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Comment by drumhead | Hacker News Reader

When the Bluesky and the Facebook competitors launch I can see a lot of big firms moving across to those and leaving Twitter behind. Twitter is going to become the Fox news of social media I think. Lots of hardcore maga, funded by ads from the same people that advertise on Fox News.

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I don't know. With Jack confidently predicting a conspiracy theorist will win the presidency, it tells me Bluesky isn't going to be my destination.

In fact I'm at a stage in my life where the idea of social media participation just isn't appealing any more.

Not only predicting the presidency, but explicitly providing endorsement for them!

Delusions of grandeur when tech executives have begun to believe, and pursue that their followers develop them a cult of personality and subvert the Democratic process.

Maybe, but Dorsey's political opinions didn't influence Twitter's operations that much, at least compared to current owner's ones.

This is the key. People and companies aren't fleeing Twitter because of what Musk believes, they're fleeing because of what he does.

People sometimes compare Musk to Howard Hughes. This is unfair, on Hughes; as far as I know, if you bought a plane from him he rarely showed up at your house to insist that you not eat large peas. Musk, by contrast, tends to inflict his neuroses on his user base.

(Also, Hughes largely stayed out of direct running of his important businesses when he was in his pea-sizing phase, as far as I know)

What candidate is Dorsey endorsing and what conspiracies does this candidate believe in?

RFK Jr, presumably because he likes bitcoin.

What is the conspiracy theory?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been anti-vaxx for many years. When COVID started he went full in on the "5G Bill Gates microchips!!!" stuff and the craziest of the craziest of COVID-related nonsense.

RFK Jr doesn't believe in any vaccine, often citing the debunked paper that links autism with vaccines. Yea not even vaccines for polio, mmr etc.

I tried to search for it, but can only find results about what a terrible human he is. I gave up trying to find his own words.

Robert F Kennedy Jr. He's an anti-vaxxer and HIV/AIDS denier.

> With Jack confidently predicting a conspiracy theorist will win the presidency

2016 can't be repeated, people have learnt that hard way

If you think people 'learn', you're going to be sorely disappointed

It’s the Yahoo comment section at this point, especially for blue checks. No one who can post would pay 8 dollars a month, so it’s all hustlebro scammers or idiotic conspiracy theories.

One of the most brilliant ideas: Put the content of people who need to pay for engagement, whether due to their own psychoses or due to the fact they produce garbage content, above anyone who organically produces engaging content.

140 IQ move

I think that is far from guaranteed. Most people aren't reading twitter to see what Fox news, or any other media company, thinks the news should be about.

I think you're rather missing the point the parent was making. It doesn't matter what you're there for, if the experience feels Fox-News-like, a lot of people will leave. The people remaining will be those who like Fox News.

Fox news is the biggest news organization in the US by viewership, which seems to be a positive shift then? This does not reflect in the numbers

The highest rated cable news program is still a drop in the bucket. It's just not that many people. It's up there with large niche YouTube channels: popular in their space like a Linus Tech Tips or Contrapoints, but most people have never heard of them. More people watch Stephen Colbert poke fun at Fox News than watch Fox News.

Almost no one gets their news from Fox News, or cable news in general. People who do are less informed.

Yes. But mainstream advertisers stay away from many of the talk shows on Fox News.

No, it's a negative shift. Twitter trying to be a Fox News is reducing their total addressable market and value, you understand that, right?

They had a business that (in theory) appealed to every human on the planet. Now they don't. It's shedding its userbase as a result.

Not to mention the Venn diagram between "people who are not already on Twitter and are evaluating Twitter as a platform to use" and "Fox News / right wing information consumers" has a very narrow overlap.

"in the US" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. The entire rest of the world thinks Fox News is grotesque. Twitter becoming something that's a laughing stock to most of the planet is probably not "positive".

Another way to look at it is that it's the lowest common denominator. It's 'news' in the same way that McDonalds is technically a restaurant.

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