Twitter is basically Truth Social now

[noblegiraffe]

My 'Following' tab is dead because everyone interesting has left.

My 'For you' tab is full of Elon Musk's prolific blithering and other right wing shit, and AI bots commenting on posts generated by AI bots.

Given Musk's exceptionally prominent role in Trump's new government, is it appropriate for UK politicians to be posting on there? I don't think they'd use Truth Social.

Such a shame, it used to be great.

Same

you definitely pay for a blue tick 😶

Lots of people the same opinion though. With exactly the same wording. Those ones are definitely bots. And it’s an issue that’s got a million times worse since Musk took over.

Yes, but you make money from it as well. Except the way you make money is by engagement - so post as many shocking things as you can and when people react in fury you make money. Which is why it is turning into bots posting rage bait and porn.

I deleted twitter after Musk tried stirring trouble around the UK riots.
He is a detestable scum bag and the place is a septic tank of evil minded morons these days.

I used to follow what I thought were interesting accounts from a different perspective but increasingly they just post stuff to goad for engagement and it reaches the point of blocking everyone except the Women's Art account and the menswear guy just to be able to get through the day. So I'm moving away.

It wasn't wrong about the result of the American election. If I got all my news from BBC, Channel 4, Sky etc, I'd have thought it was neck and neck.

This whole thread reads like an advertisement for blue sky.

But other people with Twitter accounts were saying that they had seen a "strong shift" towards Kamala in the final days. Obviously they were wrong and that might well be to do with their own preferences in who they follow. But Twitter clearly isn't never is and never will be a reliable tool for seeing outside your bubble or echo chamber. And blaming people for being in echo chambers in Twitter or any social media is silly - it is algorithms that make those choices not people and how the algorithms work is opaque. Its not a moral failure of people if everyone they see on Twitter is left wing/right wing. We have far more control in real life over who we interact with/listen to (though that is of course also affected by social surroundings etc. Its easier to break out of).

Twitter really feels like Truth Social now—full of Musk's rants, right-wing noise, and AI bots everywhere. My 'Following' tab is dead, and the 'For You' feed is just pure chaos. It's such a shame; it used to be a place to find interesting voices.

I can highly recommend a short YouTube video entitled Tesla = Trump (very easy to find).

It is quite jaw dropping how much X has been manipulated into the services of Trump and his election campaign.

people were going to Threads, which i tried but couldnt get a hang of
i deleted twitter because my phone was full and cant get it on the lap top because i dont know my password!

Now the Guardian has gone too, I’m deleting my account.

The algorithm drives me mad. I follow all the interesting terf accounts but loads of other stuff too. Yet all I get in my feed is gender, gender, gender. Literally on the night of the US election all I had were posts about women's sport and male breast feeding.

It's not the only topic in the world so why is it all they will give me? That and the temu adverts are getting to be intolerable.

I think a lot of posters on this thread need to spend a lots less time online and social media in general. Perspective has been lost. Talk to real people, people who can hold multiple different opinions which sometimes conflict, but they are still likeable honest people just trying their best to muddle through life. Not a right wing nazi or whatever you’ve moved on to calling everyone these days.

Very well said

It's amazing how naive people are. Saying they don't like echo chambers/algorithms and yet extolling such marvellous BlueSky features as 'starter packs' so you can get your new algorithm-designed echo chamber going quickly.

I had to re-curate my X-feed, but it's ok now.

If you treat it like a brand new platform, then curate it like any other SM.
It's not bitchute or rumble... yet.
The For You feed seems to be based on getting people angry. Anger seems to be the most profitable emotion nowadays. And the only one that most people think matters. I'm not most people... I don't want to go on SM or get angry at all. So they completely don't understand me and how my engagement might be monetised. Shame for them....

The top ~20 items on my 'Following' feed today

• ad for AI (I loathe AI
• 3xcommentary on WTO rules & Trump
• ad for some game
• Al Jazeera cricket (I follow AJ but no interest in cricket)
• ScienceGirl on wombats (I highly recommend ScienceGirl)
• Shona Murray retweet about Putin & Ukraine
• Who to Follow notice
• Temu (I have zero interest, not even sure what Temu is)
• ScienceGirl again
• Israel Gaza news again, via Shona Murray
• ScienceGirl again
• Temu again (do they sell uncomfortable, very impractical & over-priced clothes?)
• a little known MP talking about some local development plans
• AP news about rebuilding a large building
• BBC news about missing soldiers 70 yrs ago
• NYT commentary on aspect of Trump
• some stupid game advert
• caption funny from humour account
• ScienceGirl again... the goat getting cuddled
• Nice nature pic from an eco-activist
• Al Jazeera on Gaza & Israel events

PreMusk, I adored Twitter. It made me laugh & be happy & feel informed about actual facts rather than a million opinions. Was the highlight of my lunch stop in the supermarket or to read on the train home. Now I only go on X a few times a week at most.

Real people can tweet.

If x is such a free speech platform, then why Yulia Navalnaya's account has been briefly suspended, a day after it was used to help her challenge the regime?

People sniffily posting on MN about how other people should spend less time online is pretty funny.

That was my policy, too. I enjoyed getting up-to-date news, differing points of view and having lively conversations with all kinds of people.

Then it all stopped. I was added to gigantic blocklists for promoting women's rights and saying people can't change sex. I was being constantly reported, leading to twice-weekly suspensions and eventually a shadowban, which lasted until Musk's takeover (and slightly after). Nobody saw anything I tweeted, so all my cheerily nurtured relationships died. My feed was a randomised mess.

Now with the current exodus, my feed on X is approx 60% terfs, 30% ads and 10% other stuff. This isn't how I'd like it, but I'll be able to tweak it a bit once things have settled down. I shan't be following all the MRAs and TRAs to Bluesky - I'm glad they're buggering off to stroke each other's dicks egos, and hope they'll be satisfied with blocking & cancelling each other over there.

Just checked my rarely used Twitter account. Yep, full of Elon Musk's musings and general right wing hate. Not sure what I've done to create such an algorithm, or is this just the assumed starting point for people who rarely engage?

The Twitter phone app is a mess of unavoidable ads (seem to be every 3 or 4 tweets which feels intrusive) for things I've no interest in and is generally quite awful.

I mostly use Twitter on my laptop though so it's still a pretty pleasant experience as there are no ads and I don't see most of the bluetick replies because I'm using the fantastic Control Panel for Twitter browser add-on, which is free. I'm using it on Firefox but versions are available for other browsers. Once installed you can select what Twitter will and won't show you (for example the 'For you' tab doesn't exist so I only ever see the 'Following' tab). Clutter is removed.

It is fairly miraculous. I never see Elon's tweets (unless someone RTs one of his bletherings into my timeline, though they usually have the good sense to do it as a screenshot). I just see tweets from people I follow. Strongly recommended.

Get it for Firefox | Chrome | Safari | more.

I wrote a blog post here about how to get it up and running but it's pretty much just clicking a button to add to your browser (you may need to refresh your browser) https://howtodotechystuff.wordpress.com/2023/10/18/twitter-is-much-less-of-a-binfire-with-control-panel-for-twitter-free-browser-add-on-extension-worked-example/

That said engagement is down massively and I'm not sure if anyone ever sees any of my tweets but I'm happy reading what others have posted and still find it very useful for stuff related to work and interests (events / resources etc).

Happy tweeting / tweet-reading
Jo

The treatment and bullying of GC women on Twitter pre Musk was horrendous though. Some of the moderation was appallingly misogynistic.