> I am a fan of Twitter. It is a much better social network then Facebook and Instagram.
I mean. You have the right to your opinion. But... really?
I understand that the sentiment is “Twitter is mostly what you make it“, but it was so incredibly toxic that I was stunned to the point where I almost became radicalised against the ideology that was pervasive at the time.
Even now I am sensitive to it.
Facebook in comparison never had strangers piling on me telling me I am worthless and invalid based on my race and gender.
Not that any of them are fantastical beacons of acerbic communication which puts such a high emphasis on civility as hacker news does. But to call twitter the best of this breed is, I feel, speaking from a far different experience than my own.
> Facebook in comparison never had strangers piling on me telling me I am worthless and invalid based on my race and gender.
Uhm.. That seems to be just as prevalent on FB (or anywhere online) as far as I can tell.
As for Twitter vs. Facebook: I feel that Twitter is far less cluttered for me and "follow" (and unfollow) is a much better way to select my content then be"friend" (and then unfriend). On Twitter I just pick interesting accounts to read and now my feed is full of stuff that is largely interesting. On Facebook it's .. complicated (and I reduced my friend list to 2, because it wasn't worth the effort).
Instagram? That's just shallow/vain in every way and doesn't even compete IMHO - it's an entirely different beast (that I don't understand).
Do you have a sense of how much of this was due to how Twitter is designed as a medium vs due to the culture formed by the people who tend to use it?
I know both of these factors feed each other, but I ask because I’ve noticed several Twitter design decisions that seem to lead to angry mobs. Short tweets mean low-context, sorting feeds by engagement encourages piling on, and the rapid feedback loop is perfect for amplifying righteous anger.
It's probably both, but for me, I follow a pretty non-political group of people, but Twitter will absolutely insist on presenting me inflammatory and polarizing tweets just because someone I follow or someone popular engaged with that tweet. Facebook does not do this, at least for me it doesn't.
I mean. You have the right to your opinion. But... really?
I understand that the sentiment is “Twitter is mostly what you make it“, but it was so incredibly toxic that I was stunned to the point where I almost became radicalised against the ideology that was pervasive at the time.
Even now I am sensitive to it.
Facebook in comparison never had strangers piling on me telling me I am worthless and invalid based on my race and gender.
Not that any of them are fantastical beacons of acerbic communication which puts such a high emphasis on civility as hacker news does. But to call twitter the best of this breed is, I feel, speaking from a far different experience than my own.