I am seeing so many posts here about Twitter and it's possible alternatives. People are going on and on about
- What could be the next big thing
- What they want from new platform
- What tech stack they would use and so on
It's like there's fire in the house and all of us are discussing how to improve fire extinguisher design. The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve. No amount of algorithms can improve human behavior on any platform. It's good that we at least see the issues that have surfaced because of Twitter and other platforms. We now know people
- can have extremely polarized views
- feel the need to defend their polarized but flawed viewpoint at any cost
- are virtue signaling others but refuse to take any accountability whatsoever
- have less and less attention span
- only consume the content that aligns with their views
I can list another dozen issues but you get the point. Instead of trying to fix Twitter we need to look into why these things are happening. It does not seem like a technical problem that the HN crowd wants to solve. It's more of a personal, interpersonal and a social problem which needs extensive research, surveys to find the "why" and how we might be able to fix it or avoid it from happening again.
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33421489
Points: 27
# Comments: 7
Continue reading...
- What could be the next big thing
- What they want from new platform
- What tech stack they would use and so on
It's like there's fire in the house and all of us are discussing how to improve fire extinguisher design. The issues of Twitter are not a technical problem to solve. No amount of algorithms can improve human behavior on any platform. It's good that we at least see the issues that have surfaced because of Twitter and other platforms. We now know people
- can have extremely polarized views
- feel the need to defend their polarized but flawed viewpoint at any cost
- are virtue signaling others but refuse to take any accountability whatsoever
- have less and less attention span
- only consume the content that aligns with their views
I can list another dozen issues but you get the point. Instead of trying to fix Twitter we need to look into why these things are happening. It does not seem like a technical problem that the HN crowd wants to solve. It's more of a personal, interpersonal and a social problem which needs extensive research, surveys to find the "why" and how we might be able to fix it or avoid it from happening again.
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33421489
Points: 27
# Comments: 7
Continue reading...