8 ms·

Bye, Twitter

151 points by lolsoftware 4y ago

yakubin 4y ago
All these predictions of imminent technical downfall of Twitter read to me like predictions that in the next release Python will get slow. It's surreal. As for the non-technical aspects: Mastodon is social media, just like any other, with all the associated faults. Don’t expect miracles.
- mjhagen 4y ago
  It’s actively trying not to have all the associated faults. For instance, there is no company behind it that needs to make money, so no ads, no algorithmic timeline.
hacksoi 4y ago
mlindner 4y ago
Calling Elon an “alt-right troll” is the height of nonsense… do these people actually understand what alt right is?
EricE 4y ago
[flagged]
- cplusplusfellow 4y ago
  Similar to my commentary in other threads today. You basically won’t ever hear someone refer to a person as “center right” anymore. We can only hear that they are “far right” and that your average communist is “center left”. Just absurd.
  - Pxtl 4y ago
    Because so much of the modern right has hitched its wagon to COVID conspiracy theories, climate change denial, transphobia, election denial, etc. "Centre right", to my mind is "cut taxes and solve policy problems with the free market", not "everybody involved in supporting trans children is secretly pedophiles". And there just aren't a lot of those in media discourse anymore.
    - cplusplusfellow 4y ago
      You can downvote me all you like but you live in a bubble and it would benefit you to get out of it.
- rglullis 4y ago
  It's kind of interesting and frustrating to see how the whole twitter drama is screwing with my mental model of the "culture wars" in the US. I'd really, really thought that principled conservatives would look at Mastodon (actually, any open social media platform) as an an opportunity to exercise their free speech. I would think they would say "oh, look, we don't need Twitter anymore. Here we can have our places, no one can censor us, no one can try to find any bullshit excuse to silence our side. Let's use it. We can make Twitter irrelevant." Did any of that happen? No. Of course not. All of the conservatives are just "glad" that Elon is taking over. The whole thing has just been a fight over control of the corporate channel. When the Babylon Bee got kicked out of Twitter, I thought it was stupid. I reached out to the Dillon brothers, asked if they were interested in putting together a Mastodon instance, or at least integrating their site with some ActivityPub feed. No response. Now, every other tweet can be summarized as some variation of them sucking Elon's dick. Then, this week. I read that Claire Lehmann and Sam Harris both quit Twitter. Both were part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" that rose to some prominence (along the same time Jordan Peterson got popular). Why were they leaving Twitter? The answer is "TDS". Reinstating Trump was too much for them. Really? Of all the things that has been happening at Twitter (and Big Tech in General), this is what drives them away? Are they going to Mastodon? Apparently not, because that's only the place where "the libs" go and "we can't own them there". It's just ridiculous.
raphlinus 4y ago
I've also moved from Twitter to Mastodon, for the same reasons, and have a similar experience - the raw follower count is still a fraction as before, but a lot of interesting people I want to connect with are already there. And the feeling is... very different. There was lots about Twitter that subtly enraged me, like pop-sci Covid takes showing up in my algorithmic feed after I had extremely carefully curated my followers to only include actual scientists who knew what they were talking about. And it's also refreshing not to have all those ads. In general, I feel like you've got a lot of control of your Mastodon experience, if you curate your followers well, it can be quite good. I have rules of immediately "unfollow boosts of" anybody who posts viral "boost this if..." or bullshit polls, and that's cleaning up my feed as well. I've also been followed by my first crypto account (so I might go to followers-need-approval), and have seen glimmers of the same kind of dumb drama you see on Twitter, but overall feel like I generally have the tools I need to keep all that in check. I was finding that Twitter was bad for my mental health, and took a bunch of breaks from it even when I was having generally positive interactions and finding good info. We'll see how this goes, especially as things scale.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > I was finding that Twitter was bad for my mental health, Same here. It's all that rage-boosting the algorithms do to increase engagement. I deleted my twitter account back in May and went to mastodon. It's been so much more pleasant and non-addictive.
- kirso 4y ago
  The issue I have with mastodon is that it seems to cater to tech people, but there is an entire outside world. https://mxb.dev/blog/the-indieweb-for-everyone/ https://mxb.dev/blog/the-indieweb-for-everyone/
  - raphlinus 4y ago
    So this is anecdote and not data, but I'm interacting a lot more with Quakers on Mastodon than I did on Twitter. Honestly, I don't think services need to be dumbed down so much, people can figure it out. And having a little friction might be a good thing, unless the goal is just to rack up engagement numbers as high as they can be optimized - and arguably that incentive is one of the things that was really wrong with Twitter.
chitowneats 4y ago
> Unpaid contributions Certain Twitter accounts actually believe that they are providing free content for the platform. People who have grown their networks and reach immensely there. Twitter is so much better off without people who have this attitude.
sys_64738 4y ago
Is Elon on Mastodon?
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  There's been a lot folks suggesting that twitter move to the fediverse/activitypub. If he did that then, yes, he would be on mastodon and twitter would become the largest mastodon server overnight.
newaccount2021 4y ago
Tim Bray will now pretend to be important somewhere else
stale2002 4y ago
What are the bets on when this guy comes back to Twitter? I give it 1 month. I don't know, I just think that if you give a public proclamation of "I leaving X!" Then you are giving everyone permanent permission to make fun of you, if you ever come back to that platform.
- akira2501 4y ago
  He hedged his bet twice. Not to continue including the "amplification of worthy voices," though. I guess that would benefit Elon. He'll still write on twitter if it benefits _him_, though. I don't get it. These articles in search of a moral pat on the back are always very tiresome.
- cplusplusfellow 4y ago
  As the saying goes. It’s not an airport, not necessary to announce your departure.
random314 4y ago
Free speech is now a euphemism for providing loud voices on private platforms for the far right, while banning progressive voices on the same platform. Any time a "free speech " platform like Truth Social emerges, we can be sure that its primary purpose is amplifying Nazis and banning liberals. Sad to see Twitter starting to go in the same direction.
- nomilk 4y ago
  My primary argument against banning (the right, or anyone) is I'm big enough to decide for myself if I want to listen/read them. When a platform makes the call on my behalf, they could be removing dissenting but legitimately truthful voices. I.e. people who have unpopular but true views, people who IMO should absolutely be heard out, but aren't because they're banned. A 2nd order effect is people self censor, since saying something truthful but controversial could get them banned or deboosted or whatever the term is.
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    A small vocal minority of hate will eventually become mainstream if good people stand by and do nothing. Watch as Elon eviscerates the mainstream media. He already calls many legit publications disinformation, saying that twitter will be the best and most truthful source of news itself. It's straight out of Trump's playbook. These are the the robber barons of the Internet. Hearst has nothing on them. I see it as the sequel to atlas shrugged.
    - nathanaldensr 4y ago
      Your hate is not my hate (in a general sense). What gives you the right to decide?
    - taolegal 4y ago
      - theGnuMe 4y ago
camdenlock 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
skymast 4y ago
Twitter 2.0 = Free Speech Free Speech = Woke + Non-woke Non-woke = hate speech Therefore Twitter is pro-hate speech.
- threatofrain 4y ago
  I was hoping with Elon granting "amnesty" that my account would get unbanned, but unfortunately my accounts remain banned for no obvious reason despite just about never being used and the appeal option being broken. Now I've just given up hope. Kind of frustrating because some of my favorite streamers use Twitter to announce their impromptu streaming. Anyways, all platforms ban people, even Hacker News. If free speech depends on private money paying for fancy engineers and infrastructure around the world, then there's something strangely expensive about your free speech. Which begs the question of just who is paying for this free speech (advertisers).
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    Pretty sure the mass amnesty does not start until next week.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  This is the worst gematria I've ever seen.
branon 4y ago
Nice. I've always been a firm believer that you haven't _really_ left a platform unless you first make a blog post loudly proclaiming that you're _definitely leaving_ but this guy takes it a few steps further by: - keeping his account active, poised to return immediately (but still, definitely leaving) - maybe posting on Twitter occasionally to point people to ongoing resources (but still, definitely leaving) - highlighting how moderation on Mastodon varies by instance, which pressures certain groups to return to Twitter (the place he's definitely left, remember?) If Elon's alt-right, you're alt-left, and I don't believe either is true. Your posts are also not unpaid contributions (or if they are, then they were back when Twitter was public, too, but somehow that was okay). It takes some serious arrogance and mental gymnastics to even arrive at such a conclusion. I'd pay you to NOT post. Shut up already, you're several weeks late to this particular bandwagon anyway.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  I am increasingly shocked that how mainstream traditional mainstreet political views are now viewed as "alt-right" online by the perpetual online class If Elon is alt-right then 85% of the US population is "alt-right"
  - websap 4y ago
    Curious how you got to 85%?
    - rgbrenner 4y ago
      It’s republican “silent majority” bs. They lose elections but tell themselves everyone secretly agrees with them so they don’t have to change their ideas.
    - mjmsmith 4y ago
      It's the same road that conflates support for essential reproductive rights with promoting "late-term elective abortions".
    - kccoder 4y ago
progrus 4y ago
The same people who lost their marbles over COVID/fear of death are now losing their marbles again over a private platform being raided & turned into a public square. I stopped listening to these people years ago. Good riddance.
- koonsolo 4y ago
  There were plenty of anti-vax people on Twitter before the Musk takeover.
- victor22 4y ago
  Right on, but I don't even think most are leaving, it's just MSM again making "people should leave stupid twitter" talk points and some random people here and there taking the bait and writing online (or mainly tweeting) that they will leave twitter. It's beautiful to see how they are losing power. Like how stupid MSM is looking RIGHT NOW as they try to buff the FTX scam while people can see exactly what went on if they just go to twitter.
- Pxtl 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - camdenlock 4y ago
    - chowells 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- rgbrenner 4y ago
  What’s the big deal? Isn’t this person free to choose where they spend their time? If they dont like Twitter they can leave. Isn’t that what freedom is all about? Seems to me that many on the right don’t actually care about freedom… but more about their ability to subject others to their ideas… apparently freedom is the right of republicans to force themselves on others and restrain their critics from leaving. What other interpretation should I make of someone objecting to an individual exercising their first amendment right to freedom of association?
suzzer99 4y ago
A very vocal subset of Elon's followers went from "free speech absolutists" to organized mass reporting their enemies in a matter of days. That has to be some kind of record. Their enemies list: https://twitter.com/elmforkJBGC/status/1596041824573198336 https://twitter.com/elmforkJBGC/status/1596041824573198336 Python script to mass report: https://twitter.com/WhiteRoseAFA/status/1596236817858056192 https://twitter.com/WhiteRoseAFA/status/1596236817858056192
- privcompta401 4y ago
- bArray 4y ago
  - pacomerh 4y ago
    You're simplifying the opposition to fascism too much. For ex. when Antifa were destroying things in protest to police brutality against people of color. Many thought this was unjustified and wrong. Imagine your people were being killed unfairly; how would you react?. I'm not saying all the destruction is the best way, but they can't just be silent about it right. Ignoring the real cause for a protest is easy when it doesn't affect you.
    - bArray 4y ago
      > You're simplifying the opposition to fascism too much. In much the same way that they simplify their opposition into a strawman. But you're not denying the violence and destruction. > For ex. when Antifa were destroying things in protest to police brutality against people of color. What did perceived injustices have to do with an anti-fascist group? I don't see how they have justified their involvement. > Many thought this was unjustified and wrong. It was. They were destroying the livelihoods of people in their local areas that had nothing to do with their current situation. If you want to believe the idea of racial based inherited guilt, it was the black people who captured and enslaved their own people and sold them to foreigners. > Imagine your people were being killed unfairly; how would you react? People get killed unfairly all of the time, my people included. There is only so much I can carry. > I'm not saying all the destruction is the best way, but they can't just be silent about it right. I don't at all expect silence. A peaceful protest would have been a good start. For example, 100k black people demanding to be heard at the capitol would have been a hell of a statement. Policing accountability would have been a great demand - how could anybody possibly disagree. Instead we got destruction and violence, a few people kneeled who had nothing to do with slavery and the BLM organisation ran off with the money after successfully helping themselves. > Ignoring the real cause for a protest is easy when it doesn't affect you. It's unclear to me what the real reason for the protest was. That might be because there wasn't a single reason, and not all the reasons were good reasons. In any case, my position doesn't change. The belief is still that some ideology is supreme, therefore violence is justified, is exactly how the thing they are opposed to is born.
winternett 4y ago
Elon bought twitter in hopes of turning it into his personal idea billboard, and also for it to serve as a promotional platform for people he wants to leverage. Even with a smaller audience, because of it's web presence, it does the job for him, even if it loses money in the short run. It does no good to express personal quitting on platforms like this, as they were never meant to serve unpopular, non-wealthy, and uninfluential people like us. The false narrative that any of these platforms offer us any potential beyond minor success or indentured work is what keeps people grinding at working for free to coddle the egos of those in control of these useless celebrity commercial platforms. They don't care if you quit and delete your account. It's long overdue to stop caring about apps like Twitter, just abandon your account and move on.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > It does no good to express personal quitting on platforms like this, as they were never meant to serve unpopular, non-wealthy, and uninfluential people like us. Maybe, but Tim Bray has a lot of followers so explaining to them that he's leaving, why, and where he's going seems to make sense. One person like him leaving is no skin off of Musk's nose, sure. But if a lot of people that follow him think "Yeah, I'm thinking it's time to leave too..." it starts adding up as it cascades to their followers. > The false narrative that any of these platforms offer us any potential beyond minor success or indentured work... I think this is basically what Bray was saying. "Speaking as a random was-successful-on-Twitter person, I can see no good arguments for redirecting my voice into anyone else’s for-profit venture-funded algorithm-driven engagement-maximizing wet dream"
- Kye 4y ago
  >> "Elon bought twitter in hopes of turning it into his personal idea billboard, and also for it to serve as a promotional platform for people he wants to leverage. Even with a smaller audience, because of it's web presence, it does the job for him, even if it loses money in the short run." He could have just set up a Pleroma instance for this and scaled it to hold all his fans for way less than $44B.
beavisthegenius 4y ago
I like Twitter more now that Elon owns it.
- timbit42 4y ago
  I like watching Elon burn it to the ground.
davidmurdoch 4y ago
The way people carefully curate their own little filter bubbles on purpose is insane to me. As an adult, why would you never want to be exposed to viewpoints that differ from your own? That's not healthy. Edit: I'm mostly referring to those that also regularly publish their opinions assuming for others to read them.
- chris_wot 4y ago
  Because there are many abusive people. If you could exclude only trolls and abusers easily on Twitter then I’d think you’d have less curation going on. But there isn’t so to protect themselves, people curate. It’s either that or leave that platform. I did this with Facebook and never got involved with Twitter. My life is great. I get plenty of opinions I don’t agree with on HN, and it’s great.
  - davidmurdoch 4y ago
    The unhealthy part is people who curate an echo chamber and then live in it. Of course, the even healthier thing is probably being more like you and just not getting involved with Twitter at all.
    - chris_wot 4y ago
      Don’t disagree.
- dorkwood 4y ago
  I suppose it depends on what your end goal is. For example, I've disabled news notifications on my phone. I used to get pinged multiple times per day to be told that either someone had died in an accident, or was raped and murdered, or some other such thing. One might argue that I'm sticking my head in the sand and 'living in a bubble' by turning these off. But while I think it's beneficial to expose myself to ideas and events outside of my comfort zone, I'd argue that it's better for my health and well-being if I exercise some control over what goes into my eyeballs each day.
rgbrenner 4y ago
You can tell when the Elon fanboys feel threatened by how much they object to someone freely making a choice about where to spend their time. How dare this person make an announcement on their own website about their own decision about what websites they like?!
- zrail 4y ago
  I'm not surprised that they're all over this thread. Not even disappointed. Mostly disappointed in myself for how much I thought this site was somehow better.
  - sidibe 4y ago
    There's not that many of them anymore tbh. Some thread titles attract them in strong numbers like this one, in most threads these days they are a heavily downvoted minority
- camdenlock 4y ago
  Maybe some of us have no particular opinion on Musk either way, but rather are shocked by the narrow-mindedness of the response to Twitter opening up and not being so ideologically captured.
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    > response to Twitter opening up "opening up" like 4chan opened up.
mjmsmith 4y ago
People will migrate to where they feel comfortable. When all the tiresome "woke" "butthurt" "non-serious thinkers" leave, Twitter can finally achieve its true form of being yet another Gab/Gettr/Parler/TruthSocial, unique only in being saddled with billions in debt.
- Pxtl 4y ago
  You had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sheeshkebab 4y ago
Maybe it’s holidays but I noticed my twitter feed getting filled up lately with various far right types posting crap. I guess these idiots were always there but somehow they were drawn out by saner content that I care about, not anymore it seems. I’ll probably delete twitter too if that’s the way it will continue on after another a couple of weeks.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  There has definitely been an "upwelling" of far-right and explicitly reactionary content over the last few weeks. Like you, I've assumed that it's always been there, but presumably was being auto-moderated and wasn't receiving mass engagement from the site's leadership.
- Pxtl 4y ago
  Basically the "free speech" Elon liberated was transphobia. Which, considering that his trans daughter no longer speaks to him and changed her last name away from Musk, and Grimes left him for a trans woman, and he's publicly posted anti-trans tweets, means he might have an axe to grind against the trans community. This has led to a lot of progressive twitter either exiting the site or switching to full-time culture war stuff, while the identity-conservatives are basically doing donuts in celebration.
  - jringo 4y ago
- Markoff 4y ago
  I welcome this for change from far left woke crap dominating whole platform for years with any opposition against them silenced. In free platform you read crap from all sides, not just the one you like. But enjoy your new echo chamber outside Twitter. edit: for downvoters, yes, I'm aware this describes also majority of HN users and you just can't stand different opinion and try to silence it, thanks for proving me right
  - 4y ago
allthecybers 4y ago
I just don't understand the need to announce your decision to stop using a particular social media platform. It's a free web service. You can use it or not. I guess I should have made an announcement when I switched away from Gmail. "Hello everyone, I have decided to leave Gmail. I'll keep my account active, and still receive email there but I'm definitely leaving. I can't support Google which is a poster child of surveillance capitalism. I’m going to stop emailing pictures and observations and forwarding worthy voices and all that stuff. Remember: using my data without paying me."
- camdenlock 4y ago
  In this case, it’s a way to signal one’s fealty to a very specific ideology.
- throw0101c 4y ago
  > I just don't understand the need to announce […] It's a statement of principles. To bring attention to, and shine light on, what (he thinks) is a problem. Just like he did went he quit a lucrative job as VP of AWS when Amazon mistreated employees: * https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-Amazon https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-A...
  - allthecybers 4y ago
    Point taken. I agree Tim has history of doing the principled thing. I’ve just seen so many of these “leaving Twitter” posts lately and it’s interesting that Twitter seems to be a really sticky product for people.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > I guess I should have made an announcement when I switched away from Gmail. Didn't you tell people who had your old gmail address that you'd be moving to another email provider and give them the new email address? This is kind of like that. He's got a lot of followers so explaining the why and where he's going seems like it makes sense.
chronotis 4y ago
I don't personally know the OP, but his profile isn't that of a passing crypto fanboy hustling to attract a followers list. I'd wager that he probably doesn't care much if some pro-Elon HN folks don't agree with his views on capitalism or proper vs. improper ways to migrate a follower base between platforms. He's contributed to the software industry longer than most people here. That's not to say that anyone is owed anything in deference or respect, but "he's seen some shit." It's hypocritical to applaud what you believe to be pro-free-speech changes at Twitter while criticizing somebody for the manner in which somebody communicates their decision to deprioritize that platform. If somebody has 50k followers, I imagine they would have reasons to communicate to that audience why they're not going to be as visible on their current platform and how to go about finding their content in the future.
funstuff007 4y ago
> whose proprietor is an alt-right troll I like tbray, and I don't like Elon, but that is not a fair characterization. It's right this post has been flagged.
- ncallaway 4y ago
  Is it the troll part, or the alt-right part that you disagree with? He certainly seems like a troll to me.
  - funstuff007 4y ago
    He definitely takes joy in pointing out incongruencies. Troll is an offensive term.
    - ncallaway 4y ago
      Offensive, maybe. But you had said it was unfair. When someone behaves like an asshole, and I call them an asshole that is offensive, but may still be fair. Obviously it’s a subjective opinion so we don’t have to agree, but to me it seems entirely fair and accurate to describe Elon Musk as a troll.
bArray 4y ago
> What I’m doing · I’m not closing or deleting my account, because Twitter might come back, who knows. > I’ll still use Twitter to post pointers to ongoing pieces because that benefits me, not Elon. So not really leaving. > Are people really leaving Twitter? · Yes. [..] So, suppose I’m right about Twitter… The evidence is that Mastodon users are increasing, and therefore leaving Twitter. The assumption is that they are not doing exactly what this author is doing, and signing up to both. > Why Mastodon will succeed I was just reading how every time jwz posts, they receive a DDoS from other servers loading the content [1]. The problems scale as the users do. > General-purpose (non-affinity-group) instances won’t be free; typical charges will be $5-10/month. I assume that means either using crypto or a central payment system. People were hesitant to pay $8 for Twitter believing it should be free, how will you get them to pay if they can just move to a free instance? > They will compete on the quality of their moderation and spam/abuse prevention. None of them have the resources to do this. Twitter had quite a large moderation team being paid a lot of money to work on this problem full time. You'll either end up in an echo chamber (reducing need for moderation) or there will be little to no moderation. All that said, this person was likely more suited to a platform of shorter writing, rather than these longer form pieces. It contradicts itself in places. [1] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/11/mastodon-stampede/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/11/mastodon-stampede/ EDIT: Less inflammatory.
- camdenlock 4y ago
  > All that said, this person was likely more suited to a platform of hot-takes, rather than deep thinking. As, of course, is jwz. Smart people who we admire for their thinking and writing on technology can be embarrassingly shallow when it comes to other domains, and (as I’ve reluctantly learned over the decades) can be safely ignored when they opine obviously way out of their depth.
  - bArray 4y ago
    > As, of course, is jwz. I have their RSS feed just for the updates to the xscreensaver and the occasional interesting topic, but mostly ignore. I see some drama happening there quite frequently and I really don't want anything to do with it. > Smart people who we admire for their thinking and writing on technology can be embarrassingly shallow when it comes to other domains [..] That rings very true. I always got nervous when I saw one of the heavy weights such as Stephen Hawking weighing in on topics such as AI or alien biology. Or Richard Dawkins commenting on politics. I think people generally are interested in how they may apply their minds in other topics, and when they give the crowd what they want, they fall short.
yablak 4y ago
My experience has been the same, I love the threads on the local feed on mathstodon.xyz. and sigmoid.social has many top AI/ML researchers. This is the social media I was promised!
wskish 4y ago
I have a lot of respect for Tim Bray as a technologist and have followed him closely over the years. I have also been thinking about Paul Graham's "The Four Quadrants of Conformism" a lot lately. I am curious to hear where other folks who are familiar with both would perceive Tim mapping into this space?
willnonya 4y ago
This didn't even get through the first paragraph still seeming like it was rational in anyway. Just more histrionics.
Markoff 4y ago
[flagged]
RickJWagner 4y ago
I urge you to consider strongly this sort of thing. Freedom of speech and of opinions is vital. You can disagree with Musk (or even Trump) as much as you wish. But when you move to silence them (especially as part of a mob), you become the monster.
cheshire137 4y ago
Lol why is this flagged? The article is fine.
- joeyh 4y ago
  Interesting discussion about this flag on mastodon: https://mastodon.cloud/@timbray/109414415306474691 https://mastodon.cloud/@timbray/109414415306474691
KerrAvon 4y ago

151 points by lolsoftware 4y ago

All these predictions of imminent technical downfall of Twitter read to me like predictions that in the next release Python will get slow. It's surreal. As for the non-technical aspects: Mastodon is social media, just like any other, with all the associated faults. Don’t expect miracles.

mjhagen 4y ago
It’s actively trying not to have all the associated faults. For instance, there is no company behind it that needs to make money, so no ads, no algorithmic timeline.

hacksoi 4y ago

mlindner 4y ago

Calling Elon an “alt-right troll” is the height of nonsense… do these people actually understand what alt right is?

EricE 4y ago

[flagged]

cplusplusfellow 4y ago
Similar to my commentary in other threads today. You basically won’t ever hear someone refer to a person as “center right” anymore. We can only hear that they are “far right” and that your average communist is “center left”. Just absurd.
- Pxtl 4y ago
  Because so much of the modern right has hitched its wagon to COVID conspiracy theories, climate change denial, transphobia, election denial, etc. "Centre right", to my mind is "cut taxes and solve policy problems with the free market", not "everybody involved in supporting trans children is secretly pedophiles". And there just aren't a lot of those in media discourse anymore.
  - cplusplusfellow 4y ago
    You can downvote me all you like but you live in a bubble and it would benefit you to get out of it.
rglullis 4y ago
It's kind of interesting and frustrating to see how the whole twitter drama is screwing with my mental model of the "culture wars" in the US. I'd really, really thought that principled conservatives would look at Mastodon (actually, any open social media platform) as an an opportunity to exercise their free speech. I would think they would say "oh, look, we don't need Twitter anymore. Here we can have our places, no one can censor us, no one can try to find any bullshit excuse to silence our side. Let's use it. We can make Twitter irrelevant." Did any of that happen? No. Of course not. All of the conservatives are just "glad" that Elon is taking over. The whole thing has just been a fight over control of the corporate channel. When the Babylon Bee got kicked out of Twitter, I thought it was stupid. I reached out to the Dillon brothers, asked if they were interested in putting together a Mastodon instance, or at least integrating their site with some ActivityPub feed. No response. Now, every other tweet can be summarized as some variation of them sucking Elon's dick. Then, this week. I read that Claire Lehmann and Sam Harris both quit Twitter. Both were part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" that rose to some prominence (along the same time Jordan Peterson got popular). Why were they leaving Twitter? The answer is "TDS". Reinstating Trump was too much for them. Really? Of all the things that has been happening at Twitter (and Big Tech in General), this is what drives them away? Are they going to Mastodon? Apparently not, because that's only the place where "the libs" go and "we can't own them there". It's just ridiculous.

raphlinus 4y ago

I've also moved from Twitter to Mastodon, for the same reasons, and have a similar experience - the raw follower count is still a fraction as before, but a lot of interesting people I want to connect with are already there. And the feeling is... very different. There was lots about Twitter that subtly enraged me, like pop-sci Covid takes showing up in my algorithmic feed after I had extremely carefully curated my followers to only include actual scientists who knew what they were talking about. And it's also refreshing not to have all those ads. In general, I feel like you've got a lot of control of your Mastodon experience, if you curate your followers well, it can be quite good. I have rules of immediately "unfollow boosts of" anybody who posts viral "boost this if..." or bullshit polls, and that's cleaning up my feed as well. I've also been followed by my first crypto account (so I might go to followers-need-approval), and have seen glimmers of the same kind of dumb drama you see on Twitter, but overall feel like I generally have the tools I need to keep all that in check. I was finding that Twitter was bad for my mental health, and took a bunch of breaks from it even when I was having generally positive interactions and finding good info. We'll see how this goes, especially as things scale.

UncleOxidant 4y ago
> I was finding that Twitter was bad for my mental health, Same here. It's all that rage-boosting the algorithms do to increase engagement. I deleted my twitter account back in May and went to mastodon. It's been so much more pleasant and non-addictive.
kirso 4y ago
The issue I have with mastodon is that it seems to cater to tech people, but there is an entire outside world. https://mxb.dev/blog/the-indieweb-for-everyone/ https://mxb.dev/blog/the-indieweb-for-everyone/
- raphlinus 4y ago
  So this is anecdote and not data, but I'm interacting a lot more with Quakers on Mastodon than I did on Twitter. Honestly, I don't think services need to be dumbed down so much, people can figure it out. And having a little friction might be a good thing, unless the goal is just to rack up engagement numbers as high as they can be optimized - and arguably that incentive is one of the things that was really wrong with Twitter.

chitowneats 4y ago

> Unpaid contributions Certain Twitter accounts actually believe that they are providing free content for the platform. People who have grown their networks and reach immensely there. Twitter is so much better off without people who have this attitude.

sys_64738 4y ago

Is Elon on Mastodon?

UncleOxidant 4y ago
There's been a lot folks suggesting that twitter move to the fediverse/activitypub. If he did that then, yes, he would be on mastodon and twitter would become the largest mastodon server overnight.

newaccount2021 4y ago

Tim Bray will now pretend to be important somewhere else

stale2002 4y ago

What are the bets on when this guy comes back to Twitter? I give it 1 month. I don't know, I just think that if you give a public proclamation of "I leaving X!" Then you are giving everyone permanent permission to make fun of you, if you ever come back to that platform.

akira2501 4y ago
He hedged his bet twice. Not to continue including the "amplification of worthy voices," though. I guess that would benefit Elon. He'll still write on twitter if it benefits _him_, though. I don't get it. These articles in search of a moral pat on the back are always very tiresome.
cplusplusfellow 4y ago
As the saying goes. It’s not an airport, not necessary to announce your departure.

random314 4y ago

Free speech is now a euphemism for providing loud voices on private platforms for the far right, while banning progressive voices on the same platform. Any time a "free speech " platform like Truth Social emerges, we can be sure that its primary purpose is amplifying Nazis and banning liberals. Sad to see Twitter starting to go in the same direction.

nomilk 4y ago
My primary argument against banning (the right, or anyone) is I'm big enough to decide for myself if I want to listen/read them. When a platform makes the call on my behalf, they could be removing dissenting but legitimately truthful voices. I.e. people who have unpopular but true views, people who IMO should absolutely be heard out, but aren't because they're banned. A 2nd order effect is people self censor, since saying something truthful but controversial could get them banned or deboosted or whatever the term is.
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  A small vocal minority of hate will eventually become mainstream if good people stand by and do nothing. Watch as Elon eviscerates the mainstream media. He already calls many legit publications disinformation, saying that twitter will be the best and most truthful source of news itself. It's straight out of Trump's playbook. These are the the robber barons of the Internet. Hearst has nothing on them. I see it as the sequel to atlas shrugged.
  - nathanaldensr 4y ago
    Your hate is not my hate (in a general sense). What gives you the right to decide?
  - taolegal 4y ago
    - theGnuMe 4y ago

camdenlock 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

skymast 4y ago

Twitter 2.0 = Free Speech Free Speech = Woke + Non-woke Non-woke = hate speech Therefore Twitter is pro-hate speech.

threatofrain 4y ago
I was hoping with Elon granting "amnesty" that my account would get unbanned, but unfortunately my accounts remain banned for no obvious reason despite just about never being used and the appeal option being broken. Now I've just given up hope. Kind of frustrating because some of my favorite streamers use Twitter to announce their impromptu streaming. Anyways, all platforms ban people, even Hacker News. If free speech depends on private money paying for fancy engineers and infrastructure around the world, then there's something strangely expensive about your free speech. Which begs the question of just who is paying for this free speech (advertisers).
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  Pretty sure the mass amnesty does not start until next week.
woodruffw 4y ago
This is the worst gematria I've ever seen.

branon 4y ago

Nice. I've always been a firm believer that you haven't _really_ left a platform unless you first make a blog post loudly proclaiming that you're _definitely leaving_ but this guy takes it a few steps further by: - keeping his account active, poised to return immediately (but still, definitely leaving) - maybe posting on Twitter occasionally to point people to ongoing resources (but still, definitely leaving) - highlighting how moderation on Mastodon varies by instance, which pressures certain groups to return to Twitter (the place he's definitely left, remember?) If Elon's alt-right, you're alt-left, and I don't believe either is true. Your posts are also not unpaid contributions (or if they are, then they were back when Twitter was public, too, but somehow that was okay). It takes some serious arrogance and mental gymnastics to even arrive at such a conclusion. I'd pay you to NOT post. Shut up already, you're several weeks late to this particular bandwagon anyway.

phpisthebest 4y ago
I am increasingly shocked that how mainstream traditional mainstreet political views are now viewed as "alt-right" online by the perpetual online class If Elon is alt-right then 85% of the US population is "alt-right"
- websap 4y ago
  Curious how you got to 85%?
  - rgbrenner 4y ago
    It’s republican “silent majority” bs. They lose elections but tell themselves everyone secretly agrees with them so they don’t have to change their ideas.
  - mjmsmith 4y ago
    It's the same road that conflates support for essential reproductive rights with promoting "late-term elective abortions".
  - kccoder 4y ago

progrus 4y ago

The same people who lost their marbles over COVID/fear of death are now losing their marbles again over a private platform being raided & turned into a public square. I stopped listening to these people years ago. Good riddance.

koonsolo 4y ago
There were plenty of anti-vax people on Twitter before the Musk takeover.
victor22 4y ago
Right on, but I don't even think most are leaving, it's just MSM again making "people should leave stupid twitter" talk points and some random people here and there taking the bait and writing online (or mainly tweeting) that they will leave twitter. It's beautiful to see how they are losing power. Like how stupid MSM is looking RIGHT NOW as they try to buff the FTX scam while people can see exactly what went on if they just go to twitter.
Pxtl 4y ago
[flagged]
- camdenlock 4y ago
  - chowells 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rgbrenner 4y ago
What’s the big deal? Isn’t this person free to choose where they spend their time? If they dont like Twitter they can leave. Isn’t that what freedom is all about? Seems to me that many on the right don’t actually care about freedom… but more about their ability to subject others to their ideas… apparently freedom is the right of republicans to force themselves on others and restrain their critics from leaving. What other interpretation should I make of someone objecting to an individual exercising their first amendment right to freedom of association?

suzzer99 4y ago

A very vocal subset of Elon's followers went from "free speech absolutists" to organized mass reporting their enemies in a matter of days. That has to be some kind of record. Their enemies list: https://twitter.com/elmforkJBGC/status/1596041824573198336 https://twitter.com/elmforkJBGC/status/1596041824573198336 Python script to mass report: https://twitter.com/WhiteRoseAFA/status/1596236817858056192 https://twitter.com/WhiteRoseAFA/status/1596236817858056192

privcompta401 4y ago
bArray 4y ago
- pacomerh 4y ago
  You're simplifying the opposition to fascism too much. For ex. when Antifa were destroying things in protest to police brutality against people of color. Many thought this was unjustified and wrong. Imagine your people were being killed unfairly; how would you react?. I'm not saying all the destruction is the best way, but they can't just be silent about it right. Ignoring the real cause for a protest is easy when it doesn't affect you.
  - bArray 4y ago
    > You're simplifying the opposition to fascism too much. In much the same way that they simplify their opposition into a strawman. But you're not denying the violence and destruction. > For ex. when Antifa were destroying things in protest to police brutality against people of color. What did perceived injustices have to do with an anti-fascist group? I don't see how they have justified their involvement. > Many thought this was unjustified and wrong. It was. They were destroying the livelihoods of people in their local areas that had nothing to do with their current situation. If you want to believe the idea of racial based inherited guilt, it was the black people who captured and enslaved their own people and sold them to foreigners. > Imagine your people were being killed unfairly; how would you react? People get killed unfairly all of the time, my people included. There is only so much I can carry. > I'm not saying all the destruction is the best way, but they can't just be silent about it right. I don't at all expect silence. A peaceful protest would have been a good start. For example, 100k black people demanding to be heard at the capitol would have been a hell of a statement. Policing accountability would have been a great demand - how could anybody possibly disagree. Instead we got destruction and violence, a few people kneeled who had nothing to do with slavery and the BLM organisation ran off with the money after successfully helping themselves. > Ignoring the real cause for a protest is easy when it doesn't affect you. It's unclear to me what the real reason for the protest was. That might be because there wasn't a single reason, and not all the reasons were good reasons. In any case, my position doesn't change. The belief is still that some ideology is supreme, therefore violence is justified, is exactly how the thing they are opposed to is born.

winternett 4y ago

Elon bought twitter in hopes of turning it into his personal idea billboard, and also for it to serve as a promotional platform for people he wants to leverage. Even with a smaller audience, because of it's web presence, it does the job for him, even if it loses money in the short run. It does no good to express personal quitting on platforms like this, as they were never meant to serve unpopular, non-wealthy, and uninfluential people like us. The false narrative that any of these platforms offer us any potential beyond minor success or indentured work is what keeps people grinding at working for free to coddle the egos of those in control of these useless celebrity commercial platforms. They don't care if you quit and delete your account. It's long overdue to stop caring about apps like Twitter, just abandon your account and move on.

UncleOxidant 4y ago
> It does no good to express personal quitting on platforms like this, as they were never meant to serve unpopular, non-wealthy, and uninfluential people like us. Maybe, but Tim Bray has a lot of followers so explaining to them that he's leaving, why, and where he's going seems to make sense. One person like him leaving is no skin off of Musk's nose, sure. But if a lot of people that follow him think "Yeah, I'm thinking it's time to leave too..." it starts adding up as it cascades to their followers. > The false narrative that any of these platforms offer us any potential beyond minor success or indentured work... I think this is basically what Bray was saying. "Speaking as a random was-successful-on-Twitter person, I can see no good arguments for redirecting my voice into anyone else’s for-profit venture-funded algorithm-driven engagement-maximizing wet dream"
Kye 4y ago
>> "Elon bought twitter in hopes of turning it into his personal idea billboard, and also for it to serve as a promotional platform for people he wants to leverage. Even with a smaller audience, because of it's web presence, it does the job for him, even if it loses money in the short run." He could have just set up a Pleroma instance for this and scaled it to hold all his fans for way less than $44B.

beavisthegenius 4y ago

I like Twitter more now that Elon owns it.

timbit42 4y ago
I like watching Elon burn it to the ground.

davidmurdoch 4y ago

The way people carefully curate their own little filter bubbles on purpose is insane to me. As an adult, why would you never want to be exposed to viewpoints that differ from your own? That's not healthy. Edit: I'm mostly referring to those that also regularly publish their opinions assuming for others to read them.

chris_wot 4y ago
Because there are many abusive people. If you could exclude only trolls and abusers easily on Twitter then I’d think you’d have less curation going on. But there isn’t so to protect themselves, people curate. It’s either that or leave that platform. I did this with Facebook and never got involved with Twitter. My life is great. I get plenty of opinions I don’t agree with on HN, and it’s great.
- davidmurdoch 4y ago
  The unhealthy part is people who curate an echo chamber and then live in it. Of course, the even healthier thing is probably being more like you and just not getting involved with Twitter at all.
  - chris_wot 4y ago
    Don’t disagree.
dorkwood 4y ago
I suppose it depends on what your end goal is. For example, I've disabled news notifications on my phone. I used to get pinged multiple times per day to be told that either someone had died in an accident, or was raped and murdered, or some other such thing. One might argue that I'm sticking my head in the sand and 'living in a bubble' by turning these off. But while I think it's beneficial to expose myself to ideas and events outside of my comfort zone, I'd argue that it's better for my health and well-being if I exercise some control over what goes into my eyeballs each day.

rgbrenner 4y ago

You can tell when the Elon fanboys feel threatened by how much they object to someone freely making a choice about where to spend their time. How dare this person make an announcement on their own website about their own decision about what websites they like?!

zrail 4y ago
I'm not surprised that they're all over this thread. Not even disappointed. Mostly disappointed in myself for how much I thought this site was somehow better.
- sidibe 4y ago
  There's not that many of them anymore tbh. Some thread titles attract them in strong numbers like this one, in most threads these days they are a heavily downvoted minority
camdenlock 4y ago
Maybe some of us have no particular opinion on Musk either way, but rather are shocked by the narrow-mindedness of the response to Twitter opening up and not being so ideologically captured.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > response to Twitter opening up "opening up" like 4chan opened up.

mjmsmith 4y ago

People will migrate to where they feel comfortable. When all the tiresome "woke" "butthurt" "non-serious thinkers" leave, Twitter can finally achieve its true form of being yet another Gab/Gettr/Parler/TruthSocial, unique only in being saddled with billions in debt.

Pxtl 4y ago
You had me in the first half, not gonna lie.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sheeshkebab 4y ago

Maybe it’s holidays but I noticed my twitter feed getting filled up lately with various far right types posting crap. I guess these idiots were always there but somehow they were drawn out by saner content that I care about, not anymore it seems. I’ll probably delete twitter too if that’s the way it will continue on after another a couple of weeks.

woodruffw 4y ago
There has definitely been an "upwelling" of far-right and explicitly reactionary content over the last few weeks. Like you, I've assumed that it's always been there, but presumably was being auto-moderated and wasn't receiving mass engagement from the site's leadership.
Pxtl 4y ago
Basically the "free speech" Elon liberated was transphobia. Which, considering that his trans daughter no longer speaks to him and changed her last name away from Musk, and Grimes left him for a trans woman, and he's publicly posted anti-trans tweets, means he might have an axe to grind against the trans community. This has led to a lot of progressive twitter either exiting the site or switching to full-time culture war stuff, while the identity-conservatives are basically doing donuts in celebration.
- jringo 4y ago
Markoff 4y ago
I welcome this for change from far left woke crap dominating whole platform for years with any opposition against them silenced. In free platform you read crap from all sides, not just the one you like. But enjoy your new echo chamber outside Twitter. edit: for downvoters, yes, I'm aware this describes also majority of HN users and you just can't stand different opinion and try to silence it, thanks for proving me right
- 4y ago

allthecybers 4y ago

I just don't understand the need to announce your decision to stop using a particular social media platform. It's a free web service. You can use it or not. I guess I should have made an announcement when I switched away from Gmail. "Hello everyone, I have decided to leave Gmail. I'll keep my account active, and still receive email there but I'm definitely leaving. I can't support Google which is a poster child of surveillance capitalism. I’m going to stop emailing pictures and observations and forwarding worthy voices and all that stuff. Remember: using my data without paying me."

camdenlock 4y ago
In this case, it’s a way to signal one’s fealty to a very specific ideology.
throw0101c 4y ago
> I just don't understand the need to announce […] It's a statement of principles. To bring attention to, and shine light on, what (he thinks) is a problem. Just like he did went he quit a lucrative job as VP of AWS when Amazon mistreated employees: * https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-Amazon https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-A...
- allthecybers 4y ago
  Point taken. I agree Tim has history of doing the principled thing. I’ve just seen so many of these “leaving Twitter” posts lately and it’s interesting that Twitter seems to be a really sticky product for people.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
> I guess I should have made an announcement when I switched away from Gmail. Didn't you tell people who had your old gmail address that you'd be moving to another email provider and give them the new email address? This is kind of like that. He's got a lot of followers so explaining the why and where he's going seems like it makes sense.

chronotis 4y ago

I don't personally know the OP, but his profile isn't that of a passing crypto fanboy hustling to attract a followers list. I'd wager that he probably doesn't care much if some pro-Elon HN folks don't agree with his views on capitalism or proper vs. improper ways to migrate a follower base between platforms. He's contributed to the software industry longer than most people here. That's not to say that anyone is owed anything in deference or respect, but "he's seen some shit." It's hypocritical to applaud what you believe to be pro-free-speech changes at Twitter while criticizing somebody for the manner in which somebody communicates their decision to deprioritize that platform. If somebody has 50k followers, I imagine they would have reasons to communicate to that audience why they're not going to be as visible on their current platform and how to go about finding their content in the future.

funstuff007 4y ago

> whose proprietor is an alt-right troll I like tbray, and I don't like Elon, but that is not a fair characterization. It's right this post has been flagged.

ncallaway 4y ago
Is it the troll part, or the alt-right part that you disagree with? He certainly seems like a troll to me.
- funstuff007 4y ago
  He definitely takes joy in pointing out incongruencies. Troll is an offensive term.
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    Offensive, maybe. But you had said it was unfair. When someone behaves like an asshole, and I call them an asshole that is offensive, but may still be fair. Obviously it’s a subjective opinion so we don’t have to agree, but to me it seems entirely fair and accurate to describe Elon Musk as a troll.

bArray 4y ago

> What I’m doing · I’m not closing or deleting my account, because Twitter might come back, who knows. > I’ll still use Twitter to post pointers to ongoing pieces because that benefits me, not Elon. So not really leaving. > Are people really leaving Twitter? · Yes. [..] So, suppose I’m right about Twitter… The evidence is that Mastodon users are increasing, and therefore leaving Twitter. The assumption is that they are not doing exactly what this author is doing, and signing up to both. > Why Mastodon will succeed I was just reading how every time jwz posts, they receive a DDoS from other servers loading the content [1]. The problems scale as the users do. > General-purpose (non-affinity-group) instances won’t be free; typical charges will be $5-10/month. I assume that means either using crypto or a central payment system. People were hesitant to pay $8 for Twitter believing it should be free, how will you get them to pay if they can just move to a free instance? > They will compete on the quality of their moderation and spam/abuse prevention. None of them have the resources to do this. Twitter had quite a large moderation team being paid a lot of money to work on this problem full time. You'll either end up in an echo chamber (reducing need for moderation) or there will be little to no moderation. All that said, this person was likely more suited to a platform of shorter writing, rather than these longer form pieces. It contradicts itself in places. [1] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/11/mastodon-stampede/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/11/mastodon-stampede/ EDIT: Less inflammatory.

camdenlock 4y ago
> All that said, this person was likely more suited to a platform of hot-takes, rather than deep thinking. As, of course, is jwz. Smart people who we admire for their thinking and writing on technology can be embarrassingly shallow when it comes to other domains, and (as I’ve reluctantly learned over the decades) can be safely ignored when they opine obviously way out of their depth.
- bArray 4y ago
  > As, of course, is jwz. I have their RSS feed just for the updates to the xscreensaver and the occasional interesting topic, but mostly ignore. I see some drama happening there quite frequently and I really don't want anything to do with it. > Smart people who we admire for their thinking and writing on technology can be embarrassingly shallow when it comes to other domains [..] That rings very true. I always got nervous when I saw one of the heavy weights such as Stephen Hawking weighing in on topics such as AI or alien biology. Or Richard Dawkins commenting on politics. I think people generally are interested in how they may apply their minds in other topics, and when they give the crowd what they want, they fall short.

yablak 4y ago

My experience has been the same, I love the threads on the local feed on mathstodon.xyz. and sigmoid.social has many top AI/ML researchers. This is the social media I was promised!

wskish 4y ago

I have a lot of respect for Tim Bray as a technologist and have followed him closely over the years. I have also been thinking about Paul Graham's "The Four Quadrants of Conformism" a lot lately. I am curious to hear where other folks who are familiar with both would perceive Tim mapping into this space?

willnonya 4y ago

This didn't even get through the first paragraph still seeming like it was rational in anyway. Just more histrionics.

Markoff 4y ago

[flagged]

RickJWagner 4y ago

I urge you to consider strongly this sort of thing. Freedom of speech and of opinions is vital. You can disagree with Musk (or even Trump) as much as you wish. But when you move to silence them (especially as part of a mob), you become the monster.

cheshire137 4y ago

Lol why is this flagged? The article is fine.

joeyh 4y ago
Interesting discussion about this flag on mastodon: https://mastodon.cloud/@timbray/109414415306474691 https://mastodon.cloud/@timbray/109414415306474691

KerrAvon 4y ago