Matt BlazeDec 20, 2022

About a month ago, I observed that two main things I found lacking here vs. Twitter were accounts from professional creatives (artists, etc) and discussion of breaking news.

The creatives have definitely started to arrive. But the breaking news has been much slower. However, it also seems like breaking news is starting to disappear from Twitter.

I wonder what will fill that gap. Perhaps it will be here, eventually.

Show threadMatt BlazeDec 20, 2022
Up until very recently, if there was something important going on anywhere in the world, it was virtually certain to be in my Twitter feed. Not just RTs of media reports, but discussion, etc. That just doesn't seem to be true any more over there. And it's not here yet.
Show threadMatt BlazeDec 20, 2022
I suspect this has much less to do with software features, and algorithms and more to do with culture and who's come over here.
Show threadMatt BlazeDec 20, 2022
A bunch of people telling me I’m “wrong” to want, or would be “better off without” real-time access to breaking news and firsthand accounts. Maybe that’s true for you. But please don’t presume to speak for me. Not everyone wants or needs the same things.
Show threadMatt BlazeDec 20, 2022

The implication, explicitly stated or otherwise, is that if I want those things, I don’t belong here; I should go elsewhere.

I’m staying. Deal with it.

Show threadMatt BlazeDec 21, 2022
As for news, I’m honestly baffled at people who think they can prevent it from being discussed. News is, pretty much by definition, timely information that people are interested in. That’s a huge fraction of what people like to discuss. Trying to stop that in a large-scale communication system isn’t just kind of weird, it’s futile.
Show threadPorkchop D. ClownDec 21, 2022

@mattblaze Okay? But if you mention the word “twitter” my filters are going to block you.

Just saying…

The question isn’t whether the news (however it is defined) should be discussed. The question is whether I should be forced into participating in someone else’s doom scrolling.

Show threadMatt BlazeDec 21, 2022
@obvioustroll yes, you should use the (rather powerful) filtering tools this platform provides! It’s one if the things that let all of us use it in ways that work best for us.
Show threadPorkchop D. Clown

@mattblaze heh. But that raises the whole issue of social bubbles, I guess.

I just went back up the thread you’ve been writing (Previously I only saw the toot I replied to…) and I guess I understand your question about what replaces news on Twitter - but that’s a real hair ball of a problem. Even in Twitter’s heyday no one was getting “all the news”, they were getting the news that they had chosen plus some subset that Twitter’s algorithm’s had decided was commercially interesting to them.
/1

Dec 21, 2022 at 9:34pmWeb
Show threadPorkchop D. ClownDec 21, 2022

@mattblaze (I can’t believe I’m doing a multi-part toot…)

Which brings me f2f with my own convictions - I’ve always been a technoliberal of the “information wants to be free” and “the answer is always more speech” school… but how do you reconcile that with the reality of trying to stand under the firehose and absorb it all?
/2

Show threadPorkchop D. ClownDec 21, 2022
@mattblaze To go all the way back to your original complaint (as I saw it), people inevitably try to find themselves a comfortable niche - whether physically, mentally, or on the in4rw3bz, and they’re going to get upset when reality decides to puncture their bubble. But what else can you do? (I think I’m done now…)