Twitter is now attention roulette and ultimately meaningless
playpermissionless.substack.com
playpermissionless.substack.com
1) "Facebook style" post are proliferating, that is memes from last year and images/videos from 5 years ago
2) Too many "cookie cutter" posts, that is variation of formats like "100 million people are using AI but %99 are using it wrong"
3) Propaganda accounts pushing narratives, that is something like "before everything was great, now everything is bad. what changed?", then with flood of replies indicating that what changed is loss of Christian values and too many immigrants.
4) Obvious lunatics, that is chemtrail enthusiasts who pose as Phd in this Fellow in that.
5) Tesla FSD just saved lives, the real danger are the human drivers
6) Get rich fast schemes and courses that are supposed to give you passive income to retire early.
7) MAGA types and anti-MAGA types fighting
8) TikTok videos
9) Stuff from people I follow
10) scam ads
The general content on Twitter has become really low quality rage content. Some good things that you can't find elsewhere still exists though and that is tweets from real people tweeting about current events as those events are unfolding.
Sometimes I think maybe Twitter should have been a non-profit that captures only the part about real people broadcasting about current events as they are unfolding.
I switched to Mastodon some time ago. The first posts in my feed are currently:
A historic photo of 50s America
A question about parsing JSON in Rust
A historic fact about Scotland
A panoramic photo from a mountaintop
A selection from Francis Grose’s “Dictionary Of The Vulgar Tongue”
A picture of a hiking trail sign
A guide on how to change your shell in Linux
etc.
It's not the same as Twitter, but on the other hand, it's not the same as Twitter.
> 5) Tesla FSD just saved lives, the real danger are the human drivers
> 6) Get rich fast schemes and courses that are supposed to give you passive income to retire early.
Hopefully this helps others, because I see these complaints often about Twitter (and about Reddit too, shocking number of tech-minded people just read the front page and get mad at it!).
These types of posts fall under what I call the "self-improvement bait" umbrella, including the Tesla accounts here, since they are so weird and monomaniacal about Tesla and $TSLA and Elon.
Several months ago I simply started blocking anyone who posts using their strange marketing cadence, because they're all the same really. They are so easy to spot within 4 or 5 words.
I cannot express just how much my feed improved after doing this. Of course, new accounts trying to bandwagon on this trend do pop up, but again, just block them and move on.
(And yes I realize the irony posting this on a social media webpage).
Ultimately most people and their takes are really really boring and "freedom of speech absolutism" (as Twitter nowadays sees itself) leads to interesting, well researched and novel thoughts being drowned out by the mass garbage stuff.
I really don't understand why some people (like the current Twitter CEO) seem to crave that kind of attention.
I'd rather miss a few pearls than being bombared with manure all day.
I wonder if it's because they're still all there while others left or if there is some kind of algorithmic intention behind it.
The change is quite recent, my feed suddenly became utter crap overnight.
There is btw a browser extension called "control pannel for twitter" available for FF and Chrome which let you hide the "for you" tab (among other options). Very useful on desktop. No such option for mobile though.
Twitters artificial limit of 140 character made the plattform always a shallow clickbait rage addiction thing to me. I never ever enjoyed reading anything there, before or after Musk aquired it. Anything good I did find, always would have been nicer to read as an ordinary blog post. But blog posts don't get as much attention as clickbait tweets, so people stay on twitter, as long as there is audience.
Really the content you get on twitter is 110% dependent on those you follow (on the for-me tab at least), I follow about 90-100 people and you really notice when you follow someone who reposts crap how quickly your feed deteriorates. Its a sensitive beast but can be quite good actually.
So I get, that people still use twitter to get interesting content, but yeah, I do not get, how one can really like the experience.
But sure - a well crafted blogpost is wonderful and I miss that. But there was a lot of crap back then aswell.
They call it doom scrolling for a reason. The other parts of the UI might as well not exist.
Even on Reddit and HN, there’s an absolutely devastating drop off between homepage visitors and subreddit visitors (or /ask /show visitors). You would be amazed how many Reddit users have never left the home tab.
> One of the main ways I was using Twitter is to find people doing interesting things and then follow them to see what they're up to. This no longer works since you no longer see tweets from the people you follow unless they go viral.
There's a tab Following in the top and it shows people that you follow and their activity. I use it daily and haven't noticed anything of what they describe.
Now, there are other problems obviously: one is how aggressively Twitter was pushing their "recommendations", so for a while the app used to switch back to recommendations without asking for permission, which was really a douchebag move, but you just switch it back to Following tab and timeline again works fine. I haven't noticed this lately, so it could have also been just a bug they've fixed. Another issue is that they mix notifications from "friends of friends" (in Facebook lingo), which also can suck as sometimes ppl you follow happen to follow idiots (¯\_(ツ)_/¯), but you can just block annoying people and after some time trash filters out.
So it's far from perfect, but on the other hand it's not that big drama as some ppl try to present it, honestly. At least for my needs and my circle of online friends and interests...
Indeed if you're active, and like stuff, the algo improves and shows you lots of relevant content. But mostly from the prominent accounts and only viral ones. So the point of the post stands.
That sounds great to me!
- Hide Youtube Shorts
- Hide Youtube Watched
- uBlock Filter to remove Upcoming videos from the subscription page
- Unhook with most options turned on
I do the same for Twitter with the Just Arrived extension tweaked from gh.
This one? https://github.com/tecoholic/Just-Arrived
What about mobile? I find myself scrolling on my phone a lot and I use a modded app because Android, thankfully. I feel like the best solution is to just delete the app, ultimately.
Interestingly, this is a non-hidden feature of YouTube itself; you can just close the shorts section of the page. Except that the setting automatically expires after some period of time, maybe ~1 month.
> Hide Youtube Watched
This doesn't seem to make a lot of sense; would you hide "heard" songs on Spotify?
The content I consume it's better one off (podcasts, informational videos etc.). If I need to keep anything on them, I store them elsewhere.
If you actually have something to say about a subject you care about, the term is not 'creating content'.
The post wasn’t written by a (person who works for a) platform, it was written by a user of it.
And I do like the "For you" feed. I do want to read random people's tweets, I keep finding solid reading material that way. But that means I have to block a significant portion of all of twitter. I'd say after about 50k to 100k accounts blocked it gets better. Less for other languages.
There are browser plug-ins that block all accounts that follow a given account. Those are great. So, whenever I find a MAGA guy with Russian grammar structure, an NFT scammer, a bible quote proselytizer, or a Tesla bag holder, I just block everybody following that account.
It takes about a day or two of doing, but then it works great. Best done when sick, works well with headaches and a fever. But now my twitter experience is about as good as it was 2017.
I agree that this makes the site not worth using as is. So I use a browser extension that removes almost everything except tweets from people I follow, including ads. With that in place I find it to be a service with a high signal to noise ratio.
I don't think algorithms are the issue but the intent of the algorithm is where it falls apart for most social media. It's not to cater to what you want to see but to what will keep you watching.
Mastodon missing a feature to somewhat curate your timeline automatically is what stops it from wide adoption.
If you want to curate your timeline you use lists; one I use is "those accounts who rarely post and I want to see it all"
Which is valid to be looked at as a feature rather than a deficiency.
> Mastodon missing a feature to somewhat curate your timeline automatically is what stops it from wide adoption.
Citation needed. There’s always something that someone points out as “the reason that stops Mastodon from wide adoption”, yet its usage continues to rise slow and steady. Maybe what’s wrong is not the slow adoption of Mastodon, but the rapid adoption of other social networks which have billions of dollars behind them with perverse incentives to consume your life so you consume advertised products.
Well, you can. It depends how much you care about the part of their content that you like.
Mostly you'd follow someone else who does the job of filtering for you, and you'd hear about the great stuff slightly slower than people who followed that guy directly. You might not see that banger until the following day.
Also there is a page with Trending Posts, Trending Hashtags, Trending News and Trending Accounts.
It’s also great for engagement from the right audience. Posts on Twitter now get little to no response, whereas the same on Mastodon results in more followers and more actively engaged humans (also way nicer). Interestingly TikTok is really good for this, but you do have to bend the content to fit a shorter attention span.
While slightly better, both seem to me like an utter waste of time to me.
There is just an unsolvable, signal to noise problem when it comes to a personal optimal feed for me.
The content I will like best will not be popular. If that is true then it is hopeless for me because of the scaling properties of the assumptions of the system and incentives for users of the system.
I am better off just talking to chatGPT4o and it isn't even close.
I don't understand. The content you want is accessiblto you and anyone who wants it, where is the scaling problem ?
The same as Twitter, following tab is literally this.
Why would you do that? Why would you have a follow function and break it? And what else do you show people? I mean if your user follows someone, then it is what they want to see, why wouldn't you show them what they want to see?
Ideally the user is happy to discover new content that both complements their existing interests and occasionally introduces them to something new and exciting, while the company is happy to have an algorithmic lever that helps with ad placement. This theoretical win-win ideal may not get realized very often in practice...
"Ok, this user follows N. But N's latest post is already 15 hours old and it had poor engagement. Probably that means it's low quality and it's not worth including at all."
It makes sense, if you think you know better, what the user wants to see. Or, if you somehow make more money by doing so.
In either case, personally I like to decide, what I see myself, but I might actually be a minority (soon). Many people are apparently fine with intransparent algorithms making the decisions for them.
This is so insane to me. Some weeks ago I had to create a twitter account because I wanted to contact a developer for an app I'm using and the only contact information he had was his twitter account. I created a dumb account with my Google account and I was surprised that the first tweet I see is from Elon Musk. How small your ego has to be to request being featured first for every new account that is created? I remember I saw his face in the account creation process and I thought to myself "I would never follow this idiot" and still this guy is the first thing I see.
I wont be opening that cesspool anytime soon.
Sadly providing an algorithm that provides this is not what makes money so with most solutions you're stuck with an algorithm that just tries to show you what will keep you from clicking away instead.
The stupid thing about this is that Twitter has a great measurement system for evaluating the tweets. They have likes, retweets and quote tweets. It would not be that hard to make some inferences based on those metrics mixed with some randomness that would create a nicely curated timeline for most. You could even allow users to up the randomness or give some more explicit preferences.
I would say twitter stays about 1.5 months ahead of every other site I know of on AI news in particular. I've usually had time to demo new tools for quite a while before hearing about them on HN or elsewhere.
The first appears to be randomised or from The Algorithm, but as I far as I can tell, it’s mostly random.
The second also seems randomised but from people you follow.
That’s not true.
The following tab is only showing you who do you follow with posts in chronological order
Be the change you want to see in the world they say. If you can and want to, bring back a personal blog and post there. Blogging and rss are definitely not dead.
The growth is slower, it’s hard to go viral but that’s a feature imo, not a bug.
You’ll get fewer connections but are going to be a lot more meaningful.
out of the internet, back into many many sub-nets all isolated and in many cases fighting each other
> Attention on Twitter no longer has any ripple effects beyond the platform
because you're now expected to pay for that, pay google, pay face book, the more of them you pay the higher your reach. money has reasserted itself as social control over the internet too; wanna be famous/go viral? pay up
> Most people are secretly convinced that they are a little bit smarter and a little bit crazier than the average person.
> reminder: the fastest way to get unstuck is to change your environment
> Don't write a book or live a life that can that can be easily summarized.
> Coaching is 99% about listening which is why virtually everyone sucks at it.
Maybe the algorithm isn't the issue in this case.
Its like there is no mechanism that measures waste of Attention at a high level. Not at the individual level.
Make sure that the vast majority of your potential readership are actively avoiding the default experience being heavily promoted by the platform.
I think there are two things:
1. he wants to see good things (use the "following" tab)
2. he wants to be seen (can't do much about that except be more rage-inducing)
He thinks they're now being shown rage-inducing bullshit instead by the algorithm.
You seem to agree with this analysis from the point of view of a reader, but think from a writers point of view he's just being outcompeted by better content. That seems inconsistent.
So what is his move, to get good non rage bait content to an audience, except to leave twitter?
Threads is much worse at least...
Its easy to criticize the attention traps without seeing the benefits
French gov just banned TikTok a few days ago in Kanaky (called New Caledonia under french imperial colonialism) to try to limit communication between insurgents in its colony.
The kanaks are nothing more than racists against foreigners and a government that has been way over the top in respecting their indigenous customs and right to self determination
Please educate yourself before spouting russian propaganda.
By the way your are contradicting yourself;
If as you say the issue are kanaks being racists against foreigners, that means the non kanak french people living there are indeed foreigners. You are only confirming they are colons.
I suggest you give a look at the "strip tease" TV program of 1998 (not so long ago) were you could see french colons treating their kanaks "employees" as slaves and insulting them just for being indigenous, then try repeating me again that the problem are kanaks being racists.
So by your logic arab people in Europe are colons and should GTFO ? The reality is that migration happen and territory dont belong to a special skin color. Saying the opposite and hatin people who were born on the same territory just bc of their culture is just plain racism.
1998 was 26 years ago and people are assholes to each other at work even when they are from the same culture. Thats not an argument.
And once again the kanaks have their own institutions and are mostly autonomous. (And even better than that considering the money flowing from france). And the extremist actually burnt them several times.
Its not about colonisation. Its basic extremist / racist violence from a minority motivated but russian propaganda on tik tok like in niger and centra africa
Which Arab people? Is there an arab government who has invaded, maintained a force presence, set up its own political institutions, decimated the population with diseases, exploited the indigenous population, and that is sending police forces from its mainland to a european country to maintain control in the last 2 centuries?
You are mixing up migration and colonization which are different things.
It's not colonization when you organize 3 referendums for self-determination, and indigenous cultures have their own senate. Non-indigenous people who were born there have as much right to be there than "indigenous" people, same as arabs born in Europe should not be kicked out Europe. The rest is pure racism.
This is like a company rejecting tons of co2 every year, planting 3 trees and greenwashing people into thinking they do everything against global warming.
This is totally about racism, but not in the direction you pretend it is.
I guess the french passport has some value for the indigenous. And again, not one referendum, three. I'm confused what more you could convince you.
"Colonisation" is an easy answer to everything but the reality is often more complicated. Not saying it's not a colony, it is, but that it doesn't mean a majority of 'colonised' see more benefit to it that inconvenients.
It is said that a majority of the kanaks are pro independence.
Let's be clear, I am pretty sure that the kanaks would lose a lot by being independent and not able to rely on french aid, and would probably lose even better if their natural resources attract others but ...
... I also think that since Napoleon III annexed it as an oversea territory of France Kanaks never had the chance to decide for themselves and have been prejudiced. Their lands taken over, being subject to abuse, not being given the same chances overall as caldos.
I believe this should still be their choice, even if it means a worse life for them afterwards.
Had the colons treated them better for a start, there would be less pro independence among the kanaks so it is really on France's side to make amend and on caldos to stop acting like victims when for the most part they are collectively the offenders (the important word is 'collectively' here).
The french state admitted it, the United Nations recognized it. Only the current french government is not recognizing it because it is gradually morphing towards extreme right and facism.
All tech announcements always happen on twitter first lol. If you're using bleeding edge software most devs post it on twitter first.
this commend is a left wing cope and doesn't belong in this comment section.
I mean, this sounds great? Or maybe I misinterpret that this change in how we view twitter is positive rather than a negative. I believe that Twitter as a centralized sounding board was a net bad for Internet culture anyway.
Limiting outbound reach was, insanely, a deliberate decision by the new mismanagement.
It was always attention roulette and ultimately meaningless.
Like why someone refused to provide definition of something somewhere. It provided commentary for clawn universe.
The closest strategy we have to something that is long-term viable is:
- non-commercial, so developers focus on building a product for users, rather than advertisers
- decentralised, to provide an escape mechanism for product direction/moderation/etc going poorly
But even then, the only winning move is not to play
There's much more, that's just a few features making it a social platform I enjoy using instead of a time waste like the infinite scroll algorithm based ones.
I want to reduce the noise in social network posts.
Not sure how Cathy woods as the Queen of bagholders fits in there but there’s probably a connection.
I think that's just him. I think he's just an immature manchild clinging to a sense of relevance and youth, and Twitter gave him the opportunity to show his ass in a way we just didn't see before. Almost everything he does on the platform gives off a strong "hello fellow kids" vibe.