This is a write-up brought to you by me. It will cover the following:

1- Comments on twitter (with comparison to other social media integrated within)
.........a) what I dislike
.........b) what I like

2 - Summary

12/12/2023 9:07:21 AM

I’ve made it this far without a Twitter account. I think I’ll survive.

From an outsiders perspective, it annoys me when organizations require the use of Twitter for updates. But it does allow them to get out quick, lazy updates.

One person ultimately decides who can or can’t get their message out - that is horrible.

12/12/2023 9:29:52 AM

^

Quote :

"From an outsiders perspective, it annoys me when organizations require the use of Twitter for updates. But it does allow them to get out quick, lazy updates."

Can you elaborate on this or share an example? Do you mean this as in things like customer support or public announcements? Because those would also be replicated on their website, right?

12/12/2023 9:49:23 AM

A specific example would be the local YMCA’s when they announce that their fields are closed.

We already have an app on our phone for game and practice scheduling. I don’t need yet another app.

12/12/2023 10:46:58 AM

Twitter is complete fucking garbage. I registered in 2008 and stopped using it this year.

After the 2016 Presidential election, I had to get serious about blocking accounts just to keep the experience tolerable. White supremacists, crypto grifters, sex scammers, fucking all kinds of garbage just infesting every last corner of the service. I wound up writing a service to block high-profile accounts and all their followers despite Twitter's rate limit working against me and blocked more than a million accounts before they finally killed my application this year.

I was already a Mastodon user, but my home instance isn't comparable to Twitter at all, and I think a federated system can never really serve the same purposes as Twitter.

Now I post on Bluesky more than anything. I don't really care about yelling at companies or following celebrities. Bluesky just has more weirdos to pal around with.

12/12/2023 11:10:32 AM

^^

Quote :

"A specific example would be the local YMCA’s when they announce that their fields are closed. We already have an app on our phone for game and practice scheduling. I don’t need yet another app."

And they don't do it on their own app? That's strange. I understand your frustration. They should make an email list or something, that could also be an option.

--

^

Quote :

"After the 2016 Presidential election, I had to get serious about blocking accounts just to keep the experience tolerable. White supremacists, crypto grifters, sex scammers, fucking all kinds of garbage just infesting every last corner of the service. I wound up writing a service to block high-profile accounts and all their followers despite Twitter's rate limit working against me and blocked more than a million accounts before they finally killed my application this year."

Well, second you on the scammers. As to the first two in the list, I personally haven't experienced this, but that may be because I don't venture too much into the "mainstream politics" side. I usually just try to follow specific enthusiasts on things like housing policy or energy policy or local politics. Those are small enough or specific enough to not have those issues.

I do understand your concerns though, especially given the proclivities you've shown on this forum. Not in a bad way or anything, just by how I infer things from your posts. And your mention of things like Mastodon or Bluesky. I too once made a Mastodon account, but I didn't find it filling any particular needs of mine at the time. That was back when I was super into decentralized tech type stuff.

However, I definitely am not doubting the existence of what you've mentioned. Even on Instagram, I've gotten clear antisemitic "memes" in reels. Not in the neo-Nazi "let's kill" sense, but in the "XYZ out of content statement/fact, image of jew" even though I don't particularly follow political accounts or encourage that on my feed.
Given that the rest of reels content was mind numbing trash, I deleted the app entirely. Had the app not had reels, I would've kept it, but I don't want to encourage that garbage and inadvertently end up wasting my time.

While I do feel like blocking accounts sometimes, I never do. I don't like the idea of potentially missing something, I just "not interest" and move on whenever something weird does come up.

12/12/2023 1:47:12 PM

Welcom eback, emnsk!

12/12/2023 2:26:52 PM

Twitter seemed to be better as Twitter, and (might have just been happenstance) has become slightly spammier and gone slightly downhill since it became X

(again, that might be a personal thing since I suck - the spam thing is definitely a thing though)

12/12/2023 3:30:19 PM

The Wolf Web is the best social media platform out there at the moment IMO

12/12/2023 5:28:17 PM

^

12/12/2023 8:12:39 PM

Twitter is good for sports. That's it. Everything else about Twitter is terrible.

12/12/2023 10:20:53 PM

^It's the best sports app on the web and it's good for all types of news too. I don't like how Musk took the verified blue checks away unless you pay. Now famous people that cover sports and the news are no longer verified, but random people who aren't famous pay and get a blue check because it makes them feel special.

12/12/2023 11:19:54 PM

Another thing that I forgot to add is my appreciation of the customization in terms of your feed.

You can easily create private and public lists, and then separate them, in order to customize what you want to see. For example, you could create a News list with news orgs, a sports list with sports journalists you're interested in.

That's super nifty! It also reduces mindless scrolling.

--

^
I agree. I do think part of the idea behind that was to generate a rush for buying verified. That's why they ended up adding official badges back. Part of the intention is trying to create a "special community" like you've noted. I've seen this sentiment in some and the way they act and use twitter, as the verified being a club of "elite movers" or whatever.

12/13/2023 10:02:27 AM

Quote :

"Welcom eback, emnsk!"

Thank you, The Coz!

12/13/2023 12:51:59 PM