So "X" - nothing to see here. Elon's in control - Part XXX **Threadbans in OP**

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119852646#Comment_119852646

A lot of bigging up Mastadon. A lot of laughing at Musk.

For whatever reason GBNews kept popping up for me. I follow an Irish journalist who follows all nearby news agencies but no other connections and for whatever reason the algorithm was pushing them above the rest. No idea if that was an Elon change or not or possibly if I clicked into the comments at some point.

A lot of celebrating mid term results.

lmao10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119852490#Comment_119852490

Wow hes a total scumbag isn't he? No wonder he appeals to that same demographic.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119852677#Comment_119852677

Shock , horror, an existing community is requiring new members to comply with community standards

Burty330

Twitter is seeing record high growth. All the media coverage has attracted huge traffic to the site. It reminds of what Obi Wan said to Vader before he was struck down. lol

https://watcher.guru/news/twitter-user-growth-is-at-a-record-high-in-elon-musks-first-week

I’m trying to like Mastodon, I really am! …

But it’s getting to the stage that you’re being told to put a content warning on your content warnings.

My timeline is just full of preachy posts from various ‘instances’ lecturing everyone about etiquette.

Someone literally told someone off because she posted a photo of her lunch which contained chicken and one of the accounts I was accidentally following told her that it was offensive to vegans.

There are people demanding content warnings on Wordle, I have been told to put a content warning up on anything to do with “hard news” too.

I commented on the US elections and was told to use a CW.

I also forgot to use accessible captions a photo and got told off.

Maybe I’m following all the wrong people - I did way too many random follows and follow backs. My account is now a mess! Aggh.

Jaysus! I think I’ll just give up on the internet entirely. Between this and Twitter now being a hellish mess I just don’t have the energy for it.

Seems like Twitter is gone and the replacements are not quite there yet.

I’m off to Boards and Reddit. That’s the end of my microblogging days.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119852646#Comment_119852646

Mostly because I tweeted a few incidentally pro LGBTQ things which I’d always have done in the past without any incident, but recently started getting really vicious responses. Mostly from ppl far away. So it’s not like it’s any thing changing locally.

I posted a few other random things RTd a post in defence of Ukrainian refugees and got trolled too.

Several ppl I know on Twitter both just virtually and in person have also been targets of very organised trolling and even direct threats. That’s also not been something I’ve seen or had anyone in my circle experience before.

Then I’m just noticing a lot of threads endlessly accidentally giving airtime to the usual fringe extremist nutters - mostly conspiracy theorists and anti immigration types. The people who are posting are either shocked or challenging them, but it’s just the whole atmosphere has changed.

I honestly think the Trump US political era and the lockdowns caused a massive uptick in just obnoxious atmosphere. It’s hard to explain, but it’s just not the bit of banter it used to be. It’s been people getting vicious and personal and that’s kinda where I draw a line.

I know it’s always had its issues, and I’m willing to roll with the punches to a degree, but I just found a few things have gotten extra vicious recently. That’s what’s putting me off.

It’s sad to see it go weird and I enjoyed the place for over a decade at this stage, but it just feels like it’s gone - a bit like a pub that used to be fun but has just gone.

I’ll miss Twitter but it’s just not Twitter anymore.

Hungry Burger

If he doesn’t eventually end up unbanning Donald Trump it will be one of the greatest trolls in history.

marieholmfan

I think Donald Trump at some stage claimed that Musk dropped to his knees and begged him for money (clearly this was hyperbole).

It also seems that Donald Trump's website truthsocial does not currently accept new members.

Big brained, definitely wanted to pay $44,000,000,000 for Twitter, Dear Leader.

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1590358587196538881

Christy42

The first of the changes seem to have started. Blue tucks have started to get "offici" written on their home page. This does not work on mobile Internet for some reason. This seems to be the new verification or a "blue tick" if you will.

It doesn't seem to appear on posts which is annoying and means you need to click in to see if it is the right person and then back out to the thread. Payment not required for the blue tick as of yet, unsure when that is coming in.

AndrewJRenko

Great to see that deeply thought out plan rolling out smoothly again

https://twitter.com/techcrunch/status/1590386137037611023?s=46&t=HlMhSjj4JXIk0fym6VM3eg

They seem to be retaining the old white tick and the word “official” for verification as it was always been done for public figures, celebrities, corporate bodies and institutional accounts, government agencies etc etc but they’re doing a ‘blue tick’ if you pay up, which is what Twitter Blue was doing already. Bit of back tracking!

The rest of it is all a bit up in the air. I think the Twitter world is going to find itself caught in a Muskian stream of consciousness, as he just flies kite after kite 🪁

bokale

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119852646#Comment_119852646

For me the main change is people saying its over, saying they are leaving and linking their mastodon accounts. But they are all still there tweeting away. I think the addiction to it will make it win out.

Also i think people underestimate how much work and tech goes into creating a platform that works at such scale. People want to be part of a massive global network that never really has down time or outages and works pretty much perfectly every time you load it up.

bokale

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119854410#Comment_119854410

Twitter blue didn't previously give you a tick I think?

Quantum Erasure

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119854424#Comment_119854424

Yeah, I had a feeling it'd be like that...

Another thread on mastodon here, mods can read your 'private' messages, there is no appeal system, it's their own private fiefdom, and if you don't like it, you can **** off

https://mobile.twitter.com/ShamingDeValera/status/1590340691053678592

It's being compared to boards, or reddit/Ireland when it was at it's worst, but it's looking a lot worse than that...

I've nothing against mastodon, I just don't like the hysteria that has seen them flooded with probably more users than they can handle

bokale

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119854505#Comment_119854505

Your twitter dms are not end to end encrypted either as far as I know.

It's the same with other platforms people moved to from WhatsApp thinking they are better privacy wise, but in some cases WhatsApp was better if you ...believed them.

Maybe it will educate people in this respect!

I wouldn’t use DMs on any of those platforms for anything even remotely confidential. Twitter reportedly had very little security and the DMs were fully accessible to them. There was never any kind end to end encryption.

I never assume privacy exists on opaque systems.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119855655#Comment_119855655

It does not and if they say it does they are lying.

I don’t think they ever claimed anything about it tbf

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119855676#Comment_119855676

I meant more people than the platforms as platforms are not stupid enough to suggest that.

Quantum Erasure

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119854527#Comment_119854527

I know but I wouldn't expect to be getting into personal interactions with twitter mods, as opposed to boards or r/Ireland, i'd be more worried if mods of those forums could read PMs, the scale of the thing provides some security.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119855724#Comment_119855724

For general people I explain it this way as an IT person. Think of it as Your naked when your on the internet and work from there. Don't do or say anything you would not say in a conversation. Basic security stuff like 2-3 way authentication. The government can get any relevant info on you via your ISP. Use a VPN when you can. Basics. wont harp on.

Oh I forgot to. Wear sunscreen.

Quin_Dub

So , they've already scrapped the "Official" tag system as it turns out it was just about as bad an idea as it seemed.

And seemed like they've suspended the $8 blue check thing as well , because that also went about as well as you'd expect - Almost instantly the place was swamped with "verified" accounts that were fakes of high profile users.

Initially it seemed to be mostly sports related - a fake LeBron James announcing he was leaving LA for example and multiple other similar types of posts from fake accounts that initially got lots of traction before eventually being deleted.

Musk tweeted :- "Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months, We will keep what works & change what doesn’t."

I'm all for taking risks and trying things , but that's what A/B testing is for - Beta testing in the live environment is just plain dumb.

Shambolic really.

bokale

.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119856428#Comment_119856428

Beta testing is always(?) done in a live environment though no?

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119856471#Comment_119856471

Not for any software i've been involved in.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119856471#Comment_119856471

There are lots of ways to test , Beta testing is usually done in a closed environment reserved for internal testers or trusted customers.

External testing is mostly done via A/B testing theses days.

A/B testing is where you launch a new feature to a subset of users to get feedback and monitor impacts.

Usually you set a value like 1% of site traffic will get directed to version X and everyone else goes to the standard version - That way you have enough traffic to allow you to validate if something works and does what you want without the risk of breaking it for everyone.

You also can use focus groups where you bring in a random selection of users and show them the new features and see what they tell you.

Those are just some of the ways people test and deploy new features online.

Given the speed of implementation , twitter seem likely to have done none of that , which is really not good.

Christy42

All the trolls are obvious but they were obvious before. And now they have blue checkmark which is now a bigger indicator of trolls than anything else right now.

So everything just requires more work to figure out and is just not what I want from my time line. More than anything else the troll problem is far worse though I guess Elon is getting 8 dollars a pop for them at least. Not sure that covers advertising issues who will not be reassured.

Edit: online information should generally be verified but twitter was great for smaller level stuff like sports. You could glance through, quickly spot the blue check marks and get the injury or trade news really quickly. Of course we were told that Musk had it all planned out and must have had a plan cos he has money. Even when his plan was painfully obvious to be terrible.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119856611#Comment_119856611

There's a way to check if the blue check is from someone genuine or if they have paid for it.

https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/1590429532401840129?t=6LjKyC_Lbu5rpPbcoGwRJQ&s=19

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119856788#Comment_119856788

Yeah, the user name (the @ person name) is generally obvious enough to tell if it is the person or not as well by looking closer at the post.

It isn't insurmountable but was a quality of life thing that made skimming through twitter easier and quicker to see what needed verification or you could trust. Now it adds more steps to that process. Blue ticks could lie before but if you know who the person was you knew how much to trust them at a glance.

It has also added more spam. People know they get more attention with the tick mark and so the trolls are more frequent as they get the attention they want so it clogs up the time line further.

I mean it is a private company and can do what they want but I can send my traffic to a site that better suits what I want.

lmao10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119856428#Comment_119856428

Comical all round. It just seems like a very stupid idea isn't it.

Also wondering if I can get an update on the Panti Bliss account from the "pro-Mr. Musk" men in the thread who seem to monitor it as it has been mentioned a couple of times in the thread? Has Panti paid for it?