General

Well Threads is already on the decline. Guess there's Truth? Haha. Social media in general has become such a plague. Honestly, TikTok has become my favorite these days. Mindless but also educational and entertaining.

X needs to get a move on to stop the bleeding
You can clearly tell many advertisers have pulled out. I went from having relevant/targeted ads, to generalized stupid bullcrap ads. Most of which seem to revolve around AI/hot chicks or hot AI chicks. None of these are anywhere in my browsing history. They're going for lame ass generalized demographics and using whoever they have left that's paying.

Elon is a crazy bastard, but he may ultimately pull it off, who knows.

they suspend you for foul language but allow porn videos...interesting.

Don't replace it. Put your phone down. Try it for a week or two.

bill wrote:

Real life. I think most of us could use a social media detox.

What's Twitter? It's called X now, boomer.

bill wrote:

This was my plan. To never use SM at all. Twitter was the last one I ever used. Left everything else years ago. It’s just so convenient to have- not supporting what they’re after.

I deactivated my Twitter a few months back, and haven’t looked back. All I have is Facebook for friends and family and that’s all I plan to have. If I could get away without that and still know what was going on, I would.

My phone gives me a pop up / update of my “social media” use weekly. It’s like 2-3 hrs usually. That seems low, but if I’m in downtime between office visits etc I almost always just cruise Twitter. It will be good for me to let it die. I’ve got some e books etc I’ve been reading instead. I could have taken over the world by now if I would have read more instead of playing games and Twitter etc.

I still have Twitter (fudge Elon), but got a Mastodon account at a server a friend runs. It's fine. I also got a parked bluesky account. I'm probably never using Threads because of how deep it wants to stick its fingers in your phone.

I mostly used Twitter for game searching and that idiot in charge has started to make it harder for me to find stuff there. I spend half the time blocking paid users and trolls / bots / cultists.

Lots of ads as someone said. And tons of hot girls tweet me now who just want sex. They’re very superficial.

Feeb wrote:

How are you getting timeouts for that? You should see the crap I post. I got perma-banned once, but in all fairness I deserved it. Maggoty Mags dishes it out, but she can't take it. My new account I post some pretty brutal crap. They haven't done a thing.

It immediately locks my account from posting etc if I trigger the “most users don’t tweet this” warning. It’s never been this way before.

I get that all the time. It provides me with the option to not tweet it or tweet it anyway. I always tweet. Never happened to me. I'm not kidding when I say I post some brutal stuff. I hate Twitter I don't care if I get banned. If I decide I need it later I'd just make a new account anyway.
That's odd.

Even if I delete the tweet I still get shut down for at least 24 hours. I must be on a crap list. Or it’s that easy to report and suspend others. I never reported anyone.

This post has made me fully understand the appeal of Twitter. You want to rage against everything...what better place than a site you loathe with every fiber of your being...yet you still can't stop going there.

Seriously...this is a decade long puzzle piece that just fell into place. I just didn't understand the importance of raging so hard.

It wasn’t really an angry thing. I believe the tweet that got me shut down said “why would people be butt-holes and trash this guy for being happy?”

But Twitter allows you to be anonymous and say bad things about other people without any risk of reprisal. So perhaps it appeals to that type of person.

Really, the best way to enjoy that app was to stick to the topics you like, and block the hell outta trolls. Making accounts was so easy that folks didn't care what they posted. The moderators there - the ones left after that dumbfudge fired everyone - can't really do much, and any automated systems keep getting messed with.

The site was fine when reporting people still worked. But that butt-hole keeps making things worse. And yes, I specifically mean Elon Musk, I swear he is the stupidest millionaire ever or he just wants to kill the site.

I used it to network with others in my field often. The site is amazing when it works well. It’s pretty unpredictable lately. Honestly the most I usually did in the last month was send my wife and kids animal videos that got posted. I don’t really have any feelings toward musk either way. I think he made a big miscalculation in his Twitter fiasco though.

It's all a rage thing. The few posts I made on there were rage things because the garbage said there was both so freaking crazy AND just full of this confident snark for being around a bunch of other rage addicts who leaned the same way.

Yeah...bill is absolutely correct here in what the best course of action is.

Tribalistic behavior. I fall victim to it too. It’s so weird that you can basically choose to be in an echo chamber where everyone loves you but we choose to step out of it and try to convince others. Lots of folks just need to feel they belong etc.

Feeb wrote:

Except trying to convince people on the internet to look at important things from another perspective is almost never successful.

Man...great wisdom you two...that's very well said from both of you.

rayzor6 wrote:

It's cathartic. It's an outlet. I don't go there very often. When I do it's usually to confirm what someone claimed a public figure stated or to meme harvest. I end up popping off because I encounter vile garbage that should encounter flack. I just DGAF how I say it to life forms who espouse that vile garbage. They don't deserve to be treated with respect. I'm in a town with a population of 3k. Population whose ideologies I don't align with? 2,999. I need an outlet.

Feeb wrote:

There are groups on Facebook where two sides meet and exchange ideas and do it civilly. Extremists from other sides will occasionally slither in and get disruptive and nasty. It's not long before they're shown the door. You can get out of the echo chamber. There are still pages/groups (mostly groups) where both sides can converse freely and respectfully.

I'm mostly on metal Twitter lol. Never had any of my crap flagged, and I swear a ton on there. Porn boys are def up, and I see tons of blue check posts I don't want to, but I'm on it for music and no other platform is there yet

It really is the best platform for up to date news on everything.

Feeb wrote:

Use Google. You can choose which media outlets you do or do not want them to post from. You can also set up alerts to notify you of specific topics or people.

Just use Gametz!!! We will call the tz's instead of tweets or X's or Threads.... see it's catching on already!

I have a Twitter account but RARELY use it... I am that way with pretty much all social. My wife keeps me informed of my Families business. It's just suck a crap hole and I just want to distance myself from it.

Finn wrote:

This is the only place on the internet where I interact with other people on the internet. It's more than enough content for me.


While I despise social media, I do have a Twitter account, only because I have to use it to upload pics and videos from my Switch.

I find Twitter to be most useful during the NHL season mainly the leadup to NHL trade deadline.. but other then that it collects dust.

Throwing my hat into just dump it.

I honestly think social media has made our lives so much worse in general. It's a virus cesspool, so many ideas only take shape there and spread because we interact in ways that shouldn't be possible. The human mind shouldn't be shared with each other to that extent yet there we are, coughing on each other mentally. And what happens when people transmit viruses to each other is a violent reaction, white blood cells attacking the ideas. I try and limit my interaction with the internet hive minds by sticking to things I find interesting and staying off of every comment section and general front page or place designed only around throwing rage at each other in general.

I will say it's a shame that CAG can't integrate too well with twitter now, or at leas their front page can't. Would be nice if they transitioned to the site itself but they probably won't ever do that.

Been off of twit since posting this. I only miss wario 64 so far. And these news pages are pretty awful. Setting up google to show me what I prefer this week.

Reading the comment pages on CAG deals is pretty great.

If you deactivate Twitter, does that mean you are no longer a Twit?

I've heard some people are using Mastodon as an alternative. That said, I have no experience with it.

willyum wrote:

It's essentially an open source Twitter alternative. It functions more or less the same, but people or organizations can run their own server, which can then communicate with others. Said servers may be very general (like mastodon.online) or mostly focused on a topic in general (like the one I'm at.)

I have a Mastodon account at https://digipres.club/@Foxhack - this is a digital preservation oriented server hosted and operated by my friend Misty. Signups are not public, account requests are reviewed and approved individually. I have followers - and follow people - from different servers with different main topics, including game development, tech furries, open source communities, artists, LGBTQ, and horny furries.

Unfortunately, this also leads itself to being abused. There are a lot of troll servers out there who can just start following you and start sending abusive messages, but it's easy to block people - or entire domains. The admins can also block the domains for everyone. But this is a double edged sword, because of nerds being nerds, servers can also be blocked if people don't like each other and the users can't do much about it.

I mostly treat it as a sort of feed, the people I follow tend to repost things that are in my general interests.

I’ve been 100% SM free since posting this. I’m much more productive with free time and overall much less anxious. Recommend.

Feeb wrote:

I wish I could double this post.

Feeb wrote:

This site you're on now is sort of social media of a kind. Delete it too!

There are only a handful of stressful tools here. Easily managed.

Feeb wrote:

Amen brother.

FREEDOM!!!!

FREEDOM!!!!

I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance

- Carl Sagan ~1995

Embrace the freedom!

[segment break]

rayzor6 wrote:

Double post..

Twitter is a reflection of that Demon Haunted World quote- ironically in that it separated itself from that idea and then was bastardized by dogma and bought by idealists with an agenda. It is a magnification of credulous ignorance manipulated by those that profit from it. Sagan was 100% right- superstitious zealots are making the laws in America- and we are slipping into the dark ages. Our politicians are celebrities from tv shows that have no grasp of current issues and create alternative facts.

He had some good thoughts on how the same thing happened to Persia. It’s a nice desert now.

If you think it's only America you aren't paying attention.

The quote was about America.

If Carl Sagan thinks it's only America he isn't paying attention.

um... he's dead. And that quote was from 1995.

If Carl Sagan's ghost still thinks it's only America he wasn't paying attention.

Carl Sagan is perpetually misquoted but yes he understood that supernatural / religious / unsupported / charlatan ideas were a destructive force opposing scientific progress everywhere and forever.

bill wrote:

A few months ago I deactivated my Facebook for a few reasons. I realized how much business I lost from groups in addition to strongly missing Messenger. I went back a week later, but removed the Facebook icon from the home screen of my phone so it takes a few clicks if I ever want to pull it up without a notification. I tailored my notifications - and continue to do so, but I spend a fraction of the time I used to spend on there - and I don't miss it.

I use X for following Wario64 and that’s it.

Sun wrote:

I miss him. Wallet doesn’t.

Yeah I'm trying to get off the "well it's on sale/cheap right now so I gotta buy it right now" mentality.

Maybe I will end up paying more than I have to for some things, but maybe I will end up just buying a whole lot fewer games and save a ton more money overall.

Had to replace my car recently, and having a car payment again is helping with that whole not buying stuff thing.

Same. New vehicle. I gave up beer and caffeine recently. Giving up wario as well has felt like a new job. I’m not sure where all of this newfound discipline is coming from. I think I’ve finally grown up. 43 year old man child is finally becoming an old butterfly.

Feeb wrote:

So did some of our founding fathers, but that truth is ignored by the fantasy dwellers. Even when over two dozen quotes directly by the founding fathers prove it's true. The fantasy dwellers will completely ignore those posts and post quotes from the founding fathers who did believe in the fantasy. Progress will never be made until people stop lying and living in a world that never existed.

Unfortunately that's the reality of social media. You can't even use it to keep up for news because the big three (FB, Twitter, Youtube) will insist on shoving stuff that will make you mad in your timeline, all for engagement. It sucks.

Feeb wrote:

Oh for sure. I've definitely spent way more money than I wouldn't have if I wasn't following him.

Feeb wrote:

This is the way I finally got off of Facebook almost a year ago and it's been great. There's still a part of me that kinda misses being linked up with distant relatives, and old friends, because I'm never going to see/catch up with those people otherwise. But, it just wasn't worth it for all of the social media crap you have to put up with. I created an alternate account that's not connected to anybody, just so I can use FB marketplace, but that's all I do on it.

I've always hated Twitter and barely ever used it, except for the last couple years I've been following Wario64. The only reason I still have it on my phone is for his alerts. Occasionally, I'll make the mistake of scrolling past his post and I start to see the other random crap Twitter throws at me. Twitter is WAY worse than FB IMO, a total cesspool.

And it's only going to get worse. Elmo just said he wants to remove the block feature, so we can't even hide all the garbage. Fudging moron.

Foxhack wrote:

I have a friend who posted about accidently buying precooked shrimp and what he could do with it (with a strong tinge of foodie snobbery).

Many people posted things. When I hit the post the ONLY post that was showing was NOT the oldest, NOT the newest and NOT the one that had the most reactions. It was the ONLY one that was NOT a helpful suggestion and said "Ugh...you wouldn't believe the number of people who wouldn't consider that to be a mistake".

And I almost replied because I hate that kind of crap where someone acts like a douche on there because their opinion is clearly the only one or the best one and you are dumb if you think otherwise. But I opened up the post and there were like 12 others that had GREAT suggestions on what you could do with them for different dishes.

It really opened my eyes to the deep psychology to get you to interact and good or bad interaction doesn't matter in their eyes. I always knew that was the general mindset but to see it in action and realize how easy it was to be manipulated kinda ticked me off.

Yup, that's exactly the kind of thing I was talking about.

I just block the people who leave stupid suggestions. They're doing it on purpose, and there's no point in paying attention to them.

Foxhack wrote:

Until Elon says you can't block anymore.

He really is torpedoing the corpse of Twitter as fast as he can

Blocking is for people who don’t know how to report and get others banned properly. You gotta be a dick to beat a dick. Errr…

Foxhack wrote:
Condensed for space

Thanks for the explanation!
Digital Preservation is great! You and your friends are doing important work! I used to be active (relatively) on Mobygames, but tapered off after Windows stopped working with my flatbed scanner. Now I have a great scanner that I can't get to work simply because there are no modern drivers available for it. And I'm not tech-savvy enough to write my own drivers.

Feeb wrote:

Don't do that...

Fight with them, block them, get off the platform yourself but that is too much like grade school and is just cowardly.

Yeah I was being sarcastic. That’s what they did to me. Any comment that wrinkled feathers / was reported got me banned.

With the way it's going, soon instead of banning you they will require you to use the site more as punishment.

Feeb wrote:

That is pathetic. Sorry you had that happen. There is nothing like being banned by a weak minded person

Unfortunately there are user accounts that exist solely to ban / silence a dissenting POV. It’s pretty widespread and you’d be surprised how far some take it: sports, religion, politics, video games, food - you have an opposition opinion they may try to erase your voice. Most of them are not educated or trained in the fields they passionately and vehemently defend or espouse either.

Feeb wrote:

Heard PornHub has a great comments section

benstylus wrote:

I heard that the blocking feature is a requirement for a SM app to be available in the Google Play Store. I think the person who told me said that's also the rule for whatever it is people who have iPhones use to download apps. I wonder if that will cause him to back off.

benstylus wrote:

Good. I see no downside to it not existing. It's a cesspool.

I'd make fun of you for being addicted to social media karma farming, but I click on the, like

image

crap the comes up in the Edge landing browser page, then posting Pikachu Pissyfaces in Discord when I don't like what I read, so really we're the same. Anyways, the world would be immeasurably better tomorrow without IG and Twitter. Don't sniff fudging roosters