bobiny

I find Twitter teaching me to stand my ground in terms of my boundaries and what I enjoy. If I talk to somebody and they start insulting me, I mute. I mute people who insult others too. Difference between physical public space is that if some people are screaming at each other, you'd have to engage somehow (like break them off) or disengage by walking away. In Twitter you can mute them. Let them fight between themselves.

I tried Twitter many times but always stopped using it after reading a lot of upsetting materials. Like you follow favorite musician and beside music announcements, there are political rants. I returned to Twitter when I learned to use Mute function liberally. Maybe in your case, you'd feel better on more art related sites like Tumblr or DeviantArt?

I don't want another huge social network. I'd have a number of smaller autonomous ones.

IMO being informed is about your own research. Either making sure you follow trustworthy people and/or checking their sources.

Wondering if the account is real or fake? Check the person's website, wikipedia page, look if there are more accounts with this name.

People are willfully disinformed. Do you trust information just because it's being liked many times? Well, being popular doesn't mean it's right or healthy.

In Russia many people don't think their government is doing anything wrong. Why? TV says so. Their coworkers do. But you have Youtube, Telegram. Most media who's websites are blocked have YT channels or their articles can be read on Telegram with quick view. No VPN needed.

In my POV many moderation/censorship arguments boil down to the desire to be walled off from bad info vs being able to make individual choices. Russian government is doing the former by blocking independent media.

Russia began alleged NATO fighting well after it annexed Crimea and invaded Donbas.

Retaliate against what? Helping Russia's neighbor not being destroyed?

Personal info harvesting is at the core of most ad based businesses. Like Google of FB. I’d help people sell things. Like be a platform to sell books, nudes, news etc.

Verified accounts means it’s somebody well known outside of Twitter. So it’s beneficial to Twitter to have them.

I see today’s Twitter as a chat app where popular people promote their content to less popular. Maybe it would make sense to help populars sell stuff directly and get a cut.

sure

Maybe something funded by public, yes.

I think there is a need for smaller existing community-based social networks. They can be paid for by certain people or crowdfunded once in a while like Wikipedia.

I wouldn't pay for each video I watch now, but I could probably watch less. It's like eating junk food now: you can eat nonstop but it doesn't nourish.

Yes. I feel that "liking" is a consumerist approach to conversation. Buy/no buy, swipe left/right. It's more nuanced in real world. We don't always agree or disagree with people, sometimes we just listen and exchange words. So yeah, there would be less "likes", but they would be more substantial.

I wasn't talking about Twitter specifically. Ads are a dominating revenue model: Youtube, Instagram, Facebook etc. I had an idea of people using crypto payments instead of likes. A platform would take a cut.

I hope ads will die some day. To me they are just annoying and very rarely informative.

Serious question: what is the benefit for a journalist to work for a news org vs working solo?