Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Stephen King leaves X, describing atmosphere as 'too toxic' (theguardian.com)
39 points by gniting 5 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 24 comments





It certainly seems like he was a contributor to said toxicity.

Bluesky is actually a lot of fun right now!

Yeah. Spending time here over the past few days. Seems less... toxic

Stephan King leaving will help X become less toxic. Seems like a win for those who want a less toxic X.

You can’t just say “no you” every time you’re criticized for something.

Ordinarily I would agree, but Stephen King is a no holds barred shitbait poster. Not that there is anything inherently reprehensible about that, but then leaving for toxicity just seems self-unaware.

I wasn't criticized for anything. I don't have a Twitter account and only view posts when somebody links it or send it to me.

Twitter has been a cesspool ever since Musk bought it. It wasn’t great before, but now - yeesh.

Looks like he’s not the only one, the Grauniad newspaper announced [1] they’re leaving too a couple of days ago, because (wait for it) it’s toxic as hell.

‘The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.’

You might say: “X is right at the center of all things toxic”

1: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/13/why-the-guardi...


My point is that Stephen King is partially responsible for the increase in toxicity. Instead of being the change he wanted to see, he just made the platform worse in the exact way he was complaining about.

He comes off as a hypocrite and it isn't a good look for him. If you think toxicity is bad and is ruining the platform then don't be toxic.


I didn't think he was so bad though I guess toxicity is in the eye of the beholder. He mostly slagged Trump / the republican party.

So being toxic against Trump doesn't count as being toxic? If you like that sort of argument then I guess you could say Trump's twitter statements were not bad since he mostly slagged people who opposed him / the democratic party.

I figure leading political figures are fair game to criticize.

Nobody is denying that it isn't "fair game". The problem is that it wasn't just run of the mill criticism, he was being toxic. Some of his posts were just profanity ridden rants. If this was a guy criticizing the democratic party or Obama or whoever you would think he was some delusional right wing nut job.

What’s preventing Bluesky from eventually getting all the same trolls and being just as toxic?

It has better moderation tools; it will likely get all the same trolls, but you won't have to look at them if you don't want to. In particular, mass-blocking is a first-class feature (it never was on Twitter, and then Musk's API and other changes broke it almost completely).

Nothing, they're already showing up just to own the libs.

The fact that it's not run by a "free speech absolutist" who actually just wants to see more conservative attacks on liberals on the platform.

Or to rephrase "who wants to see the platform not limited to attacks on conservatives only"

They’re actively censoring liberals. First amendment rights my ass.

I would be interested to see the evidence that liberals are being censored *MORE* than Republicans. No doubt many people of all political stripes are being kicked off or censored on the platform for a variety of reasons. And the left-wing media will be amplifying things when it's happening to liberals.

I think that we should all put this nonsense down and:

Just

Go

Outside


After deleting my instagram and Snapchat accounts I’ve realized that life isn’t too shabby. :)

yeah, got rid of FB years ago... was a good choice.

I'm literally "sittin' on the dock of the bay" with my relaxed dog sipping a hot tea watching the ferries leave. He doesn't even know what X is.



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: