1   03 August, 2020
  2
  3Some thoughts on Twitter
  4
  5I've begun avoiding Twitter, here's why
  6
  7   This post has been a long time coming. Earlier this year, I decided to
  8   not actively participate on Twitter, and stick to the fediverse
  9   primarily. This has been quite possibly the best decision I've made,
 10   with regard to curating my social / informational feeds -- apart from
 11   [1]not reading news. I'll try to gloss over some reasons as to why I
 12   dislike Twitter as a platform, in this post. Bear in mind, these are
 13   based on my experiences and YMMV.
 14
 15filter bubbles and radicalization
 16
 17   I think this can be said about any social network, but the way that
 18   Twitter is designed only further enables this phenomenon. The more you
 19   interact / show interest in a specific topic, the more you see of the
 20   same -- in terms of suggested accounts to follow, notifications/email
 21   telling you XYZ tweeted this (you probably don't even follow XYZ).
 22
 23   I've experienced this first hand. I created an alt and followed a few
 24   prominent right-wing accounts (for science!), and within a day or two,
 25   my notifications and inbox were filled with similar accounts & tweets.
 26
 27   This, as a result, means the user is much more likely to see content
 28   similar to their own perspectives -- a filter bubble. The user is
 29   effectively isolated in their own ideological bubbles. Consequentially,
 30   any form of disagreement that occurs is tossed aside as the other
 31   party's flaw. Surely they wouldn't hold that perspective if they could
 32   see things your way! It's their ignorance!
 33
 34   One might argue, however, that they do in fact see a lot of opposing
 35   viewpoints in their feed. After all, most of mainstream discourse on
 36   Twitter is just derisive tweets by proponents of either side^[2]1, at
 37   each other. The left quote-tweeting the right and vice versa, for
 38   example. In fact, this is pretty much all that today's "news" is about
 39   -- constant, endless rebuttals to the other's perspective. I still
 40   think this is filter bubbling -- the constant reaffirmation of your
 41   ideologies, by taking potshots at the other side.
 42
 43   And what does constant exposure to a singular viewpoint lead to? That's
 44   right, radicalization. I won't get into too much detail -- there really
 45   isn't much to say. I'll just add that I know of a few cases IRL, where
 46   within little over a year of having created a Twitter account the
 47   person's political and ideological positions became hard lines -- and
 48   they now straight up refuse to look at things any other way. This is by
 49   no means a scientific conclusion; there are various other influencing
 50   factors, but my point still stands.
 51
 52favors mistakes over apologies
 53
 54   Twitter's design is plagued with flaws, but this one takes the cake. If
 55   you screw up or tweet something incorrect, and it happens to go viral,
 56   there's literally no good way to publish a correction / apology.
 57   Quoting the fantastic article by Nick Punt on [3]deescalating conflict
 58   on social media:
 59
 60     If we ignore replies, the simple amplification effects of likes,
 61     replies, retweets, and subtweets leave us exposed and the situation
 62     can get out of hand. If we delete and post another, people are
 63     unlikely to see our follow-up, as corrections are rarely viral.
 64     Similarly, even if we reply, only our viral mistake will be seen in
 65     the feed of others.
 66
 67too much USPOL
 68
 69   This might be a non-issue for US residents, but gosh is it irritating
 70   to see US politics literally everywhere. I'm of the opinion that USPOL
 71   is given an unfair amount of attention in mainstream discourse -- to
 72   the point where it overshadows everything else, and Twitter is no
 73   exception.
 74
 75generally unhealthy discourse
 76
 77   If you take a close look at the overarching theme of most Tweets, or
 78   even just the popular ones -- you'll notice a fairly negativist outlook
 79   across most, if not all of them. The [4]r/2meirl4meirl kind.^[5]2 This
 80   is a very unhealthy environment to socialize in. Constantly brooding
 81   over things you can't really affect is quite pointless.
 82
 83   Another general theme is the constant need for one-upping the other --
 84   the never-ending contest of who's going to post the most clever
 85   comeback. For what? For the likes and retweets, of course. This is also
 86   what most of "cancel culture" is really about -- pick a target, post
 87   screenshots, add a snide remark: voil�, you have a somewhat popular
 88   tweet.
 89
 90why don't you just curate your feed then bro?
 91
 92   Yeah, no. I've tried. The problem is, following someone for the
 93   technical content doesn't imply they're constantly only going to post
 94   that -- and that's their prerogative. And Twitter's annoying "XYZ liked
 95   this tweet" doesn't help either. Trying to make your Twitter timeline
 96   BS-free is like trying to straighten a dog's tail.
 97
 98   So what do I suggest then? I really don't know. Honestly, all social
 99   media sucks. The entire idea is so contrived and the world would've
100   been better off without it -- the incessant, mind-numbing feed of
101   information. But the shinier turd here is the fediverse. It's not
102   governed by $BIGTECH, and extremists have decided to stick to their own
103   echo chambers like Gab. Oh, and the other side propagates massive
104   blocklists for the tiniest of infractions (defined by them), so they
105   effectively echo chambered themselves too. I'm not complaining.
106
107     "All social media sucks, but the fediverse sucks less."
108                                      -- Me, 2020
109     __________________________________________________________________
110
111    1. By which I mean any two ideologically opposing groups. Not
112       restricted to politics.
113    2. Most posts on that sub are just screenshots of tweets, so...
114
115References
116
117   1. https://icyphox.sh/blog/dont-news
118   2. https://icyphox.sh/home/icy/leet/site/build/blog/twitter/temp.html#fn:1
119   3. https://nickpunt.com/blog/deescalating-social-media/
120   4. https://reddit.com/r/2meirl4meirl
121   5. https://icyphox.sh/home/icy/leet/site/build/blog/twitter/temp.html#fn:2