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Comment by eertami | Hacker News Reader

One thing this article doesn't mention is that it is worth remembering Twitter has no meaning or importance on the real world. The only people who care about what happens on twitter are other people on twitter. Regular people simply don't care (nor are aware) about twitter.

Think of it like any other social network feed and try not to take it seriously.

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On the one hand, yes, but on the other hand, "the real world" is just the concatenation of many equally irrelevant spaces.

Do any of the countless news sites that integrate twitter commentary into their articles not matter? It feels like twitter is a place that some people go to gather rare species of opinion only to turn around and declare it a widely accepted belief. Interestingly enough the tweets that offer counter opinions are never given any representation.

In other words I can only agree with you if the consensus is that "news" sites don't matter.

Exactly. Around 75% of the people I know (teenagers, youngsters, adults) from a variety of backgrounds (tech, health, no education, etc) don't have a Twitter account nor check Twitter.

I don't know a single person on TikTok. I don't know any YouTubers. 95% of the people I'm friends with have left Facebook. That says far more about me than it does about the popularity or reach of those platforms.

Anyone who uses themself and their own social reach as an example of why a platform is irrelevant doesn't understand basic demographics.

it is worth remembering Twitter has no meaning or importance on the real world. The only people who care about what happens on twitter are other people on twitter

On the one hand, yes this is true.

But on the other hand, someone needs to tell that to "reputable" news sources such as the BBC who report on Twitter as if it was real news, and therefore shape real public opinion and even public policy.

For the most part this it true but Twitter is often upstream from the news cycle and so is the real world, ahead of time.

I agree. Even though, the echoes in mass media of twitter conversations, or political debates by political actors on the network, makes Twitter much more influential to the people doesn’t care about what’s on twitter (like me).

The journalist and political classes read it religiously. They spend significant portion of their lives interacting with each other through it. It warps their perspectives and priorities, which has national impact.

Unfortunately politicians are a strange breed: they actually listen to the Twitter mob. Virtue signalling to the mob is a great way to get publicity.

Donald Trump's tweets make headlines around the world.

Technically yes, but what impact do they actually have? It's pretty much irrelevant what he says there. Journalists simply like to use it for clicks.

> what impact do they actually have? It's pretty much irrelevant what he says there

They literally cannot be irrelevant because they're official presidential communications - "The Department of Justice on Monday told a federal district court judge In Washington, D.C. that Donald Trump’s tweets are “official statements of the President of the United States.”"

https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/government_says_trum...

there's an impact on stock market: https://www.athensjournals.gr/business/2018-4-4-2-Colonescu....

see also just a few months ago. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/01/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-says-sto...

Musk is indeed a good example: Tesla has officially registered his Twitter account as an official communications channel (probably because otherwise they'd get in trouble for him posting financially relevant information there first), so if your job involves trading Tesla shares you pretty much must pay attention to it.

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