I think Twitter should be nationalized and made an essential public utility like electricity, broadband, water, etc. Too many high profile people rely on it to spread their message, as well as new...
I think Twitter should be nationalized and made an essential public utility like electricity, broadband, water, etc. Too many high profile people rely on it to spread their message, as well as new up & coming talent, thought leaders, or otherwise creative people.
Twitter has become so tightly ingrained in the culture of the world that I can't imagine a world without it. It's the hive-mind of our busy hyper-connected world.
Conversely, I think Twitter was the catalyst of the dark side of the information age as it contributed to shortened attention spans, and eschewed the "democratization of information" in favour of...
Conversely, I think Twitter was the catalyst of the dark side of the information age as it contributed to shortened attention spans, and eschewed the "democratization of information" in favour of information anarchy that malicious bad actors could easily take advantage of and, say, sway foreign national elections since suddenly everyone and their mother could get a platform to begin shouting out anything they wanted from. Twitter didn't take responsibility for reining in their weapon until it was far too late.
They're not the only reason but, as one of the top 3 social media sites that this all grew out of, they're a major cause.
I'll counterpoint and play a bit of devil's advocate. Twitter should not be a public utility for the same reasons. Too many people rely on it to spread their message, be them high profile or not....
I'll counterpoint and play a bit of devil's advocate.
Twitter should not be a public utility for the same reasons. Too many people rely on it to spread their message, be them high profile or not. Twitter is not conducive to actual discourse, it's very nature of limiting the amount that can be said at once is directly detrimental to society and has only furthered the soundbite/only-reads-the-headline micro-attention span of the general public. Nearly no idea can be adequately explained in the character limit which also hampers rebuttals and clarifications.
A hive-mind is an absolutely terrible and utterly nightmarish thing that robs people of their individual views and causes fractionality on a scale never before encountered. A hive-mind destroys alternative views and freedoms of speech as they are viewed as contrarian and not in line with the party view.
And lastly, twitter and social media as a whole has committed the crime of giving everyone a voice without regard as to whether they should be heard. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that doesn't mean that they should have a place where that opinion can be broadcast to the world, let alone to be able to do so completely anonymously and without consequence.
I won't say that twitter hasn't had good things come about because of its presence, but you can't tell me that some neo-nazi should be able to anonymously spout hatred on a platform with potential to reach and impact billions of people, especially if that platform is a essential public utility. If that individual wants to have an audience to spread their hatred they should be doing it in a town square while standing on a soap box and taking the risk that someone with a number tattooed across their arm is highly likely to provide some free instantaneous dental extraction because of that message.
On top of the final fact that if twitter was made an essential public utility the positive things that twitter can say exists because of their platform will largely be eliminated from happening again because once it is a utility it will no longer be allowed to be anonymous.
It's not included in the CNN article, but the large drop in ad revenue is especially significant when you take into account that they also grew their monetizable daily users by 34%. So if their...
It's not included in the CNN article, but the large drop in ad revenue is especially significant when you take into account that they also grew their monetizable daily users by 34%. So if their monetizable daily users increased by 34% but ad revenue dropped by 23%, if I'm thinking about it correctly, that means that per-user ad revenue dropped by almost 43%.
That's a huge drop, and a lot of other advertising-reliant sites and services could be in a lot of trouble if that keeps up or gets worse. So much of the internet depends on advertising, and there will definitely be even more major layoffs and shutdowns coming if the revenue is down that much.
I actually enjoy using Twitter, but I'm not paying for social media, sorry. (I know there's overhead costs, but the quality of the vast majority of social media services is akin to broadcast TV......
I actually enjoy using Twitter, but I'm not paying for social media, sorry. (I know there's overhead costs, but the quality of the vast majority of social media services is akin to broadcast TV... great to pass time, but not something I need.)
Damn. Twitter was where a lot of the amateur adult content creators I followed migrated to after Tumblr went Puritanical. Hopefully they move over to BDSMlr instead of fragmenting again, but I'm...
Damn. Twitter was where a lot of the amateur adult content creators I followed migrated to after Tumblr went Puritanical. Hopefully they move over to BDSMlr instead of fragmenting again, but I'm not sure that enough of them know about that site for that to work out. As for the vanilla people, like Lindsay Ellis, hbomberguy, Shaun, PhilosophyTube, BeauTFC and others, I hope they're able to find a better social network. 'Cos, uhh...I don't really see them moving to the same one as the first group of people.
Related: Would you pay for social media platforms and search engines if it meant they would not have any advertising or data collection? Obviously as I said last time a leap like this was taken by...
Obviously as I said last time a leap like this was taken by a major corporation, the 2 requirements for the thread linked above are no ads and a tildes-esque data policy, which would be a big deal and IMO, quite unlikely, given that Twitter users are not nearly as attached to Twitter as we are to this site.
I contribute to Fosstodon's running costs. The difference there is that the folks running it donate what they don't need to open source projects and respect my privacy. I can't imagine Twitter...
I contribute to Fosstodon's running costs. The difference there is that the folks running it donate what they don't need to open source projects and respect my privacy. I can't imagine Twitter doing either of those things though.
I don't necessarily wish death upon Twitter despite my poor experiences with it, but I do wish they would reconsider their life choices.
I think Twitter should be nationalized and made an essential public utility like electricity, broadband, water, etc. Too many high profile people rely on it to spread their message, as well as new up & coming talent, thought leaders, or otherwise creative people.
Twitter has become so tightly ingrained in the culture of the world that I can't imagine a world without it. It's the hive-mind of our busy hyper-connected world.
Conversely, I think Twitter was the catalyst of the dark side of the information age as it contributed to shortened attention spans, and eschewed the "democratization of information" in favour of information anarchy that malicious bad actors could easily take advantage of and, say, sway foreign national elections since suddenly everyone and their mother could get a platform to begin shouting out anything they wanted from. Twitter didn't take responsibility for reining in their weapon until it was far too late.
They're not the only reason but, as one of the top 3 social media sites that this all grew out of, they're a major cause.
I'll counterpoint and play a bit of devil's advocate.
Twitter should not be a public utility for the same reasons. Too many people rely on it to spread their message, be them high profile or not. Twitter is not conducive to actual discourse, it's very nature of limiting the amount that can be said at once is directly detrimental to society and has only furthered the soundbite/only-reads-the-headline micro-attention span of the general public. Nearly no idea can be adequately explained in the character limit which also hampers rebuttals and clarifications.
A hive-mind is an absolutely terrible and utterly nightmarish thing that robs people of their individual views and causes fractionality on a scale never before encountered. A hive-mind destroys alternative views and freedoms of speech as they are viewed as contrarian and not in line with the party view.
And lastly, twitter and social media as a whole has committed the crime of giving everyone a voice without regard as to whether they should be heard. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that doesn't mean that they should have a place where that opinion can be broadcast to the world, let alone to be able to do so completely anonymously and without consequence.
I won't say that twitter hasn't had good things come about because of its presence, but you can't tell me that some neo-nazi should be able to anonymously spout hatred on a platform with potential to reach and impact billions of people, especially if that platform is a essential public utility. If that individual wants to have an audience to spread their hatred they should be doing it in a town square while standing on a soap box and taking the risk that someone with a number tattooed across their arm is highly likely to provide some free instantaneous dental extraction because of that message.
On top of the final fact that if twitter was made an essential public utility the positive things that twitter can say exists because of their platform will largely be eliminated from happening again because once it is a utility it will no longer be allowed to be anonymous.
It's not included in the CNN article, but the large drop in ad revenue is especially significant when you take into account that they also grew their monetizable daily users by 34%. So if their monetizable daily users increased by 34% but ad revenue dropped by 23%, if I'm thinking about it correctly, that means that per-user ad revenue dropped by almost 43%.
That's a huge drop, and a lot of other advertising-reliant sites and services could be in a lot of trouble if that keeps up or gets worse. So much of the internet depends on advertising, and there will definitely be even more major layoffs and shutdowns coming if the revenue is down that much.
I actually enjoy using Twitter, but I'm not paying for social media, sorry. (I know there's overhead costs, but the quality of the vast majority of social media services is akin to broadcast TV... great to pass time, but not something I need.)
Damn. Twitter was where a lot of the amateur adult content creators I followed migrated to after Tumblr went Puritanical. Hopefully they move over to BDSMlr instead of fragmenting again, but I'm not sure that enough of them know about that site for that to work out. As for the vanilla people, like Lindsay Ellis, hbomberguy, Shaun, PhilosophyTube, BeauTFC and others, I hope they're able to find a better social network. 'Cos, uhh...I don't really see them moving to the same one as the first group of people.
Related: Would you pay for social media platforms and search engines if it meant they would not have any advertising or data collection?
Obviously as I said last time a leap like this was taken by a major corporation, the 2 requirements for the thread linked above are no ads and a tildes-esque data policy, which would be a big deal and IMO, quite unlikely, given that Twitter users are not nearly as attached to Twitter as we are to this site.
I contribute to Fosstodon's running costs. The difference there is that the folks running it donate what they don't need to open source projects and respect my privacy. I can't imagine Twitter doing either of those things though.
I'm gonna go with no.