I was reading a tweet updating moves in the Jan.6 investigation. What do we do without those?

[bigtree]

Last edited Sun Oct 30, 2022, 09:07 PM - Edit history (1)

...detailed stuff that can't be found anywhere else.

It started me thinking about just where I would go to find the same detail of info that I've grown accustomed to on twitter, info that I've relied on for years now.

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of newsmakers, from press to pols to advocates to experts will still be dropping information in tweets which can't be found anywhere else, except, I suppose if you want someone else on the news or somewhere to break those down for you.

Point is, there isn't yet a mass exodus of news sources from twitter. There isn't a mass exodus of pols, either, and we're in the middle of a gd election. There may come a time, but it is not now. Those jumping off are jumping into a wasteland bereft of views and nowhere near the participation level that exists on the admittedly flawed platform.

I hear the calls and testimonials about leaving Twitter, as if walking away makes all of the negative influences and influencers disappear. What kind of self-immolating strategy is it to just cut ties with almost everything which is shaping the politics and political future we're all focused so intently on influencing?

Walk away from the very forum we were just communicating our Democratic messaging across? Just where are we supposed to come up with a forum that generates as many views... in a nanosecond, or even in any imaginable span of time?

Come get me when that happens, because I'll be damned if I believe the owners of Twitter are any more pernicious than the owners and investors in ANY of the major news organizations. How hypocritical is it to act, as some have, as if Twitter is the only compromised media we rely on to communicate and discern what's happening around us? Let me know when the voices we rely on are silenced there.

We're DAYS away from an election and people are out here advocating walking away from our country's biggest organizing and advocacy forum. How many ways can you imagine that hurting our party? It's not only antithetical to what we do here, it's political malpractice.

We have a choice to either directly challenge the negative influences on Twitter, with our own discourse and dissent, or retreat from them and cluck our tongues at how awful they are. I've never retreated (well, almost never ).

[relayerbob]

1. Agreed. Stand our ground

Surrendering the space is self-defeating, and exactly what the right wants people to do. Ain’t happening. Gotta bonk some vatniks, even American ones.

[Mr.Bill]

2. I have never used Twitter

and I consider myself to be relatively well informed.

[bigtree]

4. so much of what's disseminated in mainstream news comes from discussions and postings there

...from pols, journos, advocates, experts, and other officials that directly influence our lives.

I'm trying to imagine myself just letting others dissiminate all of those influences which either indirectly or directly affect so many aspects of our lives.

Trying to imagine being satisfied to just let others to sort all of that out, many of them on my behalf.

[usonian]

3. Just a data point.

While there is merit in what you say,
Recall:
Who will message if we leave AOL?
Who will message if we leave MySpace?
Who will message if we leave Friendster?

When advertisers are fed up, and sources are tired of the hate and threats, they will find other media, including their own websites.

Competing with "bots" is not easy, and current social media sites make feeble efforts to combat them because they sell clicks, however fraudulent).

Why I don't use twitter:
https://democraticunderground.com/100217294467

short:

In life, PULL WORKS, PUSH DOESN'T

Life is like a rope. Pushing on a rope moves nothing but a short piece of rope.
That is like arguing with idiots. The best you can do is "run up some numbers".

By associating with like-minded and GOOD people, you can have some influence in order to make things better.
That would include (hopefully) friends, family, work colleagues, fellow hobbyists and so on.
Unlike the binary "It's you or me" world of Twitter, YOU STAND A CHANCE of making positive change.

There are no open minds on twitter. It's completely polarized.
Control what you can control.
Influence people you know.
We outnumber republican voters. Getting out the vote wins.


Friends Ask Friends to Vote
https://www.aclu.org/news/voting-rights/midterms-friends-ask-friends-to-vote

First, make a list of your people: friends, family, and community groups you are a part of; people you see regularly; and people you work with. Next, identify who on that list aligns with our ACLU values, but may not always vote. Then, let them know there’s an important election coming up and help them make a plan to vote (when, where, and how). Call them if you usually call them, text them if you typically text them, or talk to them when you see them next. We’ll also provide you with a conversation guide

Download the ACLU Midterm Conversation Guide https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/frontend/bundles/midterms/assets/files/aclu-conversation-guide.pdf

Your chances of winning a vote among friends, co-workers, acquaintances are much higher than locking horns with opponents.

And with changes to Section 230 being planned by both sides of the aisle, who's to say that twitter will remain THE forum.
When everyone expects things not to change, they change.

[bigtree]

5. that's fantastical

...there isn't a forum anywhere near as attended as Twitter.

Pols, journos, advocates, experts, officials, candidates...

Telling everyone to look elsewhere is fine, but folks shouldn't pretend there's anything comparable, or anywhere near as well attended.

[Mr.Bill]

7. Where will I get my free music without Napster?

The answer today is YouTube. If Twitter was gone, something new would start up, or the users would just go to other existing platforms.

[bigtree]

8. that's just disingenious to compare the two

...just really blowing past all of the points I raised to make a silly comparison.

Not serious because you're comparing a mostly static collection of recordings to a political culture of debate and discussion..

[Mr.Bill]

11. Actually there's plenty of discussion about things on YouTube

if you read the comments.

And let's try and keep it civil here. Just because you posted your thoughts in an original post, it doesn't give you the right to call other people's opinions silly.

[Emrys]

13. I've seen more truly revolting trolling in YouTube comments than on any other platform.

Just saying.

YouTube's algorithms have also been proven to direct the vulnerable along clickbait chains that have radicalized them.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy YouTube as a platform from time to time, and when I can spare the time, I can get lost for hours watching videos that cater to my interests. But it has some serious downsides.

[Mr.Bill]

16. I use it primarily for music,

and I've never noticed much trolling. On the contrary, the comments have lead me to a lot of music that is new to me and also educational about the music being commented on.

I only brought up YouTube to point out that one website can replace and even improve upon defunct ones.

[Emrys]

22. Yeah, I take your point about it just being an example.

I steer clear of YouTube for politics generally, so it's mainly music for me too, maybe some guitar lessons or maintenance/renovations, then wherever the algorithm lures me.

But it's amused me more than annoyed me how heated people can get about the least important issues - try checking out the comments on any video about the Beatles, for instance. Bitter, bitter, sometimes more than borderline violent rows can erupt about issues ranging from their being completely overrated to which and whether any of them actually played on particular songs!

[Mr.Bill]

26. Yes, people do over-analyze the Beatles there.

I also like it for household and auto repairs. It's saved me a lot of money.

[Emrys]

31. The Beatles was just one example,

but I've been amazed at some of the almost endless spats I've seen under the most unlikely and innocuous videos.

Yeah, I sometimes use it for practical stuff. It can be great for that.

[bigtree]

30. what is the measure of importance of music

...compared to the politics which ultimately governs and represents us?

I call that comparison absurd. I know absolutely nothing about you, except for this absurd comparison. Really don't know what else to say. It's not worth debating.

[Native]

6. Thank you for this! Very well said.

[rgbecker]

9. I never understood the twitter user.

Do you just randomly get messages from random people and then think you know something that others don't know?

Do you follow particular people and if so why couldn't you follow them on any other media they choose to use?

How many do you follow? Seems like a huge time waster especially if they are talking about the same thing.

Most of the DU discussion around particular Tweets could easily be passed from person to person using any of the available social media.

To me it seems that twitter is used to promote other media sources like print etc. In other words, it simply is used as an amplifier of already available other media.

I get lots of info very currently on the DU and I've noticed the quality of the posted tweets are really low level compared to the info available on other media...print and news websites etc.

[Mr.Bill]

14. Well said. n/t

[Native]

15. It actually saves a lot of time...instead of going to each website to find out if the reporters or

politicians I follow have written anything new (and I follow around 200 of them), I can quickly access a list I created on my Twitter account that is comprised solely of those individuals and scroll through it to see if they've posted anything new (comments or articles). When a reporter has written a story, they almost always post a link to it on Twitter at the same time that it's initially posted on whatever media entity they've written it for. Additionally, if a reporter is going to be dropping an article of real investigative importance, they will often tweet a teaser about it dropping soon. And as the OP mentions, they will often provide additional commentary on their article (as will other people). Many times an expert will chime in to either clarify and amplify the importance of the article or simply to help break down some intricacies that may be hard for the general public to fully understand (potential implications, etc).

[Mr.Bill]

17. I believe very little I read anywhere

without checking other sources to verify it, if it's something important. Journalists used to do a lot more of that. Now they seem to think it's more important to be first than to be correct, especially broadcast journalists.

[Native]

20. And there you have it - one of the biggest differences between us and the maggats!

[Mr.Bill]

23. I can't really call myself a journalist,

but I did study it in High School in the 60s and was the editor of the school newspaper. Techically, my first paying job was writing about High School sports in a weekly community newspaper. I was 15 years old.

Our journalism teacher took us on a tour of a major newspaper, and when we went into the pressroom and they started the presses, I knew, being the gearhead I was, that was where I belonged. I never worked for a newspaper after that first sportswriting job, but I spent 30+ years running printing presses.

[Emrys]

18. Different people use it in different ways.

I have my own idiosyncratic way of accessing it, but then I have plenty of time on my hands. I don't use the conventional Twitter timeline - maybe that's why I never see the ads on Twitter I've seen others here complaining about.

I have a Twitter list of people whose Tweets I like to see daily. I may not always agree with them, but they're usually stimulating, and I use them to ferret out information it would take me even more time to find myself.

I also have bookmarked a bunch of Twitter users I like to check out regularly on specific issues. The last half-year or so, it's been mainly issues relating to Ukraine.

Crises can be useful as you can use them as opportunities to gauge how much you can rely on a particular account for accuracy etc. and prune those you check out accordingly. Everyone screws up from time to time, and how users deal with it when they do can be illuminating in itself.

The fact is, there's so much information out there nowadays, there's a need for some sort of filtering and crowdsourcing if you want to have any hope of coping with it all, otherwise it's overwhelming.

DU can play that role, but it has its limits, and it's certainly not foolproof. Stories that have been debunked can still be whizzing up and down General Discussion long after, because not everyone reads down a thread to see the reactions.

It can be the same with Twitter or any other platform, but you can develop ways to help sift the useful from the nonsense pretty reliably.

[bigtree]

24. that's the thing, isn't it?

...do you want some advice on how to use twitter?

I'm really good at explaining how to have a positive, productive experience on the site, and how to advantage political advocacy, information gathering, or political outreach to pols or voters.

Reluctant to extensively respond to what looks to be a circular argument posed as a question.

But let's try this:

Your news feed, the page that appears when you sign into Twitter will have a scroll stack of posts from whoever you 'follow' on the site.



Every post contains the username and the screen name which is linked to the poster's page. There's a button on their page to 'follow' them if you wish, or hovering over their name brings up an image you can click on.

What you see on your personal page are the posts you retweeted (reposted) or the posts you composed.



Behind every post (when you click on it) there are unfiltered replies. That's where most of the nonsense comes in. Your choice entirely on whether to go there. I don't spend any more time reading those than I would anywhere else.

I can't imagine moving the enormity of the culture of conversation and advocacy on Twitter in any fell swoop. It's just not a zero-sum proposition to decide that everything good is going to gather somewhere else, and it's the splintering that loses followers.

How will folks who don't use twitter or will stop visiting there know what they're missing. It's a crapshoot, really. I get that there are folks who don't have a clue what that forum can offer, what it does offer, but it's just weak, on its face, to say 'I've never used it or understood it' and then make broad generalizations about its future or the consequences of its demise.

We're days from an election and people are screaming to dismantle one of our party and supporters' most attended public forums, the place where most of the party's messaging is being disseminated RIGHT NOW. Think about the perniciousness of THAT.

[Emrys]

34. There you go - two people, two very different ways of using Twitter.

I never use the features you've mentioned, and still manage to have very positive experiences on Twitter and would miss it a lot if it went down the tubes.

Mind you, I can remember when blogs were all the rage, some more popular than forums. Now, I seldom look at any. Twitter filled that gap. DU wasn't enough, and I quit my heavy involvement in other forums for a variety of reasons.

[samnsara]

36. im with you. I dont do anything on twitter that involves any of those things

...and im happy with my usage..

[Emrys]

37. Yeah. I keep forgetting to mention that I don't follow anybody there either.

I think that makes a difference to how Twitter analyses your usage, and screws up its algorithms a bit. Apart from occasionally voting on Twitter polls, I'm basically invisible unless somebody drills deep down into the API.

I only started an account there because I wanted more control over my experience (and Twitter made some changes to access that made it harder to read without signing in). The Twitter list feature is very useful, too. If Musk changes the balance so it feels he has more control over my experience than I do, I'll reconsider what little involvement I have!

[Native]

10. I wonder if the detractors here on DU know that you can create separate lists on Twitter?

I have my general feed, and then I have a list that I call my "media and pols." Like you, I find it an incredible resource.

[Tom Rinaldo]

12. Not meaning to be snide, but I used DU before Twitter and most info of importance ends up here

Not always as quickly as it does on Twitter sometimes, granted, but DU is a collective hive of newshounds reporting back obscure stories from sometimes obscure sources, both locally and internationally. Plus there is often direct reporting here from people in the vicinity of breaking news, internationally as well. Fortunately some DU members monitor sources other than Twitter and share that info here. We of course know about and use DU, sadly most people don't know what a treasure trove of information we have here.

[pnwmom]

21. It's true. But I can often find links to breaking news on Twitter faster than just googling.

The reporters themselves will provide the links.

Yes, we did fine without this in the past. That doesn't mean we wouldn't miss it now.

[Mr.Bill]

25. I've seen things here

then heard it called Breaking News an hour (or more) later on cable news.

[pnwmom]

27. That's true. And many of the things here are discovered due to a reporte's link posted on Twitter.

[Mr.Bill]

28. Not only that,

but some journalists post here also.

[bigtree]

32. so you're arguing for a lesser experience

...to be less informed, or, at best, have others tell you and interpret what they read.

To your point, though, the 'treasure trove' is at the source of info, not delivered to you out of someone else's pocket.

[ananda]

19. I believe Twitter will be replaced.

I think I read about something already in the works.

[Mr.Bill]

29. I think Musk's ownership

dooms it. I don't car how smart he may or may not be, but they've got a doctor trying to drive a race car.

[ananda]

39. Agree.

Hubris

[Emrys]

33. If you're talking about Jack Dorsey's Bluesky, then take a look at this thread:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217300732

Twitter may well develop tenable rivals, but like any platform, it has its own communities -positive and negative - and they can be very hard to shift wholesale.

[samnsara]

35. im staying..i havent been kicked off yet and i posted every dirty word I got booted for :)

[usonian]

38. Interesting discussion. My filter (100% effective).

Abstinence!

I use DU as an aggregator for all things political, and Hacker News ( https://news.ycombinator.com ) for all things techie, including a ton of FB/Meta, twitter and so on

Now, if a few thick-skinned DU users would just screenshot a tweet, or copy the text, it would save a lot of waste.

Don't underestimate DU users. SOMEONE will find news and post it, even if Musk fires the entire staff (except for ad sales) and it falls down.

When Section 230 is shredded, as both sides of the aisle have expressed a desire to do, things will change.