I started a new account on Twitter just to see what it's like. It's completely unusable. The place is filled with shit content that a I don't want to see and bots. Not sure what competitive advantage you are talking about.
Perhaps more than anywhere. Science is a process of challenge and response, not a static body of knowledge.
> Presumably the purpose is to answer from established science.
"Established science", which is still subject to debate itself, isn't what link aggregators cover. They bias towarss stuff more like science news and novel study outcomes, which are nothing to do with established science except as a seed for critical discussion.
Even if you were right that debate on the shape of the earth had no benefit, forbidding it still wouldn't be science. Science is not coextensive with beneficial things.
If you assume that all opposing opinions come from flat-earthers and idiots that couldn't possibly be right about anything you will never even think about changing your opinion on anything. You'll continue to chat with other reddit yes-men and pat yourselves on the back about how you're all so right.
The upvote / downvote self-censorship system simply does not work for any serious discussions. It might be ok for sorting the snarkiest comment under an article but that's about it
I am not, in fact, denying you space for your views. I'm giving you the space for your views and explaining to you why they are incorrect.
Even in fairly niche subs I find that "surface level" content quality dominates and nuanced takes are frequently unpopular which is basically a recipe for anyone who knows anything to leave. I find the best subs are satire subs because having to know enough about something to be able to satirize it weeds out all the people who create and perpetuate surface level content. I assume there are some super niche subs that are similar.
I used to use it years back. Some subreddits were really great but they all inevitability devolved so I lost any interest in maintaining active accounts there. r/skookum had really interesting content for a while but devolved into idiots reposting the same skookum brand wrenches over and over again.
So they probably don't bother to audition that kind of content for you very often because they already have strategies that milk your attention, engagement, and wallet better.
When you hear other people share their experience as new or different users, keep in mind how customized all these platforms are and how idiosycratically optimized they'll already be for you as a long-time, engaged user.
Most people can't go back in time to get where you are, and don't have any sure (or worthwhile) road to get there.
Towards the end, there would often be porn in replies of many posts on all kinds of topics, like politics, news, etc.
Ah, ok, yeah, you're right, that did (and still does) happen to me. I had forgotten about that, I just ignore followers now.
edit: there are a limited number of tiles to show but yeah
The For You feed varies week by week but is generally okay. I make heavy use of lists, mute words, etc to clean things up.
X is a train wreck, but an interesting and useful one, depending on who/what you follow.
I bought a premium Prime account on Amazon, and yet some of their shows still have embedded commercials. grrrr.
Plus, I get constant ads to upgrade to Premium+ for ads-free.
Premium+ is probably what you have.
On Bluesky, I pretty much follow the people I followed before they fled Twitter. However, they complain a lot about politics, Elon Musk and the US President Elect on their timelines. I could unfollow, and do in some cases, but that would pretty much leave me with nothing to read on Bluesky.
That, and the weird tech people I get the most value from still post primary on X, so I deal with it.
They will likely complain about other things in the future :)
I'm more interested in ideas on how to adapt and move forward and be resilient. To be honest, I kind of like to have my beliefs challenged as well, and X provides that.
I haven't gone out of my way to restrict my timeline either, I follow ~1000 accounts I just don't follow or interact with accounts that post any of that crap.
The very second the US election got underway all of our accounts started to heavily promote right-wing political content. Even though we specifically said when we signed up that we aren't interested in anything like that.
And whether their ideas and strategies are well-grounded or seem optimal or ethical to the rest of us, the top leadership at most of those companies lean strongly towards corporatist, libertarian political ideals and see most regulation (and preemptive self-regulation) as both philosophically immoral and an existential threat to their businesses.
I agree with you.
If this is the case and money is speech, can a well-intentioned organization just collect donations to advance their message? Like when Philip Morris uses this to sell cigarettes to kids we say that is bad. But what if the EFF used it to ensure net neutrality? Or if Planned Parenthood used it to add reproductive rights to the bill of rights?
Do my donations already pay for social media campaigns?
Do the ends justify the means?
Before I deleted my Twitter account, I tried really hard to just block every account that posted content I felt was pol-tier.. it just doesn't work. That platform is FUBAR, and the prime example is the owner of the platform who has been completely brainrotted from staring into the orb for 12 hours a day.
It seems like public sentiment is trending towards rolling over and letting channers run society. We'll see how that goes.
I hadn't blocked ANYBODY for 13 of those years, but towards the end I was blocking dozens of users per day. Not not just, "I don't agree with this person" but "Wow this person is genuinely hateful and not contributing anything meaningful, and I would rather not see that."
I will rail on FB just as hard as the next guy, but realistically, from a business perspective, if facebook's wild popularity and 3 billion active monthly users still says "unusable" to you... well, do you really think most people would agree with you? And more importantly to the company... whose opinion matters the most?