
Why Twitter’s Dying (And What You Can Learn from It) - jaxondu
https://medium.com/bad-words/why-twitter-s-dying-and-what-you-can-learn-from-it-9ed233e37974
======
pavel_lishin
> _Twitter could have been a town square. But now it’s more like a drunken,
> heaving mosh pit._

Nitpick: every mosh-pit I've ever been to has been a safe and supportive
place. If someone falls down, they're picked up. If they get hurt, the mosh
pit instantly clears out a space so they can be helped. If someone's being an
asshole, they're _kindly escorted_ (cough) out of the pit, and likely out of
the venue.

~~~
protomyth
I remember the mosh pit in the Fargo Civic Center in the 90's and it sure as
heck wasn't that polite or safe.

------
inthewoods
Interesting theory, but for me it does not hold up. The problem isn't people
feeling abused in various ways - it is that people don't know what to do with
Twitter. So they sign up, have a poor experience and churn. I don't have data
on it, but I expect there is an enormous number of people who signed up, sent
a single tweet and never came back.

------
yoodenvranx
Why the fuck is there a 420 kb image on top of the article? I really really
hate this kind of modern minimalist webdesign. Just show me that article and
don't include any unnecessary images.

~~~
protomyth
So, would the author consider this yoodenvranx's comment as abuse or
criticism? I tend to believe its the later but think the author would consider
it the former.

Why I'm at it, the hyperbole in the article (e.g. school shootings) makes it
hard to take any of the rest seriously. The lack of examples is also
troubling.

------
pervycreeper
> The problem of abuse is the greatest challenge the web faces today. It is
> greater than censorship, regulation, or (ugh) monetization. It is a problem
> of staggering magnitude and epic scale, and worse still, it is expensive: it
> is a problem that can’t be fixed with the cheap, simple fixes beloved by
> tech: patching up code, pushing out updates.

Abuse = services being used in ways that are not intended, or approved of, or
sanctioned by... someone. It is inherently hard to classify behaviour as
either abusive or not, and for those who are sure, it's inherently impossible
to reach consensus. Furthermore, "patching code", and "pushing out updates"
should not be seen as being necessarily cheap and simple (that's kindof a lot
of the hard part, on the contrary). The way users use a service stems from how
it is designed (although perhaps not always predictably or even
deterministically).

------
cmacpher
I'm skeptical that the core issue with twitter is abuse. It is certainly
rampant and should be addressed. I'm skeptical an average users with 130
followers(a guess) experiences any abuse.

The on boarding of new users and the echo chamber effect seem like a much
bigger issue.

~~~
gaius
There's still a chilling effect of knowing that if you put a foot wrong, a mob
of random strangers will do their best to lose you your job, just because
that's their idea of fun.

We're not immune from it here either
[https://twitter.com/hashtag/hnwatch](https://twitter.com/hashtag/hnwatch)

------
tonomics
In a nutshell, as these companies grew(number of users), the utility of the
community started to decline.

Think about it: what's the main use of Twitter? It might have fostered a great
community in the past, but it's become too broad and filled with fake users,
shallow communities and users.

Not self-promoting, but I've written about how many companies are facing the
same issue as Twitter.

[http://tonomics.xyz/2015/09/28/Stay-for-the-
tool.html](http://tonomics.xyz/2015/09/28/Stay-for-the-tool.html)

------
gaius
This is what Facebook are tackling with their real names policy. Now I like
this policy, and have openly said so. I think anonymity on the Internet was
fine back in the day when it was a small community of like-minded people with
the unwritten but unbreakable rule "what goes online stays online". But it
doesn't scale to the general population. And the most abuse I get on FB is
when I say this, usually by friends-of-friends, whom I sort-of know IRL and
what they _really_ want is just to keep on using the same "gothic" nickname
they had on IRC or LJ... I haven't reported anyone because that's not my
style, but I'm getting a bit bored now of being called "transphobic" by
someone who goes by a name something like "Prince Darkbat".

~~~
delecti
The problem with the policy is that there's a difference between someone not
adapting to the intended purpose of FB with a name of "Prince Darkbat" and
someone using, for example, their real first name and an alias last name. That
could be because of persecution due to homophobia, transphobia, an abusive ex,
religious extremism, or just a person who is only known in their community by
a name that isn't their legal name.

I know several individuals who only ever go by a stage name or alias. I assume
it isn't their legal name, but every interaction I've had with them or I've
witnessed others having with them used their aliases. Is it really less honest
to have that be the name on their FB account?

And yes, I also know trans people who have lost access to their FB accounts
because of inability to change their legal name to their chosen name.

I don't think it makes you transphobic to hold your view, but I do think it's
an overly polarized stance on a very nuanced issue.

~~~
gaius
_I do think it 's an overly polarized stance on a very nuanced issue_

I have thought about this you know, and the issue is, who decides group A get
to be anonymous but group B don't, and on what grounds? The only way to
operate at scale is to be even-handed and impartial.

------
Karunamon
I flagged this article, since IMO, it's a tired, uninteresting, zero-evidence
screed that pushes a discredited and dangerous narrative (i.e. that incivility
is a bigger problem than censorship)

~~~
kobayashi
I agree that the article was a waste of time, but why is that worth a flag?

~~~
Karunamon
That's pretty much the purpose of the flag if I interpret it right. If you
post and upvote things you think are interesting and legitimate, then by
converse, you should flag things that are boring and illegitimate.

It's more of a "Knowing what I know of Hacker News, I don't think this fits"

~~~
kobayashi
Yeah, fare enough. Mine was a stupid question, anyway. I just took a stroll
the the HN guidelines, and interestingly it advised not commenting that you've
flagged something after actually flagging it.

------
dbspin
Literally everything about this is without merit. It's a polemic, not a
thesis. This evidence free diatribe glorifies a non-specific past where
'abuse' and 'electronic violence' were apparently less prevalent, and raises
'abuse' above censorship on the list of things that threaten the web.

Where to start... Twitter, like all other such public blogging services,
offers simple quick block and mute tools. These tools won't prevent brigading,
but then luckily 'electronic violence', being imaginary, can't harm you.
Smaller communities (such as subreddits) are free to exclude members on
whatever basis they like - and hence overly sensitive web users can reside in
their digital safe spaces to their hearts content. However, when you reside in
the commons, you are open to public criticism.

To participate in the digital commons is to open oneself up to numerous
confounding psychocultural narratives. Some of which are vehement to the point
of incoherence. But to close oneself off from the possibility of discussion
because of 'abuse' is to be so afraid of disagreement as to wilfully cut
oneself off from the possibility of learning from disagreement.

Twitter certainly isn't growing at the same rate, but to describe it as
'dying' is ludicrously over the top. Further, to suggest a more virtuous, less
'abusive' past is to engage in a golden age fallacy. Certainly the
intellectually and socioeconomically elite users of the early days of the web
were more utopian. But to cite 'abuse' as the reason for the authors perceived
decline, rather than censorship, balkanisation, advertising, and of course the
'eternal September' is absurd.

The kind of 'abuse' the author seems to be arguing against - i.e.: not
threats, but vehement group criticism, can be upsetting. But it is of course
'trivial'. Since it can be escaped entirely by switching ones electronic
device off, or simply logging off a given service for a few days. It's quite
distinct on the one hand, from the relatively rare and extreme mass public
shamming addressed by John Ronson's new book. And genuinely threatening
harassment (already illegal everywhere in the West) on the other. The writer's
solutions 'humility, gratitude, reality' are phatic, non specific and without
direction or meaningful content. As is his critique.

------
JoeAltmaier
Oh shucks. And here I was thinking about trying it. I guess my inertia has
saved me from kilohours of wasted time and effort!

