Ditch Twitter!

[Raggamuffin]

We're overdue for another large sunspot, one of those will liven up Elon's day. I wonder how well younger generations would cope if all the social media suddenly vanished for a few months?

In 2012 we narrowly missed a solar flare more powerful than the Carrington Event.

Still to this day, when there's a powercut, my brain goes to "solar flare". I recall randomly flicking through a newspaper as a teenager. Never cared for the news back then, and my folks read the Daily Mail which is a very biased and inflammatory paper. Hit upon a double page spread with a photo of the Tzar Bomba nuclear detonation, and in giant letters across the double page spread:

HOW THE WORLD WILL END

It went on to list and write about all sorts - supervolcanic eruptions, solar flares, self-replicating nanobots creating the "grey goo" effect, global warming, nuclear war, biological warfare, asteroid impacts.

I read it and instantly went into panic/anxiety mode. It was something I didn't leave for years. I lived each day terrified, feeling like I was living on borrowed time. It was exhausting. Mind you, I'm no stranger to that level of fear/helplessness. When I was 9 years old, my folks took me and my brother to watch Waterworld. Seeing a city lying at the bottom of the ocean floor? Triggered the same level of overwhelm and anxiety as reading that newspaper did. Honestly - a 9 year old shouldn't get hit with such overwhelming and prolonged levels of anxiety and crisis.

Took a long time to reach a point of acceptance - that basically we probably can't do diddly squat, and at least we'll all die together.

Ed

 

[Luca]

Lol! That would probably be another thing I wouldn't notice had happened until maybe I tried to log in here for example.

I just still remember being asked by a work colleague to add them on Facebook. I said "oh sorry I don't do social media." His response was "yeah you do, everyone has Facebook."

He honestly seemed to believe I was lying to him!

To be honest I only got about 4 chapters into 1984 before I had to stop as it was reading depressingly like a report in where we are and where we are going :-/

People always think I’m lying about it too!!!
Until they search my very common first and last name and find thousands of people in Portugal, Cape Verde, and Brazil who have the same exact name but are not me
I think I have the most common Portuguese last name in existence.

 

[MildredHubble]

People always think I’m lying about it too!!!
Until they search my very common first and last name and find thousands of people in Portugal, Cape Verde, and Brazil who have the same exact name but are not me
I think I have the most common Portuguese last name in existence.

I'm glad in a way that you know what it's like! It's so strange in my opinion to just assume that because someone doesn't follow the crowd, that they must be lying about it. People really do baffle me sometimes lol!

I'm just kinda glad that it's just a very big website we are talking about here and not some sort of microchip implant that everyone is getting!

Although Elon would like us to visit his future walk in centers to get a cheaply made lithium ion powered deathtrap wired into our cerebellum, you know, to download books and kung-fu into our brains like Neo in the Matrix.

I'd rather not thanks! Lol!

 

[MildredHubble]

Yeah, it can be a tad annoying when celebrity types do things like that. I suppose if they really believe that making a statement is important then I can't entirely blame them for leveraging that celebrity for something they believe in. I think the problem is that celebrity can bypass people's rational filter oftentimes and people just accept what they say uncritically. A good example of this is Elon Musk funnily enough!

 

[Swansong]

Algorithm driven social media has for a very, very long time been widely known to cause serious harm both to the individual and society as a whole:


It makes individuals into dopamine starved slave addicts that will do anything and all just to get those likes, to the point that most of their existence seems to become a fake, performative act motivated just by how many likes they may get for their opinions/actions.

It foments a mob mentality because holding a popular opinion (regardless of validity) will reward the person with more of those dopamine producing likes.


Quitting Twitter just because that guy now owns it, while obviously still a positive thing, is a bit like having been injecting battery acid into your arm and occasionally splashing it unto others and only stopping when the new president of the battery acid producing company turns out to be an specially bad person.

 

[MildredHubble]

Algorithm driven social media has for a very, very long time been widely known to cause serious harm both to the individual and society as a whole:


It makes individuals into dopamine starved slave addicts that will do anything and all just to get those likes, to the point that most of their existence seems to become a fake, performative act motivated just by how many likes they may get for their opinions/actions.

It foments a mob mentality because holding a popular opinion (regardless of validity) will reward the person with more of those dopamine producing likes.

Quitting Twitter just because that guy now owns it, while obviously still a positive thing, is a bit like having been injecting battery acid into your arm and occasionally splashing it unto others and only stopping when the new president of the battery acid producing company turns out to be an specially bad person.

I completely agree with everything you've said. It's all toxic. But I would modify your analogy slightly. It's more like the guy who owns it has added crystal meth to the battery acid. So now is a good time to quit the battery acid.

I just think if Mr Musk is going to turn Twitter into his own personal mouthpiece and propaganda machine then it deserves to be raised to the ground as quickly as possible.

 

[Raggamuffin]

I guess it's safe to say that any owner of a social media company doesn't have the user's best interests at heart.

There is something deeply unnerving about Musk and Zuckerburg.

Ed

 

[Outdated]

@Luca my name is also so common as to be annonymous. There's more than 50 Aussies with the exact same name and date of birth as me. Australian caucasian male born in the 60s, it's a fair bet that they're named Andrew Paul or Michael.

I set up a facebook page about 8 years ago. The only thing I ever posted on there is a blurb about how I don't use facebook and the sole purpose of having an account is so that I could visit other people's pages sometimes. I have only ever logged in to that account about 3 times. Last time I looked the page was flooded by posts and messages from people I've never heard of.

 

[MildredHubble]

For the brief time I had a Facebook account my page was flooded with friends requests from people who made my life a misery. For some reason they said we were "friends" and seemed to think I'd just be over the moon to hear from them and be bestowed with the honour of their friends request.

I didn't accept them of course, but it was quite interesting to see how completely crazy their messages became when I didn't even respond. It's interesting how crazy so called "well adjusted" people can be when they don't get their way.

 

[Outdated]

Also he doesn't have any money, it's all tied up in Tesla stock. If he sells his shares the value tumbles. He probably didn't really intend to buy Twitter at all originally, it was so he could get loans leveraged against Tesla stock and it all backfired on him.

It turns out that you're a bit of a prophet.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022...sla-shares-worth-3-95bn-amid-twitter-takeover

 

[MildredHubble]

It turns out that you're a bit of a prophet.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022...sla-shares-worth-3-95bn-amid-twitter-takeover

Ah sweet vindication! Lol! I guess I mostly formed my opinion on what was going on by watching and reading a few fairly critical articles on Musk.

To be honest before I learned more about him, I had taken what was claimed about his history at face value. I assumed that he had invented the Tesla and PayPal etc. I didn't think he was some sort of genius, but I thought that he at least had some ability. Then I found out that he had almost nothing to do with PayPal and had only bought up shares in the, already founded Tesla company and has still not supplied the true founders with their contractually promised Tesla roadsters!

 

[Misery]

I've been telling people to get offa this nonsense for ages, nobody ever listens to me. It's nothing but trouble, I said.

And now suddenly it all goes sour. WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?!?!?

...well not me, actually, I only just got up. I can laugh later.

His reaction to people teasing him a little, by changing their account names to "Elon Musk" was to delete their accounts.

Anyone remotely familiar with Twitter would have seen at a glance that this was a joke/protest.

To be 100% fair:

Naming an account the exact same name as someone "big" is a really slimy... and dangerous... thing to do. It's a HUGE problem on Youtube right now, and is causing no end of trouble... both for the admins AND the users. And I dont mean the users who name their accounts that way. I mean the users who end up as victims of the scams that those named accounts are used for. Or worse.

I dont like Twitter or anyone involved with it, but knocking out accounts of that type quickly is absolutely the correct thing to do in this case. Regardless of why those accounts were made. "it's just a prank, bro" may be harmless, but... the admins have no way of knowing that this is the only thing said account will be used for. Best to stomp it quick.

That being said, it IS funny.

I just still remember being asked by a work colleague to add them on Facebook. I said "oh sorry I don't do social media." His response was "yeah you do, everyone has Facebook."

Yeah, been there, done that.

Any time I tell someone I dont use Facebook or Twitter they look at me as if an entire bear just crawled out of my ear.

If I tell them WHY I dont use it, well, then it's more like that bear was also purple and floated away after showing up.

They just cant comprehend either part of it.

Honestly I've been on the internet for a bloody long time, and have been a forum user since the very beginning, and that's likely what I'll stay as. The only exception is on Steam, I'll occasionally post something on the activity feed there, but that's typically just me pointing out that some game exists so that people on my friends list know it's there. Well, okay, Steam is mostly also forums too.

Now, I used to use chat programs a lot... AIM was the big one (AOL Instant Messenger) and it was a bloody depressing day when THAT finally went down. A lot of memories with that....

 

[UberScout]

. People are being so dramatic about it, it's out of control.

What did you expect? That's society. People just don't change, for better or worse. Why do you think I have no faith in it anymore?

 

[MildredHubble]

I've been telling people to get offa this nonsense for ages, nobody ever listens to me. It's nothing but trouble, I said.

And now suddenly it all goes sour. WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?!?!?

...well not me, actually, I only just got up. I can laugh later.




To be 100% fair:

Naming an account the exact same name as someone "big" is a really slimy... and dangerous... thing to do. It's a HUGE problem on Youtube right now, and is causing no end of trouble... both for the admins AND the users. And I dont mean the users who name their accounts that way. I mean the users who end up as victims of the scams that those named accounts are used for. Or worse.

I dont like Twitter or anyone involved with it, but knocking out accounts of that type quickly is absolutely the correct thing to do in this case. Regardless of why those accounts were made. "it's just a prank, bro" may be harmless, but... the admins have no way of knowing that this is the only thing said account will be used for. Best to stomp it quick.

That being said, it IS funny.



Yeah, been there, done that.

Any time I tell someone I dont use Facebook or Twitter they look at me as if an entire bear just crawled out of my ear.

If I tell them WHY I dont use it, well, then it's more like that bear was also purple and floated away after showing up.

They just cant comprehend either part of it.

Honestly I've been on the internet for a bloody long time, and have been a forum user since the very beginning, and that's likely what I'll stay as. The only exception is on Steam, I'll occasionally post something on the activity feed there, but that's typically just me pointing out that some game exists so that people on my friends list know it's there. Well, okay, Steam is mostly also forums too.

Now, I used to use chat programs a lot... AIM was the big one (AOL Instant Messenger) and it was a bloody depressing day when THAT finally went down. A lot of memories with that....

How do I give this a winner and a laughie face too? Lol! I like the bit about the bear crawling out of your ear. I wonder if we worked with the same people? Lol!

Yeah, it was a bit silly to rename their accounts like that but the Twitter handle stayed the same apparently. I can see the funny side. But deleting their accounts I think was a bit much. It's clear Elon Musk is announcing his intention to be a fickle tyrant. Just like he is with the other companies he "owns".

 

[Magna]

Twitter is interesting to me for the following reason: In my opinion regular Twitter users think everyone else uses Twitter as much as or similar to the amount they use it. When in reality, strip away the Twitter bots, apply the actual number of legitimate human Twitter users against the entire population and the number of people per capita that actually use Twitter seems to be MUCH smaller than people assume. It's an echo chamber.

I even did a poll on here when Musk first showed interest in purchasing it asking how many people from this forum use Twitter. The percentage was below 20% if I recall. I bet that's about right for the general population as well.

Maybe it's not quite the same, but I imagine if regular viewers of the Breitbart news site (another echo chamber) were all of a sudden up in arms about how their favorite platform is changing. The majority of the population wouldn't care since most of us don't go to that website.

Twitter could disappear tomorrow and it literally wouldn't affect my life in the least.

 

[Misery]

When in reality, strip away the Twitter bots, apply the actual number of legitimate human Twitter users against the entire population and the number of people per capita that actually use Twitter seems to be MUCH smaller than people assume. It's an echo chamber.

This makes me think of the "Dead Internet Theory".

If you've never heard of it, look it up. Obviously it aint actually real... probably... but it's a fun rabbit hole to jump into.

 

[Mary Terry]

I'm mystified why Musk thinks he can attract advertising dollars by berating private companies who have cancelled their Twitter ads. "Free speech" includes the right to NOT speak (or advertise). Is it "free speech" to try to force companies to advertise on Twitter by threatening them with consumer boycotts? Most American companies really don't want their ads placed adjacent to some screed from ISIS or some alien hallucination from Marjorie Taylor Greene. It seems Musk belatedly realized that people and companies vote with their dollars and has now decided that perhaps there needs to be some vetting of Twitter posts after all.

BTW, I've never had Facebook, Twitter, TikTok or any kind of social media account (this website doesn't count as social media, IMHO). And I'm still alive!!!! Shocking.

 

[Suzanne]

Tried Twitter once and hated it and never used again.

 

[Magna]

This makes me think of the "Dead Internet Theory".

If you've never heard of it, look it up. Obviously it aint actually real... probably... but it's a fun rabbit hole to jump into.

I'd never heard of the "Dead Internet Theory" until you just posted about it. I Googled and skimmed an article. It seems some people who believe this theory to be true go as far as to believe that actors, politicians, etc on TV are or can be deep fake CGI? I don't believe that. But, I also think it's laughable if anyone doesn't believe that the internet is guided or at least impacted and to some degree manipulated by AI or bots and still thinks the internet is 100% actual human based interactions.

 

[MildredHubble]

I'd never heard of the "Dead Internet Theory" until you just posted about it. I Googled and skimmed an article. It seems some people who believe this theory to be true go as far as to believe that actors, politicians, etc on TV are or can be deep fake CGI? I don't believe that. But, I also think it's laughable if anyone doesn't believe that the internet is guided or at least impacted and to some degree manipulated by AI or bots and still thinks the internet is 100% actual human based interactions.

There's an entertaining YouTube channel called The Why Files. They covered this a little while back. Quite a fun video to watch FYI