Twitter. Whats it all about? (Read 45027 times)

Just to drag this thread out of mothballs.

I’ve been trying for three days now, to deactivate my Twitter account.

It won’t let me. I just keep getting an “Error. Oops, something went wrong. Try again later” message.

I wonder why? And how many other “users” are also trying not to be?

Haven’t used Twitter in a couple of years now. 🤷‍♂️

petejh · July 10, 2023, 04:52:26 pm

For me Twitter’s still a brilliant place to get valuable info straight from the fingertips of people directly involved in whatever it might be you’re interested in. Don’t know why anyone would leave it, other than as a flounce. I’d leave meta, insta and in fact UKB long before I’d consider leaving twitter.

Dingdong · July 10, 2023, 05:00:29 pm

Dare I say twitter is a right wing circlejerk at this point? $:-\$

Oldmanmatt · July 10, 2023, 05:02:59 pm

Nah not a “political “ move, I’d deleted the app months ago, because I never used it. Then I got an email that reminded me I had an account and I thought I’d shut it down. I like Insta, because I enjoy seeing photos and art. Hardly use FB and really thinking of ditching Linkedin. Generally suffering from social media fatigue.
It just strikes me as funny that I can’t deactivate the account, under the current, ah, climate…

petejh · July 10, 2023, 07:19:46 pm

Quote from: Dingdong on July 10, 2023, 05:00:29 pm

Dare I say twitter is a right wing circlejerk at this point? $:-\$

I find I can read the thoughts of people from the whole political spectrum on twitter, from just about every profession out there, and across all views on the issues of climate, gender and economics. So I don’t recognise this caricature. Maybe I’m not bitter enough.

Wellsy · July 10, 2023, 07:40:07 pm

Quote from: Dingdong on July 10, 2023, 05:00:29 pm

Dare I say twitter is a right wing circlejerk at this point? $:-\$

Yeah it's a fucking dump imo, with some notable exceptions

kelvin · July 10, 2023, 08:35:03 pm

Quote from: petejh on July 10, 2023, 04:52:26 pm

For me Twitter’s still a brilliant place to get valuable info straight from the fingertips of people directly involved in whatever it might be you’re interested in. Don’t know why anyone would leave it, other than as a flounce. I’d leave meta, insta and in fact UKB long before I’d consider leaving twitter.

I'd agree with this - my politics are left of centre, vocal sometimes and I happily buy and support anarchist literature.

If people genuinely think it's predominantly right wingers on there whooping and a hollering in MAGA hats, then I can only think they are looking for confirmation bias.

Jono.r23 · July 11, 2023, 08:37:30 am

Not sure why but it’s where most game devs hang out. Therefore I use it for professional networking & showcasing stuff i’m working on. Whether this remains the case now theres ‘other twitter’ who knows.. its definitely been rocky recently. I will say though that its possible to use the platform without seeing or getting involved in right wing political nonsense

Paul B · July 12, 2023, 02:44:50 pm

Quote from: petejh on July 10, 2023, 04:52:26 pm

For me Twitter’s still a brilliant place to get valuable info straight from the fingertips of people directly involved in whatever it might be you’re interested in. Don’t know why anyone would leave it, other than as a flounce. I’d leave meta, insta and in fact UKB long before I’d consider leaving twitter.

For me that's what it was with it being specifically fantastic at breaking news across the globe. The For You timeline and changes to verification have made it a lot harder to discern credible sources IMO and I do seem to get "served up" enraging crap by the current algorithms.

Oldmanmatt · July 12, 2023, 06:25:30 pm

They finally deactivated my account today.
🤷🏻‍♂️
Not hugely impressed with Threads.
There are plenty of news sources available and I rarely have much time for more than a skim through anyway.

matt463 · July 12, 2023, 07:35:10 pm

I find Twitter to be a pretty mellow place. I mainly follow other researchers in my field and it's mainly a professional outlet for research announcements etc. It's also pretty handy for paper calls, jobs etc. I do find it a bit odd when I see people I respect getting into quite petty online arguments, but I feel able to ignore that. I'm not sure if other available platforms suitably replace this either

jwi · July 16, 2023, 02:55:41 pm

Twitter is a lot more acceptable if you make sure to never ever click on the tab "for you" with algorithmic driven content, and only use the "following" tab.

Threads seems like an instagram for text. Great if you want to be fed celebrity text to go with celebrity images.

I find mastodon ok now. Not enough chess content (twitter is great for this) and no climbing content (twitter is not good for this and instagram is absolutely unbearable garbage, I don't understand how anyone can stand following famous/influencer climbers on instagram).

I am very sceptical about using social media to filter general news: human editors seem to be vastly superior to algos at separating the wheat from the chaff

Oldmanmatt · July 16, 2023, 03:43:00 pm

Quote from: jwi on July 16, 2023, 02:55:41 pm

Twitter is a lot more acceptable if you make sure to never ever click on the tab "for you" with algorithmic driven content, and only use the "following" tab.

Threads seems like an instagram for text. Great if you want to be fed celebrity text to go with celebrity images.

I find mastodon ok now. Not enough chess content (twitter is great for this) and no climbing content (twitter is not good for this and instagram is absolutely unbearable garbage, I don't understand how anyone can stand following famous/influencer climbers on instagram).

I am very sceptical about using social media to filter general news: human editors seem to be vastly superior to algos at separating the wheat from the chaff

Ted Kingsnorth is worth a follow on insta. There’s a few “regular but good” climbers on there who aren’t “influencers”.