03 August, 2020

Some thoughts on Twitter

I've begun avoiding Twitter, here's why

   This post has been a long time coming. Earlier this year, I decided to
   not actively participate on Twitter, and stick to the fediverse
   primarily. This has been quite possibly the best decision I've made,
   with regard to curating my social / informational feeds -- apart from
   [1]not reading news. I'll try to gloss over some reasons as to why I
   dislike Twitter as a platform, in this post. Bear in mind, these are
   based on my experiences and YMMV.

filter bubbles and radicalization

   I think this can be said about any social network, but the way that
   Twitter is designed only further enables this phenomenon. The more you
   interact / show interest in a specific topic, the more you see of the
   same -- in terms of suggested accounts to follow, notifications/email
   telling you XYZ tweeted this (you probably don't even follow XYZ).

   I've experienced this first hand. I created an alt and followed a few
   prominent right-wing accounts (for science!), and within a day or two,
   my notifications and inbox were filled with similar accounts & tweets.

   This, as a result, means the user is much more likely to see content
   similar to their own perspectives -- a filter bubble. The user is
   effectively isolated in their own ideological bubbles. Consequentially,
   any form of disagreement that occurs is tossed aside as the other
   party's flaw. Surely they wouldn't hold that perspective if they could
   see things your way! It's their ignorance!

   One might argue, however, that they do in fact see a lot of opposing
   viewpoints in their feed. After all, most of mainstream discourse on
   Twitter is just derisive tweets by proponents of either side^[2]1, at
   each other. The left quote-tweeting the right and vice versa, for
   example. In fact, this is pretty much all that today's "news" is about
   -- constant, endless rebuttals to the other's perspective. I still
   think this is filter bubbling -- the constant reaffirmation of your
   ideologies, by taking potshots at the other side.

   And what does constant exposure to a singular viewpoint lead to? That's
   right, radicalization. I won't get into too much detail -- there really
   isn't much to say. I'll just add that I know of a few cases IRL, where
   within little over a year of having created a Twitter account the
   person's political and ideological positions became hard lines -- and
   they now straight up refuse to look at things any other way. This is by
   no means a scientific conclusion; there are various other influencing
   factors, but my point still stands.

favors mistakes over apologies

   Twitter's design is plagued with flaws, but this one takes the cake. If
   you screw up or tweet something incorrect, and it happens to go viral,
   there's literally no good way to publish a correction / apology.
   Quoting the fantastic article by Nick Punt on [3]deescalating conflict
   on social media:

     If we ignore replies, the simple amplification effects of likes,
     replies, retweets, and subtweets leave us exposed and the situation
     can get out of hand. If we delete and post another, people are
     unlikely to see our follow-up, as corrections are rarely viral.
     Similarly, even if we reply, only our viral mistake will be seen in
     the feed of others.

too much USPOL

   This might be a non-issue for US residents, but gosh is it irritating
   to see US politics literally everywhere. I'm of the opinion that USPOL
   is given an unfair amount of attention in mainstream discourse -- to
   the point where it overshadows everything else, and Twitter is no
   exception.

generally unhealthy discourse

   If you take a close look at the overarching theme of most Tweets, or
   even just the popular ones -- you'll notice a fairly negativist outlook
   across most, if not all of them. The [4]r/2meirl4meirl kind.^[5]2 This
   is a very unhealthy environment to socialize in. Constantly brooding
   over things you can't really affect is quite pointless.

   Another general theme is the constant need for one-upping the other --
   the never-ending contest of who's going to post the most clever
   comeback. For what? For the likes and retweets, of course. This is also
   what most of "cancel culture" is really about -- pick a target, post
   screenshots, add a snide remark: voilà, you have a somewhat popular
   tweet.

why don't you just curate your feed then bro?

   Yeah, no. I've tried. The problem is, following someone for the
   technical content doesn't imply they're constantly only going to post
   that -- and that's their prerogative. And Twitter's annoying "XYZ liked
   this tweet" doesn't help either. Trying to make your Twitter timeline
   BS-free is like trying to straighten a dog's tail.

   So what do I suggest then? I really don't know. Honestly, all social
   media sucks. The entire idea is so contrived and the world would've
   been better off without it -- the incessant, mind-numbing feed of
   information. But the shinier turd here is the fediverse. It's not
   governed by $BIGTECH, and extremists have decided to stick to their own
   echo chambers like Gab. Oh, and the other side propagates massive
   blocklists for the tiniest of infractions (defined by them), so they
   effectively echo chambered themselves too. I'm not complaining.

     "All social media sucks, but the fediverse sucks less."
                                      -- Me, 2020
     __________________________________________________________________

    1. By which I mean any two ideologically opposing groups. Not
       restricted to politics.
    2. Most posts on that sub are just screenshots of tweets, so...

References

   1. https://icyphox.sh/blog/dont-news
   2. https://icyphox.sh/home/icy/leet/site/build/blog/twitter/temp.html#fn:1
   3. https://nickpunt.com/blog/deescalating-social-media/
   4. https://reddit.com/r/2meirl4meirl
   5. https://icyphox.sh/home/icy/leet/site/build/blog/twitter/temp.html#fn:2