
I’ve left Twitter. It is unusable for anyone but trolls, robots and dictators - acjohnson55
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/03/ive-left-twitter-unusable-anyone-but-trolls-robots-dictators-lindy-west
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rokosbasilisk
Twitter for anything political is horrible, but politics pretty much is
horrible everywhere right now due to extreme polarization.

Personally I find Lindy West the author responsible for this horrible cultural
polarization after all she wrote very similar horrible things on exgawker site
jezebel, that targeted individuals for harassment as well.

~~~
randomdata
What makes that polarization horrible? Being able to take in so many different
points of view, and trying to appreciate where they are coming from, makes it
exciting and interesting. Discussions really become horrible when everyone
agrees.

~~~
drspacemonkey
>Discussions really become horrible when everyone agrees.

"Discussion" isn't really the appropriate term to describe what I see on
Twitter. I think "spastic digital shit-flinging" would be more accurate.

~~~
randomdata
Certainly the "eloquency" can be incredibly low (which I am sure is
exacerbated by the reduced character limit, but is still present in venues
that allow for longer messages), but when you try to take in the underlying
point there is still something to be gained in my opinion.

Granted, it's not always easy to try and take an objective look at heated
messages when you, yourself, have an emotional attachment to the subject. Then
again, part of the fun is trying to remain objective about subjects you are
emotional about.

~~~
drspacemonkey
>it's not always easy to try and take an objective look at heated messages
when you, yourself, have an emotional attachment to the subject

You're making a lot of assumptions, and none of them are true. I have no
emotional attachment to fan drawings of cartoons I've never seen, or the shirt
Kanye was wearing at a gas station, or what some politician I've never heard
of in a country I've never been to said about home mail delivery or something
equally trivial. Nor do I ever post on Twitter. I don't even have an account.
But my eye twitches whenever "somebody said a thing on Twitter" somehow
becomes news, or a trending topic, or a witch-hunt, or a cause, or a boycott.

Twitter is a wasteland of hashtags and horseshit, devoid of anything
resembling meaningful human interaction.

~~~
randomdata
_> You're making a lot of assumptions, and none of them are true._

Assumptions about what? My experience is what it is. It's interesting that you
are able to make the assumption that the description of my experience can be
untrue. On what basis is that done?

~~~
drspacemonkey
My dislike of the level of discourse on Twitter has nothing to do with my
"emotional attachment to the subject". It's a total shitshow regardless of
whether or not I care or even know anything about the subject.

That's where your assumptions are wrong.

~~~
randomdata
I have made no assumptions about your situation?

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ClayFerguson
Twitter is useful as a type of news source, and way to be notified about
certain important events in noteworthy people's lives, and organizations, but
for any kind of actual human-to-human interaction it's correct that twitter is
absolutely worthless. You're essentially muzzled and will be misunderstood the
majority of the time, because everyone expects sarcasm and hate from everyone
else, even when it isn't there.

All they have to do to fix Twitter is make the 140ch limit text become the
'headline text' and then allow each post to have an unlimited (or very long)
length 'body part' that you can see IF you choose to click on it, to read the
whole thing.

The other thing they need is to make it threaded for conversation so that each
node has a parent node, so that to 'reply' to a node you make a 'child' node,
under what you're replying to. HN does this to some decent extend. I've done
this in my own side-project meta64.com app, but meta64 is not open for
business yet so don't go there and then complain that it's not
finished/working.

~~~
acjohnson55
I totally agree with the expandable tweet. Down with the indexed tweet-essay!
Down with having to quote blocks of text with screenshots!

Unfortunately, the overwhelming sentiment appears to be that posts over 140
chars would "kill the platform", as though it's some kind of pristine thing
today.

~~~
ClayFerguson
The 140ch thing was a gimmic that made twitter go viral. That's all it was. It
wasn't even an innovation. Limiting text is certainly no innovation. Twitter
is afraid to change it, because it's the very thing that made them different
to the point where they _did_ go viral. But it has become so widely used by
now that the 140ch limit has become a massive pain in the ass for all of
humanity (due to it's pervasiveness) and needs to be changed, BADLY. They are
embarrassing themselves and making fools of humanity with everyone becoming
expert at abbreviating, and living with the stupid morass.

~~~
specialist
You probably already know that 140 char limit was a SMS medium restriction.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TXTMob](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TXTMob)

It may have made sense to honor the 140 char limit so long as TXTMOB/Twitter
served as a SMS gateway, router, aggregator, whatever. But Twitter abandoned
that notion early on.

~~~
ClayFerguson
No I didn't know the 140 thing was from SMS. I just remember everybody talking
about how ground-breaking it was at the time. Software developers tend to all
agree Twitter was never an admirable technology but merely a gimmick that went
viral.

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tyingq
I like how the contextual ads were all for the TV show "Man in the High
Castle"...Likely because of the oft repeated word "Nazi" in the article.

~~~
labster
Nah, that's pretty much all I get on anything on the Guardian these days,
_High Castle_ ads. Bezos must be spending as much on The Guardian as on the
Washington Post these days.

------
vonklaus
This article is at least 3 years too late to be unique. I suggest anyone who
feels the same way should switch to using the broadcast platform of the huge
media platform they work for to opine to their many followers-- oh wait...

Promoting censorship is dangerous. Twitter is an option-- NOT a requirement.
This is easily the 10th nearly identical article some arrogant reporter has
written about their choice not to use a social media service.

~~~
acjohnson55
How dangerous is it, really? Most only communities have some form of
moderation. And besides, I think that there really must be options for shaping
the feed that reduce the ability for abuse to be magnified. See
[https://twitter.com/StateFarm/status/811603055762436096](https://twitter.com/StateFarm/status/811603055762436096)
for an example of not doing that.

~~~
vonklaus
Super dangerous! Sure twitter is a big private company it has the _right_ to
moderate content-- but should it. Reddit also moderates content. The NYC
moderates content, sure the founding family "controls" editorial
responsibility but does Carlos Slim mexican telecom magnate excert his >14%
financial interest to "shape the feed".

America is a community, yes we need "some form of moderation", but we enter
into a very slippery slope when anybody but the community chooses what
"moderation" means.

Reddit is a decent example-- albeit still flawed; of how this can work. It is
states right, sharding, seperation of concerns, or a subreddit type model
where small microcosms choose what is acceptable.

I dont agree with the KKK and hate speech is terrible, but if it is limited to
speech I am all for it. I, like I assume many, will use my power to ostracize
and dissiauade people from being hate mongering racists-- but it is helpful
when I can identify who they are when they self-select to dress up like ghosts
365 days a year instead of just the end of october like many other Americans
do.

Edit: to be clear, I am all for free speech & freedom to organize-- not all
for the kkk obviously...

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drivingmenuts
I've found it useful for signing into things I don't really care about enough
to create a real account for.

And the occasional irrelevant tweet.

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sjc_native1980s
I can't see legit utility to twitter except for citizen journalism and fan
engagement.

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arisAlexis
everytime I get downvoted for saying this but writedown.co is a free immutable
microblogging platform as Twitter alternative and you are welcome to be one of
its first users. The emphasis is politics.

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astrodust
For content creators Twitter can be both an invaluable tool and their worst
nightmare.

If only Twitter could fix that second part they'd probably be able to turn the
tide.

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buzzybee
We delete Nazis on mastodon.social

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flukus
Don't rely on a closed platform for your communication.

