
I Hope Twitter Goes Away - mwcampbell
https://alexgaynor.net/2014/oct/30/i-hope-twitter-goes-away/
======
AYBABTME
Alright, so twitter is terrible because its 'broadcast' instead of
'communities', and you don't like 'broadcast' but you like 'communities', so
twitter should go away.

    
    
       a) "I hope Twitter genuinely ceases to be."
       b) "I want a product that enables me to build and participate 
       in communities[...]."
    

Having a product that enables b) doesn't mean a) must happen. Why come to that
conclusion. Because you don't like participating in it, it should cease to be?

I don't get how people come to conclusions like this. It feels very self
absorbed to conclude a) from b). Maybe I'm just allergic to opinion pieces
with hyperbolic titles.

~~~
smacktoward
I don't want to speak for the author, but an argument could be made that a
product that:

1) Is massively popular; and

2) Has design flaws that _actively sabotage_ conversation

... could lead to a situation where "B would be better if A went away," due to
network effects. No matter how good an alternative B you build, people will
keep on suffering with A _despite its limitations_ , because that's where all
the other people are. The existence of A sucks away oxygen that B needs to
grow.

~~~
penprog
Twitter doesn't have a design flaw, it sets out to do what it wants and it
does so spectacularly. Twitter is a platform for announcements not for
conversations (although many try to use it for that very thing).

People who think twitter is a conversation platform are #doingitwrong. Period.
People who try to use twitter for conversations and get angry when it doesn't
work well or some random stranger barges in and starts hurting their feelings
obviously need to realize that there are a ton of other platforms that solve
their problem. Namely message boards, any form of chat (irc, IM, etc), blogs,
etc.

~~~
smacktoward
_> People who think twitter is a conversation platform are #doingitwrong.
Period._

If millions of people insist on using your product as a conversation platform,
_it is a conversation platform,_ no matter what you intended it to be.

A thing is what it is.

~~~
penprog
People use twitter for announcements and then for comments on those
announcements. Very few people have actual conversations. When a conversation
does happen, it's usually the root poster agreeing (or disagreeing) with the
person that tweeted at them. I don't see anyone going to twitter with the
initial intent of conversing with someone. Nobody goes onto their computer and
says "Hey I'm gonna go message this person on twitter so we can have a
conversation"

Twitter isn't a conversation platform

~~~
pbreit
You're just flat out wrong. That's why there's a tab dedicated to replies.
Twitter conversations can be incredibly interesting and benefit all
participants by being public. Twitter's setup hugely encourages @ing people in
your tweets.

~~~
taude
Except conversations are badly broken. So many people don't hit the actual
reply, so conversations get cut off, often restarted, and thus become
fragmented, which makes them hard to follow and participate in. Sometimes it
works. Often it doesn't. I think this is what the OP was talking about.

~~~
RBerenguel
But this is not a problem of the platform, but of how users are using the
platform. I rarely have conversations on twitter (i.e. most are just a couple
of replies long at most) but I occasionally have a 20+ post. If you hit proper
reply, it works. If you don't, it doesn't (or does really badly), but this is
a user fault, not a platform fault.

~~~
noamyoungerm
If users have difficulty properly using the platform, the platform is at
fault. An arbitrarily naive user should never have to fight the platform to do
what he wants.

~~~
RBerenguel
I don't think I agree. If we view twitter as a tool, an arbitrarily naive user
can chop his hand with an axe.

~~~
nimaMehanian
Very accurate analogy.

------
cr3ative
Wait, is this satire? His Twitter account is linked in the header, and it just
posted about this article. He claims to want to encourage conversations, but
comments are disabled. What is this?

~~~
tux3
>He claims to want to encourage conversations

He certainly does not want to encourage conversation.

>Twitter has absolutely no way for me to share with others that someone isn't
a person I want in my communities;

It seems that what this person wants is that everyone he talks to think like
he does. That's not a community, that's an echo chamber with no disagreeing,
no joking, no comments.

It's okay if he doesn't like Twitter and doesn't want to use it, but wishing
for it to go away makes me uncomfortable. Why should he care if others use
Twitter ? I, for one, am happy with Twitter being alive even though I don't
use it.

~~~
forgottenpass
_It seems that what this person wants is that everyone he talks to think like
he does._

You say "seems," but it doesn't just seem like that, it is exactly that. The
terminology he uses is "safe space." It doesn't mean zero joking or
disagreement, but only the type and levels he approves of (minor point, but
I'll clarify because I don't want conversation to degrade to pedantics).

 _Why should he care if others use Twitter ?_

If I had to jump into speculation, I'd say he cares because he feels excluded
from a tool many of the rest of us can choose to ignore or live with.

~~~
jshevek
>> The terminology he uses is "safe space." It doesn't mean zero joking or
disagreement, but only the type and levels he approves

"Safe space" is a much abused phrase. The meaning of 'safe' as it applies to
physical harm is fairly easy for us to agree on. When it comes to emotional
and psychological harm, what does it really mean? Where is the line drawn?

It seems that some people will not hesitate to demand the complete absence of
anything they find the least bit objectionable, all in the name of 'safe
spaces'.

~~~
boomlinde
> Where is the line drawn?

I think that's the point. With a more community oriented system the line could
be drawn at the single user's discretion. Like on Facebook. I don't agree with
the author of the article that twitter should die, though.

~~~
jshevek
Oh, I understand that the ability to draw that line himself is part of what he
is seeking. I meant to say that the idea of 'safe spaces' can be used to
conflate 'preventing harm' with 'indulging arbitrary wants' and even
'pandering to narcissists'. Unlike with physical safety, I don't see a line we
can use to semi-objectively declare that one has left one domain of
'emotionally safe' and entered another domain.

Notice that I'm not arguing against the establishment of circumstances in
which a person can _feel_ safe! Only that we should pay attention to the
language and how it is used, lest we become manipulated into an unhealthy
dynamic, all in the name of pursuing a healthy dynamic.

~~~
boomlinde
> Oh, I understand that the ability to draw that line himself is part of what
> he is seeking.

Why, then, do you keep insisting that we should somehow "semi-objectively"
declare one? There isn't even a clear line as to what is physically harmful.
Why do you think that something as inherently subjective as emotional harm
would have to be objectively defined to be considered?

As for "indulging arbitrary wants"; I bid you welcome to the social network
business and wish you will have a pleasant stay.

~~~
jshevek
> Why, then, do you keep insisting that we should somehow "semi-objectively"
> declare one?

It's very strange that you say 'why, then' while coupling these sentences, as
if the existence of the first makes the second less sensible. Its exactly
because of the existence of the first that we should consider the 2nd.

> There isn't even a clear line as to what is physically harmful

Obviously, physically damaging one's body works as one line - a line - for
physically harming someone. Surely you can see how radically different this is
from so called 'emotional harm'.

> inherently subjective as emotional harm would have to be objectively defined
> to be considered?

Oh, did someone say that, somewhere? Did someone say that something must be
objectively defined in order to be _considered_? I wonder what that person
might be thinking. Maybe they are constructing false dilemmas and straw men.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Obviously, physically damaging one's body works as one line - a line - for
> physically harming someone. Surely you can see how radically different this
> is from so called 'emotional harm'.

The idea that emotional harm doesn't involve physical (even if not
_structural_ ) damage to the body requires that emotions exist in a non-
physical realm rather than being epiphenoma of physical states of the body.

~~~
jshevek
The idea that so called emotional 'harm' cannot involve physical changes is
not assumed in anything I've said.

The important thing here is that it is easy for reasonable, practical people
to agree on what constitutes the act of physically harming another. Your own
statement demonstrates that it is not so easy to draw a line on what
constitutes 'emotional harm'. Which structural changes deserve the label
"results of harm" ? The innate slipperiness of the concept is exploited by
those who wish not only to 'protect' themselves from hearing unpleasant
opinions, but also to elevate the act of silencing others to a righteous form
of 'protection from harm'.

------
tptacek
I value communities too, but the open broadcast nature of Twitter is what I
like about it: I can put a message out into the either ("sector-level FDE
encryption is bad!" or "ChiSec is next Wednesday") and it quickly percolates
to people who (a) I'm glad saw it and (b) I would not have known to send it
to. Lots of good things have come from that dynamic.

Twitter is full of abuse and harassment. Other communities are, too. One
solution to that problem is policing, which is what HN does. Another is (for
lack of a better term) cliquishness, which is what closed communities do. I
see a lot of value in both of those approaches too, but every community
management strategy has tradeoffs, and serendipity is an awfully powerful
force to trade for orderliness.

~~~
_asummers
OT, I didn't know about ChiSec, so thanks for that. I'm going to try and come
to the next meetup.

~~~
tptacek
Neato. It's 2 weeks from now.
[http://sockpuppet.org/chisec](http://sockpuppet.org/chisec).

We're going to put together something similar for HN-types.

------
gdulli
It's kind of ridiculous and solipsistic to declare that something that exists
for a purpose you don't care about shouldn't exist at all. I prefer Twitter to
other social networks and haven't had any problems with it. (Though Twitter
should improve the situation for people who do get harassed. You can't
eliminate all anonymity on the internet.)

I'm also not interested in the shallow/faux "communities" that are more easily
facilitated by Facebook but I have no problem with allowing it to exist and I
can't imagine censoring it as a whole due to the parts I don't like. Or even
writing up a blog post about doing so.

------
kylec
For someone that supposedly quit Twitter months ago, there are a surprising
number of recent tweets:

[https://twitter.com/Alex_Gaynor](https://twitter.com/Alex_Gaynor)

Not to mention the big Twitter logo linking to his profile at the top of his
blog.

~~~
untog
Well, all his Twitter account is doing is tweeting out links to his blog
posts. It's a glorified RSS feed, not what he's talking about the post.

But still, yeah.

~~~
kylec
Not all his posts are links to his blog:

[https://twitter.com/alex_gaynor/status/524683684180271106](https://twitter.com/alex_gaynor/status/524683684180271106)

But even if they were, there's a certain irony to decrying Twitter while
syndicating yourself on it.

~~~
pessimizer
If you criticize the effects of cars on society, are you a hypocrite for
driving? How about riding? If you critique capitalism and wish it would end,
are you a hypocrite for buying?

That's always a low accusation to make primarily because it's ad hominem and
completely irrelevant, but secondarily because it's an easy attack that
requires a detailed defense.

If a person making billions from running tobacco companies doesn't smoke,
prefers people he's around don't smoke, and thinks that it's a nasty habit, is
he a hypocrite? What about if he makes money from a rise in sales of sugary
candy but thinks people eat too much sugary candy? What if he makes money from
selling housing but rents?

edit:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8535040](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8535040)

~~~
xrange
Hypocrite:

1.) a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion

2.) a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or
feelings

------
atjoslin
Disagree. Twitter is immensely valuable for me to quickly communicate with
people in my "community" (the Javascript tech world), as well as keep up on
news in areas I'm interested in: the Javascript tech world & a few others.

~~~
freebs
He also clearly doesn't understand how to use lists to create his own
communities. I have lists for devs, friends, funnies, etc. With a little
effort you can have these communities on tap in columns. Hey, if you're lazy,
you can even subscribe to other's lists and put them in a column too.

Twitter is not hard for conversation, so long as you can put together concise
thoughts. I'll agree it does become a pain when you need to explain a lot, but
that's why we have links and a multitude of platforms to record our thoughts.

------
ChuckMcM
This line stood out for me, _" Twitter has absolutely no way for me to share
with others that someone isn't a person I want in my communities; unless they
do something so bad as to actually get banned from Twitter"_

I've heard this several times from people with large followers, basically that
they can't escape the bad actors without taking their account private. I don't
think this is a Twitter issue so much as it is a everyone-on-the-network-has-
the-same-volume issue. In the 'real' world, the relative population sizes of
trolls vs non-trolls means that trolls get drowned out by the noise. But on
the Internet everyone gets the same level of 'voice' and a minority can drown
out the majority, especially if they are willing to be antisocial about it.

It is a hard problem. A naturally troll resistant but otherwise frictionless
sharing platform. Maybe a voting button on every tweet, that is 'troll factor'
(so +1 if they are a troll, -1 if they aren't) then use some data analytics to
marginalize trolls. Seems like fertile ground for some fresh thinking.

~~~
Kalium
The catch is that once you introduce marginalization mechanisms, abuse is
inevitable. What people often want is some kind of abuse-proof marginalize-
only-the-people-I-don't-like button.

------
mbesto
Slightly side topic - does anyone else feel like they "need" to use Twitter
because it's a good distribution platform (the "human RSS"), but generally
don't particularly enjoy it?

I personally find myself thinking "oh maybe I should post that stupid comment
that's in my head on Twitter...last time I did it I got X followers, so I
should probably continue to do it"

~~~
baby
yup. I'm worse than the author here, I've never understood twitter. It's bad
for writing because of the limitation, it's bad to keep track of something
because of all the noise, it's bad for discussions, it's bad for communities,
etc...

The only good things that I can come up with are: broadcasting, stalking
someone, press 2.0.

And yes I do use it, I have a twitter account with 600+ followers (I don't
even know if they're called followers) and I just use it to promote and
promote, and I dislike it so much that I miss on a lot of promotion by
ignoring it most of the time.

~~~
mcantelon
>it's bad for communities

I'd say it's good for sharing intel within communities, just not for in-depth
discussion (other sites are good for that).

------
GI_Josh
I don't necessarily agree that Twitter users can't build communities. A friend
of mine writes for a sports blog specific to an NFL team. His twitter account
(and @replies) show that he is a part of a very strong community around the
team. The tweets from these super-fans aren't just missives shouted into
space, these people use Twitter almost solely as a response tool to each
other. Their tweets look very much like something you'd see on IRC or a
message board.

~~~
schoen
I guess another way of phrasing the original article's claim is that although
communities do form, they have no straightforward way to exclude strangers,
interlopers, and even griefers: and except for incessant use of hashtags
(which could eat up valuable space), there's no simple way for a person who is
part of multiple communities to direct comments to only one community.

That's a recipe for _both_ serendipity and uncomfortable moments (or worse) if
someone has strong opinions on, say, computer science, religion, and animal
rights. People who chose to follow them over one thing will constantly see
their opinions on other things. That might be great under some circumstances
because it will promote more interesting and broader discussions or lead
people to learn about ideas that they wouldn't have naturally come across in
their own filter bubble. But it might produce some serious disruption in the
conversation too, especially if that person's views are offensive or upsetting
to some readers.

I know a Twitter user writes a lot about computer science and a lot about sex
and sexuality. I find both sets of posts frequently insightful, but the latter
would be off-topic in a forum devoted only to computer science, and they do
sometimes produce offense.

It seems like the best case for avoiding really bad forms of conflict is when
a group of people tweet almost exclusively on a single topic that outsiders
don't find upsetting or offensive (or simply don't know about). But a lot of
people do want to have at least some discussions that others will inevitably
be offended by, and the broadcast medium can be a challenge for that if you
didn't want to get into it with the strangers (or for that matter have some of
them insult you, threaten you, or even dox you).

~~~
djloche
Twitter has a great feature of showing you the @reply messages by the people
you follow, only if you follow that same person as well.

For example, if you sent me an @reply message to me ( @djloche ) that message
would only show up in the feeds of your followers IF they followed me as well.
This means you can have a conversation about the latest film with me, the
party last night with your co-workers, and a pancake recipe with a friend that
really loves pancakes - and there won't be any cross conversation unless there
is a natural crossover in the social groups.

~~~
schoen
I guess that helps quite a lot in preventing group conflicts from getting out
of hand accidentally. It seems like a weaker control if someone is
deliberately trying to get involved in a conversation where other people would
see them as unwelcome.

~~~
hvs
They can all choose to block him, though. And they don't need to include him
in their replies.

------
toyg
Alex Gaynor can be a bit of a troll. This time he wrote a blog post about
things he (allegedly) doesn't like about Twitter, added a couple of
"flammable" statements here and there to clickbait, and meanwhile he still has
a Twitter account.

It's not the first time he acts like this, regardless of his technical
contributions. This is why I don't follow him and will keep discounting
everything he says, sorry; he goes in the same bucket as Dave Winer and Eric
Raymond, people who can code but whose overall opinions I really don't care
for.

------
habosa
Ok this may seem crazy, but check out Google+ again. It is a really nice mix
of broadcast and communities (when you can find a good community). It won't
replace your FB or your Twitter, but it seems to have a solution to this one
niche.

It has the directed-edge-graph of Twitter and also really strong support for
communities and pages. I know a lot of the developer communities on there are
really strong (I work on Developer Relations at Google so I see it all the
time).

------
ben336
Twitter is the best real time news source I've ever seen. Any discussion of
it's utility that ignores that is missing how a huge percentage of its users
actually interact with it.

Yes its bad for conversations. Yes it is poor at building communities. But if
you want to know whats happening in <insert area of interest here> Twitter can
be a fantastic resource. Especially (but not exclusively) if your area of
interest involves sports, tech, or politics.

~~~
vuldin
Ahh, real time news! Yes I think that is the one biggest positive feature of
twitter. When I was trying to remember some positive things about Twitter to
respond to this with, I failed to remember this one due to all the other not-
as-positive things Twitter is used for.

~~~
prottmann
And that things are?

------
rantanplan
Oh the irony!

I stopped using twitter mainly because of Alex and other similar figures in
the python community.

I quickly found out that twitter(or maybe the social media in general) brings
the worst in people. I was following people because of their status in the
software community and I hoped that I might get informed about tech stuff
directly "from the source".

Instead, what I got were stupid jokes, rallies against "hostile" people that
used "he" instead of "she" (oh the horror!) and other political nonsense.

I put up with the brain farts of people I used to admire only for a few
months. I then decided that twitter probably isn't for me.

------
cheshire137
Man, this dude's crotchety. "Stop liking things I don't like!"

~~~
mrweasel
I can't disagree with you, even if I really want to. I'm the same way, I want
people to stop using Twitter, because I don't want to use it. I went to dotgo
this month, much of the last minute communication was on Twitter, which is a
really annoying platform to navigate when you don't have an account. I want to
get other people of the platforms that I don't use, so I'm not forced to deal
with them myself.

Being push towards technologies, behaviors and trends you don't like can be
extremely frustrating. In the end me being bitter about Twitter, JavaScript,
smartphones, tablets and all the other stuff I really don't care about isn't
going to change public opinion. I comfort myself in the fact that Twitter will
be dead soon if they continue to lose money.

~~~
eclipxe
>me being bitter about Twitter, JavaScript, smartphones, tablets and all the
other stuff I really don't care about

Can you elaborate why you are bitter about the above?

~~~
BuckRogers
Well, for Javascript it's obvious. Not sure about the rest.

~~~
eclipxe
Well played :-)

------
mcantelon
>It's fundamentally impossible to create a safe space with a public account

Right, so use something else for that.

Twitter grew because it's open. I interpret posts like this as an attempt to
lobby for the creation of a caste within Twitter with the ability to censor.
I've abandoned other large sites because of unreasonable censorship.

EDIT: Gaynor thinks people shouldn't use HN too. Quel surprise.
[https://twitter.com/alex_gaynor/status/259803468838080512](https://twitter.com/alex_gaynor/status/259803468838080512)

------
smacktoward
If you want a more detailed critique of Twitter's design and the effect it has
on conversations there, I wrote one last year:
[http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/02/i-kind-of-hate-
twitter/](http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/02/i-kind-of-hate-twitter/)

/end self-promotion

~~~
fuzzywalrus
I agree, this is more of an eloquent critique. Also this reads as "this is why
I don't like twitter" instead of "stop liking things I don't".

------
jordanpg
I suspect Mr Gaynor is tapping into a simmering feeling that many have that
Twitter is inadequate for most communication needs (at least among technical
crowds), and that there are now many, many more interesting alternatives now.
He clearly cares a lot about his #Brand and being the among first person to
say how uncool Twitter or FB or MySpace is becoming might very well boost his
Klout score.

I agree that Twitter is inadequate for serious communications and is the last
place I go to read deeply on anything, but that doesn't mean it's not
immensely useful and fun to many others outside my communities. I don't
usually find myself hoping that things I don't use "cease to be". I think
Gaynor must just be addressing his own social circles here and speaking
hyperbolically.

------
api
That's what I like about Twitter-- it's a global cocktail party. People tweet
to one another about anything regardless of whether they know each other or
what their relative socioeconomic background is.

It is what it is. It's not for everyone. But the net is more interesting with
it than without it.

------
Avalaxy
Twitter is awesome! It's so easy to use Twitter to connect with people you
usually can't connect with because you have no way of reaching them.

I use twitter a lot to find clients, support (e.g. I need someone from Google
or Microsoft to help me with an issue), and much more. It's also a great way
for me to gather news and updates. I follow the account of most of the tech I
work with so I'm always up-to-date with their latest updates.

~~~
edraferi
I agree that this is Twitter's best feature. It's very easy to find and reach
out to almost any person or organization.

It's easier than looking up a phone number, because you don't need to search
through piles of "contact us" pages. It's also lighter and less cumbersome
than email.

I just wish it was easier to send private messages. Often I don't want my
customer support communications to be massively public.

------
paulannesley
I completely disagree.

> Twitter is good for two things: engaging with #Brands, and broadcasting
> messages to whoever wants to read them.

I almost never engage with brands on Twitter.

I do broadcast messages — to anybody who has chosen to follow me and hasn't
chosen to unfollow me, both of which are freely done without any social
consequences.

On the flip side, I read that which others have broadcast, provided I follow
them. And I'm free to shape exactly who's in that set of people, without
worrying about circles or unfriending or which IRC channels to sit in.

The author writes about communities, and about moderating IRC channels and
making decisions about who can stay and who is banned. Perhaps he prefers to
shape and steer communities in a way that Twitter doesn't facilitate.

Personally, the ephemeral and asymmetric nature of the Twitter social graph is
the defining feature. The 140 character limit is perhaps just a constraint
which helped that feature survive.

The author also mentioned harassment on Twitter. I've never been on the
receiving end of it, and I hope I've never been on the other end either. But I
believe it's a real problem. I hope there's a solution, but “Twitter going
away” isn't that solution.

------
galfarragem
I hope twitter doesn't go away.

I was a very late adopter of Twitter because I always thought that Twitter and
Facebook were the same. They are not. Twitter is slowly replacing my RSS and
news reader. Twitter is not a community thing, it's about broadcasting (in
real-time, if you need it, most people don't, they are just addicted). I don't
tweet and I'm just following 11 people. I don't follow friends, I just follow
who has something to broadcast. Twitter is great for that.

Facebook is more noisy by concept. Their focus in communities and friends
makes broadcasting side noisy. I had to turn off almost all my friends wall
notifications, I don't have the time or will to read that one friend that I
meet once a year went to the restaurant or played a game. It's just too much
noise. That's why FB for me is nowadays mostly a chat/email friends app. FB is
great for that once most people are there. (Not to be confused with: FB is
great doing that..)

------
penprog
How about if you want a safe place you don't go to unsafe places? It's that
simple. You can choose what you read.

~~~
jshevek
But then you might accidentally find yourself in an unsafe space one day. Its
better to convert enough people to your opinions about safe spaces, and
eventually force the world to conform to your vision.

------
vhost-
>About seven months ago, I abruptly quit Twitter. Though I'd been thinking
about it for a while, ultimately leaving was a snap decision for me. Lately
I've been reflecting on why I hate Twitter so much.

It took me a minute to figure out he never worked for Twitter and that he just
quit _using_ Twitter.

------
drawkbox
Twitter still rules the real-time news/information area. Communities like
facebook/irc/forums are too closed for broadcasts like that. It has its
purpose and it does it well. But you can also not use products you don't like.

I suspect some Twitter hate as he spent time very close to it in working
there. This is expected, you work on a product you might see more of the bad
than the good. Game developers don't always enjoy the game because they see
what they had to cut, directors can't watch a movie without pointing out
flaws, security forces can't walk into a building without checking for safety,
or you worked at Olive Garden and might never want that ever, ever again.

When you work in it, you really get to know something, for better or worse.

------
rpm33
Twitter is an incredible medium for citizen journalism and news broadcasting
in general. There is no doubt about that. It does have issues with tackling
bots and fake profiles - something that it finds harder than other social
networks like Facebook which have a better system in place for authenticating
accounts. By subscribing to the right people on Twitter, my feed is highly
curated to suit my interests. Their machine learning would only get better and
I only wish they use the AI it to classify bots and other fake accounts to
enhance user experience.

------
conradfr
I dislike Twitter because so many people try to be clever, or think everything
roaming through their mind is of interest to the world, and sadly because of
retweets you can't 100% avoid them.

But what I hate the most is useless articles filled with random twitter posts.
It's the new and lazier street interview and it's as stupid as those "X number
of people started a petition / created a facebook group about [random outrage
of the day]".

Twitter is OK to know when something is down, or when your favorite artist has
a new album but it has weakened journalism.

------
fat0wl
haven't we always known that twitter is just an anechoic chamber to stick
narcissists in?

i guess its alright for comedians/intellectuals to post amusing stuff (even
then I find the tweet value to be inconsistent enough that its not worth
scrolling through their history). outside that isnt it mainly a platform for
egotists & social climbers to add to their self-importance?

i like it cuz it kinda tires them out, maybe stops them from taking to the
streets to act like hot shit -- and i never have to look at it :)

~~~
naiyt
> haven't we always known that twitter is just an anechoic chamber to stick
> narcissists in?

That's an incredibly broad generalization of ~300 million users.

------
golemotron
> Twitter has no mechanisms for this. Every user floats by themselves,
> interacting with who they please. This denies us the ability to build
> communities, to set social norms, and to enforce them. Twitter has
> absolutely no way for me to share with others that someone isn't a person I
> want in my communities

I read this and said "oh, he wants to censor people." Then, I got to the
bottom of the post and saw that he doesn't allow comments either. It was a
one, two punch.

------
nimaMehanian
You make excellent points. Twitter IS for broadcasting. It is the counterpart
to community interaction. Say, you want to reach those who aren't in your
community. That would be difficult on Facebook. In fact, it's a "uniquely
defining feature" of Facebook not to facilitate that sort of usage. They both
have a purpose. Say, a startup needs to communicate app status to its users so
people aren't left hanging in mystery during a downtime. Twitter would help
with that well.

Maybe Twitter IS inherently less warm and more chaotic. I get that feeling
too. (I don't even log-in often.) But I sort of use it to create a pseudo-
community.

Here me out.

140 characters are limiting, right? That means that the author of a post has
two options: risk losing followers by posting chatter, OR make sure each word
matters so that it's a saturated snap-shot of their current thought.

Now, imagine that you follow a curated list of influencers (i.e., people that
are involved-in and doing things you also are passionate about). THEY may not
all know about each other, but YOU know about all them. (Think: one-to-many
instead of many-to-many.) As a consequence of this, you're continually getting
an influx of musings by people you respect and value the opinions of.

~~~
nimaMehanian
Hear _

------
namank
Broadcast has it's own use. I posit that broadcast leads to a more organic
formation of a community since it ensures that communities are emergent rather
than prescribed.

Thousands of communities come into being and dissolve on twitter every single
day - what, really, is the hashtag?

People within an "idea proximity" (nearness of two ideas:)) commune about
ideas with a gusto lost in other social sites. Twitter is one of the greatest
communication gifts of this century.

------
Emphaticdotco
There's a Dutch saying that roughly translates to: "Life is a party but you've
got to hang your own balloons." Twitter can be a fantastic place for community
if you know where to look or are willing to organize it yourself. Tweetchats
are a great example of this [1], the phenomenon known as "Black Twitter" [2]
is another. (Although many ostensible members of "Black Twitter" have
legitimate issues with how "it" is being studied and reported.)[3]

Not to mention the ad hoc communities that spring up around events and pop
culture happenings. As with many other things, it might just be a matter of
what one makes it.

[1][http://janetfouts.com/how-to-participate-in-a-tweet-
chat/](http://janetfouts.com/how-to-participate-in-a-tweet-chat/) [2]
[http://www.annenberglab.com/projects/dsail-black-twitter-
pro...](http://www.annenberglab.com/projects/dsail-black-twitter-project)
[3][http://io9.com/what-happens-when-scientists-study-black-
twit...](http://io9.com/what-happens-when-scientists-study-black-
twitter-1630540515)

------
throwaway5752
Is this some kind of joke?

It has a Twitter icon on his website that links to his active Twitter account.
On that account, 4 hours ago, he tweeted about this blog post
([https://twitter.com/Alex_Gaynor](https://twitter.com/Alex_Gaynor),
[https://twitter.com/alex_gaynor/status/527851651097309184](https://twitter.com/alex_gaynor/status/527851651097309184))

------
IvyMike
"This hammer isn't a very good screwdriver."

~~~
metaphorm
I don't think that was Gaynor's point. I think he was saying something more
like "this hammer is so popular nobody is using screwdrivers anymore, but we
still need screwdrivers."

------
cenhyperion
How is this not a false dichotomy? The author presents it as "We can either
have IRC communities and Facebook groups where everyone agrees with each other
all the time or gets banned or we can have an uncontrolled twitter where
people might disagree with me in ways I can't control" Both have existed very
comfortably for a significant amount of time.

I think (along with hundreds of millions of other users) that there's a lot of
value behind a broadcast platform like twitter, and I've made some really
important connections on it. It seems arrogant to dismiss that because it
doesn't enable the exact types of communication the author wants to have (that
are addressed by the other platforms he explicitly mentions).

This is a clickbait article headline for the author's blog to get more
attention, if he felt this strongly about communities, conversations, and
against twitter he wouldn't disable comments, and tweet about the article.

"This screwdriver is so bad at putting nails in the wall!! We should get rid
of screwdrivers!"

------
tg3
Isn't blogging a form of "broadcast"? Twitter was a originally a "micro-
blogging" service after all.

I don't necessarily disagree with his point about the levels of abuse on
Twitter, but the medium with which he is expressing his message (his blog)
seems to disprove his point.

Why do blog posts seem to be (mostly) free of these levels of abuse, while
they're so rampant on Twitter?

------
negativeview
Eh. I'm definitely a part of several communities on Twitter. It's just that
they're micro-communities that are fluid in size and shape. If I'm talking
business stuff I'll @shazow usually. If it's coding, usually @wolever,
sometimes @shazow or @lnxprgr3, depending on the language/platform/etc.

The whole hashtag thing is ... pretty hit or miss. I wouldn't mind a better
solution to that. But as weak as it is, it's how I found some of my closest
twitter-friends, so it can definitely work.

Thankfully I haven't had to deal with any harassment issues (not famous, nor a
noticeable minority), though sadly I don't doubt that they exist to some
degree.

And just to be snippy, I find it amusing that he's so against comments on
blogs, preferring that you write your own blog post. Isn't that exactly like
Twitter? Everyone has their own medium, none of which are explicitly
connected...

~~~
Tombone5
It's not at all exactly like twitter, for one a text that needs to stand on
its own (a blog post) will require far more work to be of any sort of quality
than a simple reply on twitter.

~~~
negativeview
Okay, I'll get more explicit.

> I think Twitter is defined by the fact that it's about broadcast.

Writing on a blog with comments off is 100% broadcast with no built-in
solution for conversations to form. Twitter has a (flawed) way, so twitter is
actually LESS about broadcast than this blog.

> Communities are, above all else, defined by membership, the ability for
> people to identify as a part of one, and to participate in activities, and
> share things and experiences with the group.

How does a reader proclaim membership in this blog. Sign up for comments? Post
comments? Nope. How does a reader participate? How does a reader share their
experiences with the group? Far easier on Twitter than here.

> Every user floats by themselves, interacting with who they please.

Every reader of the blog floats by themselves, interacting with nobody.

> Try following a multi-party conversation using any of the official clients;

How is THIS possible on the blog? You can email the author, sure, but you
aren't going to see or be able to reply to anyone else that emailed him.

There's also the widely-repeated quote of "If I had more time, I would have
written a shorter letter." Length is not necessarily indicative of amount of
thought.

[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-
letter/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/)

------
vuldin
Thanks for posting this, I have had the same unpopular opinion since Twitter
first appeared. While I don't necessarily think that Twitter should go away, I
do think it should get out of the way of other methods for communication.
There are much better forms of communication for many circumstances where
communication is needed. Which is damn near everything aside from
communicating with marketers and expressing witty one-liners to the world.

EDIT: I forgot about one great thing about twitter that I normally don't think
about (since all the other uses cloud this function for me): real-time news.
There's not many tools out there that can handle this type of functionality
better. Reddit serves the same purpose for many people and does so in an even
better way in my opinion (no character limit, communities focused on a topic,
etc.).

------
enkitosh
I don't understand. You can build lists, I do and they are followed by other
people. I have one list of Icelanders and I totally look at that list as a
community of people.

Just take Snoop dogg's account for example, he has a massive amount of
followers. Is this not the community of Snoop dogg fans? You can find other
Snoop dogg fans and follow them and interact with them if they are doing
something that you like.

I love how I can just go on twitter and there is @BettyFckinWhite going "You
know who doesn't care that it's #NationalCatDay? Every cat."

and I go "hah, that's hilarious" and then I go do something else. I think
social media that aims at being everything you need on one site is robbing to
much of our time. Twitter keeps it snappy, yet I can interact as much as I
want.

~~~
enkitosh
Wait. He has a link to his twitter account in the header of the blog. What is
the last tweet? 9 hours ago, a link to this article. He hopes that twitter
will go away yet he uses it constantly? I'm confused to say the least. I don't
know what this man wants!

~~~
gurkendoktor
Of course you can use a service because it's too mainstream to avoid, and at
the same time wish that it didn't exist. I've also signed up for Twitter
because they stopped providing RSS feeds. That doesn't mean I wish them best.

------
vonklaus
I am not a huge twitter fan. I watched the
[http://foundation.bz/](http://foundation.bz/) interview with Biz Stone, and
he seems like he has integrity. I think some of the management of twitter is a
bit dubious, but the core function of the application is rather valuable. It
is a good way to keep track of people & events. It makes it easy to broadcast
things like occupy, arabspring, ebola, charities, entrepreneurs, etc. It is a
good way for people to collectively contribute ideas such as news. It isn't
really meant to be a social network. What the author purports to be a bug, is
actually like the key usecase/feature of twitter. I don't regularly use it,
and am pretty ambivalent, but I understand the value.

------
gojomo
Conversations work on Twitter _if_ the participants share enough context, such
as similar vocabularies or compatible high-level goals.

Unfortunately the system and its harsh constraints is also really good at
matching up people sure to misunderstand each other.

I suspect, though, that a lot of recent angst is transient, due to the inrush
of users with wildly different rhetorical standards, and the exciting novelty,
including the excitement of discord and performative moralizing.

But the novelty of nasty arguments with strangers will wear off – like how
Farmville and similar games become less interesting when their basic mechanics
and repetitive loops are understood. The true utility of Twitter will persist,
leaving us with a better ratio of light-to-heat than some are experiencing at
the moment.

------
programmarchy
I always thought of twitter as a news filtering service. At least, that's how
I use it. I follow people who tweet about things that I'm interested in.
Journalism is about 'broadcast', not 'communities'. Should it go away, too?

------
arh68
I acknowledge the irony of 'no comments' on this blog post but beneath that
there is a point.

All communication is broadcast. What differs is how those broadcasts are
released and revisited through time. Twitter emphasizes the recent, most
piecemeal events. Not building upon previous works, just consuming content
FIFO and shouting back into the ether. Noise.

An old blog post has more potential, more signal-to-noise, than an old tweet.

Wikipedia is an interesting result of [anonymous] editors broadcasting content
towards each other in a very constructive manner. Some termites might just
stack dirt, but others can use simple methods to construct complex creations.

------
mkr-hn
The author has obviously never seen furry Twitter. One of my favorite
communities. Maybe it helps that most people make a fresh account for it. It's
diverse, safe, full of conversation, and seems to make a lot of people happy.

------
jonstokes
I totally agree with this guy. At least, I mostly do. I'm not sure if I care
if it goes away, but I've drastically cut back on my use of it mainly for the
reasons he outlines. I think he's onto something.

------
kefka
I'm another person who doesn't use Twitter, however I do have an account. And
frankly, I fail to see many use cases. But I also acknowledge that the few use
cases are powerful.

    
    
         1. On the ground reporting
         2. Messages to group of friends, like where to meet
         3. Coordinating group efforts outside friends list in X social media
         4. Warnings related to specific area/time
         5. Error logs related to web services
         6. Command/Control of hidden machines
         7. Complaints to companies with sensitive web presence

------
diydsp
Twitter is an example of product design by technical limitations, not what
people need.

Nevertheless, they hit very well, b/c the two were somewhat closely aligned
for a decade or so. Now that it's being strained, some of its limitations are
showing...

...But no matter what, I do not predict its imminent demise... Especially
since they are mainly a technical layer, there is still a world of protocols
they can implement on top of it to make it more like e.g. IRC, or whatever
other comm. network people desire.

Then again CB radio rose and fell quite hard without ever completely going
away.

------
dheera
Weibo (the Chinese "clone" of Twitter) actually does a lot better job with
conversations. It has its own built-in instant messenger, as well as a comment
dialogue interface similar to what you see on Facebook. Also, you can add your
own text to the top when you retweet.

Nevertheless, though, I don't agree with the author's stance of "I hope
Twitter goes away". If you don't like something, don't use it. Let the market
decide what should exist, let hackers keep building better products, and let
the market decide again.

------
davemel37
By this authors definition, a community's primary function is to exclude
others. While you are free to exclude whoever you want in your own life, it
says something about you when you have a problem with others wanting to
include the rest of the world.

Whether you or anyone else likes it or not, we are in a time where we need to
learn to adapt and include, not hide and exclude.

~~~
freehunter
I don't want to talk to everyone, or listen to everyone. That's a simple fact
of life, almost everyone can agree to that. I don't want to make an inside
joke to the world, I only want my social group to hear it. The world might be
confused or not find the joke funny, but my group would. Likewise, I don't
want to see someone else's life displayed in front of me, because frankly I
don't care about that other person.

Life is too short to try to pretend to be interested in uninteresting people.

------
start123
Twitter was never meant to be a social network. The author himself writes:
"Twitter is good for two things: engaging with #Brands, and broadcasting
messages", which is what Twitter is good at - a broadcast and a news
consumption service. I don't see any other service that tracks realtime events
as good as Twitter.

------
casebash
I hate Twitter as well. It is occupying a place that could very easily be
occupied by much better products. It's primary purpose is to hold back
innovation.

I'm sure some people prefer Twitter as it is and it is valid for them to do
so. However, the existence of Twitter is still massively harmful in terms of
opportunity cost.

~~~
72deluxe
I am not sure on your conclusions. I do not use Twitter (I have an account,
only scammers and spammers follow me, I say nothing interesting on it) but if
there could be much better products, they'd take the position of Twitter,
wouldn't they?

Twitter's primary purpose is to allow shouting in the street, not to hold back
innovation. How is Twitter's existence stopping you from innovating?

------
jusuchin
Completely disagree... what a selfish post.

------
programminggeek
Twitter won't go away for say 50-100 years. Why? There is value in the
name/idea in the public consciousness.

Let's not forget that myspace, friendster, and livejournal still exist. There
are a lot of pre 2000 sites and brands that are still sort of a live in some
kind of zombie state or another.

It's weird.

~~~
nullc
Myspace has no impact on my life... Thats "close enough" to gone for my
purposes, and I assume the author's as well.

I don't mine if there are people going around using tools that I don't care
for, it's only when they're insanely popular beyond all cause do they exert
social pressure on people who would prefer to not use them.

------
philwelch
Honestly, @RealTimeWWII and its companion and imitator accounts (like
@GuadaBattle) are, to me, the main justification of Twitter as a platform. If
I didn't follow those accounts (and I will probably stop in three years once
they finish) I wouldn't have hardly any use for Twitter.

------
tbatterii
ironically one of the reasons i've entertained the idea of quitting twitter is
b/c of annoying things that showed up in my feed from the author(and others).
But I just un-followed him instead. the technical things I'm interested in,
but I dont care for the politics so much.

------
squar1sm
Yeah it's weird he still has a twitter account but I completely agree with
him. Especially when I try to engage in a meaningful conversation. It's like
excusing yourself from a loud party to talk to someone about something deep or
complicated. Twitter is a party.

------
bartwe
I'm surprised at seeing no reference to reddit which does allow for
participation and discussion.

~~~
jshevek
Reddit makes it much harder for you to completely shelter yourself from people
who disagree with you (compared to, say, facebook). Some of the content of his
post strongly suggests that he defines 'community' by his ability to block
people he doesn't like or agree with.

------
todayiscrown
I'm confused. His opening says >>> About seven months ago, I abruptly quit
Twitter. And this is his twitter >>>
[http://imgur.com/xAyW4h1](http://imgur.com/xAyW4h1)

Last I checked oct 21st's not "seven months ago"

What gives?

~~~
lnanek2
Could just be automatic posting from his blogging clients.

------
getdavidhiggins

        https://quitter.se/
        https://alpha.app.net/
        http://sublevel.net/
        https://cupcake.io/
        https://ello.co/
    

..the internet is made of choice

~~~
mrweasel
Which sort of fails if 99% pick something different from you, or you don't
want to pick.

~~~
getdavidhiggins
I see what you're saying - but for the 1% that are influencers (who share and
curate web content) - there is a strategy called POSSE
[http://indiewebcamp.com/POSSE](http://indiewebcamp.com/POSSE) (Publish (on
your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere)

Basically a lot of people have their own independent rig, and then spam out
the link to the silos, while at the same time, operating 5-7 social media
accounts where they engage with the feedback on those silos (app.net/ello,
etc)

We all know these 'web personalities' \- the Grubers, Anil Dashes, Marcos, and
even the Gaynors

------
gameshot911
How to make Twitter go away: Stop talking about it, writing about it, using
it, thinking about it.

How _not_ to make Twitter go away: Write blog articles about how you want
Twitter to go away, which are then shared and posted across the Internet.

~~~
freyr
* then shared and posted across the Internet. *

On Twitter, specifically. He tweeted his article about not using Twitter.

Maybe he just wants people to engage with the @alex_gaynor #Brand.

------
Oblouk
Twitters open API is very useful. Even if it doesn't allow you to get more
than 1% of the tweets (without subscribing to firehouse and paying lots of
$$$) it is very useful for many different projects of mine.

------
kakakiki
Twitter is definitely not for everyone. It is definitely not for me. I don't
want it to go away. I see people, communities achieving a lot with it - it is
a medium to get heard.

------
cloudwizard
I am annoyed when people ask me for a twitter id to register. My twitter
accounts are just for testing. I think there is a use for twitter as a
generator for random number seeds

------
krick
I cannot understand why this thread seems to be so popular. I'm not sure if I
ever heard of this Alex Gaynor before (although he seems to have some
recognition, but not really much), this article explains to some degree why he
hates twitter, not why twitter is harmful for the universe and as stated in
the comments many times already there isn't much constructive critique in his
reasoning. So, essentially it is simply "somebody wrote he doesn't like
something" post and would be of interest only if this "somebody" is some
really special person.

Can somebody explain?

------
lk145
If discussions > broadcast then why disable comments?

~~~
jshevek
He doesn't want discussions with people he doesn't agree with.

------
basher
Why I agree with article

Emailed link to me from twitter redirected to
[http://imgur.com/uazq6A9](http://imgur.com/uazq6A9)
[http://i.imgur.com/uazq6A9.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/uazq6A9.jpg)

Summary a big slot is dedicated to Westboro Baptists hate tweet.

This was labelled news. In what universe is it ok to have direct tweets from
WBC promoted as news content. Free speech is one thing promoting hate speech
is another - big fail twitter.

------
vittore
I think some people will quit fb/twitter the same way they quit smoking or
drinking. Hi there, I am recovering twiterian

------
hoggle
Twitter like Apple define themselves more by saying "No" then anything else
and I love them for it.

------
abhididdigi
Lots of Negativity here again. Most of the commenter here are saying it is
wrong when he says Twitter should die because it doesn't encourage good
communication, and then blocks his own comments section. It just means he
wants to have a meaningful communication.

He says, you can email him, or write your own blog post to refute or add on to
what he says. That way you will be facilitating a great communication.

~~~
adnzzzzZ
>It just means he wants to have a meaningful communication.

If you want to communicate you don't create barriers for it to happen. There's
nothing inherent to comment systems that prevents people from writing
meaningful comments.

------
_random_
Plus all good names are taken and there is no strategy for recycling unused
ones - simply embarrassing.

------
hippowithgas
I actually hope Twitter doesn't go away, it can serve as a fly-paper for the
short-attention-span conversionist. The sort of people who talk at you, rather
than with you. If they are all there, we can sneak off, to the other party,
enjoy conversation, with give and take, learn, laugh, cry, take a real
interest. It may even run to more than 140 chars. It will be great!

------
serve_yay
I quit it about a month ago. But I seriously, seriously doubt it is going
anywhere.

------
no_future
Why is everyone so into Twitter? I've never actually met someone who tweeted.

------
jpindar
Drinks from firehose. Complains about getting wet.

------
waylandsmithers
Well, they don't make any money, so...

------
fogleman
Step 1: disable your own Twitter account.

------
firstaccount
The communities of twitter are #hashtags.

------
puredemo
Says the guy with nearly 38k tweets.

------
spullara
Just make your account protected.

------
TrainedMonkey
This too will pass.

------
roymckenzie
sanctimonious bloviating

He is criticizing Twitter for being something it isn't.

It's a shame this made it to the front page of ycombinator news.

------
notastartup
His wish might just come true. Investors are also wary of twitter and it's
ability to monetize. The huge userbase alone won't work forever.

The end game for twitter will look in the shape and form of a buyout at a huge
discount by an already hugely profitable company.

------
ehosca
weirdo

