This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
As of this morning, it appears Musk has implemented a hard sign-in wall on Twitter. This is substantially more extreme even than Facebook and Instagram’s sign-in walls, given both of those still allow users to view profiles and some posts before being forced to sign in (though they restrict scrolling). I think it might be the most stringent sign-in wall of any social media platform (even Pinterest!). (Maybe Discord counts?)
Clicking on any Twitter link now forces me to sign in before seeing any tweet. Nitter still works for now, but I guess we shall see how long that workaround lasts.
Unlike Facebook and Instagram (and more like, I’d guess, Reddit), on Twitter most users don’t engage with content itself (making posts, commenting, liking, messaging), they just consume it, so there’s less incentive to make an account. If this is a gambit rather than a mistake, it seems like a pretty bold attempt by Musk to force lurkers into making accounts (to acquire more user data and perhaps in the hope that once they have an account they’re likelier to engage more with the platform, spend longer on it, consume more ads).
I’m skeptical this is the new CEO because Musk already enhanced the sign-in wall before she took over (forcing it even for simply scrolling down someone’s page) and said in any case he’ll remain in charge of the tech while she focuses on ad sales.
If this Twitter change is permanent the 'Terminally Online' are going to be in for interesting times. Between Youtube experimenting with banning adblockers and Reddit apps closing has the potential of creating a dead sea like effect on the platforms. It will be a shift in internet culture and the online portion of the culture war, how that looks I wouldn't know how to start to speculate about.
More options
Context Copy link
Not gonna lie, part of me wants to see this be a permanent thing. Scratch that, most of me wants to see this be a permanent thing.
More options
Context Copy link
I tried to create an account from a datacenter IP, and I swear to god their "add the dice" captcha is just marking correct answers wrong no matter what in a loop just to fuck with, I guess, anyone trying to use twitter with that high a bad-actor heuristic.
I did it 9 times in a row to the point it backed me off to 20 captchas per attempt. I tried it slow, triple-checking everything, I tried it fast in case it was tripping on that, but nope: failed, do the whole thing again, over and over and over. Inhuman nightmare.
Can't wait until I'm browser-fingerprinted to a data-pooled ban from 15 years ago, and this experience is everything for me forever with no recourse.
More options
Context Copy link
Good. I would very much like people to stop treating Twitter one-liners (or, god forbid, threads!) as the last argument of kings.
Twitter delenda est.
I understand the impulse, but this is a sour grapes, "actually by losing we won" take.
This is a low-key minor disaster for everybody, the world is poorer, nobody wins, vs a world where this did not happen (or if it turns out to be "necessary", in a world where it was not "necessary").
But yes, if this holds, Twitter delenda est.
No, I think I've been pretty consistent.
Twitter doesn't suck because of the login wall or any other particular feature. It sucks as a medium. Most of its provided value is contained entirely within the reward centers of its users. Every time someone backs up a hot take by linking to a tweet, humanity risks getting a little stupider, because someone might decide to retweet it.
I know this isn't unique to the site. If Twitter does somehow fall apart, it will be replaced by the next partisan Skinner box. And it will be praised.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Huge mistake in my opinion. Can't speak for others, but to me, a sign-in wall means I just stop interacting with that content altogether, and if I get linked there by mistake, I'll curse the site under my breath and close the tab. I can forgive Facebook because it's mostly aiming to be a more tight knit community site for local groups/friends/relatives. Instagram, Reddit, and especially Twitter have no excuse. Gut feeling is it's mortgaging the site's future for short term metrics.
He said it's 'temporary' and because of mass scraping of data by 3rd parties.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Nitter stopped working within the last 20 minutes.
There goes my RSS feed. Oh well, I suppose I should thank Yaccarino for freeing me from my doomscrolling compulsion.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Set your user agent to Googlebot and you can see it, because Google won't index sites that require registration to get into.
I tried this, and it gets past the login wall, but serves a noninteractive crawler-optimized version of the site that's not really usable
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Irritating, but may be for the best, at least in my use case.
I copped a permaban several months ago and the Twitter app was basically rendered useless, removing all my follows and forcing me to seek out individual pages to see their updates. And since I didn't care enough to deploy workarounds to create a new account, apps like Fritter at least allowed me to save and organize my follows, even if I couldn't post. Now that's dead as well, and it's easier to walk away from the whole thing.
I've also noticed that the old trick of Googling your query with 'reddit' appended has become less useful, with many subs having gone private or requesting age verification. Most of these platforms disgust me at this point, but it was hard to drop the compulsion of 'checking in' after years of usage. If they want to assist me with kicking the habit, I'll accept.
It really does feel like end of an era. RedditIsFun is now dead and I think this is a good stepping off point for me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm confused because I thought this was already the case. I have been trained by many annoyances to never open twitter links, because it always prompted me to sign in. I got an account way back in the day, and occasionally used it to sign in if I absolutely needed to see something on twitter. I never once tweeted from that account.
The sign in walls with facebook and instagram never annoyed me in the same way. My reasoning is probably a little irrational, but I feel like those profiles are for sharing personal info, and you should engage with them on a personal level. The vast majority of facebook and instagram profiles are for inter-personal sharing.
Twitter just doesn't feel the same. Everyone there is trying to shout as loud as they can at the rest of the internet and they want everyone to see it. And it strikes me as weird when a barrier is placed in front of that sharing. Its like when I go to youtube to watch a funny TV commercial, and youtube serves me up a video ad. There is a disconnect in incentives between the content creator and the content provider. The content creators (users) are saying "share this as widely as possible, with as few barriers as possible", and the content providers (twitter, youtube) are saying "I make no money on ads if there are zero barriers to sharing".
I regularly read CapitalWeather, the Washington Post's weather/climate section. In the articles about record temperatures/rainfall/whatever, you think there'd be links to the National Weather Service's (or whichever country's meteorological agency's) website.
Nope.
The links are always fucking Twitter.
Maybe they'll stop doing that now, or just assume that everyone who can read has a Twitter account.
It feels like the people that enjoy twitter are largely unaware of all the people who hate twitter. Maybe because the twitter haters aren't loud enough on twitter.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It was and then it wasn't again with varying steps along the way. There was a point before Musk took over where you could see a particular tweet or scroll a timeline one or two down before the sign in wall would come up. Then it seemed to have all been removed. Then recently, you couldn't actually run a search unless signed in, but could click a username that popped up in the search bar and navigate to their timeline. Then last week, you couldn't even see the search bar, but still open timelines through hyperlinks.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Not Musk. Linda Yaccarino is in charge now.
I can't take that last name seriously, it sounds like pupperino and other reddit neologisms.
I had a similar thought with respect to Redditisms, that Yaccarino looks reminiscent of Yikesarino. Plus, Linda means “pretty” in Spanish and Portuguese.
This. So much this. What the Supreme Court did yesterday was pretty yikesarino in my book.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Could just be a straight up trial to see whether engagement increases or falls. Wouldn't surprise me if it gets reversed after a week or two.
More options
Context Copy link
It's still worse than Discord's, because there you can create a fresh account on the homepage quickly and without providing an email. I don't have enough knowledge to make this judgement, but I suspect keeping the wall for a long time is a mistake - getting engaged with twitter via logged-out browsing, or clicking on tweets from other platforms and following links from there, and then later making an account was how I started using twitter regularly, and blocking that channel has to hurt more than whatever tracking benefits come from signing up.
More options
Context Copy link
Twitter always seemed to be a communication platform for businesses, and individuals who were already famous and had a large following. I never understood why I as a random no-name would want to have an account there.
I suppose this move is meant to change that perception. But I’d rather not be complicit in the death of the open web and the retreat of humanity’s collected oeuvre into walled gardens.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link