Hacker News Reader

Comment by fluoridation | Hacker News Reader

I honestly don't understand how or why people are using Twitter to keep up with the news. The only thing I use it for is to follow artists, and even that has been going down in recent weeks with most of my favorites moving over to BlueSky. Maybe I'm just a long-winded idiot, but the character limits barely let me have a conversation on either platform. How are people consuming news like this?

It just baffles me how different my experience of using the platform is. I literally do not see any news. I'm not entirely convinced that it's Twitter being biased and not just giving each person what they most engage with.

View on HN

You follow artists, and they are not tweeting their political opinions? Cool.

I gave up on Twitter when everyone I followed kept adding politics. Even if I agreed with it, I just don't want to a marinade in the anger all day.

The one exception I think of is the guy from Technology Connections, who I stopped following because I got tired of seeing him in my feed complaining about something or other. And I've noticed he's been putting that into his videos as well, so I might have to do it on YouTube as well.

My feed (UK based) seems to give me the major news stories well before the mainstream (BBC), and I'm taking days if not weeks in some cases. Now it could be that's how the mainstream decides to cover a particular story? What's worrying is when a story is all over X but isn't covered.

To give an example, the recent protests in Iran where being covered on X but the BBC was silent for weeks before finally covering the story (for a few days).

Could it also be that "mainstream" news are actually trying to verify information and/or obtain confirmation from other sources? All of that is done in an attempt to avoid promoting false information. People tweeting do not do any of that

Could be. Of course, the UK press can also be subject to “D-Notices” that prevent publication of certain sensitive stories. In cases where a story may be subject to a D-Notice, your only hope for information is to go to alternative or foreign media.

It used to be self-expression in an oddly entertaining way but that Nikita Bier ruined the whole thing with his metrics chasing algorithmic shifts.

>I honestly don't understand how or why people are using Twitter to keep up with the news.

Because the MSM news stations themselves pick up the stuff from twitter and just add their own spin flavor. A dozen phone videos from random citizens on-site is always quicker than the time CNN/FOX can send a reporter there. On twitter you at least get the raw footage and can judge for yourself before MSM try to turn it political to rage bait you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com