There are rumors that commercial "Twitter for Business" accounts may require paying as much as $1000/mo to maintain their "verified" status, sooo...
--Patrick
[Brazelton] Twitter
- Thread starter Dave
- Start date
--Patrick
There was a big hubbub in all the media, and now everyone is back to reporting on Twitter posts as if nothing happened.
This - and other changes -mean Twitter is no longer the platform for free and unfettered speech where Arabian Spring and other bottom-up revolts can happen and people can escape, it's just a new way to make press releases and for companies and public figures to make announcements.
It'll last for many more years, I'm sure, but it's no longer what it was.
Well, it's still a cesspool.
Well it’s unconfirmed at the moment so what more can they do?
GasBandit
Staff member
Thing is, that has been the cycle for every "this will ruin Twitter, it'll die any second now" thing Elon has done. Everybody bemoans it and then keeps using twitter.
Higher characte rlimits for verified? DEATH OF TWITTER
Allowing Fascism? DEATH OF TWITTER
Paying for Blue? DEATH OF TWITTER
Limiting API access? DEATH OF TWITTER
It used to be "you can yell on Facebook as much as you want, if you want something to change you have to act on it", but now apparently online activists can't even be bothered to actually not go on Twitter.
As long as the MSM (I can't believe I'm using that term unironically) keep treating Twitter as an important source and the number one system for quick updates etc, nothing will change.
Allowing Fascism? DEATH OF TWITTER
Paying for Blue? DEATH OF TWITTER
Limiting API access? DEATH OF TWITTER
It used to be "you can yell on Facebook as much as you want, if you want something to change you have to act on it", but now apparently online activists can't even be bothered to actually not go on Twitter.
As long as the MSM (I can't believe I'm using that term unironically) keep treating Twitter as an important source and the number one system for quick updates etc, nothing will change.
It objectively is though.
No, it is not. Only about 4% of the world’s population has Twitter. Of that, only a quarter of the users create approximately 97% of all tweets. That means 1% of the world creates almost every reaction, response, and idea on the platform. Yet the media is reporting on a small fraction of the population as though it accurately represents the whole (mostly because they are in that 1% group and therefore think it really is everyone).
I never use twitter. But, between reddit, news.google.com, etc, I seem to be up on all the recent news stories.
AP? Reuters? Belga? EPM? Plenty of press agencies out there if you want unfiltered news.
Or, and I know this may be shocking - local news. And for things on the other side of the world - even more shocking....We don't actually need to know within 2 minutes. Especially not through a medium as tightly controlled as Twitter where bots are constantly feeding fake data and manipulating content flow.
GasBandit
Staff member
To be fair, a lot of the reddit "instant news" is sourced from twitter.
Do you actually need "IMMEDIATE" news? Not to sound like an old man, but I remember when "News" was something that happened between 5 and 6 pm exclusively, and we seemed to get by.
Where we are now is the Cable geographic monopoly problem all over again. People have decided they NEED instant notification of anything that happens anywhere and if that means supporting fascism, so be it - because nobody else will step up to spend the huge initial investment capital to replace twitter knowing that pre-Elon twitter was only barely and recently becoming profitable after a decade plus of hemorrhaging money.
Ok I’m glad you all agree with me.
Maybe? But most of what I follow tends to link to Reuters and other website-based news sources. If I see a twitter link, I just never even go to it.
I genuinely don't. If there's something happening locally here, I'll know about it through Facebook LONG before it reaches Twitter. I'll hear about it on local news before it hits Twitter.
If something happens on the other side of the world, I'd still say there are better ways of getting decent information than just using Twitter. It's NOT a reliable source of information (anymore - insofar as it ever was), it's a propaganda tool.
I'm sure that if you were to ask Elon, he would totally be okay with the idea that the 1% SHOULD be the ones creating every idea and response in the world. Just sayin'.
--Patrick
Only if they pay a monthly fee, and he can brag about it.
figmentPez
Staff member
More than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers stopped spending on platform, data show
"Some 625 of the top 1,000 Twitter advertisers, including major brands such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Jeep, Wells Fargo and Merck, had pulled their ad dollars as of January, according to estimates from Pathmatics, based on data running through January 25."
"Some 625 of the top 1,000 Twitter advertisers, including major brands such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Jeep, Wells Fargo and Merck, had pulled their ad dollars as of January, according to estimates from Pathmatics, based on data running through January 25."
GasBandit
Staff member
And yet it won't matter, because people have just decided they can't live without twitter, no matter what Musk does to it.
20 years ago, the internet was a vast array of niche websites and services catering to myriad demands in a vast ecosystem.
10 years ago, the internet changed to basically just be the backend for a handful of social media megacorps. For a new massive influx of normie users, facebook WAS "the internet," for example.
So basically, telling these people to stop using twitter is tantamount to telling them they need to voluntarily give up the internet in its entirety and go back to offline life. For the more tech savvy among us, we might decide we can live with late 90s-early 2000s style internet, going to a different website for each purpose or task. But for the normies, that's as daunting as saying "just compile your own linux kernel." Guys like me, we can use RSS concatenaters and other such things to keep the disparate parts of the internet easily accessible in one place, but for millions of people out there, Twitter was/is the vehicle that brought all the content they wanted to consume to them. What's trending on Twitter became to them what newspaper headlines and evening news were to our parents.
Is there finally a "trust thermocline" as referenced in the video someone posted a week or two back that will finally get them to uninstall twitter and just do without what they've tasted? I don't know. How you gonna get em back on the farm after they've seen Paris?
Maybe the decision will be made for them if Twitter actually goes under and shuts down. But I'm starting to think if that was going to happen, it would have happened by now. How many months ago was it reported that Twitter had stopped paying the rent on their office spaces? Did it actually matter? Apparently they didn't get kicked out or shut down.
20 years ago, the internet was a vast array of niche websites and services catering to myriad demands in a vast ecosystem.
10 years ago, the internet changed to basically just be the backend for a handful of social media megacorps. For a new massive influx of normie users, facebook WAS "the internet," for example.
So basically, telling these people to stop using twitter is tantamount to telling them they need to voluntarily give up the internet in its entirety and go back to offline life. For the more tech savvy among us, we might decide we can live with late 90s-early 2000s style internet, going to a different website for each purpose or task. But for the normies, that's as daunting as saying "just compile your own linux kernel." Guys like me, we can use RSS concatenaters and other such things to keep the disparate parts of the internet easily accessible in one place, but for millions of people out there, Twitter was/is the vehicle that brought all the content they wanted to consume to them. What's trending on Twitter became to them what newspaper headlines and evening news were to our parents.
Is there finally a "trust thermocline" as referenced in the video someone posted a week or two back that will finally get them to uninstall twitter and just do without what they've tasted? I don't know. How you gonna get em back on the farm after they've seen Paris?
Maybe the decision will be made for them if Twitter actually goes under and shuts down. But I'm starting to think if that was going to happen, it would have happened by now. How many months ago was it reported that Twitter had stopped paying the rent on their office spaces? Did it actually matter? Apparently they didn't get kicked out or shut down.
It was two months ago, and of course if the landlord wishes to pursue eviction, that process will have to run its course before Twitter can be expelled, just like any other tenant. And since we're talking California, there's some noticeable due process to chew through.
--Patrick
The fundamental issue right now is "Where are the people I follow going"? No one wants to risk moving everything until it's clear that -this place- is where everyone's going to congregrate, like Twitter was. Until that happens... yes, people will limp along with Twitter.
Remember: the Facebook exodus happened only because people had somewhere else to go.
I'm still on Twitter mostly just to watch it burn. And continue reading people I enjoy following.
I actually got a new phone today and my authenticator info didn't carry over with all the other apps. And my other phone was already factor reset. So I couldn't log back into Twitter at the store. Fortunately, I had a backup code saved on my desktop. Still a pain in the ass, either way.
The thing is, Musk thinks taking away these features will prompt people to subscribe to Twitter Blue. And it won't. So far, the people subscribing to it are people talking about owning libs, NFTs, cyrpto, pick up artist nonsense, etc. The kind of people who religiously drool over any of Musk's bowel movements. The average person will absolutely not pay for what was previously a free service.
I actually got a new phone today and my authenticator info didn't carry over with all the other apps. And my other phone was already factor reset. So I couldn't log back into Twitter at the store. Fortunately, I had a backup code saved on my desktop. Still a pain in the ass, either way.
The thing is, Musk thinks taking away these features will prompt people to subscribe to Twitter Blue. And it won't. So far, the people subscribing to it are people talking about owning libs, NFTs, cyrpto, pick up artist nonsense, etc. The kind of people who religiously drool over any of Musk's bowel movements. The average person will absolutely not pay for what was previously a free service.
figmentPez
Staff member
Our records show that high profile celebrity accounts tend to have a lot of failed attempts to log in. This obviously means that the process is too difficult, so we're going to force all verified users to have 1234 as their password. It's easy to remember; I know because it's the combination to the lock on my luggage. This should drastically reduce the amount of failed log ins.
figmentPez
Staff member
Some days I login to Twitter for work and make the mistake of actually seeing a trending topic that makes me curious, like today it was Putin. (Always kind of hoped, you know...)
"Putin is right." "Ukraine can become glass for all I care, I said it." "Ukraine is arresting Christians and blowing up Churches." "Russia called the US a empire of lies, and everyday it's shown he was right." "We need a Putin, we need to get Trump back so he can make things right."
Thanks Elon, really loving Truth Social 0.1
Never again. Going to get that addon back that just disabled all trending bullshit and anything that leaks through is getting blocked. Really wish I could just quit but I am too deep in followers for my day job and I worked too hard starting over after the Tumblr purge.
"Putin is right." "Ukraine can become glass for all I care, I said it." "Ukraine is arresting Christians and blowing up Churches." "Russia called the US a empire of lies, and everyday it's shown he was right." "We need a Putin, we need to get Trump back so he can make things right."
Thanks Elon, really loving Truth Social 0.1
Never again. Going to get that addon back that just disabled all trending bullshit and anything that leaks through is getting blocked. Really wish I could just quit but I am too deep in followers for my day job and I worked too hard starting over after the Tumblr purge.
figmentPez
Staff member
figmentPez
Staff member