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American politics

Rorschach said:
Those votes would be won if they actually knew what they were voting for is my point. Anyway, no matter what Democrats do they will still be labelled as the radical left/Marxist/socialist/eco-zealot enemy. The left need to build a counter balance to the rightwing media machine first and foremost.

One interesting development is the rise of Bluesky. The climate community effectively abandoned twitter (and threads) and moved en masse there since the election. The platform shows a lot of potential but it is too early to say if it will kill the bird off.
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Bluesky will become an echo chamber.
 
Rorschach said:
One interesting development is the rise of Bluesky. The climate community effectively abandoned twitter (and threads) and moved en masse there since the election. The platform shows a lot of potential but it is too early to say if it will kill the bird off
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A platform is just a platform though. It depends what checks and balances can be put in place to keep it sane without calls of biases and censorship.

I doubt the bird will be killed off, there are plenty of users that probably think it's great, especially with Musky now at the wheel.
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
A platform is just a platform though. It depends what checks and balances can be put in place to keep it sane without calls of biases and censorship.

I doubt the bird will be killed off, there are plenty of users that probably think it's great, especially with Musky now at the wheel.
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Well, time will tell but the experience is altogether more pleasant. The blocking features are very good, no ads, and you see content from who you follow rather than what Musk wants you to see. Folks don't want to see the bile posted by the bros and bots any more. Calls of censorship are sure to follow but I don't think anyone will heed them. One person's echo chamber is another's built community. They are calling it billionaire proof but I have no idea what that means.

Twitter may survive but will continue its descent into irrelevance as other groups leave. I guess Musk might not care too much and could consider that it has served his purpose in getting Trump (and Musk himself) into power.
 
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Looks like Biden has decided to pardon his own son. This is nothing compared to the abuse of power that will happen under Trump, but he is raging of course.
 
Jordinho said:
Looks like Biden has decided to pardon his own son. This is nothing compared to the abuse of power that will happen under Trump, but he is raging of course.
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Not a good look at all, but the republicans would probably crucify Hunter Biden - rightfully or not - so in that context it's understandable.
 
Lost Mango said:
Read one take the other day that suggested it was, as always, "the economy, stupid."

At the tail end of the pandemic half the country (the less fortunate half) were basically on welfare, with pandemic pay-outs. These were allowed to die in Congress through their sunset clauses.

Despite the economy being better than it was four years ago the average American felt worse off than they did 4 years before because of the removal of benefits and therefore voted against the incumbent party for the bloke who could vocalise that feeling of being better off when he was in charge (even though that betterness had very little to do with him or his policies).
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This basically, generally if things are going well and people have a bit of money and public services are good enough then most people will be happy to vote for whoever's in power.
 
Rorschach said:
Well, time will tell but the experience is altogether more pleasant. The blocking features are very good, no ads, and you see content from who you follow rather than what Musk wants you to see. Folks don't want to see the bile posted by the bros and bots any more. Calls of censorship are sure to follow but I don't think anyone will heed them. One person's echo chamber is another's built community. They are calling it billionaire proof but I have no idea what that means.

Twitter may survive but will continue its descent into irrelevance as other groups leave. I guess Musk might not care too much and could consider that it has served his purpose in getting Trump (and Musk himself) into power.
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You don't have to use the twitter algorithm, there's a 'Following' tab which you can make as your default landing page. I don't see how Blue Sky survives long term with no adverts, how are they funding themselves? It will just end up being an echo chamber the same as most social media sites especially as it seems they ban a lot of people.
 
P.D. said:
You don't have to use the twitter algorithm, there's a 'Following' tab which you can make as your default landing page. I don't see how Blue Sky survives long term with no adverts, how are they funding themselves? It will just end up being an echo chamber the same as most social media sites especially as it seems they ban a lot of people.
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The following tab is manipulated by the algorithm too, more so than the 'for you' flimflam tab (which I never opened). The following tab hides posts from those you are following and pushes the responses based on which will cause the most outrage. The algo throttles the engagements based on Musk's preferences. It got to the stage that there was no point whatsoever reading responses as it was just bot garbage and people being their worst self (promoted by the algo). Outrage is the X business model. Some may like that but I don't want to or have to read someone's free speech being pushed at me. I want to read posts from the communities I am interested in and the people I follow. Call it an echochamber if you want but that was the way twitter operated at one point too which made it what it was.

BlueSky is open source, code is there for everyone to see and copy, so you can set up your own version tweaked how you want it on your own servers. I am also in GreenSky which is specific to climate and the environment as you can guess. The verification model is clever too, using your own domain name as a sort of vetting. Ads will come I guess as the user base is exploding. They have got a lot right in the design of this platform and I would bet this is the Twitter heir rather than any of the others. Who knows though?

COO interview if you want to know more
 
P.D. said:
You don't have to use the twitter algorithm, there's a 'Following' tab which you can make as your default landing page. I don't see how Blue Sky survives long term with no adverts, how are they funding themselves? It will just end up being an echo chamber the same as most social media sites especially as it seems they ban a lot of people.
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Monetising is a problem for twitter and it will be for any 'short messaging' competitor, like BlueSky. The reason being, video rules.

The flow of advertising money to 'video' is like a tidal wave. Tik Tok numbers are insane, likewise YouTube shorts. Engagement (ie addiction), time on screen has expanded (worrying in a way) massively towards these apps.
 
Rorschach said:
The following tab is manipulated by the algorithm too, more so than the 'for you' flimflam tab (which I never opened). The following tab hides posts from those you are following and pushes the responses based on which will cause the most outrage. The algo throttles the engagements based on Musk's preferences. It got to the stage that there was no point whatsoever reading responses as it was just bot garbage and people being their worst self (promoted by the algo). Outrage is the X business model. Some may like that but I don't want to or have to read someone's free speech being pushed at me. I want to read posts from the communities I am interested in and the people I follow. Call it an echochamber if you want but that was the way twitter operated at one point too which made it what it was.

BlueSky is open source, code is there for everyone to see and copy, so you can set up your own version tweaked how you want it on your own servers. I am also in GreenSky which is specific to climate and the environment as you can guess. The verification model is clever too, using your own domain name as a sort of vetting. Ads will come I guess as the user base is exploding. They have got a lot right in the design of this platform and I would bet this is the Twitter heir rather than any of the others. Who knows though?

COO interview if you want to know more
Click to expand...

Do you have any evidence the 'Following' tab is manipulated? It seems to work perfectly for me showing everyone I follows post in descending order and I've never seen posts in there from anyone I don't follow. The responses are weighted to those who pay for the blue tick I agree. You'll get the same on Greensky, likely a group of people who are largely in agreement but some small debate on the details - I'm not in it but that's my guess. Ultimately as people move away from traditional sites due to paywalls they end up on social media which is always an echo chamber because why would most people bother to read or follow stuff they have no interest in.
 
P.D. said:
Do you have any evidence the 'Following' tab is manipulated? It seems to work perfectly for me showing everyone I follows post in descending order and I've never seen posts in there from anyone I don't follow. The responses are weighted to those who pay for the blue tick I agree. You'll get the same on Greensky, likely a group of people who are largely in agreement but some small debate on the details - I'm not in it but that's my guess. Ultimately as people move away from traditional sites due to paywalls they end up on social media which is always an echo chamber because why would most people bother to read or follow stuff they have no interest in.
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Strange, as that's never been my definition of an 'echo chamber'
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
Strange, as that's never been my definition of an 'echo chamber'
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Any community of interest is an echo chamber of sorts, there's differences of opinion naturally and some will be more varied than others. This forum in general is pretty varied I'd say with a lot of differences of opinion across multiple areas (tactics, transfer market, aims/ambitions etc) but there's other Spurs forums where the members are far more in agreement like coys for example.
 
P.D. said:
Do you have any evidence the 'Following' tab is manipulated? It seems to work perfectly for me showing everyone I follows post in descending order and I've never seen posts in there from anyone I don't follow. The responses are weighted to those who pay for the blue tick I agree. You'll get the same on Greensky, likely a group of people who are largely in agreement but some small debate on the details - I'm not in it but that's my guess. Ultimately as people move away from traditional sites due to paywalls they end up on social media which is always an echo chamber because why would most people bother to read or follow stuff they have no interest in.
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Well I've seen it with my own eyes back when I was on twitter - side-by-side comparisons highlighted by climate folk, though they were not the only ones complaining. It was a daily occurrence that someone was highlighting one sort of fudgery or another. It was hardly a secret, but I'm gone from there so I don't really care what goes on there now. If you haven't experienced it then good for you.

Aside from that, Bluesky doesn't promote posts. Not the same over there.

I see about 200k journalists have decided to stop posting on X come January 20th (the European Federation of Journalists). Musk never fully grasped that twitter was about the content first and foremost. Once that drys up all you have is a version of Parler.
 
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P.D. said:
Any community of interest is an echo chamber of sorts, there's differences of opinion naturally and some will be more varied than others. This forum in general is pretty varied I'd say with a lot of differences of opinion across multiple areas (tactics, transfer market, aims/ambitions etc) but there's other Spurs forums where the members are far more in agreement like coys for example.
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A community of interest is just that.
Absolutely, it can become an echo chamber because of it's characteristics eg group think, confirmation bias, dogma etc....not always though.
 
Rorschach said:
Well I've seen it with my own eyes back when I was on twitter - side-by-side comparisons highlighted by climate folk, though they were not the only ones complaining. It was a daily occurrence that someone was highlighting one sort of fudgery or another. It was hardly a secret, but I'm gone from there so I don't really care what goes on there now. If you haven't experienced it then good for you.

Aside from that, Bluesky doesn't promote posts. Not the same over there.

I see about 200k journalists have decided to stop posting on X come January 20th (the European Federation of Journalists). Musk never fully grasped that twitter was about the content first and foremost. Once that drys up all you have is a version of Parler.
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It's just the federation who are quitting, individual journalists will do what they like (as it should be). Either way more choice for everyone is good.
 
P.D. said:
It's just the federation who are quitting, individual journalists will do what they like (as it should be). Either way more choice for everyone is good.
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I'm not sure how it will play out on this front, but I am pretty sure Twitter's time is up. Enough groups will leave to make it meaningless, and I don't think that is too far off. Journalists leaving will be the end of it. I stayed on twitter (way too long) because the people I wanted to listen to were still posting but that is no longer the case. Most have transplanted themselves to bluesky now and I am there now for my news rather than 'X'
 
Rorschach said:
I'm not sure how it will play out on this front, but I am pretty sure Twitter's time is up. Enough groups will leave to make it meaningless, and I don't think that is too far off. Journalists leaving will be the end of it. I stayed on twitter (way too long) because the people I wanted to listen to were still posting but that is no longer the case. Most have transplanted themselves to bluesky now and I am there now for my news rather than 'X'
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But how does Bluesky become properly successful (enough to sustain a long term presence) when half the people who used to use Twitter find the opinions of its users abhorrent?

Unless those flouncing away from Twitter in a huff learn to accept people with opinions that differ from theirs, there'll just be two Twitters, one for the left and one for the right. Both will widen from the centre as they'll both be echo chambers.
 
scaramanga said:
But how does Bluesky become properly successful (enough to sustain a long term presence) when half the people who used to use Twitter find the opinions of its users abhorrent?

Unless those flouncing away from Twitter in a huff learn to accept people with opinions that differ from theirs, there'll just be two Twitters, one for the left and one for the right. Both will widen from the centre as they'll both be echo chambers.
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Fine by me. I don't want to read arsehole opinions from 'debate me bro' knobheads. Reactionaries need to invade the communities of the left as they have this weird desire to try and force their 'opinions' into spaces where they are not welcome. It is not as they are there to spread conservative wisdom (oxymoron) or engage in a battle of ideas. They just want to spew hate unchecked. fudge them.
 
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