I'm beginning to think a lot of people on Twitter who THINK they're fighting for progressive causes are really more interested in griping at alt-right trolls. Every time I visit Twitter, Kevin Sorbo, Andrew Tate, Kyle Rittenhouse or Trump is trending for something they posted. WHO CARES? All the attention they get from the left is precisely what they crave (and it only helps Musk's Twitter succeed.) Twitter is a place for people addicted to outrage. I like Mastodon better.
Twitter is very different depending on who you have subscribed to. Characterizing its general population from a particular set of anecdotes is perhaps not helpful.
Certainly the mix at Twitter has changed, but some of us who remain are not "addicted to outrage". I generally eschew other than civil discussion, but the people I am subscribed to are civil.
Moreover, among all the stupid changes at Twitter are the occasional good one. There's a "Community Notes" facility where corrective notes about misinformation can be attached to tweets that are otherwise spreading misinformation, provided the "community" agrees (there is some kind of consensus mechanism in play). I'm part of that, at least for now, to see what it does. It remains to be seen how helpful it will be, but it's a worthy experiment. And, oddly, a common thing is for people to want to attach such notes to Musk or MTG or a number of people who you'd think were the favored people at Twitter. In fact, though, the community is more varied.
The thing about Twitter, and why I really stay, has nothing to do with a lust for trolls or trolling. It is that Twitter is connected to many news sources and allows direct access to people who affect the world. I learn about news before it happens on Twitter. Often by time I see it on TV, I've known it for a day or two. For all the civility on Mastodon, and I like that, it isn't really connected to news. As far as I have experienced here, time really doesn't matter here, nothing is urgent. It's like a continuous late-night coffee house chat with friends. And that's lovely. It's just not comparable to Twitter.
The two communities have different goals and structures, so it's hardly surprising they attract different users. I empathize with the very good reasons why many have left, and I won't second guess them. Maybe at some point I'll leave there. But there ARE positive reasons why some might stay, so I would urge you not to disparage others just because you may feel a well-justified need to say it was right for yourself to break free. ... I voted on Musk stepping down, for example, because I was still there to do so. That was a positive. :)
I hope this doesn't come across as a rebuke. I mean it more as a defense of people like me who are choosing to maintain a presence, and perhaps a way for you to see that maybe not everyone is as crazy as you might imagine. Best wishes for harmony in the coming year!
@kentpitman
> The thing about Twitter, and why I really stay, has nothing to do with a lust for trolls or trolling. It is that Twitter is connected to many news sources and allows direct access to people who affect the world.
You realise they affect the world because you give them that power, not because they actually have it, right? If they had no one to listen to them, they would affect nothing.
Last time I checked, no one on the Fediverse had started a war or screwed up the economy, or lied to the public about issues fundamental to them.
@josemanuel @kentpitman Twitter has an algorithm that helps to encourage and reward outrage. Mastodon does not. And both places allow you to connect to news sources. (I just spent the morning connecting to around 100 journalists and news media accounts, ironically.) There is a difference built into how the social networks operate, and I think it's vital to recognize that difference.
@augieray Why do you assume that people have no free will? You can avoid looking at the trends (I did), you can avoid responding to trolls or, at the very least, not with something that escalates the situation. You can create a network of like-minded people who all get along and ignore the rest of Twitter (I did). You can look at bad takes as an attempt at humour that went wrong instead of as a personal insult (I did).
Whatever the case, the algorithm only works if you collaborate with it by amplifying certain voices and ignoring others. Without humans willing to be outraged, the algorithm is nothing. The toxicity is not in the algorithm, nor in the tools, but in the humans.
@josemanuel @kentpitman Your don't seem to realize how the algorithm works. As individuals, everything we do on Twitter impacts the algorithm. But so does what everyone else does. It's possible to reduce the division and outrage with careful pruning of followers. But failing to recognize that Twitter has an outrage machine built into its core product while Mastodon does not is a mistake.
