There's an axiom in discussions here where Twitter needs saving.
Why?
In what way is it non successful?
In what way is it broken?
I mean most Twitter discussions I ever saw are disgusting or plain dumb mascarading as profound.
I don't think the medium of a public square like that is a good thing, and I would be happy to see its demise.
But it seems successful in the way it usually lead the public discourse similarly to how newspapers did. So what's exactly wrong with Twitter from that perspective? It seems very successful.
My biggest issue with Twitter is the lack of moderation, theres SO much propaganda on there. I report tweets where someone threatens someone and they are like 'oh no violation'... I reported a tweet with a video of ukraine where they showed un-blured body parts of dead people and a message praising russian soldiers for 'smashing nazis into little pieces'... and it was 'no violation' (thankfully this was removed when I reported it a second time)
And Twitter is banned in China, yet the number of accounts which have location set to China, you shouldn't even be able to select China and there should be no state run media accounts.
Hmmm, I thought musk and Dorsey want less moderation...
Anyway, the ugliness you talk about seems inherent in the medium. I don't think that's fixable, especially as it doesn't seem to hurt Twitter bottom line. Which, let's face it, is the only metric that any corporations really care about.
>My biggest issue with Twitter is the lack of moderation, theres SO much propaganda on there.
Yes and no. There's too little moderation in some areas and way too much in other areas.
If you follow conservative politics, someone can say something like "men are women are biologically different" and they'll have their account banned for a catch-all "hate speech" violation. Meanwhile, someone can say "Trump should be assassinated", and get thousands of retweets and no administrative action.
Case in point, Trump is still banned from Twitter for tweeting "go home in peace and love", yet Putin, the leader of a country we're currently in a proxy war against, still has a verified account.
Bottom line, Twitter is an irredeemable toxic cesspool full of both propaganda and massive censorship.
I think there's actually value in keeping the propaganda but maybe flagging and delisting it. Hell, I think you shouldn't be able to delete either you can maybe add an addendum or follow up for an apology or something but when bad people like Trump and Putin have an easy platform like this it's possible at some point they're going to say the "quiet part" aloud.
Like someone live streaming a crime spree. When it's easier to self incriminate maybe more justice gets met, maybe not.
It's a two edged sword. The best way I think would be use ai to basically score people based on maybe a political compass like with an x and y score then you at least can know a bit about the history and motives of someone.
Plus this would make finding bots easier because if you examine 3 month intervals and someone is top left of political compass then from to bottom right in a wild swing then back to something else it's likely they're playing multiple voices to stir up shit.
Then all your comments have a color or badge representative of your ideals. Could also score things like empathy.
That way also you could have a vote tally that's by side and a unified score.
At least then you kinda know everyone's motives or leanings so you know what to expect. Like I know how convos are going to go when I talk to my right wing family why not normalize knowing how you relate to a perfect stranger based on previous interactions they've had.
Of course this could lead to a dystopian social credit system that would be horrible..
>If you follow conservative politics, someone can say something like "men are women are biologically different" and they'll have their account banned for a catch-all "hate speech" violation.
Weird, I see phrases like this and even some laced with actual hate speech all the time in twitter.
>Bottom line, Twitter is an irredeemable toxic cesspool full of both propaganda and massive censorship.
Damn right in this, they censor the silliest things, but allow even the propaganda that conservatives are censored in twitter.
For Musk, the answer is pretty clearly that he thinks Twitter is poorly run as a business and has no respect or confidence in their management. He thinks he can change the company to make more money.
For all the VC types he's texting with, Twitter is broken because it bans people, and because (they believe) those bans are biased against conservatives. The ban (actually a suspension) of the Babylon Bee twitter account for a satirical article naming a specific individual transwoman "man of the year" seems to have been a radicalizing moment among the tech oligarchy
I didn't see a coherent claim by musk about the business side of Twitter. What are his qualms?
He shitposts all the time, he sends his masses of fan boys to pile on adversaries. These are exactly the type of things that makes Twitter a cesspool.
I guess expecting integrity and coherence from ppl who are the new royalty is anachronistic on my part.
It's all about power and influence. The rest is just show.
I mean most Twitter discussions I ever saw are disgusting or plain dumb mascarading as profound.
I don't think the medium of a public square like that is a good thing, and I would be happy to see its demise. But it seems successful in the way it usually lead the public discourse similarly to how newspapers did. So what's exactly wrong with Twitter from that perspective? It seems very successful.