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The tyranny of the supertweeter

omnibudsman.substack.com

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Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#3
Twitter is one of the worst places I've ever visited. In general makes me feel bad after just reading 1 to 3 tweets.

It thrives on snarkiness, rage, anger and outrage.

Even though there are some gems in the mud. In this case it would be best to shut it down and start over.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#4

Twitter is one of the worst places I've ever visited. In general makes me feel bad after just reading 1 to 3 tweets. It thrives on snarkiness, rage, anger and outrage. Even though there are some gems in the mud. In this case it would be best to shut it down and start over.

It also thrives in "hot takes" that might sound smart at first glance but are incredibly ignorant if you analyse them. Everything is oversimplified to fit the character limit, but nobody seems to notice. It's ignorant hot-takes in answer to other ignorant hot-takes. TikTok is basically the same btw, but in video format.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#5

Twitter is one of the worst places I've ever visited. In general makes me feel bad after just reading 1 to 3 tweets. It thrives on snarkiness, rage, anger and outrage. Even though there are some gems in the mud. In this case it would be best to shut it down and start over.

The medium is the message and the medium is really horrible.

Every time I’ve tried to cultivate a nice list of feeds it has been constant hassle to manage it.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#6

Twitter is one of the worst places I've ever visited. In general makes me feel bad after just reading 1 to 3 tweets. It thrives on snarkiness, rage, anger and outrage. Even though there are some gems in the mud. In this case it would be best to shut it down and start over.

I only look at art tweets and tweet my new work several times a week. Other than that I ignore all the crap.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#7
The part about journalism is particularly troubling because Twitter is like crack for journalists and has thus played a big part in decreasing the credibility of the profession.

The platform is a journalist's fantasy brought to life. The ability to exist as an individual and have an audience independently of their publication. Blue check-marks. As the article mentions, the capacity to find stories with little effort.

Of course, this is fairly illusory and the resulting quality of stories is poorer each year to the point where Twitter threads repackaged as articles are a significant portion of most outlets.

It's the Mercator projection but for the opinions of people who don't touch grass. The significance of Twitter users' opinions is blown way out of proportion because the medium itself is easily accessible and attractive to journalists.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#8

Twitter is one of the worst places I've ever visited. In general makes me feel bad after just reading 1 to 3 tweets. It thrives on snarkiness, rage, anger and outrage. Even though there are some gems in the mud. In this case it would be best to shut it down and start over.

[deleted]

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#9
I've admittedly only scanned the article. But apart from a lot of statistics, where is the headline question answered? Neither tyranny nor supertweeter occur anywhere in the article. Is this the tyranny of needing a clickbaity title otherwise no one will read it?

I mean it starts off with Twitter is not like real life. Then proves with a lot of statistics that actually, it is like real life. Especially if you are journalist or a politician. And then concludes with the non-sequitor that it is not like real life after all.

I'm left a bit confused.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#10
post #7

The part about journalism is particularly troubling because Twitter is like crack for journalists and has thus played a big part in decreasing the credibility of the profession. The platform is a journalist's fantasy brought to life. The ability to exist as an individual and have an audience independently of their publication. Blue check-marks. As the article mentions, the capacity to find stories with little effort.…

> The significance of Twitter users' opinions is blown way out of proportion because the medium itself is easily accessible and attractive to journalists.

This has given rise to what I saw coined as Twitter professors a couple of days ago (I read it somewhere on HN), their fame made it easier to get funding was the claim. This is a bit problematic because that should be based on the merit of the research. The same issues could arise for other experts or famous people, where as you say their opinions are disproportionately echoed due to their presence and activity on Twitter.

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