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I resigned from Twitter

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Re: I resigned from Twitter

#511

Post by datavirtue »

cletus wrote: post #419
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…

The real problem here is people, not the platforms or the products. How do I know this? Because the problems have existed far longer than any of the platforms. Maybe people here are too young to remember how toxic, argumentative, irrational and judgmental everything else was that came previously: forums, mailing lists, Usenet, you name it. Sure products can influence user behaviour but they can't totally change it. A…

I have been on a lot of forums where it was generally amicable, informative, and unarguably valuable. Sure, there was toxicity but was usually just enough to be comic relief and could be ignored. However, a lot of dumbshits were still carrying around flip phones and did little else than play hunting or monster truck games on a PC. Now they have a frictionless platform from where they can interject thier wisdom into just about any forum without having anything invested.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#512

Post by Invictus0 »

Stratoscope wrote: post #334
Invictus0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/27/paul-singer-do ... Stunning article. Everyone has a bit of dirt on them I suppose, and it's more important than ever to safeguard one's privacy.

404?

Oops, I copied it wrong from the parent. Sorry!

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#514

Post by joelthelion »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #259

It will be interesting to see how Twitter changes as a result. Twitter with selective following and setting your timeline to 'time order' creates a pretty good environment for me. It feels like the equivalent of living in only a few chosen 'subreddits' rather than getting the full frontal reddit experience.

I suppose they're going to monetize more aggressively? Sigh...

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#515

Post by wonderwonder »

TheCondor wrote: post #470
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…

Was this an internet age thing? I mean 24hour news networks found out long before social media took off that they can eat a bigger piece of the pie and not spend money working on news by running opinion hacks. Just decide which echo chamber you want to pander to and then fill up your schedule with pundits. Their market share went up, their costs went down and no matter what happens or doesn't happen each day, they ha…

The internet is a little different as on tv they cant follow you from channel to channel recommending things for you to watch. Tv shows cost a good deal of money to produce so the range of offerings is limited. On the internet, algorithms track your every click even to the point of noticing that you paused on a headline but did not click it. They are able to build a profile on you that is likely more accurate than anything ever created before including your understanding of yourself. With this profile they also have an almost unlimited supply of videos, articles and social media posts to send your way that your profile says you will likely click on. Each time you click on something their profile is updated and improved. They are able to create a steady stream of offered media that cannot help but reinforce your views on the world as you are quite often not presented with much of an alternative. If you are not a technical person and you are only presented with news that supports your political ideology you may very well think that everyone else is getting the same feed. This would make them think that if you are getting the same news as them and still hold a different viewpoint then you are being willfully ignorant and choosing to be malicious. See the rise of the "liberalism is a disease" meme. For example if all the news you see says Biden is senile and a terrible person, why would you not believe it? In the same way in which someone on the left was presented with a very negative feed of Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his nomination process. A good example of how powerful the ML algorithms are now is NBA player Kyrie Irving and his trip down the youtube rabbit hole that convinced him the earth was flat. He also holds Anti-Vax ideas, which were most likely influenced by his internet browsing habits.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#516

Post by Aperocky »

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/

The toxicity is linearly correlated with its success, of course that would be very hard to fix from a business stand point.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#517

Post by 8ytecoder »

LegitShady wrote: post #299
ChuckMcM wrote: post #259

It will be interesting to see how Twitter changes as a result. Twitter with selective following and setting your timeline to 'time order' creates a pretty good environment for me. It feels like the equivalent of living in only a few chosen 'subreddits' rather than getting the full frontal reddit experience.

Long ago I made a reddit account with the first suggested name after the one I asked for was 'taken', disabled following all the subreddits, and then selectively added subreddits specific to my hobbies. I don't see anything that normally hits the front page, everything I do see is somewhat relevant to me, and it basically deletes all politics from what is presented. By far the best reddit experience possible, I think…

Mind sharing a few interesting ones?

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#518

Post by hadlock »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #434
rich_sasha wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the is very different to what newspapers were when they first appeared? Of course they never achieved the same technological pace. Also, nowadays, when you think of newspapers, you think mostly of quality publications, writing considered, contextualised pieces. But even nowadays, there are plenty of crappy tabloids chasing ad revenue (clicks?), with no regard for information and only about the shock factor. And in…

While I agree printed media is biased and is a medium for propaganda, it's hard to argue it's comparable in scale or effectiveness to social media. 1) in the Renaissance, literacy was much lower, books were scarce and expensive, and writing was often made in Latin, like the original bibles and Newton's Principia Mathematica. Therefore, print had MUCH less reach than social media. 2) the attentional cost of a book is…

A lot of printed media was released in poorly bound booklets, without covers, it was roughly equivalent to a tweet or blog post today. The good ones got reprinted and/or compiled into an anthology, the bad ones were simply lost to time as kindling for the hearth.

Not as fast as a tweet, but low cost, sub-book media has existed as long as the printing press was around. The classic books we study today are the equivalent of the criterion collection dvd sets.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#519

Post by dylan604 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #310
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.

Aggressively unfollowing people is the only way to keep Twitter useful. I think the mistake people make is approaching Twitter follows like they would friendship links on Facebook or other platforms. You don’t have a relationship with the people you follow. Don’t hesitate to let it go. The loudest people on Twitter are often the worst at providing actual value. They optimize for clickbait and engagement, which can tr…

>Aggressively unfollowing people is the only way to keep Twitter useful.

Aggressively not following people to require unfollowing later would be another way

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#520

Post by ecuzzillo »

nend wrote: post #385
ChuckMcM wrote: post #259

It will be interesting to see how Twitter changes as a result. Twitter with selective following and setting your timeline to 'time order' creates a pretty good environment for me. It feels like the equivalent of living in only a few chosen 'subreddits' rather than getting the full frontal reddit experience.

This seems to hold true for many social media sites: facebook, reddit, twitter. It takes effort on behalf of the user to make their experience on the site "better". And by better I mean, less divisive, and less mindless scrolling of memes/low effort content. Thinking about it from the business's perspective, it probably ultimately also lowers their user engagement metrics. Users get a higher quality experience using…

True, but it's easy to find games that don't use that model (especially on desktop or console), whereas it's hard to find a way to consume thoughts from interesting people outside of twitter.
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