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Comment by mLuby | Hacker News Reader

Twitter's value is providing a direct connection from people of note to the masses, bypassing newspaper/TV/radio gatekeepers of yesteryear. You could argue whether that itself is good for society, but it is clear from Twitter's usage that people find it valuable.

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I find it valuable in that you can follow reporters directly, both professional and amateur, and curate your feed very precisely, especially because a large amount of commentary comes across as Tweet-sized asides, not full articles.

As a micro-publishing platform, it's hard to beat.

Why follow reporters instead of subjects they report on, collaboratively edited by many people?

Because your suggestion is theoretical while Twitter exists today.

Uh, his suggestion is a newpaper, magazine or other forms of publications these journalists work for. Except if you subscribe to the publication instead of the journalist, you get the benefit of the publication's editors.

> because a large amount of commentary comes across as Tweet-sized asides, not full articles.

There are very few topics that are both worthy of a news story and able to be summarized even remotely well in 140 characters. It is literally the downfall of journalism and in my opinion is a major driver in the complete lack of rational discussion in politics today.

News stories often have little else in them other than their headline. Like, for instance, this one. 90% of the value of this is the headline itself.

Except that many reporters and journalist do the same (obviously there are good ones, not claiming yours do) and they end up being in the same bubble. To this add that journalist and media are twitter lifeline, so essentially they can bully the platform as they like.

A great example was the learn to code meme.

The viewers of Fox News find it valuable as well I'm sure. That something's users find it valuable says little on its own imo.

This is a separate point, but what exactly does Twitter do to provide a direct connection to the masses that the rest of the internet doesn't? The only difference is that Twitter, through some combination of marketing, first mover advantage, addictiveness to the right audience, whatever, happened to what the developed world chose as its social media platform of choice for current events.

That's orthogonal to its actual appropriateness for being such a platform and to its utility to global/national society as a whole.

People definitely find it valuable but im pretty sure it isnt good for society. Influencers earn more followers for portraying psychopathic behaviors than they would for being themselves. And they definitely earn more money for themselves by portraying a lavish unrealistic lifestyle -- it only increases the quality and number of offers they get.

Twitter has both pros and cons but I’m convinced that it’s mostly cons.

Going off tangent again, but the same analogy goes with Facebook - it was nice to connect with people and see their updates until it became this rotten, ad driven, divisive tool. Remember FB restricted to college users back in 2005?

Maybe there is some kind of “aging” phenomenon with social networks. They all rot. MySpace, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and coming up next - Instagram.

People find a lot of crazy and destructive things valuable.

I am not saying we should ban them. Just disrupt them.

Twitter is a combination of the worst things:

  Public shouting
  In very short form
  Attacks rise to the top
  No way to discuss the substance together

Each tweet is a short public shout that is an attack of something else and no way to discuss substance or solve anything.

No wonder society is overrun by outrage mobs and #hashtag movements.

Musk could accomplish exactly what you’re saying on a blog (just as Bezos did on Medium recently), or through a PR release written or approved by him. There are numerous ways he could communicate more effectively to the public without mainstream media filtering. Why do we act like Twitter is the only way to do this?

Twitter only encourages misunderstanding and posts without thought. The character limit is a big driver of this.

If Musk wants to take his company private then he can do whatever he wants, but there is a different set of rules for CEOs of publicly traded companies for a reason.

"Twitter only encourages misunderstanding and posts without thought."

I recently heard this described as removing context. Which made me facepalm. Obvious, right? (Sorry, I shoulda bookmarked it.)

FWIW, I think every public figure should hire someone to manage their social media presence. As in, doesn't a CEO have more important things to do?

There are lots of ways of accomplishing that without the things that causes twitter to be particularly toxic.

Twitter's toxic because they never clean the place up. It's like a hotel where they clean the rooms only when it gets so bad that the EPA or CDC issues a citation.

> Twitter's value is providing a direct connection from people of note to the masses, bypassing newspaper/TV/radio gatekeepers of yesteryear.

Press releases still exist. Although even then I'd wager the copy writers do a better job of legal due diligence than Musk.

It's not the same thing, however I do think CEOs having a direct link to communicate with the public is incredibly irresponsible; unless you keep everything extremely trivial, light, and unoffensive. Otherwise everything should be vetted and / or double checked by at least one even headed, conservative person (in terms of risk, not politics), who has some understanding of PR.

It is useful for self promoters and day traders, others not so much.

Relevant, Jack Dorsey was on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast recently, and in the first handful of minutes he talks about Twitter and its value[1], bad behavior on Twitter, misinformation, and echo chambers.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mP9OmOFxc4

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