Twitter further restricts free tier with option to limit replies to verified accounts On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, you can now opt to allow only paying verified accounts to reply to your tweets. Again, it's more fee speech than free speech for this Elon Musk-owned outfit. "You can now limit replies to verified users," X's official account said on Monday. The announcement triggered a near …
Mature enough for what? To serve as yet-another-way for random people all over the globe to "inform" their fellow social-media-users of whatever is going on in their heads at the moment? To serve as yet another channel to be flooded with ads, misinformation and opinions playing dressup as facts? To serve as yet another online space where people can confuse "number of likes" with "objective reality"?
Here is the uncomfortable truth: almost all "social media" channels are unnecessary. Press and fast tracked information worked well without them. As does direct interaction between peers. Forums and newsgroups exist to link people with common interests. Instant messengers exist to link social groups and friends. Easily accessible media outlets and media aggregators exist for information. I would go so far as to argue that most of these systems work better when they are not wasting time with whatever current trend, outrage or opinion is bouncing around in the "social" media. There is exactly one, one singular, undisputable reason for the existence of "social" media, and that is as a business model.
The fact that so many people believe them to be vital to our daily lives, shows how well decades long marketing and product placement works, not how vaueable they are to our society.
I don't have accounts on these services, nor have I ever. However, I think there's a group of people who want to make these things sound more different from forums and newsgroups than they really are. Another uncomfortable truth is that these forums, while structured differently than more general social media, are similar in many ways. The same is true of Usenet and many other places where people who don't otherwise know each other post their thoughts for others to read.
Our little community might get to write more words in our thoughts, or at least we don't have to split them into annoying little chunks like Twitter require. We might limit our discussions to the topics El Reg creates, although there is that user topics area where I never go, so maybe that's not really true either. Still, we post our thoughts for our fellows to read, they reply to us, and we even have our upvotes and downvotes instead of likes and...I'm sure there's a dislike counter on some of them. We even have the same problems that social media has; these forums are not immune to annoying conspiracy theorists and trolls, nor even our own malfunctioning Markov chain bot. If you ask why someone likes social media, the answer is the same reason you're posting here. They just have an interest in a wider community and don't mind the many costs involved.
I didn't state that the modus operandi, or appeal, of forums and newsgroups is vastly different from that of "social" media. I stated that the latter are unnecessary.
Yes, humans like sharing their thoughts, communicating, and discussing. We are, after all, social animals. That doesn't mean that social media is a good system to accomplish this.
When I visit elreg and its forums, I am making the conscious, goal driven, decision to engage with a certain social group knit together by shared specific interests. The goal that drives this decision is my own.
When I engage with some "social" media, I get bombarded with things than an algorithm, that I don't know, decided it would be good to present to me, with the goal to maximise someones profit. The goal that drives that decision is not mine.
"Here is the uncomfortable truth: almost all "social media" channels are unnecessary. "
Simply not true. For many use cases, particularly those around distributed communities, search has failed. Want to find "people who share my hobby"? Good luck with that on Google, which will dump you into a shop front or a deluge of AI and content farming. The same applies for poltical groups and many other functions that search worked for before it became essentially free to put up gigabytes of autogenerated content and game the search engines.
In those cases, the self-forming networks of people with shared common interests on social media actually turn out to have a function. Sure, you personally might not use that function, but rest assured others do. Of course, that's not always for good and honest reasons, but many communities rely on social media to function.
Note that is not the same as endorsing Twitter or any other platform. Nor does it deny other options. However, until discovery via other means improves, the best way to find "people like me" is to find one of the more visible commentators in that space, and explore their social network. It turns out the one thing that AI is really, really bad at (and by extension, search) is understanding human interest.
> search has failed
First of, no it hasn't. The declining quality of some online search results in recent years doesn't change the fact that it worked well enough in the past (And still does when using the more advanced search-string-syntax features offered by some online search services). What fails, is a "search" that values monetization and data gathering over the quality of search results...aka. the very same problems that have led to the decline of quality in "social media".
> the self-forming networks of people with shared common interests on social media actually turn out to have a function.
These networks are not "self-forming" however. They are shaped by algorithmic recommendations and filtering, goal driven by an interest to maximise interactions which can be monetized in various ways. Note that neither the quality of the content, nor of the interactions, nor any "naturalness" of the forming group has to be a primary concern when the goal is "growing the numbers".
> It turns out the one thing that AI is really, really bad at (and by extension, search) is understanding human interest.
All the more reason not to entrust the formation and guidance of quasi-social gatherings to one, which is, among other methods, what happens in "social" media, because nowadays, the aforementioned filtering and recommendation systems rely heavily on machine learning methods.
@mpi
When I say search has failed, I mean most people simply don't use it for discovery in the way they used to - you say "it worked well enough in the past".. and? Times have changed. Sure, technical users can still wring decent results out of it, but the vast majority of users find their daily content, communities, advice through other means. I see this in my kids and my parents, both of whom almost never use search. Want to go on holiday? You visit the last booking site that didn't screw you over too much. Want to buy a random thing? Amazon, check the reviews. Want to know how to do some task? YouTube. And for communities, and particularly discovery - head over to social media. Facebook Groups still are depressingly active. Twitter DM groups actually work.
You then go on to say that the algorithm blah blah - so what? It doesn't affect the fact that for many communities, groups coalesce on social media, and usually around some higher profile people (event organisers, content creators etc.). It doesn't matter that the system is flakey, it's still how people find their social groups. They look for people in the right space and do what AI can't do - take some judgement on whether that person is interesting and relatable in some way. Yes, by all means point out those people are gaming the system - but the fact remains that for most people online, that's their choice, and it's their choice because at present there aren't any better mechanisms. You might not like it, but that's the reality for a huge proportion of groups online.
This thread started with someone taking the position that "social media channels are unnecessary"... if that were the case, no-one would give a monkeys about Twitter going down the pan. Instead I see whole communities lifting themselves off Twitter and onto other social media platforms. People trade in BlueSky invites just to find their friends groups. Others start hosting Mastodon servers. And people are upset with Musk because his idiocy has seriously disrupted their community.
Social networks are garbage and will produce garbage as long as it continues to be gamified around followers, likes and reposts. The only place where you can find useful information about other that pursue your hobby is Reddit, a shame it doesn’t have a powerful search function.
Sure they are unnecessary. So are smartphones, restaurants, movies, TV, sports, Disneyworld, cruises, "sport" hunting/fishing, marathons, crossfit, I could go on and on. I imagine out of that list I might have hit a few things you wouldn't be willing to part with, so it is with social media for many people.
My use of the word unnecessary doesn't imply that they are a luxury good that a basic society could function without while being reduced in functionality.
The use implied that they are do not giving any new functionality at all.
All the use cases of social media are met by existing technology and services, and oftentimes met better, with less noise.
The use cases of restaurants are provided by eating at home, the use cases of new movies are provided by old movies, etc.
You are just slagging on social media because YOU see no value in it. Others have a different opinion, and that's true even if you are so self-important you believe your opinion is by definition the right one.
> The use cases of restaurants are provided by eating at home, the use cases of new movies are provided by old movies, etc.
Both wrong. A restaurant offers me a service and ambience I don't get at home. A new movie is a new experience.
Social media offer...what? How about you list some of the specific advantages of social media over the alternatives I listed above?
> Others have a different opinion, and that's true even if you are so self-important you believe your opinion is by definition the right one.
And same as others have their opinion, and the right to believe that it is the correct one on topics that are more or less opinion or taste-driven so do I.
Here is the uncomfortable truth: almost all social activity is unnecessary. Most people prefer to have a bit of it in their lives though.
Being able to easily communicate globally is an incredible feat of technology.
You kids don't know you're born.....
> Being able to easily communicate globally is an incredible feat of technology
...that was well possible long before social media, and is actually easier, with greater respect for privacy and better control over ones identity and data when using instant messengers instead of relying on quasi-social groups aggregated by some unknown algorithm with the primary goal of monetizing the resulting interactions.
After 14 years of participation, I've now gone read-only on Xitter. I'm only hanging around for the local travel news reports until I sort out an alternative, ideally with an rss feed.
Happily still engaging with like-minded (STEM and retro-computing) folks who've moved to the Fediverse and Bluesky.
For those two I've definitely found Fediverse (and Cohost, funnily enough) to be way more practical now than Twitter. Bluesky has picked up most of the post-twitter authors I follow but I find myself thinking about it as Twitter Methodone. Also it's better now, but it's owned by the same billionaire that started Twitter so there's no point investing oneself in it too much - sooner or later the same thing will happen.
I understand he needs to make the formerly unprofitable, profitable.
Pity his actions are mostly things that I don't want. Like this who can reply. If I can choose the individual accounts that might be worthwhile for some posts. As for blue tick accounts I'd seriously consider excluding them, but would need to check. (If I had the chance.)
I think management grasp of what users want is not minimal, but maybe negative.
Sad. Still usable but getting less so.
"I understand he needs to make the formerly unprofitable, profitable."
It was profitable (bar a significant one time loss to cover a legal thing, and the dip while Musk was musing about buying it), for nearly four years, riiiiight up until Musk saddled it with billions in debt and scared off half the advertisers.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-income-quarterly/
Literally the first result in Google for "twitter profitability"
I don't know why people think it wasn't profitable before Musk bought it - unless they think Musk is stupid enough to pay over the odds for a loss-making business. The tech press even reported on it quite a lot at the time as it's continued profitability was quite a surprise given it's time surviving off VC money.
Steven R
(edit, whoops, posted twice)
This post has been deleted by its author
only told it Yaccarino would be unable to attend due to an unnamed global crisis, likely a reference to Hamas' attack on Israel last week.
If Yaccarino pulled out of an event last week because of that, her intelligence service must be a good deal better than Mossad. Because they were completely blindsided on 7 Oct.
Not quite a year ago, Twitter was bought for 44 billion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk
Now, estimates place its value at 8 billion, while being 13 billion in debt: https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/elon-musks-x-is-black-hole-value-2023-10-03/
>> estimates place its value at 8 billion, while being 13 billion in debt
> don't that enter the realm of being bankrupt? (When debts > assets)
Only when the numbers are in the thousands.
In the millions it is an opportunity for re-financing and in the billions it's a bit of a shame but better luck next time, have a brandy old chap, nice tie by the way, I've got the same one at home.
Also not an accountant, but yes, it’s on the path, but not very far down it. Debts exceeding assets would be Technical Insolvency; that’s not a bad thing if the business has enough income to allow those debts to be serviced, which may be why Musk is now so keen on raising revenue.
Elmo’s purchase of Twitter was a leveraged buyout financed by several banks: you take out huge loans, use them to buy the company, then make the company buy the loans from you. (UK football fans will recognise this pattern). This often creates a company that is technically insolvent, but if there’s an income stream there it doesn’t matter, as the company is able to service the debt from that income, although that comes at the expense of investing it in its own operations and services... this is why companies acquired by leveraged buyout often end up as such shitshows afterwards.
But once you can no longer pay your creditors, you lose the “technical” and become actually insolvent. Next steps downward from insolvency are either an examinership (“Chapter 11” in the US) where the court appoints someone to help you get your shit together in exchange for not allowing your creditors to sue for bankruptcy; or a bankruptcy order. Bankruptcy is basically an insolvency that has been legally formalised, accompanied by orders for the liquidation or transfer of assets and part-payment of creditors.
... so there’s your summary from someone who failed Commerce in school, but I’ve had to learn a bit about business since (thankfully I’ve no first-hand experience of bankruptcy).
Bankrupt is when creditors are demanding money and you can't pay it. To avoid that, all you need to do is have enough revenue stream to pay the more insistent creditors as and when their payments are due, but not before.
Otherwise, everyone with a mortgage would be bankrupt.
> Otherwise, everyone with a mortgage would be bankrupt.
No.
If you have a mortgage then you have the assets to repay it in full[1] - the house. You don't measure on just liquid assets.
[1] unless you are in negative equity - and that exceeds the value of your other assets.
It doesn't, because the debt has to be payed back over years, not right now. If it was all due tomorrow, that would be bankrupt. The hope would be that it can be returned to profitability before the required payments exceed the resources available to pay them. I don't think that's likely, but there's always the option of more money being found from somewhere to pay that bill or the more likely attempt to ignore the bill and the years-long litigation to resolve that process. Somehow, when you're very rich, you can get away with not paying bills longer than when you're not.
That wasn't what I was suggesting. I was just thinking of problems like this. Surely there's got to be a few in there? (Now imagine a fire like that where they were mostly electric...)
But maybe, paradoxically, the fire was big enough that everything has been properly toasted and all the energy has been liberated.
That's a fair comment; Li-Ion batteries are undoubtedly a fire hazard. But a tank full of petrol isn't sweetness and light either, and even diesel (less flammable than petrol) isn't exactly 100% safe, as today's events demonstrated.
It all boils down to this: if you want the comforts of a modern hi-tech lifestyle, you need lots of energy, in one place. Any such concentration of energy comes with risks, but that's the trade-off modern society makes. Are electric vehicles more risky than fossil fuel vehicles? In some respects, yes. On the other hand, the long-term danger of continuing to burn fossil fuels to satisfy our desire for modern comforts is probably a hell of a lot more dangerous.
Too hard for ya do even a basic search? Ok, then:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/luton-airport-car-park-cause-b2427767.html
https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2023-10-11/fire-service-chief-cause-of-luton-airport-car-park-fire
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-67073446
----
Andrew Hopkinson, chief fire officer for Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, said the fire at Luton Airport was thought to have started with a diesel vehicle.
“We don’t believe it was an electric vehicle,” he said.
“It’s believed to be diesel-powered, at this stage all subject to verification. And then that fire has quickly and rapidly spread.”
"with reports over the weekend finding that X has failed to uniformly control the spread of misinformation regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict"
Given that in supposedly high journalistic integrity* media outlets I saw big coverage of stories of a German tourist raped & killed by Hamas, Israeli babies decapitated by Hamas (and then later it turned out the tourist had actually been taken to a Gaza hospital and that there was (at time of writing this) no evidence for the baby beheading claims) - I'm not surprised there was misinformation on X, given there's certainly been plenty of it everywhere else & sensational stories like that will spread rapidly.
* Who seem to have forgotten the basic idea of fact checking and the old adage - 'In war, truth is the first casualty'.
"On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, you can now opt to allow only paying verified accounts to reply to your tweets."
Am I missing something here? It's an option, not a requirement. If it's as unpopular as the article suggests, surely people will opt not to use it. I haven't been to Xitter to check, but the reported uproar over nothing whatsoever sounds absolutely in keeping with that godawful site, and reinforces my urge to avoid it like the plague.
It's interesting that his Muskiness was threatening to remove the ability to block users (he might have done it by now, I'm losing track) from reading your Xits, but now wants to restrict replies to paying users. If, as the article suggests, bots and scammers are largely paying users, that begins to make a screwy kind of sense from the musky perspective - if the bots are the paying customers, it wouldn't do if the meatsacks could block them, would it?
There may be method in the madness after all.
I don't use the site, so I might be getting this wrong, but it sounds like it's an option that can easily be turned against you so you can no longer reply to some people who haven't specifically blocked you, just turned on a blanket block. That would probably prove annoying. I'm imagining how that would work on a site like this, where some post reply buttons would simply reject an attempt to reply. Not the worst thing that could happen, but it wouldn't help.
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