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by ym555 1323 days ago
Comparing Twitter to Tumblr is laughable. The same thing that happened to tumblr cannot happen to twitter.
2 comments

Can you elaborate on that? How do you establish the impossibility of future events?
Tumblr was very North America/Europe centric platform, with most users often posting about very niche topics that most people aren't interested in.

On the other hand, twitter is a pretty global platform, yes a big share of its users is from the US, but japan, brazil, the middle east constitute a huge part of its userbase, so while I wouldn't say that losing the part of twitter that hates elon and his policies won't be a problem (if that ever happens), it's impact won't be as large as tumblr, because no one cares about elon in japan.

The topics discussed on twitter are also far less niche and more current, politicians, celebrities, artists, companies all use it, so it mostly can't experience meltdown by changing its policies, because what's keeping people on twitter is other people, not the policies. Yes this does mean that if those people leave every one will with them, but there is simply no alternative to twitter to leave to right now, mastadon is a joke, discord and reddit are just a different form of social media that wouldn't satisfy twitter users Maybe someone can make a new platform just like twitter? but I doubt that elon's decisions can be that bad.

He mostly has to keep it the same, and he won't lose a single user.

> The topics discussed on twitter are also far less niche and more current, politicians, celebrities, artists, companies all use it, so it mostly can't experience meltdown by changing its policies,

So this is actually a very interesting question to me, is this your gut or do you have data for this, I can certainly see why you say this, but based on all the people here who talk about how to “use twitter right” my gut was the opposite, certainly in terms of cultural relevance you are correct, but in terms of MDAU’s I assume twitter is mostly people following their “niche” (not as niche as tumblr” interests. Like for me that is music and software engineers/former coworkers, and decidedly not politicians and journalists. Twitter seems to have some exclusivity there but seems to compete heavily with Instagram in the artist/influencer space.

> the part of twitter that hates elon and his policies

Can you elaborate on his policies? I personally do not have first-hand knowledge of them. As far as I know, it’s currently a big question mark.

Elon has expressed support for free speech and treating both left and right equally.
What has Elon done that makes you think everything that he says is reliable?
“Objection, Your Honor. The question assumes facts not in evidence.”

Neither my comment nor the comment to which I was replying made any claim about the reliability of Elon’s statements, my beliefs on that subject, or the effects of Elon’s actions on my beliefs.

He says a lot of things, however, and the fact that he’s describing that as something other than the status quo it is means we shouldn’t take this at face value.
I think this reveals more about what you think the current split is... A large proportion of the right believe things like misgendering and wanting to kick Muslims out of the country is fine. These kinds of things aren't allowed on twitter.
The absolute nerve of that guy.
Tumblr died because they banned all NSFW content. Many of them went to Twitter. If Elon decides to do the same (doubt he will), Twitter would absolutely fade away quite fast.
Twitter doesn't depend nearly as much on NSFW content as Tumblr did. The majority of people use twitter and never or rarely come across NSFW content.
Why?
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ym555

This appears to be the only comment this account has ever made

This doesn't really mean much. I know people like to use this as 'see they're a shill'-- but does Elon really need to pay people in order to get into petty fights about him? This literally is completely inconsequential. He's a billionaire, he owns twitter and can do what he wants. People can complain all day and it has literally no effect. He says things that piss people off literally every single day. The best thing to do is just ignore him instead of feeding him more attention
Now that's odd right? Account created in 2019 and not a single comment until now. The comment is also just a quick rebuttal with no substance, the type of comment made by someone who you'd think would comment often.

So either

People who manipulate opinions for some group, country, or company on social media keep accounts stored so when needed they can perform their job.

Or, this person read hackernews for 3 years and never commented (ignoring deleted comments) until just now and only to basically say "no".

“Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.”

Sometimes people lurk because they know they’re going to be scrutinised by self appointed gatekeepers and so try and wait until they have something perfect. Only to later just jump in the pool with something simple.

Your either is not complete, there are plenty of other possibilities.

Ever heard of lurkers?

> Or, this person read hackernews for 3 years and never commented (ignoring deleted comments) until just now and only to basically say "no".

Yes, comparing tumblr to twitter was so idiotic I just had to say no.

I have heard of lurkers, that was the second option I offered
Even better, no response to this as of the time I write this comment (1667104702).
So? That seems off topic.