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Goodbye, Twitter

sneak.berlin

71–80 of 88 posts

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#71
post #36

I wish we would deprecate these "Goodby [Twitter | Facebook | Medium | Etc..] articles because a) the author usually assumes that people need to be educated and b) the authors have some axe to grind specific to them. Myself and people I know use these platforms with eyes wide open and find them useful. If a person doesn't like them, quit and spare us the dramatic exit article.

> If a person doesn't like them, quit and spare us the dramatic exit article. Similarly, you could just not read it or downvote & move on

Of course, but voicing article opinions is the purpose of the comment section.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#72

I wish we would deprecate these "Goodby [Twitter | Facebook | Medium | Etc..] articles because a) the author usually assumes that people need to be educated and b) the authors have some axe to grind specific to them. Myself and people I know use these platforms with eyes wide open and find them useful. If a person doesn't like them, quit and spare us the dramatic exit article.

The “flounce” is a well-known feature of every online message board that ever existed. The loud, performative exit...usually followed by a shameful return after a few weeks of withdrawal. I’ve been watching people do it since the late 1990s.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#73

I wish we would deprecate these "Goodby [Twitter | Facebook | Medium | Etc..] articles because a) the author usually assumes that people need to be educated and b) the authors have some axe to grind specific to them. Myself and people I know use these platforms with eyes wide open and find them useful. If a person doesn't like them, quit and spare us the dramatic exit article.

I’m the author of the post, and I agree with you.

I wrote this not because I was leaving, but because of a change in state of Twitter: they didn’t censor search results before, and now they do.

I thought that was worth a post, not my departure. Nobody except my handful of friends cares about little ol’ me being on Twitter or not.

Hopefully, many more people care about widespread censorship.

If you’re using a censored platform with eyes wide open, that’s also totally fine; I wrote this because I considered myself an expert Twitter user and was myself terribly surprised that they had started censoring search.

I imagine most people that use the site are unaware of it, which is the only reason this post exists.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#74
post #7

I only really became aware of how bad Twitter's censorship was when I became 'gender critical', as in, I believe in biological reality and don't think that male-bodied people should be in women's prisons, rape shelters, women's sports, with young girls in changing rooms, etc. Then I saw how Twitter (and other social media sites) blocked and banned women (and to a lesser extent, men) from talking about it. It has been…

JK Rowling is still out there being able to share her opinions (similar to yours) to literally hundreds of millions of people so I doubt that this discourse is actually banned from twitter. I also can't wait for the day where this type of regressive speech will look as ridiculous as the fear on homosexuals in bathrooms not so long ago, but we might need to wait a few more years for that.

It's especially ironic because, statistically speaking, the real threat is from cis people trying to police who gets to use the bathroom. This anti-trans panic has led to completely cisgender women being harassed and assaulted on top of the usual assaults on and harassments of trans women.

The panic depends on the weird, contradictory belief that men need to dress up to assault women. Often from the same people who will insist all men are incredibly dangerous and do their harms out in the open. Actual doublethink.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, some organizations only post certain information on twitter.

That is the choice of those organizations.

Right, but some of that information is necessary for me to receive. Thus it is not my choice whether to use Twitter.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#76
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a person doesn't like them, quit and spare us the dramatic exit article. Similarly, you could just not read it or downvote & move on

I read them in case there is a compelling reason to quit, but it's always the same standard issue complaints

So you're quitting the "quitting..." articles and writing a comment to everyone about why the 80+ people who upvoted the article are wrong to find it interesting? And that the author wasted their time?

If nothing else, the article felt genuine and coming from a place of them feeling a loss at having something they valued change so dramatically that it lost all value. I think we all feel that constantly in various ways with internet platforms and trends and can at least identify with where they're coming from. Even if we disagree with the specifics.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the choice of those organizations.

Right, but some of that information is necessary for me to receive. Thus it is not my choice whether to use Twitter.

> but some of that information is necessary for me to receive

Like what?

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#78

Go ahead and complain about Twitter "censoring" things you post. Twitter's a platform. They have to choose what they want on there. Eventually it gets to "Oh, you saw that on Twitter? That's some garbage site where the users post every crazy, unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that comes along." At that point their platform is worthless. Censorship is no different than any other decision about what business you're in.…

I wonder if it's possible to avoid that, once it gets going. Twitter already seems like it's in the "garbage site" category, and they won't be able to fix that without throwing away the network effect that they depend on.

Anybody can post anything they want on their own sites, or a number of other completely unmoderated sites. People don't go there because their friends are already on Twitter. The conspiracy theorists follow because that's where the target is. They don't want to just post on their own site, or on sites where only other conspiracy theorists will read it. Even if those sites weren't perceived as garbage, people wouldn't go there simply because they don't know anybody.

It feels like Twitter and FB have the tiger by the ears and can neither let go nor continue to ride.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but some of that information is necessary for me to receive. Thus it is not my choice whether to use Twitter.

> but some of that information is necessary for me to receive Like what?

Service status/outage updates, official news from government organizations.

Re: Goodbye, Twitter

#80
post #36

I wish we would deprecate these "Goodby [Twitter | Facebook | Medium | Etc..] articles because a) the author usually assumes that people need to be educated and b) the authors have some axe to grind specific to them. Myself and people I know use these platforms with eyes wide open and find them useful. If a person doesn't like them, quit and spare us the dramatic exit article.

> If a person doesn't like them, quit and spare us the dramatic exit article. Similarly, you could just not read it or downvote & move on

You can't downvote articles on Hacker News.
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