@Cheri Not surprising, unfortunately. Twitter never really had a viable business without charging users somehow. There just wasn’t a way to incorporate advertising without ruining the platform.
Letting abuse run rampant and unacknowledged certainly didn’t help things.
@Cheri Interesting. Turns out this was the trigger for me to switch the useful feeds I follow to my Feedbin RSS service and delete my last Twitter account (in a day or two). 👍
It’s worse than you think. Elliot Managment was founded and essentially driven by (as distinct to ‘run by) Paul Singer.
If you read books and articles by Greg Palast ... you might recognize his name.
I will come back later with some links to help you get your head around the level of doucheness that this guy can descend to.
@Cheri Yikes. I've gotten to like twitter as I currently have it set up. (ie. ditching the crazies I used to follow) My short term solution will be to ditch the Twitter app on my iPhone and open it up in Safari only. Actually, the web app is quite good.
@bradenslen @cheri Third party clients like Tweetbot are still very usable. No ads and a chronological timeline. No push, but I consider that a plus. I guess when Twitter finally blocks 3rd party, I'll stop using Twitter.
@Cheri Yikes is right. I’d be ok without my personal Twitter account, but I would miss the new Star Trek Twitter community I’ve gotten to know via @voyager\_cast.
@mcg @cheri @bradenslen I had heard about the Hedge Fund piece, but not the change in data handling. I also use Twitter via 3rd party apps. I have bounced between a couple, but currently use Twitterrific. They allow me to setup and use Twitter as I want, without the the rest of the noise. I now wonder if the writing is on the wall for these apps?
@Cheri thanks for the heads up on this. Might be finally time to delete the Twitter account that I rarely use anyway.
@crossingthethreshold @mcg @cheri The trick with third party apps is finding out, what data they are collecting and who they are sharing it with.
@Cheri The more things change ... In the 1970s, my older brother was a mid-level accountant for a chemical company within a conglomerate ( Northwest industries as I recall). The chemical company was “taken private” by something like a hedge fund no doubt, and he immediately started sending out resumes: “The first thing they’ll do is shut down research and development before squeezing out all the cash they can. A chemical company without R&D has no future.”
@crossingthethreshold I’ll be curious to see how they handle third party apps. My best guess is that Twitter will become a lot more like Facebook over the next few years. More tracking, a hamstrung API, pay-to-be-seen by followers, mining of existing data for new purposes, manipulations of the feed... But I’m not sure.
@crossingthethreshold I'd start looking for disclosures on the app store page and the creators website. Look for dodgy and evasive language in their privacy policy. If it sounds like corporate-speak gobbelty-gook they are probably dirty. I guess I'd also do a web search for the "app name + privacy" and see what that pops up.
@crossingthethreshold The app's privacy policy is a good place. Here is Tweetbot's tapbots.net/tweetbot/...
@Cheri You are not the only person I have heard predict that Twitter is headed down the Facebook road. Unless I discover something unfavorable about the 3rd party apps that I use, I will stick with Twitter for now. I value some contacts that I have there, but I will keep an eye on things.
@mcg Thank you. I have just found Twitterrific's privacy policy. I'll take a look at the Tweetbot link.
As promised …
A search on Palast's site re Singer
And just this past December. (I mean if Tucker Carlson is calling him out) …
Tucker Carlson: How Paul Singer, Hedge Funds Are Destroying Rural America
@frostedechoes ‘the hedge fund thing is messing up a LOT of things - poke into the conversation on this thread to find links about SInger specifically - a person who is 100% lacking in any morality or scruples - and big enough to drive COUNTRIES into bankruptcy.
Talking of which - NOT about Twitter - and ALL about the lack of morals and scruples in the PE world.
Try this one on for size
How private equity is using the pandemic to extort taxpayers
your data will eventually belong to Singer. Trust me.
@JohnPhilpin Oh, of that I have no doubt. Through my use of Twitter via 3rd party apps I am still getting value from the platform. If those apps are forced out or Twitter's practices get to a place that I can no longer sit with, I'll leave. But for now, I am there and appreciating the few interactions that I have there.
@JohnPhilpin Oof. Thank you for the insight. Some people use money for good. Others use it only to make themselves more money. The latter are a cancer on capitalism.