This is intended to be part of a series of markets evaluating how Twitter is doing a bit over a year after ownership by Elon Musk.
At the end of 2023 after market close I will link a poll in the comments that asks Manifold users if Twitter has improved for the better. If the majority result is YES, this market resolves YES.
Post of related markets:
https://manifold.markets/post/evaluating-twitter-after-a-year-of
1,000
3.00@Spice_N_Wolf also:
pro-America -> pro X
anti-America -> pro Twitter
respect for the masses -> pro X
hatred for the masses -> pro Twitter
pro freedom of speech -> pro X
pro censorship -> pro Twitter
@SemioticRivalry Birdwatch is from the time before Musk https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2021/introducing-birdwatch-a-community-based-approach-to-misinformation
@Rwin well, it got massively expanded to the world in 2023 so that's still improvement in my book
As someone who does not have a Twitter account and is not interested in getting one, Twitter is now much worse.
A year ago, I could read a blog that linked to a Twitter Thread, click on it, and then read through the whole thread and many replies with only a popup nagging me to join Twitter. Now I cannot. Half the time I'm able to see one directly linked tweet, but that is it. This loginwall has made Twitter far less useful to me, and it's even hurt my readership of other blogs like @ZviMowshowitz who frequently links to Twitter threads, almost all of which I can no longer read, so it's tough to know what he's talking about.
I will be voting NO.
@TiredCliche Yes, as far as I know, it is no longer possible to see more than one tweet without being logged in. I agree that is at least one change for the worse, and it is inconsistent at least with the spirit of what Elon has said about blocking.
@DavidBolin I really think that Twitter users- especially government figures with a duty to share info to the public- should no longer rely on Twitter to disseminate info to a wide audience. It used to be that I'd check my local police department or transit agency's recent tweets like every other day so I could know if there was anything wild or crazy going on, or public safety info I should know. Now this too is no longer possible. Maybe they should get a WordPress or Tumblr or something where nonusers can read it
I am excited for this market, I think X has ended up in very much a better place than it was before Elon took over. I do not have serious issues with bots anymore, and even though I just have a small account the amount and quality of interaction I have been getting on my posts has increased dramatically.
@jim I agree
(Edit: our ads are super botted sometimes, and it’s not offsite bots like you get with google - where people try to increase their ad profits - it’s literally Twitter onsite bots lol)
(Edit2: still agree tho, I use Twitter much more than I did before, and not just for my job)
@DanPowell Say what you will about Twitter-2023, but it undeniably has a year's worth of additional tweets on it, and they're informative about the events of the year 2023 in a way that Twitter-2022 was never able to achieve
@DanPowell For me it's way better. People say things that are actually controversial and where disagreement is meaningful and allowed. Pre-musk twitter, a huge percent of the time when someone says "X" and doesn't get banned, saying "!X or even giving reasons/evidence" was just not allowed.
Also a lot more people feel not as cancellable so there is a lot more serious debate.
Also, the social tech for how to provide and argue things has improved. Also AI art has improved a ton so lots more posts have interesting visualizations on them, same as on manifold.
@SneakySly yeah that doesn't look good. if that's the real state of things for everyone, seems not right?
technical question, do we know if hiding is scoped to source, or is stateless? if this account were marked as "trans, and aggressively anti-cis" it might lead to an outcome like this (i.e. since the filter evaluator would not be looking for "anti-trans" comments from them but would be looking for "anti-cis"). This is only an assumption/question, not an invalidation of the wrongness of the image if the background for it does turn out to be a true inequality in treatment
@Ernie I’ve seen multiple people post repros of this. We know Elon is very anti trans so don’t need anything crazy to explain this.
@SneakySly huh, yeah I don't like the inconsistency there. Seems like it should be symmetrical, and just not go on about hating whole groups either way
@Ernie Looks like it’s specific to cis and neither symmetrical nor consistent.
To be clear, I think all of those should have been censored.
@DanPowell I'd rather my social media networks not explicitly take a side in american culture wars
@DanPowell does "all trannies should be killed" or "all kikes should be killed" get a similar label? If yes then it's sorta defensible.
@Ernie I don't think the amount of censorship has changed, it's just switched from censoring both the extreme left and right to censoring the left more and not the right.
There are some positive changes though.