Musk Buying Twitter.... For Real This Time
So Twitter is going to go downhill very fast now. Oh well, I suppose it's inevitable. I expect Elon will introduce paid plans too.
I'd found a nice community on Twitter full of genuine people who are now my friends. That community will probably not last now that 'free speech' i.e. racist, homophobic, misogynist ranting will be amplified.
What a shame. At least I had a nice community for a couple of years eh.
We're all migrating elsewhere, hopefully, to somewhere not owned by big corporations which steal our data.
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That alien woman. On Earth to observe and wonder about homo sapiens.
I'd found a nice community on Twitter full of genuine people who are now my friends. That community will probably not last now that 'free speech' i.e. racist, homophobic, misogynist ranting will be amplified.
What a shame. At least I had a nice community for a couple of years eh.
We're all migrating elsewhere, hopefully, to somewhere not owned by big corporations which steal our data.
Some of my Twitter followers are planning to move to https://bsky.app/
As social media platforms go, Twitter does have the following redeeming features, IMO:
1) Allowing pseudonyms (unlike Facebook). Essential to protecting one's privacy, IMO.
2) Being primarily text-based rather than oriented primarily towards photos and/or videos. Another plus for privacy.
Either or both of these redeeming features might disappear under Musk, given his announced intent to turn Twitter into a "super-app," whatever that means. We'll just have to wait and see what he means.
That's true of pretty near all major social media platforms. Can you think of any exceptions?
The big problems with today's major social media, IMO, are (1) their sheer size, making them impossible to moderate well, and (2) their algorithms, designed to maximize attention.
Old-fashioned message boards like Wrong Planet are much better, IMO, at least when they have good moderators.
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- Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.
- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.
- My Twitter / "X" (new as of 2021)
That's true of pretty near all major social media platforms. Can you think of any exceptions?
The big problems with today's major social media, IMO, are (1) their sheer size, making them impossible to moderate well, and (2) their algorithms, designed to maximize attention.
Old-fashioned message boards like Wrong Planet are much better, IMO, at least when they have good moderators.
I agree 100%. I particularly dislike Twitter, but there are no major social media platforms that I actually like. Message boards can be much better, so long as they're well-moderated.
You are 100% correct. Humans need moderating. The experiment of having 'free for all' social media platforms with no moderation has been a huge mistake.
Having said that, I found a great bunch of people on Twitter on the hashtag #KindnessTrain Lovely people on there, but it might not last due to Musk.
I had such happy days on message boards 20 years ago, the BBC ran brilliant ones and the internet seemed fun back then.
Another great alternative to Twitter is Mastodon.
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That alien woman. On Earth to observe and wonder about homo sapiens.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586693291231178753
Elon "fact checks" Hillary with the prevailing counter-theory on the Pelosi attack - that it wasn't another QAnon coup attempt but in fact an argument between her husband and the (very left wing) male prostitute he just hired. Are we back in the good timeline?
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Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!
You are 100% correct. Humans need moderating. The experiment of having 'free for all' social media platforms with no moderation has been a huge mistake.
Having said that, I found a great bunch of people on Twitter on the hashtag #KindnessTrain Lovely people on there, but it might not last due to Musk.
I had such happy days on message boards 20 years ago, the BBC ran brilliant ones and the internet seemed fun back then.
Another great alternative to Twitter is Mastodon.
The various platforms do have moderation, but they tend to be inconsistent. Some of this, I think, is because the platforms are big enough that it's very difficult to have even-keeled moderation across the board. Plus, humans are human, so there's always going to be inconsistency. Regardless, you do need to have rules. A platform without rules will quickly become impossible to manage.
the massive size of these platforms is a mistake. It's impossible to moderate millions of people at all.
In real life societies people are accountable for their comments and actions. Hidden behind a computer screen, no one is accountable. That is mistake no. 2.
Plus of course the millions of paid trolls and bots causing chaos and division.
Hopefully social media will come to an end soon.
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That alien woman. On Earth to observe and wonder about homo sapiens.
Exactly. The bigger* the platform, the bigger* the moderation problem.
Thus, for many users, today's major social media platforms would be completely unlivable without the ability to block and/or mute other users.
But this ease of blocking and/or muting other users has some undesirable social consequences, such as fostering an attitude of extreme impatience toward other people. After all, since there are millions or even billions of other people out there who are only a few keystrokes away, why waste even a nanosecond on trying to straighten out a misunderstanding with anyone who is less than 100% perfect?
Obviously, the resulting impatience is bad for us as autistic people.
Indeed.
*(For the computer science nerds out there, I'd guess the moderation problem gets bigger by at least Θ(n²), certainly much bigger than Θ(n), where n is the number of active users.)
_________________
- Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.
- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.
- My Twitter / "X" (new as of 2021)
Last edited by Mona Pereth on 30 Oct 2022, 1:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Obviously, the resulting impatience is bad for us as autistic people.
You hit the nail on the head there! I think it was you that pointed this out another time. An excellent point well made.
I realised I was doing this a while ago and deliberately made an effort to ask what people meant rather than instantly block. As a result I have straightened out many misunderstandings.
_________________
That alien woman. On Earth to observe and wonder about homo sapiens.
Exactly. The bigger* the platform, the bigger* the moderation problem.
Thus, for many users, today's major social media platforms would be completely unlivable without the ability to block and/or mute other users.
But this ease of blocking and/or muting other users has some undesirable social consequences, such as fostering an attitude of extreme impatience toward other people. After all, since there are millions or even billions of other people out there who are only a few keystrokes away, why waste even a nanosecond on trying to straighten out a misunderstanding with anyone who is less than 100% perfect?
Obviously, the resulting impatience is bad for us as autistic people.
Indeed.
*(For the computer science nerds out there, I'd guess the moderation problem gets bigger by at least Θ(n²), certainly much bigger than Θ(n), where n is the number of active users.)
Smartphones are also part of the problem. Modern social media platforms are designed with mobile in mind. But since we carry our phones wherever we go (for the most part), that means we're basically always "on" in regards to social media. Because smartphones and social media both tend to encourage quick replies, they worsen the tendency toward snap judgments and failing to actually read what was written.
I'll never understand how Twitter became the preferred medium for discourse, because it's uniquely ill-suited for it. Arguments usually turn into sloganeering, because you simply don't have the space to approach anything with nuance (and even if you did, no one would read it). The only kind of statement that's possible to make on Twitter is something akin to the old mantra from Orwell's Animal Farm: "Four legs good, two legs bad."
It's absurd to think Musk will make it any better. The problem with Twitter isn't too much/too little moderation. Instead, it's the very structure of the platform. There is no way to fix it, and any alternatives that attempt something similar will be just as awful.
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