Twitter's new TikTok copycat is filled with animal cruelty videos. Elon calls content "Edgy"
Users said they saw violent content when they swiped up on videos after the feature was highlighted by Elon Musk on Sunday.
Why is everything to do with this story completely unsurprising.
Because we've all come to accept that Elon Musk doesn't know how to run a social media site?
The best anyone can do right now is to migrate off of Twitter entirely. As long as Musk is in charge (or in charge through his puppet CEOs) the site will be a cesspool of toxicity and hate. I'm honestly not sure why reputable people are still using the site... guess the view and media exposure are better than doing the right thing and leaving?
With Reddit, I suspect it was mostly timing that can't be replicated unless something mind shattering and truly catastrophic were to happen. (Much more than what already has. Hey, it's possible Spez can fuck up even worse.) It bridged Web 1.0/2.0/3.0 (god I hate that term) and was able to facilitate mass user migrations from Digg and Fark along with a number of smaller communities that shut down or died off. Lemmy and Mastodon -do- have room to grow but I suspect people prefer "the one thing" to move to and unfortunately, there isn't that one other Reddit alternative, I'm happy enough to be here, but I'm not counting on this federated alternative to reach 10% of the total userbase that Reddit had.
Nothing really replaced LiveJournal. Nothing really replaced Tumblr. SmugMug, Flickr, Blogger were all functionally similar sites that just never got as far. I think we're going to see a bigger change in the style of the next social media site that reaches popularity more than we are going to see a functionally similar one replace Reddit and reach the same userlevels.
And I think we have the exact same problem with Twitter. Why would anyone want to move to another functionally similar microblogging site if Twitter still has more users? The problem we're seeing with post, mewe, etc... General people don't want to split themselves between several sites to keep in touch with everyone they know.
So they will just ignore what bothers them for as long as enough people remain on Twitter or Reddit.
I've been around long enough to eventually realize that no one community lasts. They all die. Whether it's due to attrition, incompetence, infighting or just those in charge giving up the pretense of professionalism and turning it into their little sandbox full of cat shit... Something new will always show up and it's a matter of time before something loses or reaches critical mass. However important that 'reaching critical mass' can be for some sites... it just doesn't seem like that happens as often anymore. TikTok being the last big example I can immediately think of. How many people do you see talking about their Kik, Snap or Telegram chats? "Everyone I know is on TikTok, I'll just go there instead." (Or Instagram/Facebook/Whatsapp.)
Whether it's general sites like Fark or specific forums like HardOCP/Forum screwing the pooch, the only thing I've been able to take away regardless of what happened: Sticking around always led to a more negative outcome. People only end up rewarding themselves with toxicity by choosing to remain with a site that has turned on its community and tried to tell others where they can or cannot go.
Those who insist on staying... I've stuck around on some sites/services for those one or two that I wanted to keep in touch with. It wasn't worth it in the end.
Cut loose. Enjoy the next spot. Tell people where you've gone but don't waste time with wondering if people are going to make it. If they care, they'll find their way.
This includes not trying to convince people to follow. If they need to be convinced, they likely won't have as good of an outcome as they expect from your sales pitch.
Why would anyone want to move to another functionally similar microblogging site if Twitter still has more users?
Perhaps because the quality of the experience is better, even if the number of users is lower. As Twitter appeals more and more to the far right, those might not be the users people want to be hanging around with.
Nothing really replaced LiveJournal. Nothing really replaced Tumblr. SmugMug, Flickr, Blogger were all functionally similar sites that just never got as far. I think we’re going to see a bigger change in the style of the next social media site that reaches popularity more than we are going to see a functionally similar one replace Reddit and reach the same userlevels.
And I think we have the exact same problem with Twitter. Why would anyone want to move to another functionally similar microblogging site if Twitter still has more users? The problem we’re seeing with post, mewe, etc… General people don’t want to split themselves between several sites to keep in touch with everyone they know.
I feel like the Livejournal crowd settled into Tumblr and AO3, and the same people have accounts on both and their online presence intermingled enough you'd recognise a tumblr user on AO3 and vice versa. I feel like forums had yet to make the transition to something like AO3 for fanworks; the creators of the work (user generated data) collectively control their data. AO3 is now collecting and archiving scattered archives and restoring them or planning to restore them; the work is enormous and it is run by volunteers after all. The true legacy of Livejournal users are AO3.
If a forum site can exist where people can have absolute faith in the site like that, people will come. If a true non-profit forum can exist, maybe archives of dead forums can be revived.
But first, there must be the first call and there must be an answer. It was a massive work.
I don't think lemmy or the fediverse is the answer, not yet. On the other side Meta will undoubtedly dilute the fediverse, unless as strong an entity as the non-profit running AO3 can stand up. A collective body have to exist if only to shelter one massive instance, an instance that welcomes any and all so that the rest too can exist.
or specific forums like HardOCP/Forum screwing the pooch
ah genmay, that takes me way back
Anyone who is still on Twitter has, in my opinion, fewer issues with being a corporate puppet and being associated with all the hatred there than they have with losing views.
I have (had?) plenty of friends on Twitter who loudly proudly boycotted the Harry Potter game due to JKR's comments about trans people.
But they’ve stayed on Twitter despite its horrible owner and how he runs things.
I’m willing to give a pass to creators who make a living off their online audience. If the audience went off Twitter, so would they.
Everyone else, though? I don’t ever care to hear about what they're boycotting again if they can’t pull themselves off Twitter.
We (most of the people here), already did. Thats how mastadon was born!
Musk is a proponent of near-absolute free speech
Anything goes, so long as it doesn't hurt his feelings personally
As long as you don't use the term cisgender :)
Freedom, by Musk... a cologne that's actually mace with directions to the local old folks home and instructions on how to use InShot.
Or when an authoritarian government asks him to block literally anything
Kinda far from absolute imo.
"TikTok copycat"
You know, way way back in the pre-Elon days, they had another one. I think it was called Vine?
I still don't understand why they killed it. Must've been a real money sink.
Yeah, and it closed because they weren't making money on it. Turns out all you needed was a few years for server costs to go down.
The fediverse is looking like the objective best alternative, more so day by day.
One day the far right has to realize we're here, and they'll pile in to hurl abuse etc. When that happens I'll be looking for instances that moderate and defederate them away. I didn't realize how much that stuff got me down until I came here from reddit and found people having reasonable conversations, just like in the old days. It's a rare thing to find on today's internet. Let the commercial sites go after absolute numbers of users while we pursue a better experience.
All social media is filled with animal cruelty.
There's so many pictures and videos of cut up animal corpses with people going "yum" in the comments..
I don't get how I never see that on regular Twitter.
The content moderation is more active I guess. People post stuff like that all the time on Facebook and Instagram too. Not sure if they have an algorithm or whatever to trigger removal but a good amount are still manually removed by workers, some who quit because of the psychological repercussions
Yes there's no difference between a picture of a steak and fries on a plate, and a kitten being tortured then burned alive. Absolutely the same thing.
Folks, there is important, valid discussion to be had about meat eating both from ethical an environmental perspectives. I'm not sure that !Technology is the place to have that discussion, however.
More importantly, this thread was not the way to discuss these issues, particularly on Beehaw. The behavior in this thread was not nice, and is not the way that these types (or any type) of discussion should be conducted.
What kinda goofy response was this from Musk? AYO!
Try not to link if you can, just screenshot or copy text. Don't need to drive any traffic to that pit of despair.
Here's a non-twitter alternative to see the tweet without interacting with twitter (just replace twitter.com with nitter.net)
https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1673116176757694465
I don't use Tiktok but I gather that this is a big problem over there as well, so it sounds like Twitter is working just as well as the site it's riffing off.
I don't either but my understanding from other feedback, and from the article linked, is that no, it's not a problem there. More accurate algorithm and proper moderation.
it’s not a problem there
It is, because my wife is an avid Tok user and complains about it, and reports it, frequently. She also says there are many animal videos that are "unsettling" but not outright abuse.
Many reported being alarmed by a stream of graphic videos they encountered while scrolling through the feed, including videos showing gun violence, police brutality, physical altercations and vaccine misinformation.
So it's working as intended?
are there videos of apes with nualink in their brains?
Steve “spez” Huffman calls the feature “visionary” and jokes that he wishes some protesting Reddit moderators be featured in the videos.
Of course Elon would.
System is working as intended... I guess then huh Elon?
Only use it via browser and wasn't even aware of such feature nor do I care. These short videos are a rabbit hole I don't want to explore because there's no coming back
I've used them several times. Every time I get 3-4 videos deep and get pissed off because it lacks basic functionality, there's zero curation so it's just a stream of shit, the content is shit because they try to cram it into a vertical video, a format that makes zero sense, and I come away from every video thinking "WTF did I just watch?"
Seriously this segment of entertainment truly befuddles me.
yeah I downloaded tiktok to see what the deal was
I am immediately bombarded with some stupid auto play video I didn’t ask for, so I swipe it away
which just sends me another stupid video in an endless stream of garbage
I’ll never understand this type of social media, it truly felt like idiocracy
As for the free speech claims. I guess it's code for Elon doesn't want to pay people to moderate the content.
Except where the word "cisgender" is used, then he brings in the last employee that knows how to work the only machine left in the office with a working version of the software for modding content, while him, Ronnie, and other top members of the Reich look over his shoulder.