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Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

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Re: Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

#591

Post by mjr00 »

est31 wrote: post #108

When MS bought github many people moved to gitlab and started to advertise their gitlab IDs. I too put my gitlab in there. But ultimately, gitlab didn't catch on on a permanent basis: most devs still are on github, thanks to network effects. People removed their gitlab mentions. I feel the same with the "find me on mastodon" twitter bios: people will realize that only 50 of their thousands of followers can be found o…

> I feel the same with the "find me on mastodon" twitter bios: people will realize that only 50 of their thousands of followers can be found on mastodon, and then move back in a few weeks after giving up on the experiment. During all that time they have still kept most of their activities on twitter because there is simply more going on there, more replies to their tweets, more tweets to reply to, etc.

Pretty much. Among the big anti-Elon names, Kathy Griffin already gave up on Mastodon and is just posting once every 2-3 days now, probably because getting 200 likes on her posts is a major step down from the 100k+ she was regularly getting on Twitter.

> banning them might have actually the opposite effect here: then they get forced to focus on mastodon.

I agree, but if you're a professional relying on engagement metrics for your career--as many artists, musicians, journalists, and social media marketers do--it would take massive, massive guts to go all-in on Mastodon when it clearly has not taken over Twitter's engagement by any extent.

For historical precedent: Instagram instituted a very similar policy to stop people from adding OnlyFans links, but it didn't really decrease IG usage as far as I know. You still need Instagram to "funnel" people into your OF, same as journalists will need Twitter to funnel people into their articles. It's simply too valuable a resource to give up for them.

Re: Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

#592

Post by Yoofie »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #20
LAC-Tech wrote: post #18

Seems reasonable. Let's all remember the spirit of '20, everyone: Twitter is a private company, if you don't like it build your own twitter!

People absolutely should. And people should also hold Musk to account for being a liar and a hypocrite. These things don't conflict.

"He who has not sinned shall cast the first stone"

Re: Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

#593

Post by wpietri »

snowwrestler wrote: post #577
wpietri wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. Twitter is dominant for their slice of social media, as demonstrated by the fact that a lot of the people who think about leaving don't see viable alternatives. But I agree that US anti-trust law is so hands off at this point that there's no chance the FTC would do anything substantive here.

If you define Twitter’s market as “sites that do things very similarly to Twitter,” I agree they look dominant. I doubt U.S. courts would agree with such a narrow definition, though. Twitter itself doesn’t seem to take that view of its own market, given that Facebook and Instagram are first on the block list—both products of Meta, a competitor with far more eyeballs and revenue than Twitter.

The FTC themselves say "a product market in an antitrust investigation consists of all goods or services that buyers view as close substitutes". So I don't think it's "do things very similarly to Twitter" as much as it is "serves the same need as Twitter". And as I said, looking at the discussions around leaving Twitter provides plenty of evidence that close substitutes are not available in the view of users.

Re: Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

#594

Post by guelo »

jrmg wrote: post #284
photochemsyn wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking direct competition is one thing, but what if Twitter starts blocking tweets about VW electric vehicles and promoting tweets about Tesla? It's a very strange setup - although not that different from Bezos' and the Washington Post removing all investigative journalism into the CIA / NSA while AWS seeks large services contracts from those government entities.

Washington Post removing all investigative journalism into the CIA / NSA while AWS seeks large services contracts from those government entities That happened?

No

Re: Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

#595

Post by 9wzYQbTYsAIc »

Klinky wrote: post #544
modeless wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that but one would be wrong because cross-posting is clearly allowed if you read the whole policy instead of just the first section.

One could argue a clear definition of "cross posting" should be provided before assuming it'd be allowed. A policy like this is going to have a chilling effect regardless, due to the ambiguity. It's also a quite absurd for a free-speech platform to even have such a policy in the first place, even if it's attempting to reign in "direct promotion" rather than sharing content across platforms. > At both the Tweet level…

> It's also a quite absurd for a free-speech platform to even have such a policy in the first place

It does make sense for a paid-speech platform, though.

Also, as a thought experiment, if Twitter were a part of the fediverse, wouldn’t this policy essentially be the same as defederating from the prohibited sites?

I’m new to the concept of the fediverse, so I welcome edification or enlightenment on that thought experiment.

Re: Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

#596

Post by _fizz_buzz_ »

est31 wrote: post #108

When MS bought github many people moved to gitlab and started to advertise their gitlab IDs. I too put my gitlab in there. But ultimately, gitlab didn't catch on on a permanent basis: most devs still are on github, thanks to network effects. People removed their gitlab mentions. I feel the same with the "find me on mastodon" twitter bios: people will realize that only 50 of their thousands of followers can be found o…

> people will realize that only 50 of their thousands of followers can be found on mastodon

That was true a few weeks ago, but not anymore (at least for tech/electronics).

Re: Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

#597

Post by patrec »

If Elon feels sore about having burned $44B on Twitter now, I wonder how he'll feel once he realizes that it's actually Gab/Parler he's bought.

And discovers the hard way that Twitter's ex-leadership could afford to bully and piss off the MAGA right to a far greater extent than he could afford to piss off the Bay Area left (the the two are not equivalent in intellectual output, sway over the mainstream, attractiveness to advertisers, or ability to build alternative platforms).

And this particular move will irritate people right across the political spectrum.

Re: Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

#598

Post by red_trumpet »

United857 wrote: post #94

This seems to be lost in the storm: “we allow paid advertisement/promotion for any of the prohibited social media platforms.” Just another money grab — doesn’t make it much nicer but not an outright ban.

He could have made this Twitter Blue only. What a missed opportunity!

Re: Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

#599

Post by rsynnott »

est31 wrote: post #108

When MS bought github many people moved to gitlab and started to advertise their gitlab IDs. I too put my gitlab in there. But ultimately, gitlab didn't catch on on a permanent basis: most devs still are on github, thanks to network effects. People removed their gitlab mentions. I feel the same with the "find me on mastodon" twitter bios: people will realize that only 50 of their thousands of followers can be found o…

Microsoft’s takeover of GitHub was more or less a model takeover, though (and, well, very surprising to those of us used to the old Microsoft). People had concerns, but they largely didn’t come to pass. This is very much, well, the opposite of that. If anything, Elon-Twitter is even _more_ of a mess than people had expected.

I think my mastodon account is at about 30% the following and follower count of my old Twitter account. But it’s largely the _interesting_ 30%; I stopped using twitter a few weeks ago and don’t feel I’m missing out.

Re: Promotion of alternative social platforms policy

#600

Post by drstewart »

kstrauser wrote: post #145
andrew_ wrote: post #66

The amount of sarcasm, triteness, and personally directed anger in the comments here is disappointing.

I find it hard to discuss this without being sarcastic or flippant because it’s so utterly, laughably boneheaded.

Then maybe you should refrain from commenting?
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