It's real. Twitter Shadowbanning is back.
It's real. Twitter Shadowbanning is back.
Our mission at Twitter 2.0 is to promote and protect the public conversation. We believe Twitter users have the right to express their opinions and ideas without fear of censorship.
“Freedom of Speech, not Freedom of Reach - our enforcement philosophy which means, where appropriate, restricting the reach of Tweets that violate our policies by making the content less discoverable.”
Surprise! Our great 'X' CEO has brought back one more bad thing that we hated about twitter 1.0: Shadowbanning. And they’ve given it a new name: "Freedom of Speech, Not Reach".
Perhaps the new approach by X is an improvement? At least they would “politely” tell you when you’re being shadow banned.
I think freedom of speech implies that people have the autonomy to decide what they want to see, rather than being manipulated by algorithm codes. Now it feels like they’re saying, “you can still have your microphone... We're just gonna cut the power to it if you say something we don't like”.
You're viewing a single thread.
If you're still on Twitter, you're part of the problem.
People keep repeating this for easy self-righteousness. Again, what about small artists whose careers depend on their social media following?
Fuck Musk, but for better or worse this isn't just about him.
Artists whose whole career depends on the whims of social media giants have dug their own hole.
Easy for you to say. Are you even an artist?
Small artists need a convenient way to get their work to the eyes of regular people. If their self-hosted gallery is seen by no one, it doesn't facilitate their career. They generally can't afford to buy ads and are not popular enough to get a fan made groups spreading the word everywhere else.
Not to mention that this is such a callous attitude in general. Because you in particular aren't susceptible to this manner in which wealthy assholes are screwing people, then it's their fault for needing it?
I don't make money as an artist, but I live with two of them. They both migrated to Mastodon, with my technical assistance, and left Twitter before Elmo bought it.
Bear in mind I'm not the previous commenter, but I believe what they were saying is that the writing was on the wall over a year ago, and there are alternatives. Artists and computer geeks tend to get along with each other, and so most artists should have a techy friend that can help them with exposure online. I understand that switching platforms is inconvenient, and tiresome. Looking at it from a tech perspective however, it's a better ROI.
The worst of it is the ≈week of daily posts right before you shut down your Twitter account, linking to your new account. My friends were able to direct link, but I don't know if Elmo is allowing that any more.
Moving over is definitely the right call, I know. But many people are still struggling with trying to find alternatives only to have few followers coming along, so they can't just cut it off and hope for it to work. The technical part is frankly the easiest part of it.
they made a home on a platform once, they should be able to do it again. Staying on xitter or whatever is just kind of nonsense at this point.
I'm sure if there was a platform they could jump to that would sustain their career, they would
audiences will rarely move from platform to platform. For content creators, we have to go to where our audience is, or provide an incentive to move elsewhere. That's the main reason why there hasn't been a decent competitor to YouTube, Twitter, nor Twitch. The audiences there are entrenched.
Yes, and generally how that goes is from a point where they are just making art as a hobby to one where they rely on their audience to pay the bills. It's not such a trivial thing to start over.
Get their art into the eyes of regular people? Umm. Are artists like, more special people or something? Lol. I know that’s not your point but that’s how it came across and I couldn’t focus on anything else and started laughing.
What do you mean? If it's about not being "regular", it's in the sense that most people don't depend on their stuff being seen on social media to make a living. They are just browsing as a pastime.
As they say on the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast, don't build your house in someone else's backyard.
*had limited choices as to which hole to dig
All the more reason to give their following a chance to find them elsewhere, and to follow them there when they do. There are other options; ideally standards-based federated options not susceptible to hostile takeovers by unstable billionaires
It doesn't work like this and you know it. If you're selling something you have to take it to the markets where people are. They don't come to you if they don't know who you are. You'd have to be Taylor swift levels to not give a fuck about the major socials.
I have already had a lot of trouble to change family for signal. I can't even imagine forcing your audience (people you don't know) to find you on a niche platform
Yeah I disagree with OP that people still using X to make a living are a part of the problem. But I do think that if they’re not diversifying the platforms they use to make it easier for people to move then they are.
It might seem like X is where everyone is but it’s relatively niche as social networks go. You can’t trust the metrics that they put on posts. When they rolled out view counts, people with newly created private accounts with zero followers were somehow getting dozens of views on their posts.
I always viewed Twitter and Facebook as analogous to AOL - walled gardens. Eventually people ditched AOL for the web, and I hope that eventually they’ll do the same for those dinosaurs.
Of course, but there is a whole transition period. They can change platforms but getting their followers to join along with them takes a lot more effort. Especially given that Twitter is suppressing any links for alternative platforms.
I'm not an artist but I know a lot of them and basically only use twitter to follow them. And honestly, the ball is in their court. I see a lot of them complaining about shadowbans and it being impossible to grow a following. But nobody wants to jump ship to a place without an audience.
The problem being there will be no audience sitting around a new platform waiting for a show to start. They need to start double posting, IMO. Being the change they want in the world. They don't have to quit twitter, but posting content to twitter and mastodon (for example) would give their audience a reason to move, would give them a chance to grow, etc.
There's even apps like PostyBirb that can do the multiposting for you.
Yes, and many of them do that, but for most the audience on other platforms isn't enough to drop Twitter yet. They can join every single alternative but they can't make others do the same.
I apply to a lot of online contests and most have me 'retweet' the contest submission link or follow people on the platform. That is literally all I use it for.
Ever win anything?
More ads!
Not OP but my mom enters literally every contest she sees and has won a surprising amount.
Is it stuff she actually wants or needs, or is the garage full of junk she won from defunct companies and a years supply of RC Cola?
Off the top of my head, not counting the plethora of gift cards:
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A first edition Kindle Fire a month after it released. For being tech-illiterate, she ended up loving it and upgraded a few times through the years.
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Several Roku boxes and Fire TV sticks, which are just now getting used because my parents are finally cutting the cord.
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Lots of concert tickets for various bands, including Foo Fighters, Green Day, and Kiss.
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1-week all expenses paid trip to Nashville for some big New Year's party that some celebs showed up to.
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$600 cowboy boots.
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$300 KitchenAid mixer.
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A full set of Paula Dean cookware, and she LOVES Paula Dean.
That’s the good stuff. How much bad stuff? Like, sounds awesome, but if she also got 10,000 beer coozies and bad water bottles and whatever other tchotchke nonsense….
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Sorry just noticed this notification. Yes actually! A $500 shopping spree on a gaming website.