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I resigned from Twitter

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Re: I resigned from Twitter

#491

Post by randomsearch »

spion wrote: post #352

Twitter and other social media are probably the biggest problem of our time. By providing simple rules of information flow: small amount of content, retweet, followers) and rewards (likes), they've created the most efficient engines for finding and spreading novelty at the expense of everything else. There are no incentives to improve accuracy, increase thoughtfulness, paint nuance. Fact checking gets lost in the win…

It’s not novelty that is optimised for, it’s engagement, and engagement is usually directly correlated with enragement.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#492

Post by hellbannedguy »

Kye wrote: post #216
afavour wrote: post #7

I have no particular beef with Dorsey but I think this would make sense. He's been CEO of both Square and Twitter for years now and no matter what time you wake up in the morning or however many specials diets you undertake you're not going to be able to give the focus a solo CEO is. I think the bigger issue is who gets to replace him: will it be someone with smart ideas or someone to serve as a puppet of activist in…

One of the only episodes of Joe Rogan I ever listened to (#1258) was the interview with Jack Dorsey and Vijaya Gadde. Vijaya Gadde would make a good CEO. She seems to have a clear, balanced, and well-informed perspective on both Twitter as a whole and the many micro-communities within.

It will be a female.

The BOD know that Twitter will always be nothing more than a place social influencers will go to sell product, and selling product to females is a goldmine.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#493

Post by datavirtue »

nprz wrote: post #486
spion wrote: post #352

Twitter and other social media are probably the biggest problem of our time. By providing simple rules of information flow: small amount of content, retweet, followers) and rewards (likes), they've created the most efficient engines for finding and spreading novelty at the expense of everything else. There are no incentives to improve accuracy, increase thoughtfulness, paint nuance. Fact checking gets lost in the win…

Have you read Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, Public Opinion by Walter Lippman, or Propaganda by Edward Bernays? If so, I don't think you would come to the conclusion that the media landscape prior to social media was bastion of truth and honesty.

Yeah, traditional media was/is a consent manufacturer. The elite decide among themselves the truth, and then repeat it over and over.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#494

Post by mysecretaccount »

nprz wrote: post #486
spion wrote: post #352

Twitter and other social media are probably the biggest problem of our time. By providing simple rules of information flow: small amount of content, retweet, followers) and rewards (likes), they've created the most efficient engines for finding and spreading novelty at the expense of everything else. There are no incentives to improve accuracy, increase thoughtfulness, paint nuance. Fact checking gets lost in the win…

Have you read Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, Public Opinion by Walter Lippman, or Propaganda by Edward Bernays? If so, I don't think you would come to the conclusion that the media landscape prior to social media was bastion of truth and honesty.

Yeah, I cannot imagine how someone would say social media is the "biggest problem of our time" unless they were ignorant to the work you cited, and many other fundamental issues (profit motive turning the planet into a convection oven, for one).

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#495

Post by root_axis »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #306
jcadam wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it can be fixed. Social media in general is a cancer.

HN is a social medium.

If every website with a comment section can be described as "social media" then you're diluting the meaning of the term to the point of being useless.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#496

Post by jabedude »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #478
Nasrudith wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just need to respect human agency instead of thinking you inherently know better than the world how to use it. It is a sentiment which is very out of current zeitgeist with its "boy who cried dystopia" bent.

How do gigantic globe-spanning ad machines "respect human agency"?

I can see the argument. Nothing forces an individual to click on or engage with an advertisement

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#497

Post by rossdavidh »

afavour wrote: post #465
bob332 wrote: post #453

He will go down in history as the creator of a truly evil and potential humanity destroying platform

We’re talking about Dorsey here, not Zuckerberg

Yeah, should read "He will go down in history as _a_ creator of a truly evil and potential humanity destroying platform"

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#498

Post by sonofaragorn »

koheripbal wrote: post #234
riffic wrote: post #151

Looks like activist investors are getting their Christmas wish this year. Twitter's not immune from ending up on this list (on a long enough timeline): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_social_network...

The issue with Dorsey is that he acknowledges how toxic Twitter is, but has no idea how to fix it nor did he seem ready to do so, and this made investors very nervous. See his recent interview on CNN : https://www.facebook.com/cnn/videos/2100868666791589/

Twitter does a have a large "health" department tasked with figuring how to measure and improve the quality of the content and discourse in the platform. I don't have details since I only interviewed for a role in that team, but I do know it exists and it has a large number of PMs, Data Scientists, and Researchers. They have even collaborated with academia on the topic and a recent open RecSys competition (recommender system) was organized by Twitter with their data.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#499

Post by netizen-936824 »

pmcp wrote: post #460
wonderwonder wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are a symptom, not the root. The root started before them with the advent of pay per click advertising. Everything else has spiraled from that. I truly believe that the massive divisiveness of the last 2 decades can be traced to this. Social media echo chambers, youtube rabbit holes, click baity headlines, all of it is because of pay per click advertising. The ML algorithms we have now have become so eff…

As someone who started working at an ad agency during the online metrics boom, then went to a national news organisation to work as digital strategist, I tend to agree. But I would pinpoint it to the inflated value of impressions. My experience (but i can not back this up) tells me that ad sellers tend to over estimate the impact of an impression, which makes the value chain completely inflated, and skews the busines…

Don't basically all salespeople inflate the value of the products they sell?

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#500

Post by brewdad »

aniforprez wrote: post #255
dnautics wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to feel that way, but I aggressively moderated who I follow in a purge, and being selective about who I add as follows. It feels like it's easier to marie-kondo people I don't care for anymore in twitter since there's little-to-no-expectation that I know anyone on twitter, and for me, anyways, twitter is a much more pleasant experience than any other social network has been.

I agree. Every so often, I just glance at my feed and see if I can KonMari out some people. At this point I follow some decent tech feeds, a lot of art and game dev feeds and some very pleasant and funny people. I find it pretty fun to scroll through the feeds about once a day It's a huge contrast from reddit where you can follow subreddits but most of the stuff you see is surfaced up and there's a hive mind at work.…

I see so many people complain about Facebook but it's probably my best behaved social network. The key for me was to unfriend any high school "friend" I haven't seen in real life for almost 30 years. Then mute my Boomer relatives who I need to remain Facebook friends with to keep the peace. The result is a feed of about 20 people I enjoy who share pictures and goings-on day to day with the occasional posting from someone outside the core group who I still enjoy interacting with.
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