Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[garbon]

Hopefully Twitter dies and decomposes without anything taking its place.  Humanity can't handle things like Twitter.

This.

[The Brain]

Ukraine's account is still up.

[crazy canuck]

Hopefully Twitter dies and decomposes without anything taking its place.  Humanity can't handle things like Twitter.

This.

I enjoy it quite a bit. I don't see much of what most people complain about because I follow academics, and journalists who were commenting on the local BC and Canadian scene.

I hope Elon doesn't destroy it and turn it into a fox disaster area.

If the people I follow leave Twitter I also will leave Twitter

[crazy canuck]

Less the triggered by Trump I'm thinking and more this just being a tip of a shitty fox newsy fake news iceberg.

Same diff

I don't think it is.
If twitter becomes a place where facts are censored and right wing bollocks gets boosted I do think there's a lot of people who will see it as no longer a place worth posting. This does leave a potential market to recreate pre-musk twitter (with blackjack and hookers)

I agree. That is the main risk.

[garbon]

Hopefully Twitter dies and decomposes without anything taking its place.  Humanity can't handle things like Twitter.

This.

I enjoy it quite a bit. I don't see much of what most people complain about because I follow academics, and journalists who were commenting on the local BC and Canadian scene.

I hope Elon doesn't destroy it and turn it into a fox disaster area.

If the people I follow leave Twitter I also will leave Twitter

It has been known for a while that people can carve out their own echo chambers on social media.

[Valmy]

I enjoy it quite a bit. I don't see much of what most people complain about because I follow academics, and journalists who were commenting on the local BC and Canadian scene.

Speaking of comments by Canadians, the sentence that came to me when I was dealing with Twitter was "the medium is the message." There was just something about how the medium of Twitter worked that seemed to make whatever group I would associate with become more toxic over time. And it wasn't Twitter's rules or whatever it was the very structure how it worked. The limits on characters, the ability to retweet and put people on blast, the whole like and whatever deal. It just seemed to encourage cult-like formation of of in-groups and shunning of out-groups and it all got really nasty. People love to form little cult groups and toxically performatively shun people anyway, those are unfortunately very nasty human things humans like to do. Twitter just really empowered that. When I realized that, back in 2014, I left never to return. The whole Gamergate thing playing out at the time didn't help.

But I do realize you can have positive experiences with Twitter, I certainly did at times during my time there.

Elon Musk is welcome to it though.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, I find Twitter useful. For example when the Ukraine war got started I found about 20 accounts, ranging from on the ground Ukrainian journalists, foreign policy academics specializing in Russia, and ex-military and diplomatic officials who all give good insights, and following them gives me a nicely curated newsfeed for Ukraine issues.

I've done the same for other issues I follow.

That being said I think to some degree the core design of Twitter is why it isn't a very "successful" social media network, it isn't nearly as sticky as something like Facebook, and doesn't seem to promote the same level of engagement as things like TikTok / Snapchat / Instagram. I think to some degree its main value is as a quasi-replacement for the old RSS feed concept, but the issue there is that sort of product isn't nearly as valuable to advertisers as the other sorts of social media are. Twitter is relatively small by the standards of the social media majors, and I think its user base growth kind of stalled out years ago, and there are big question as to how anyone can monetize it to the level Musk wants to monetize it.

[Barrister]

I enjoy it quite a bit. I don't see much of what most people complain about because I follow academics, and journalists who were commenting on the local BC and Canadian scene.

I hope Elon doesn't destroy it and turn it into a fox disaster area.

If the people I follow leave Twitter I also will leave Twitter

I also kind of enjoy Twitter.  I follow some sources for Winnipeg sports teams, a bunch of people about Ukraine, several local lawyers, and a handful of more general writers on politics.  All useful stuff.

But here's the thing - as soon as you click on one of the Tweets to see the replies they immediately become unhinged and crazy.

So you have to keep yourself very sheltered in order to use Twitter and not lose your mind.

[PJL]

That being said I think to some degree the core design of Twitter is why it isn't a very "successful" social media network, it isn't nearly as sticky as something like Facebook, and doesn't seem to promote the same level of engagement as things like TikTok / Snapchat / Instagram. I think to some degree its main value is as a quasi-replacement for the old RSS feed concept, but the issue there is that sort of product isn't nearly as valuable to advertisers as the other sorts of social media are. Twitter is relatively small by the standards of the social media majors, and I think its user base growth kind of stalled out years ago, and there are big question as to how anyone can monetize it to the level Musk wants to monetize it.

I think there's a fundamental contradiction in pursuing more freedoms & most revenue on the platform. Advertisers are going to be much less likely to go on Twitter if their client's brands are tarnished by greater controversies as a consequence of the proposed relaxation of 'good behaviour' rules on the platform.

[Jacob]

I also kind of enjoy Twitter.  I follow some sources for Winnipeg sports teams, a bunch of people about Ukraine, several local lawyers, and a handful of more general writers on politics.  All useful stuff.

But here's the thing - as soon as you click on one of the Tweets to see the replies they immediately become unhinged and crazy.

So you have to keep yourself very sheltered in order to use Twitter and not lose your mind.

Yeah, my experience is pretty similar. Clicking on replies is usually pretty fraught.

Thing is, I can live without Twitter pretty easily. If Twitter goes off, I'll delete it from my phone and move on with my life.

[OttoVonBismarck]

That being said I think to some degree the core design of Twitter is why it isn't a very "successful" social media network, it isn't nearly as sticky as something like Facebook, and doesn't seem to promote the same level of engagement as things like TikTok / Snapchat / Instagram. I think to some degree its main value is as a quasi-replacement for the old RSS feed concept, but the issue there is that sort of product isn't nearly as valuable to advertisers as the other sorts of social media are. Twitter is relatively small by the standards of the social media majors, and I think its user base growth kind of stalled out years ago, and there are big question as to how anyone can monetize it to the level Musk wants to monetize it.

I think there's a fundamental contradiction in pursuing more freedoms & most revenue on the platform. Advertisers are going to be much less likely to go on Twitter if their client's brands are tarnished by greater controversies as a consequence of the proposed relaxation of 'good behaviour' rules on the platform.

There is actually another big issue--I am not worried about Musk letting Twitter turn into 4chan, he is just going to unban some right wingers who while regrettable are relatively "mainstream" for the right these days. People can mute/block those people if they don't want to see what they have to say. I'm somewhat skeptical how much "power" a big Twitter account really gives someone--the people who engage with Trump's tweets were already locked in to Trumpism, and very likely consume Trumpy stuff all day long from any number of sources.

The big issue I see, is earlier on Musk suggested part of how he would better monetize Twitter was basically getting rid of anonymous accounts by forcing you to do what Facebook does, where you at least have to pretend to be a real person to have a Facebook account. That can make the users more valuable because now Twitter can start to build a better user profile on you. But I also think it will alienate a lot of the users who use Twitter. Like I don't care that much if Musk unbans Trump, but if he tries to make me use my real life name on my Tweets, that'd be the end for me--I have no interest in my Tweets being linked to my real life identity for career / etc reasons.

[Barrister]

I enjoy it quite a bit. I don't see much of what most people complain about because I follow academics, and journalists who were commenting on the local BC and Canadian scene.

Speaking of comments by Canadians, the sentence that came to me when I was dealing with Twitter was "the medium is the message." There was just something about how the medium of Twitter worked that seemed to make whatever group I would associate with become more toxic over time. And it wasn't Twitter's rules or whatever it was the very structure how it worked. The limits on characters, the ability to retweet and put people on blast, the whole like and whatever deal. It just seemed to encourage cult-like formation of of in-groups and shunning of out-groups and it all got really nasty. People love to form little cult groups and toxically performatively shun people anyway, those are unfortunately very nasty human things humans like to do. Twitter just really empowered that. When I realized that, back in 2014, I left never to return. The whole Gamergate thing playing out at the time didn't help.

But I do realize you can have positive experiences with Twitter, I certainly did at times during my time there.

Elon Musk is welcome to it though.

The fundamental problem with Twitter is you can't do any nuance in 288 characters, so everything is just absolutist hot takes.

[Barrister]

The big issue I see, is earlier on Musk suggested part of how he would better monetize Twitter was basically getting rid of anonymous accounts by forcing you to do what Facebook does, where you at least have to pretend to be a real person to have a Facebook account. That can make the users more valuable because now Twitter can start to build a better user profile on you. But I also think it will alienate a lot of the users who use Twitter. Like I don't care that much if Musk unbans Trump, but if he tries to make me use my real life name on my Tweets, that'd be the end for me--I have no interest in my Tweets being linked to my real life identity for career / etc reasons.

My Twitter handle is my real name, and I'd vastly prefer it if Twitter went to such a system.

When things are attached to your real name that forces you to be far more careful about what you tweet.

Now I'll admit that as a government lawyer that means I never discuss politics on Twitter (a topic on which I have many opinions) but I think it's a better tradeoff.

[Grey Fox]

Don't. Be. The. Main. Character.

Musk's insatiable thirst to be the main character just cost him his, already limited, integrity and 44 billions $.

[Valmy]

The fundamental problem with Twitter is you can't do any nuance in 288 characters, so everything is just absolutist hot takes.

Yes. You cannot have real discussions in the medium provided. That is what I was getting at. The medium creates cultish tribalism and shunning behaviors.