Scrutable

The Failed Migration of Academic Twitter

Following change in Twitter's ownership and subsequent changes to content moderation policies, many in academia looked to move their discourse elsewhere and migration to Mastodon was pursued by some. Our study looks at the dynamics of this migration. Utilizing publicly available user account data, we track the posting activity of academics on Mastodon over a one year period. Our analyses reveal significant challenges sustaining user engagement on Mastodon due to its decentralized structure as well as competition from other platforms such as Bluesky and Threads. The movement lost momentum after an initial surge of enthusiasm as most users did not maintain their activity levels, and those who did faced lower levels of engagement compared to Twitter. Our findings highlight the challenges involved in transitioning professional communities to decentralized platforms, emphasizing the need for focusing on migrating social connections for long-term user engagement.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.04005

An overall decrease in communication seems like a lost opportunity for society at large.

Guardian no longer posting on Twitter:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/ ... sting-on-x

As someone who has existed without ever being on Twitter/X, let me reassure you that you wont die, in fact, you'll thrive.

Would you say you're currently thriving?

I'm not a Twitter user personally but I've been a part of the conversations at work about what we do with our institutional accounts. The decision has been made to encourage everyone running an institutional account to slowly back away and start moving to alternative platforms without making a big fuss about it. We'll be using social media management software so that we can post across multiple platforms with minimum extra hassle.

One of the things that concerns a lot of us is that the exodus of reasonable human beings will mean that only the fascists, misogynists, etc will remain and the change in user terms that means you can no longer opt-out of your tweets being used to train Musk's AI will result in AI systems being developed that are even more fascist, misogynistic, etc than previous ones have been.

kerrya1 wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2024 10:25 am One of the things that concerns a lot of us is that the exodus of reasonable human beings will mean that only the fascists, misogynists, etc will remain and the change in user terms that means you can no longer opt-out of your tweets being used to train Musk's AI will result in AI systems being developed that are even more fascist, misogynistic, etc than previous ones have been.

I can only hope that at some point on the hype curve people will start looking critically at AI systems and asking if they are actually any good, and in the case of systems trained on Twitter data concluding that no, they’re fascist and misogynistic. I hope.

Well, it appears tw.tter's AI "Grok" was smart enough to identify Musk as an aggregious pusher of misinformation:
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/elon ... 45906.html

Amazingly Musk has now removed timestamps from tweets if you do a app update

Stranger Mouse wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 7:12 pm Amazingly Musk has now removed timestamps from tweets if you do a app update

Timestamps are still showing in a browser (for now - if you click on a post).

There is a letter in Private Eye this week suggesting the interesting point that Musk's purchase of Twitter was brilliant, not stupid. Though for Musk himself, not the wider public, nor those others who remained shareholders in Xwitter itself.

For all that Twitter has shed so much custom and lost so much value, it was still an important tool to him in helping get Trump re-elected. And so Musk has turned into one of the most powerful men in the world. In anticipation of the regulatory help he will get from Trump, the value of Musk businesses has increased since the election, by much more than his losses on Xwitter.

So was that Musk's evil plan all along? Obviously he was hardly likely to say so at the time of buying Twitter. And he did try to rescind his purchase of Twitter, and had to be forced into buying it at the bid price in court. Was that just a show, knowing that he would be forced buy it in the end? Or a game to try and knock the price down?

Or, like so many people who made a lot of money, did he accidentally make a decision that he in fact regretted at the time. But due to unanticipated things, and clever use of the situation he ended up in, he managed to make it turn turn out very well for him, once he had it, in ways he never expected at the time?

IvanV wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 10:09 am There is a letter in Private Eye this week suggesting the interesting point that Musk's purchase of Twitter was brilliant, not stupid.

On rereading the letter, I now realise the correspondent is suggesting only that the purchase was, ex post, successful, because of what he has now got out of it, rather than that it was part of any Machiavellian plan.

There's also a serious risk to Musk, that Boeing, or some other deep pocketed NASA contractor, ties up SpaceX government contracts in lawsuits for the next four years, due to Musk illegally acting as a donor to Trump while a Federal contractor, and other allegations of favoritism in awarding government contracts.

Surely by turning ex-Twitter into a hate-filled, misogynistic mire of reality-denying fascism, Musk has stolen the USP of Trump's somewhat ironically-named Truth Social?

..so who thinks the Donald will sue in the sort of look-and-feel lawsuit that was so popular in the 90s?

It's all kicking off today!
- Elon said that the US should give visas to smart Indian tech graduates.
- The RWNJ/MAGA people yelled at him, because 'Murica First.
- Elon started cutting off their blue ticks (e.g., Laura "I have an Askenazi IQ and big tits" Loomer, see pic) and, hence, monetisation of their shitposting.

Elon's split with Trump is going to be the funniest thing ever. He doesn't even get the government job for another 24 days. Maybe he won't ever actually start it.