1y ago

People Who Stay On Twitter Are Aiding Musk In His Antics

sethgoldstein.me People Who Stay On Twitter Are Aiding Musk In His Antics - SethGoldstein.me

I know a lot of people who are still on Twitter, because they feel they get a benefit from it. But what is the benefit of being associated with Elon Musk. He’s a truly horrible person with very right-wing/Nazi/Fascist tendencies. Now Musk is planning on getting rid of the Twitter branding altogether...

My thoughts on Twitter

89 comments

"I can't leave Twitter -- all my followers are there."
"I can't leave Twitter -- all the people I follow are there."
- It feels like the obvious first step is for the people with many followers to start posting all their content on multiple sites, so that the second point no longer applies.
  The trickiest part is the lack of a fully agreed upon alternative. Do you go to Mastodon, instagram, threads, etc? While some folks might have an alternative that they view as a no brainer, it's pretty clear that there isn't overwhelming consensus. Mastodon seems perhaps the most popular as a direct Twitter alternative, but it regularly faces complaints about usability and discoverability. If people post to both Twitter and some random alternative, if that alternative varies wildly, followers will stay on Twitter cause it's where all their favourites are.
- It's known as sunk cost and I understand it, I've been a victim of it myself.
  
  For anyone (such as myself) whose use-case for Twitter is just for following specific people, if those influencers aren't using Threads or Mastodon then there isn't a competitor who can replace that service. I only use Twitter for a few select people and that's it. I'm on Mastodon just posting into the void which is fun but doesn't replace Twitter for me (yet)

This is one big reason I began to hate Reddit before the API bullshit. Reddit users would constantly removed about Elon and Twitter, while linking to Twitter on every thread. How much further does Twitter need to fall, for people to stop using then as a default link? They don't create content anyways, they're just a link middle man, Twitter is essentially Pinterest
- Twitter is definitely not just a link middle man, the main use for most is to follow people that use Twitter as their main way to talk/make annoucements about what they do. Be it politicians, artists, event organizers, teams, players etc.
  For example where I regularly see links to Twitter is when people/organizations announce what they're doing with eSports tournaments. They don't announce that anywhere else. So if you want to be informed at all, you must have someone viewing their Twitter feed, either yourself or through someone else.
  
  Yep, the centralizing of announcements is a bigger issue than link aggregation.
  I work in pest control and want to follow several industry experts and guess what? They only use twitter to disseminate information because they're mostly academic and don't follow too much online drama.
  I want to continue following them, but need to create a Twitter account to do so since Musk's new ideas broke the website recently and you can no longer lurk without an account.
  So I am torn between trying to follow experts and improve myself as a professional, or cut myself off from that source of information in order to try and reduce the amount of traffic that twitter gets.
- I think much like invidious or piped, most people aren't aware of nitter.net for sharing twits.
- I exclusively post original content on twitter. It's the only platform I've managed to grow any audience at.

I see it a few different ways:
They revere Elon Musk
They are far right-winged
They are watching it burn to the ground and are secretly grinning inside
They actually believe its headed in the right direction
They can also be a combination of the above.
- You forgot the biggest group
  They don't care
  
  This. The majority of twitter users aren't political twitter and don't really even know who elon is
  
  That's the group I belong to. What ever Elon is doing happens on the side of Twitter I don't spend time on. Where I hang it's bussines as usual. These recent changes hardly affect me at all
- A friend of mine knows a few artists that are scrambling to find an alternative because Twitter has completely hamstrung them. They’d use the platform to promote their work and then people could contact them to make commissions.
  That’s been pulled from under them.
  
  Threads is the obvious choice for them.
- Its both free & easy to use, so many people who live in autocracies or dictatorships use it to organize protests &/ meetings.
- Honestly, I only use my +18 account
  I don't know where the accounts I follow where be going when twitter dies.
  
  Probably pawoo.net if it's drawn stuff

"No shit, Sherlock" prize of today.
But for most that are still there, the reasoning is: "everyone I care enough to follow is still here"
People attract people and twitter still has a huge number of daily and monthly active users. It'll take some time until it becomes the next facebook: still big but not as widely used in the west.

I agree with you. I think the toxicity of Twitter is damaging and radicalizing even more people that wouldn't normally be exposed to the hateful garbage of the likes of /pol/

Leaving Twitter was easy.
Just log out once and since you can't even read embedded tweets without being logged in, you are practically isolated from the whole platform. If you last a few days, you realize that you're not really missing anything...
- A lot of people are pure addicts.
  They've been threatening to leave for 8 months. They disable their account, then a week later they're right back on it.
  Over the years it's actually pretty sad, a lot of really talented people got hooked and stopped making good content because they're too busy tilting at windmills on Twitter.

Some people still need it for local news and alerts, I have no issue with this the platforms like mastodon are not always good for this.
Especially since there is no way to find local news based on location
I hate twitter and have been staying away since 2020. (It was terrible for my MH) but even threads has it's issues. (Not talking about privacy. If you're using any large corporate product like apple/Microsoft/Google/Samsung you are being tracked anyway) more issues with the discoverability. You have no way of searching on threads it's missing a lot of really important features. You can with mastodon, but again. Local news is not trending.
Then there is hive which is also hard to discover things on... And minds is a hornets nest I am not touching that.
I am happy there are more competitors than ever for twitter but they still fall short of much needed features
- Yeah local stuff keeps me there. Even that's getting worse, every local station/paper has 5-10 bots replying to every post with completely off topic right-wing stuff.
  It's still a good place to follow news. Shits getting bad though. Ads are way more intrusive than they used to be and it's like 90% credit card scams or explicit white power stuff

I have a friend that complains constantly about Twitter, how its going downhill and he doesn't agree with what their doing and all that. Yet, he insists on using it everyday. I've suggested Mastodon and he said that "everyone is on Twitter" and then complains about it. Couldn't believe that I deleted my Twitter account without a second thought.
People are strange.
- I mean, it is not that hard of a thought process? Considering how many left reddit but have been complaining about it for years. As far as they were considering (including me), there was no better alternative. Your friend probably thinks the same. If the people he follows would go to Mastodon, they would follow. But as long as this people don't, then there isn't enough content there to be a viable alternative for them.
- Addiction.
- Yea people are strange.

Some people love the X.com twitter. They love the QAnon injected directly into their ~~veins~~ feed. I don't know how you could love any of the pricing changes but hey if 5 bucks makes you feel important...
Either way, by and large most people don't care about net neutrality, or actual freedom of information. I had some friends of mine try to say ElonJetTracker was doxxing. When that shit is publically posted by the FAA and other organizations because planes need to see where other planes are.
There will never be a "total victory" in this world. Where someone does something shitty and everyone shuns and isolated them. That is a relic of the ancient world. There are just far too many people now to get everyone to ditch something even if that something was extremely detrimental to everyone else. Take the small victories while you can and always push for better education.
- The only XCom I like is the one that makes me miss shots at point-blank range shown with a 100% chance to hit
  
  Funnily enough, that still describes Elon's.

One of my friends won't quit twitter because there's no good sportsball on mastodon/Lemmy/kbin that I can find. Any groups, people, communities that talk about sportsball?
Would appreciate recommendations
- Sadly that's the fediverse's biggest weakness. The platform is too recent to have established communities for specific hobbies.
- I like fanaticus.social for sports, but it could use some more members

My wife tells me she loves Twitter because it's the best and first place to find out about developing stories and headlines.
I've never used Twitter, so I don't have much of a dog in that race, but she does tend to be informed quickly about her interests.
- One problem I have with it is that topics can trend and spread so quickly that they get in front of facts and it can easily become a vehicle for misinformation and witch hunts. I think I've decided I'd rather get information a little later from fact checking sources than consume and potentially contribute to spreading false information. It just seems like it's the perfect vehicle for toxic behavior even if it has legitimate benefits when used correctly.
  
  Well said. People have had their lives ruined because the internet got ahead of the facts in a story.

If anyone wants to leave Twitter, but there's still people that you want to see, I recommend Squawker. You can't interact or post, but you can follow people and you don't need an account.
- If you're on desktop also nitter is great as well.

Knock on wood, I never really got into twitter.
So- the twitter drama, is just interesting to read about these days.....
On the sad side, I did get into reddit. And spez is fucking it up worse then musk is doing to twitter.

Also people that keep talking about him.

People who talk about it, as well.

I will gladly read news blurbs wherever if reporters switch to another site

Twitter is still the best platform for sports news and info.

I rarely use Twitter but I’ll be using it even less with this rebranding. It takes away everything we all know. Musk is really trying to destroy the platform and burn everything Twitter was.

It's been a bit of a ghost-town since Musk anyways. Isn't it called "X" now because that will get investors excited again or was that just a PR stunt, i can't tell the difference anymore with the ridiculous stuff Elon does.

A high lead count in water would explain some things

I’ve been considering this for a while now. Yes, Musk’s antics are only souring everything about Twitter, but the place is also a font of information that search indexes use. I’ve used Twitter a lot and I don’t want to see the information I’ve shared there to go away. If I do remove my Twitter account, my tweets will only be available through sites like the internet archive.

For years now I've done what I can to encourage use of other sites, but the fact remains that my specific community of friends and peers (many of whom have known one-another for over two decades now) have used twitter as a stomping ground since 2008 or so. It's extremely difficult to establish that sort of intersection elsewhere, and it gets particularly ugly when folks' livelihood and income are tied into the matter.
Having the main hub for communities torn apart because of one fool's antics really, really sucks, and then I'm/we're called garbage on the sites we try to establish on, for clinging to that lifeline. It's all a frustrating feedback loop.

I haven't touch them in a long time, but I went in and closed down two old accounts today.

You all hate X but many still refuse to use Mastodon.
- I manage a freaking instance. LOL
  
  How is all Mastodon doing vs X?. I also use Mastodon btw.

people who stay on Twitter are little worms that love being stepped on.
"Step on me daddy Musk" -average ~~twitter~~ "X" user today

All Social media is a huge cess pit anyway. Before Musk, Twitter was a sound board for militant leftist weirdos who would censor anything that didn't conform to their agenda. No different now, just went the other way. Who cares in the end? It's all shit
- The militant leftist weirdos care. Lol. Listen to them whine here.
  
  In the end we are all miserable. Left or right doesn’t matter. Unhappiness is normality. It is the driver for improvement and discussions.

I don’t care. I am on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Lemmy, and probably a shit ton more. And I jump wherever I want. It doesn’t matter who is in control. Just the fun I have with a platform. The value it has for my life.
And Twitter is now even more fun than before. It’s so toxic, so much discussions, I love it.
It has never been docile, but boy, shits finally let loose. It’s like Reddit in the good old days.
- What are you, an edgy fifteen-year old?
  
  30 going on 13
  
  Nope. Just some dude who has found his own form of entertainment.
  I’d rather have fun with something than getting angry about trivia.
  What use does it have to you to get angry about a platform you do not seem to be involved with anymore?
  Call me edgy and immature all you want. I am happy.
- The bots don't like what you said
  
  It’s just funny arrows pointing upwards or downwards. It’s not that important. No one needs to like my opinion.
  But there is nothing worse than a dead post without any comments. So I thought I’d start something here.
  In retro perspective I didn’t need to. People started all by themselves.

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