Musk's drama posts if anyone you follow follows him. Stopped Twitter partially because I'm tired of reading whatever his current emotional outburst is.
The question is what changed which in this case Elon shows up on my feed a lot more and his posts are a lot more annoying. And as I said I stopped Twitter to not see his posts.
edit: I could block him but then there's the second order posts about his drama with screenshots. Realized I don't care enough about Twitter to bother and prefer a calmer life.
> The question is what changed which in this case Elon shows up on my feed a lot more and his posts are a lot more annoying. And as I said I stopped Twitter to not see his posts.
His follower count grew by ~70% so far this year (from an already high number). His engagement numbers are also very high. It would be weird if he didn't show up more on your feed.
> edit: I could block him but then there's the second order posts about his drama with screenshots. Realized I don't care enough about Twitter to bother and prefer a calmer life.
You can use advanced twitter mutes to block words and hashtags
Because of algorithms, even if you don't follow him, you can still see his quotes or likes by people you follow. Although not forced, but hard to avoid.
My ads have gone from mainstream brands to dregs, degens, and grifters. This doesn't seem great, unless Elon's intent is to replace advertising revenue with other sources.
I'm still getting the same tech company and video game ads. Haven't noticed a difference. I block all the accounts that are ads but even then I still get ads from mainstream companies I haven't blocked. Theres still plenty of companies advertising. I have yet to encounter anything sus apart from some rando paying to promote a meme or shitpost.
I guess, traffic is great. I bet a big fire on a busy street leads to a bunch of gawkers too -- but maybe the restaurant next door is not getting any value from that foot traffic.
In the case of twitter's business model they have lost a projected 300-400MM of ad placements for the forecasted year -- so each of those visitors is consuming cost but twitter is unable to collect the impression charges as the buys are lower than the inventory.
So yeah traffic is great -- but not always profitable (especially when you insist on peeing in the pool).
I browsed it recently and the major change was the checkmark. So many trolls have them now. And it seems their content is boosted higher. It’s pretty bad.
They let you browse recommended content and user profiles now without getting a fullscreen "please log in" modal covering the web client, which is nice.
but a huge hit to acquisition AND value add targeted ad impressions (IE expensive impressions). It allows Elon to wave the "hey look at the huge traffic" flag around while self sabotaging the business model further.
Not really. I didn't have a Twitter account before, and I still don't have one. The only thing that's changed is that I find myself using Twitter more...
Moderation seems to have changed by a lot. More gory videos stay up, nsfw pictures stay up, etc. It will slowly go out of control if this is a trend, I would guess.
I can confirm. Used it daily before and after Elon take over and haven't seen any of those. Usually it's visible why auch content is shown on your timeline
I don't think moderation has changed at all. I'm not in the gore-y scene but I wouldn't be surprised if it has always been on Twitter, just marked as sensitive. Most social media sites have that 'dark reality' content scenes.
Same goes for NSFW stuff, that stuff has been on Twitter long before Musk bought it and it will still be available just marked as sensitive (like it always has). I doubt they will go the Tumblr route and kill a giant part of the userbase.
Well, my account has quit bleeding follows and my tweets "feel" as though they have more reach, although that may just be more conservatives returning to the platform.
Could you please stop posting to HN in the flamewar style, and stop using HN for ideological battle? We ban accounts that do these things, regardless of which direction the flames point, because it's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
It looks like your account is already over the line at which we'd ban it, because it's primarily using HN for these purposes, but you've also posted good things, so I'd rather persuade you (if possible) to use the site as intended.
> now people are forced to (gulp) participate in the marketplace of ideas.
Nobody is forced to do anything. People don't have to sign up for Twitter. Twitter users don't have to stay on Twitter. They don't have to tweet. They don't have to reply. They can still follow anyone they want, unfollow anyone they want, mute anyone they want, block anyone they want.
Some people think of Twitter as high school debate club on a global scale, but other people have no interest whatsoever in that.
Twitter was being used as a tool to censor one side of the conversation and amplify another. You don't realize how controlled the US population is. Much of what is considered mainstream right now was injected into our society, it was not some grassroots movement.
This was always the misconception about Twitter as the "public square": that authoritarians could somehow leverage something to force people to listen to their bad ideas.
I'm forced to walk through the public square on my way to work or to buy groceries or hang out with friends. I'm not forced to use Twitter; it's just a website that provided an amusing speech product that I enjoyed.
Authoritarians saw Twitter and thought it would be productive for their political ends to force people like me to listen to their bad ideas. They couldn't, because Twitter was a private company that could control the moderation they used to create their speech product; it wasn't the town square and they don't have First Amendment rights there.[0]
Then an authoritarian purchased the platform and thought that it would be productive for his political ends to force people like me to listen to his bad ideas. But he couldn't, because I could delete my account any time I wanted to and find another place to seek amusement.
The main intellectual breakdown from which a lot of these people suffer is that the marketplace of ideas _already exists_ and it's what brings you things like, for instance, a liberal Twitter and an authoritarian Parler. These companies are (and should be) free to seek out their customers by shaping the product they produce by any means they want, including by banning you or deleting the things you say that will alienate or annoy their core consumer group.
[0]: obviously relevant and timely discussion of government action doctrine deferred.
