Technology

Twitter is even more cringe than LinkedIn, which is saying something.

Of course engagement is down, nobody wants to post anymore when most replies are spambot nonsense and cheech and chong gummies ads. It is still the best place for breaking sports news and my feed is highly curated to only see what I want.

I'm actually glad to see what's been happening to Twitter because as much as it was started with good intentions and used to be a positive force for tech, it was also fundamentally flawed social media model. The basic problem was that only positive reactions were allowed - like, retweet, follow. This is NOT the town square, where you can get any reaction. It's more akin to a dictator's rally, where you're only allowed to clap and booing is not allowed. So it's no surprise that over time, it led to filter bubbles and the spread of mass delusions. Because you could say the craziest or most depraved thing, and all you'd hear is applause.

Oh no, how will people know if their opinions are right or wrong without our top most social ethicists?

Can we get musk to buy russia?

I used to be really active on Twitter. Everyone was there: my friends, people in my industry, people involved in my hobbies. When Musk bought it out everyone left. I tried to follow them to Bluesky and Mastodon but they mostly just quit posting. Between that and Reddit falling apart I don’t often use social media anymore.

Whenever I get linked to twitter, it tries to get me to login when I just want to scan the thread..... I back out everytime now.

Weird. I've never seen Twitter more hostile to visitors and potential new users. And if you happen to register to a new account you will be welcomed by even more hostility from trolls and seasoned users. It's just a terrible experience.

Good. Come to mastodon.

Edit: wtf is bluesky?

X marks the Nazi

Remember when Twitter was being used by people in warzones and struggling under authoritarian regimes to avoid being killed for thinking "illegally"?

I miss the days when this platform served any purpose at all.

That's what happens when you cater to Nazis

Musk has marketed it as the world’s “town square"

He says it so clearly here which makes me wonder how people don't realize it:

How fucked up would it be if your actual town square was owned by a private company?

A private company that is in control of who is allowed to talk and what they are allowed to say. A private company that even decides what you hear and see while walking the square. Meanwhile also shovelling ads in front of you while you try to find the people you actually want to engage with.

"Social" media owned by private corporations is not social. Such media is anti-social, corporate control of public spaces that ought to belong to the people, just like they mostly do in real life.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Musk has marketed it as the world’s “town square,” but in number of users it continues to lag far behind social media rivals that focus on video, such as Instagram and TikTok.

In February, X had 27 million daily active users of its mobile app in the U.S., down 18% from a year earlier, according to Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm based in San Francisco.

The worldwide user base has been flat or down every month during Musk’s tenure began except one, when it grew slightly in October and then resumed falling, according to Sensor Tower.

Other social media apps experienced modest increases in their worldwide user bases during the same period, according to the research, with Snapchat growing 8.8%, Instagram 5.3%, Facebook 1.5% and TikTok 0.5%.

X had “the most material decline in active users compared to its peers,” Abe Yousef, a senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower, wrote in a research report.

“For microblogging platforms, X had dominant market share of app downloads right up until Threads launched,” Tom Grant, vice president of research at Apptopia, wrote in an email.

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