General / Off-Topic Twitter begone!

[Stealthie]

Just can't do it any more.

I was an early-adopter of Twitter and I originally used it as a sort of "SMS+".
I was on Twitter with a bunch of mates and we'd all use it for letting each other know when we were visiting each other's towns, or doing anything that we might be interested in.
And then celeb's started using Twitter and I started following various sports personalities and TV celeb's just to see what they were up to.

Now, though, it's just insane (and I don't use that word lightly).
It's bonkers the way, despite Twitter's ever more wildly bizarre attempts to "moderate" it, you're never more than a couple of clicks away from properly deluded extremists.

I'll be reading Tweets from, say, the Mercedes F1 team about their updates, see a nutty reply, click that conversation (just to see what's going on) and suddenly I'll find myself in a world filled with insane people.
I'm not sure whether I should be more concerned a how many nutters there are on Twitter or that the nutters on Twitter are (presumably) real people who're out in society while also being nutters.

It's kind of strange the way you start using something and then accept more and more negative things about it without really stopping to ask yourself whether the bad things outweigh (or completely negate) the good.
I guess it's the metaphorical "boiling a frog" thing.

Ironically (and at the risk of making this "political"), I'm an advocate for free-speech so I don't think people should be prevented from making hateful, bigoted or downright batshit crazy posts but Twitter is just so full of that stuff, now, that I don't need to see it any more.

Anybody else giving up on social media?

 

[Arkadi]

This forum is about the only online medium, outside of games, I use where I, sort of, communicate with other people.

I see it in some of the other online-games where poeple sometimes do trash-talk. But I don't take this seriously. It's mostly youngsters being silly, or old farts being grumpy, I guess.

Don't know about that stuff you are talking about. Maybe some of the commenatris on my favorite news-pages.. some of them are stupid, but there usually are as much more or less sane counter commentaries, so, I don't see the world falling apart there.

 

[Vasea Azure]

I used Facebook once as my school kind of forced me as they would post important notices only via their FB page... ehhh.
Never used it for anything more, never had Twitter or any other social network thingy. I simply did not needed any of it really, and never understood why folks feel the need of telling/exposing every minor detail of their everydays life to entire world.
And I still dont want a touch it with a ten feel long stick. Too much "ideology" and politics over there.
As a hermit crab that I`m I pretty much only use Frontier forums and my Steam account with all 4 folks on the friends list haha.

 

[Stealthie]

I used Facebook once as my school kind of forced me as they would post important notices only via their FB page... ehhh.
Never used it for anything more, never had Twitter or any other social network thingy. I simply did not needed any of it really, and never understood why folks feel the need of telling/exposing every minor detail of their everydays life to entire world.

A lot of people seem to forget this but, back when Twitter first kicked-off, it was touted as being a combination of email and SMS.

The idea was, for example, you'd have a bunch of work-mates on Twitter and then you could send a message saying something like "Heading to the chip-shop at lunchtime. Anybody want anything?".

Alas, then it became popular for celeb's to use for PR, for narcisists to use to tell the world how fabulous they are and for nutters to use to, erm, show the world just how mental they are.

Shame really cos Twitter was superb for the way I originally used it but (and I really don't like using buzzwords) it's just horrifically "toxic" now.

If, out of curiosity, you want to see what I mean, just pick any outspoken public figure and google "[person's name] twitter" and then take a look at their time-line.
It's almost guaranteed that you won't have to scroll through more than a dozen comments before you start seeing some really unpleasant stuff.

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

I came of Twitter last year. It’s a cesspit. There is nothing ‘social’ about it. Far from bringing people together, it’s become a battleground.

It also reminds me of those giant chicken sheds, all in there skwarking loudly but not one of them listening.

Came of FB years ago.

The difference between Twitter & FB is at least I’m not related to the racists on Twitter.

 

[Arkadi]

A lot of people seem to forget this but, back when Twitter first kicked-off, it was touted as being a combination of email and SMS.

The idea was, for example, you'd have a bunch of work-mates on Twitter and then you could send a message saying something like "Heading to the chip-shop at lunchtime. Anybody want anything?".

Alas, then it became popular for celeb's to use for PR, for narcisists to use to tell the world how fabulous they are and for nutters to use to, erm, show the world just how mental they are.

Shame really cos Twitter was superb for the way I originally used it but (and I really don't like using buzzwords) it's just horrifically "toxic" now.

If, out of curiosity, you want to see what I mean, just pick any outspoken public figure and google "[person's name] twitter" and then take a look at their time-line.
It's almost guaranteed that you won't have to scroll through more than a dozen comments before you start seeing some really unpleasant stuff.

Maybe 'what's up app' is more for you then? That's the thing that really replaced SMS where I am. Make a group for work, for family and for friends, share pics and stuff. But be wary about privacy.

I think "what's app" has the right to use anything anyone posts for themselves, that might be problematic in edge cases.

edit: when I think about it, at my work we even have instructions that we may not post work related pictures over "what's app" because it does not fit the EU Privacy regulations.

 

[Chris Simon]

Just can't do it any more.

I was an early-adopter of Twitter and I originally used it as a sort of "SMS+".
I was on Twitter with a bunch of mates and we'd all use it for letting each other know when we were visiting each other's towns, or doing anything that we might be interested in.
And then celeb's started using Twitter and I started following various sports personalities and TV celeb's just to see what they were up to.

Now, though, it's just insane (and I don't use that word lightly).
It's bonkers the way, despite Twitter's ever more wildly bizarre attempts to "moderate" it, you're never more than a couple of clicks away from properly deluded extremists.

I'll be reading Tweets from, say, the Mercedes F1 team about their updates, see a nutty reply, click that conversation (just to see what's going on) and suddenly I'll find myself in a world filled with insane people.
I'm not sure whether I should be more concerned a how many nutters there are on Twitter or that the nutters on Twitter are (presumably) real people who're out in society while also being nutters.

It's kind of strange the way you start using something and then accept more and more negative things about it without really stopping to ask yourself whether the bad things outweigh (or completely negate) the good.
I guess it's the metaphorical "boiling a frog" thing.

Ironically (and at the risk of making this "political"), I'm an advocate for free-speech so I don't think people should be prevented from making hateful, bigoted or downright batshit crazy posts but Twitter is just so full of that stuff, now, that I don't need to see it any more.

Anybody else giving up on social media?

I never started with social in the first place. I have a Facebook page for my business but it's mostly unattended as I wouldn't know how to use it even if I wanted to. Never tried Twitter, Instagram, or any other thingy. The closest I cam to social media was Elite Discord and even that turned out to be a dump. The worst people here are the best people there. It's a circus.
Sometimes I think that the social media are just for people excomunicated from real, normal social life.

 

[metatheurgist]

Anybody else giving up on social media?

Never started. The only way to win is to not play.

 

[znôrt]

Anybody else giving up on social media?

giving up? twitter is cool, just ignore the 97,2% of dumb people there.

i have an account. i don't tweet myself but i follow a few accounts, specially one buddy of mine who doesn't stop posting metaphors, aphorisms, thought provoking contradictions or mere plays of words, and even short stories fitting in a tweet. it's what he likes to do, and the platform is very suited for that. and 'i follow him' is quite an exaggeration meaning i now and then check up on him and some other weirdos and have a good read and may even jump around his followers and possibly find a few funny pearls to think about, but that's about it.

what can i say ... everyone on twitter is just product, that much should be clear by know. but all in all, it's just a tool with many good uses. dunno, just stop following dumb people?

 

[Speedcuffs]

Just can't do it any more.

I was an early-adopter of Twitter and I originally used it as a sort of "SMS+".
I was on Twitter with a bunch of mates and we'd all use it for letting each other know when we were visiting each other's towns, or doing anything that we might be interested in.
And then celeb's started using Twitter and I started following various sports personalities and TV celeb's just to see what they were up to.

Now, though, it's just insane (and I don't use that word lightly).
It's bonkers the way, despite Twitter's ever more wildly bizarre attempts to "moderate" it, you're never more than a couple of clicks away from properly deluded extremists.

I'll be reading Tweets from, say, the Mercedes F1 team about their updates, see a nutty reply, click that conversation (just to see what's going on) and suddenly I'll find myself in a world filled with insane people.
I'm not sure whether I should be more concerned a how many nutters there are on Twitter or that the nutters on Twitter are (presumably) real people who're out in society while also being nutters.

It's kind of strange the way you start using something and then accept more and more negative things about it without really stopping to ask yourself whether the bad things outweigh (or completely negate) the good.
I guess it's the metaphorical "boiling a frog" thing.

Ironically (and at the risk of making this "political"), I'm an advocate for free-speech so I don't think people should be prevented from making hateful, bigoted or downright batshit crazy posts but Twitter is just so full of that stuff, now, that I don't need to see it any more.

Anybody else giving up on social media?

Stopped a long time ago.
I still get people I know 'interrogating' me as two why I'm not on Twitter, Facebook blah blah.

If it's not serving me, I ain't interested.

(I was also a victim of hacking, got very bad.)

 

[Stealthie]

what can i say ... everyone on twitter is just product, that much should be clear by know. but all in all, it's just a tool with many good uses. dunno, just stop following dumb people?

It's not just the people you "follow" though.

It's more the way that you only ever have to click on a couple of things to find yourself reading something or other than most reasonable people would think is bonkers.
And, of course, you start to feel like you should comment on things you think are bonkers... and end up getting sucked into the whole thing.

I've been seeing more and more nutty stuff in the last year or so, it's getting harder and harder to ignore it and it's become more and more apparent that the bad outweighs the good/useful stuff.

It's kind of like living in a cheap-rent apartment but then gradually discovering that most of your flat-mates are crackheads, zealots, weirdos, racists, anarchists or whatever (and not in a funny "Young Ones" kind of way).

 

[znôrt]

I've been seeing more and more nutty stuff in the last year or so, it's getting harder and harder to ignore it and it's become more and more apparent that the bad outweighs the good/useful stuff.

that's the problem i see with all these platforms: twitter, fb, g+. they are definitely not platforms suited for discussions. the way content is chosen to be presented to you should be a clue, the whole interface and algorithm shows that: it's all about headlines and grabbing attention, the space and tools for actual discussion (let alone public, crowd discussion) is ill suited at best, actually cumbersome and directly discouraging. you can't have a manageable sizable conversation tree there simply for technical reasons, it is really not meant for that. so ... don't expect actual rational discussion, good quality one no less?

usenet was for that. now web fora are the closest thing, but turning more and more social-media-alike.

so, to "don't follow dumb people" i should add "and don't try to discuss anything on a medium that is explicitly not made for discussion, but for attention grabbing"!

 

[jasonbarron]

Just can't do it any more.

I was an early-adopter of Twitter and I originally used it as a sort of "SMS+".
I was on Twitter with a bunch of mates and we'd all use it for letting each other know when we were visiting each other's towns, or doing anything that we might be interested in.
And then celeb's started using Twitter and I started following various sports personalities and TV celeb's just to see what they were up to.

Now, though, it's just insane (and I don't use that word lightly).
It's bonkers the way, despite Twitter's ever more wildly bizarre attempts to "moderate" it, you're never more than a couple of clicks away from properly deluded extremists.

I'll be reading Tweets from, say, the Mercedes F1 team about their updates, see a nutty reply, click that conversation (just to see what's going on) and suddenly I'll find myself in a world filled with insane people.
I'm not sure whether I should be more concerned a how many nutters there are on Twitter or that the nutters on Twitter are (presumably) real people who're out in society while also being nutters.

It's kind of strange the way you start using something and then accept more and more negative things about it without really stopping to ask yourself whether the bad things outweigh (or completely negate) the good.
I guess it's the metaphorical "boiling a frog" thing.

Ironically (and at the risk of making this "political"), I'm an advocate for free-speech so I don't think people should be prevented from making hateful, bigoted or downright batshit crazy posts but Twitter is just so full of that stuff, now, that I don't need to see it any more.

Anybody else giving up on social media?

Perhaps you should define what you mean by "nutters" with a bit of specificity. For instance, right now in the USA people who are the far left would say that Candace Owens or Jordan Peterson were nutters and otherwise disparage their world view point/social voice by using pejoratives to marginalize them, all in an effort to have them de-platformed, so the term as it applies to social media needs a bit more explanation than simply labeling people as being crazy.

For the record, I myself abandoned my nearly 3000 FB platform back in late 2011, just flipped the switch to "off" without thinking twice. Various forums around the Internet are the closest I go to social media nowadays.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I found that simply not following people who are, spread, or attract stupid makes Twitter a really nice place. Basically what I did was consequently unfollow or block anything or anyone who perpetrated mainstream SJW stuff or got offended at the fart of a bee, and two weeks later things were good.

Oh, and like Youtube, don't read replies.

 

[Stealthie]

Perhaps you should define what you mean by "nutters" with a bit of specificity. For instance, right now in the USA people who are the far left would say that Candace Owens or Jordan Peterson were nutters and otherwise disparage their world view point/social voice by using pejoratives to marginalize them, all in an effort to have them de-platformed, so the term as it applies to social media needs a bit more explanation than simply labeling people as being crazy.

For the record, I myself abandoned my nearly 3000 FB platform back in late 2011, just flipped the switch to "off" without thinking twice. Various forums around the Internet are the closest I go to social media nowadays.

Well I don't want to euthanize this thread with the "P word" but the main thing I dislike is just how rabid a lot of Twitter seems to be.
If you're looking at political stuff, there's people who'll howl that everything that somebody says/does means they're a n*zi or a communist (why IS one of those words acceptable here while the other isn't?), if you're looking at environmental stuff then there's people who seem to think it's justifiable to wipe out millions of people to save some penguins while others think it's okay to edadicate all animal life to make a few bucks, if you're looking at sport there's people who think it's okay for their hero to punch somebody in the face while other athletes should face a firing squad for wearing the "wrong" brand of sneakers.

Seems like you can't discuss whether rice-krispies are better than corn-flakes without encountering somebody who thinks that a beheading is justifiable for something or other.

 

[Arkadi]

Could it be you are victim of the so called "filter bubble"?

Filter bubble - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You know, you're getting more stuff of the same and less diversity - because most social media feed you what you search for...

edit:
I am not saying you are looking for bad stuff. It could be that you just get confronted with more bad stuff, since you are not actively blocking it. The more of this kind of stuff you look at, the more the algorithms may be throwing at you, that's what I meant.

And I don't even know if Twitter works like that.

 

[Stealthie]

Could it be you are victim of the so called "filter bubble"?

Filter bubble - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You know, you're getting more stuff of the same and less diversity - because most social media feed you what you search for...

edit:
I am not saying you are looking for bad stuff. It could be that you just get confronted with more bad stuff, since you are not actively blocking it. The more of this kind of stuff you look at, the more the algorithms may be throwing at you, that's what I meant.

And I don't even know if Twitter works like that.

TBH, I doubt that I am was active enough on Twitter to invoke that sort of thing.
I follow a few mates, some athletes, petrol-head stuff and some fairly "tame" youtubers such as Adam Savage and Scott Manley.
I don't (dare to) even follow anything video-game related on Twitter 'cos that entire genre is especially filled with nutters these days.

It's mostly the way you can take any "event" that's happening in the world (be it a sports event, festival, news story, political thing or whatever), do a search for it on Twitter and within a few posts you'll almost certainly find something seriously unpleasant that I've had enough of.

Like I said, I'm okay with people being able to post that stuff but I just don't want to see it any more.

 

[jasonbarron]

Well I don't want to euthanize this thread with the "P word" but the main thing I dislike is just how rabid a lot of Twitter seems to be.
If you're looking at political stuff, there's people who'll howl that everything that somebody says/does means they're a n*zi or a communist (why IS one of those words acceptable here while the other isn't?), if you're looking at environmental stuff then there's people who seem to think it's justifiable to wipe out millions of people to save some penguins while others think it's okay to edadicate all animal life to make a few bucks, if you're looking at sport there's people who think it's okay for their hero to punch somebody in the face while other athletes should face a firing squad for wearing the "wrong" brand of sneakers.

Seems like you can't discuss whether rice-krispies are better than corn-flakes without encountering somebody who thinks that a beheading is justifiable for something or other.

It's just an easy platform to get on, and everyone has an opinion that's now really easy to share. If you're using it for simple messaging and nothing else, the texting app on your phone is the best option.

I agree that twitter is a cesspool, but I don't bother deluding myself about it's overall purpose.

 

[Iskariot]

Just can't do it any more.

I was an early-adopter of Twitter and I originally used it as a sort of "SMS+".
I was on Twitter with a bunch of mates and we'd all use it for letting each other know when we were visiting each other's towns, or doing anything that we might be interested in.
And then celeb's started using Twitter and I started following various sports personalities and TV celeb's just to see what they were up to.

Now, though, it's just insane (and I don't use that word lightly).
It's bonkers the way, despite Twitter's ever more wildly bizarre attempts to "moderate" it, you're never more than a couple of clicks away from properly deluded extremists.

I'll be reading Tweets from, say, the Mercedes F1 team about their updates, see a nutty reply, click that conversation (just to see what's going on) and suddenly I'll find myself in a world filled with insane people.
I'm not sure whether I should be more concerned a how many nutters there are on Twitter or that the nutters on Twitter are (presumably) real people who're out in society while also being nutters.

It's kind of strange the way you start using something and then accept more and more negative things about it without really stopping to ask yourself whether the bad things outweigh (or completely negate) the good.
I guess it's the metaphorical "boiling a frog" thing.

Ironically (and at the risk of making this "political"), I'm an advocate for free-speech so I don't think people should be prevented from making hateful, bigoted or downright batshit crazy posts but Twitter is just so full of that stuff, now, that I don't need to see it any more.

Anybody else giving up on social media?

I am not giving up on social media. Never started using it in the first place. I only have email.
I observed my brother and others using Twitter and Facebook. Totally pointless from what I could see.
Mostly pointless babble about pointless subjects, constantly demanding your attention. Very unhealthy.
A total waste of time and more important... mental health.

 

[Morbad]

I am not giving upon social media. Never started using it. I only have email.
I observed my brother and others using Twitter and Facebook. Totally pointless from what I could see.
Mostly pointles babble aboit pointless subjects. A total waste of time and more important... mental health.

Technically this forum would qualify as social media.