Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

F Twitter threads. Seriously... just... stop.

It's worth noting with all the revelations in the last couple of days, that at least some of them aren't new. For example:

- "Jedi Blue: A Scandal That Highlights, Yet Again, The Need To Regulate Big Tech" (19 Jan 2021) [1]

- "Facebook and Google allegedly cut a deal that reduced ad competition" (17 Jan 2021) [2]

- "Google acknowledges it foresaw possibility of probe of 'Jedi Blue' advertising deal with Facebook" (7 Apr 2021) [3]

I mean this is all fruit of the same tree, the states' suit, but it seems there's some revisionism here. What is new is parts of the suit that were redacted were recently unredacted.

To be clear, these are fairly damning allegations and revelations.

Personally, I find the most troubling allegations to be about AMP and ad market price-fixing.

[1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2021/01/19/jedi-blu...

[2]: https://www.engadget.com/facebook-google-jedi-blue-ad-deal-1...

[3]: https://mlexmarketinsight.com/news-hub/editors-picks/area-of...




Please don't do the Twitter thread complaint cliché thing on HN. It passed tedious a long time ago, and reliably generates terrible repetitive discussion.

It's basically covered (as in excluded) by this site guideline: "Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html


It's quite simple why people do Twitter threads. It's all about the stats for themselves. Everyone wants to be internet famous


“Internet famous” russell conjugates to “having what you say be heard.”


I imagine you're probably right. But I still don't understand - why not have a single Tweet, with a summary of a blog post running on your own domain? Wouldn't that make you even more internet famous?


How many people actually click on links from Twitter vs just continue to scroll on past? Maybe "s/internet famous/twitter famous/"


Unlikely. Things which can be fit into Twitter threads generally are going to be more widely read and interacted with than if the same content were pushed to a blog.


All people will do is switch over to Medium.


The "why do ANYTHING online if it's not monetized?" attitude is such a pernicious trend. The internet will only become more censored and more homogenized if people only ever use services that will silence any thoughts/opinions that aren't 'Advertiser Friendly'.

Sure you could have ads pulled from your OWN website if you piss off an ad agency, but there are multiple ad agencies that exist. You can always switch providers.

When you go to a private company like Medium, anything you say will get you de-monetized, AND there's no other way to earn again. Some people face this situation and then create their own website to build back up their buzz, but why not start at that point initially?

I suspect this has something to do with the fact that the average 13-16 year old rarely opens their mobile web browser. To compete in 2021, you need an app. Something needs to change.


Lol so much armchair psychology going on here. According to your logic people publishing anything on the internet are doing it to become “internet famous”


> - "Facebook and Google allegedly cut a deal that reduced ad competition" (17 Jan 2021) [2]

something, something, cartel...


[flagged]


I think they're fine if you have lots of information to digest and you want to see tidbits about something else.

I came across this thread on my Twitter, was interested, so read parts of the linked complaint myself. I don't see what is bad about that?

Now, linking to the thread on HN seems dumb, I'd prefer something long form.


> I think they're fine

Perhaps if they weren't on twitter.com. The site is impossible to use if you're not signed in, especially on mobile. This is probably 85% of the problem, IMO.

> I'd prefer something long form

Yeah, except not too long and not on Medium, either... haha. I like the idea of the constraints of a tweet and that a tweet thread (like a powerpoint) forces an economy of words. The tweet threads on HN are usually from high quality writers, so it's not actually that terrible to read them. But you're still stuck in the same "cognitive style" as powerpoint.

Maybe I'm simply old and my belief that "microblogging is an oxymoron" is wrong.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: