it you don't believe in global warming?

I don't believe that democracy depends on cool temperatures.

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

#265
post #13

I disagree. Your points aren't necessarily wrong, but they ignore one big factor. Twitter chooses what content to promote to people. I could use Twitter quite happily not knowing about the latest "scandal" in, say, the knitting world. But Twitter actively promotes that content to me - either with the "trending" sidebar or by showing me content that it thinks will increase my engagement. That is a technical problem. H…

>promotes that content to me - either with the "trending" sidebar

Pro tip - you can use "block element" in uBlock to be rid of that stuff. I was thinking a bit what everyone's problem is but then I remembered I'd done that ages ago and never looked back.

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Her security wasn't there because she wasn't there. End of story. Instead of waking Paul up and asking for Nancy so he could attack her, suppose he had planted listening devices, or explosive devices, and crept away unnoticed? But you're telling me it's perfectly reasonable to leave the home unguarded when the third in line for the presidency is away. Doesn't that seem like a horrible national security vulnerabilit…

It appears going forward, thanks to MAGA republicans, that all members of congress and their families will need security.

Yes, I agree. Those MAGA republicans who are Bay Area nudity activists, living in homes with BLM stickers, LGBT Pride flags, anti-capitalism bumper stickers, and “Berkeley Stands United Against Hate" signs in the windows are very dangerous, and there's no telling who they'll attack next.

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

#267
Agreed, the problem isn't technical, it's political. Sometimes I wonder if people actually understand what "politics" actually means or ultimately entails. Politics is the result of wants. Person or group A wants things one way, Person or group B wants things another way, and these two sets of wants directly conflict in someway. How do you remedy who gets to have what they want in such a situation? That striving for getting what you want, is the literal definition of politics. At extremes, it means fighting one another to the death to resolve the matter (war/violence). Often times though, it's remedied by a bipartisan solution (which explains most things you see passed by governments and outcomes involving multiple parties), but such a solution only ensues when all parties involved are willing to have such a solution. If one party doesn't want such an outcome, and is still willing to fight to the death over such a matter, then that's sort of what happens...

Anyhow, with that said and by no offense, I find your post a bit ironic. Particularly that you imply it's an issue needing to be fixed, that people on twitter:

- can have extremely polarized views

and

- only consume the content that aligns with their views

These two are related, do you not see? Reducing polarized views, entails reducing the possible content that people could view on the platform, and thus is essentially restricting the platform to an aligned view or set of approved views (even if slightly - which means doing so would be polarizing in its own way). Basically, outside your post (imo correctly) stating that this isn't a technical issue, your post to me is like saying: "Twitter isn't the media I want to consume, as there exists viewpoints on issues on the platform (held by other people) - extreme polar opposite views which I don't like, and I only want to consume media that I like." Which would make you guilty of:

- wanting to only consume content that aligns with your views

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

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other problem is that the majority of advertisers don't want to spend their ad dollars on a platform full of people spamming various racial slurs. If that's what happens as a result of Twitter's changes in policies, and there's a flight of advertisers, I'm not sure what end result there is for Twitter except hemorrhaging money for Musk until he shuts it down.

I don't see people "spamming" racial slurs. The most inflammatory thing I see is videos of young groups of African-Americans behaving badly. In the replies, I see comments like "usual suspects," or various memes that are admittedly racial slurs: for example, Jane Goodall with a pair of binoculars and the caption "Interesting behavior." I'm not saying that's nice. That's bad. But it's the most easily avoided thing. If…

I mean, your post reads like an apology for the behaviour. My point mainly was that Twitter's success going forwards depends on ad revenue and there was apparently a huge uptick in slurs of all kinds right after the deal closed and he became owner.[1]

Maybe there's some untapped reservoir of people willing to shell out to have the Twitter blue checkmark, given it used to have some cachet and they will successfully pivot their funding model to a subscription one, but I doubt that will actually account for the difference.

[1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2022/10/31/elon-mus...

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

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see people "spamming" racial slurs. The most inflammatory thing I see is videos of young groups of African-Americans behaving badly. In the replies, I see comments like "usual suspects," or various memes that are admittedly racial slurs: for example, Jane Goodall with a pair of binoculars and the caption "Interesting behavior." I'm not saying that's nice. That's bad. But it's the most easily avoided thing. If…

I mean, your post reads like an apology for the behaviour. My point mainly was that Twitter's success going forwards depends on ad revenue and there was apparently a huge uptick in slurs of all kinds right after the deal closed and he became owner.[1] Maybe there's some untapped reservoir of people willing to shell out to have the Twitter blue checkmark, given it used to have some cachet and they will successfully pi…

> [Y]our post reads like an apology for the behaviour.

I wager you are unable to explain how, because it doesn’t.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> What you'd want is a moderator who demands decent quality arguments on the topic at hand. In 280 characters?

Not typing bad arguments takes fewer characters than having them.
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