“His management has left scientists reconsidering the value of X” is a funny line
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It’s about time they started giving more attention to the ones often treated as second class like M and N or even those which were once natural choices, such as A and B.
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I know there’s an overlap, but i wish this article were specifically about mathematicians.
I didn’t even catch that. It’s great! Thanks for pointing it out!
The quality has just been too variable lately.
Elon Zzz’s me now
If you’re still on Twitter, you’re part of the problem.
If you’re still on Xitter, you’re part of the problem.
why is this downVoted?
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I wouldn’t even go so far to call Twitter a mistake. But acknowledging that it turned into something you no longer want to support should be even easier.
Musk’s bootlickers, I suppose.
People don’t like being criticized or asked to change
Because it’s shallow moralism. Not everyone, not even most people who are still there are just staying because they love Elon Musk. Most likely they are there to follow the same people and publications who they were following since before this whole situation, which may not picked a new place to go to just yet.
This might be simple for people who just use it casually or established media and huge celebrities who are guaranteed to find a following wherever they go, but a lot of smaller artists are likely to lose most of their following if they change platforms, because not everyone will be going to the same platforms, or even check if they still have everyone they used to follow in a new place.
I’m just going to go out on a limb and say, maybe it shouldn’t be possible for one person to have enough wealth to singlehandedly buy and destroy important social institutions.
Also, maybe smart people shouldn’t be putting all their eggs into one privately owned basket.
Also, maybe smart people shouldn’t be putting all their eggs into one privately owned basket.
I yelled this from the mountain top when everyone was moving their businesses off their own websites and onto Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, but I was the minority. Why you would put the fate of your company, or hell, your government, into the hands of a mega-corp that is run by a sociopathic megalomaniac is beyond me.
TBF Facebook and Twitter etc were profitable platforms for a lot of businesses for a while. They obviously weren’t going to last forever though so it would have been short-sighted not to plan for them dying off.
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Woah now hold on just a second, that almost sounds like you’re criticising our perfect system of capitalism, in which a single person can and will accumulate enough wealth and power to buy and control hugely important things, and destroy them if they choose to. That’s like, the whole point of capitalism, to transfer as much wealth and power into as few hands as possible, regardless of any silly moral issues.
Sure, we could nationalise such important services for the good of the planet, like the police, fire brigade, water, electricity, healthcare, road maintenance, public transport, etc, but what are we, commies? 😮
Yes! The sale should have never been allowed and I really wonder if the whole “made a big offer that he tried to back out of but was forced to follow through on” was just a big play put on by Elon and the regulators to get people to feel good about the sale going through rather than being blocked like it should have.
It probably was one of the best and simplest tools for the job.
Worth remembering that Twitter’s problems didn’t start with Musk’s acquisition. He just redirected the city sewers into what was already a cesspool. Then took a piss in it for good measure.
I don’t know about that. Twitter seemed like a pretty stable platform before the acquisition, not a platform on the decline. Lots of problems, but now it’s a whole different level.
It was “Stable”, but money losing. Now it’s unstable but money losing.
I think that really understates the financial difference. Before Musk, Twitter was at just about break even for years and even had a few profitable years. Now, X is near bankruptcy. It’s saddled with a billion dollar loan while revenue is simultaneously way down as advertisers flee. When I say that Twitter was stable, I also meant financially stable. They had runway to raise more funding or take out loans, and the user base and advertising was growing. X doesn’t have any of those benefits.
I always cringe at this argument for tech companies. “Ohh, but they aren’t/weren’t profitable!”
That is by design. Any money that comes in, they double, triple invest in growth with some nebulous end goal that gets continuously kicked down the road to keep growing revenue year after year.
It’s their business model to not be profitable.
They don’t need to grow at break neck speeds. They can reduce spending and grow slowly at sustainable speeds if they choose. But they want to corner the domestic market, then then international market, then expand into adjacent markets, etc etc until they implode.
Same argument was made for ride share corporations during the gig worker reform initiatives. “Woe is Uber, they don’t make money! They can’t afford to give drivers benefits, or a minimum wage if rides are slow!”
No, they could have, if they didn’t decide to throw mountains of cash on driverless R&D, international expansion, lobbying to kill taxi laws, subsidized ride rates in new markets, etc.
Same as Twitter paying celebrities to use their platform, news stations to adopt and push their platform, etc etc.
I wasn’t talking about Twitter’s profitability or lack thereof. I meant it was a breeding ground for trolls, brigading, bullying, and disinformation long before Musk took over. Musk made it worse, but it’s funny how some people remember pre-Musk Twitter as this bastion of integrity and civil discourse.
I don’t think I have been in a single social media platform that couldn’t be described in such a way. Having come from reddit, that place was described exactly like that. Facebook is also infamous for disinformation. Social media has a lot of widespread problems, but people are way too quick to dismiss their merits.
But yes, Elon Musk made it worse. Now any asshole with $8 can stir up shit at the top of every discussion, getting in the way of the people trying to contribute or have fun. It’s noticeably, significantly worse now.
I think the comment was in response to the problems that existed before. While this was about the economic problems, it‘s worth considering that both may be connected.
I left months ago and have been doing my science communication on Mastodon since then. Sure, it sucks having to start over on a new platform, but I had already been doing that since leaving Facebook anyways.
Elon Musk took it over. If you have half a brain, and understand the field he’s talking about, you would have closed your account the moment he was handed the keys. How anyone ever thought ‘hey wait, maybe?’ is absolutely beyond me. It was the titanic. Too slow to steer but ample time to reflect on the matter.
And Elon steered away. Killed the brand. Polarized the community. Gutted the technology that powers it. And drove away any semblance of order and most importantly, ad revenue. Top notch business model, gotta say. Very. Novel.
Imagine the tenacity it takes to turn a $44 billion dollar company into a $12 billion dollar one in under one year.
Can confirm. The moment he was handed the keys I closed my account.
I still feel bad for smaller artists who can’t so easily bring their hard-earned following somewhere else along with them.
Roughly 46% have joined other social-media platforms, such as Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads and TikTok.
Huh?
With Bluesky, ultimately you’re still subject to Musk’s whims [see edit]. As for TikTok, all I can say is ”seriously?!?”
Edit: I was wrong about this. Sorry!
TikTok
What scientist would not want to promote their latest research while wearing a CGI-generated cat head and doing interpretative dance to a base heavy riff by a band autotuned to sound like robotic pre-pubescent Japanese girls?
VTuber/utaite Delutaya does actually really like space, so maybe she can…
BlueSky is completely separate from Twitter. And as for TikTok, a social media scientist’s concerns aren’t really for their own personal privacy or the integrity of the web, but for reaching the largest audience they can.
Love it or hate it, TikTok is one of the largest audiences out there, period.
While I know they’re separate companies, I had thought that Twitter posts could show up on BlueSky. Therefore, Musk could turn off compatibility at any time, which is where the “whims” bit came in.
Is that inaccurate? Am I remembering wrong? I’d appreciate any correction if I’m saying something that isn’t true.
Yeah that’s wrong, twitter posts don’t show up in Bluesky at all. Completely separate network
Okay. Whoops. Thanks!
I’ve seen a handful switching to Substack as well. I’ve been experimenting with that platform lately and I like the post editor, lots of tools but not overly bloated, it’s pretty good. My only complaint so far has been that a lot of History/Academic Substacks seem to be pushing for the paid tier and so hide a lot of their posts behind a paywall Patreon style. Because of that Mastodon has been my favorite since the Twitter exodus.
wrt TikTok I assume the poll just asked what other platforms you are on, not if you are posting career related things on the platform. Most grad students are in their 20s and probably use TikTok for entertainment.
Okay. That’s a sensible explanation. Thanks!
I was wondering why the hell a researcher would use a video platform!
There are some really good scientists using TikTok to spread better science literacy, which is great. But obviously they aren’t presenting high level academic research data, it’s not suited to that at all.
When my partner shows me their feed on tiktok, we’ve run into quite a few folks trying to do community outreach through it. Can’t say I’m a big fan of the app, but given how popular it is, I’m glad there are scientists who are trying to put out some decent information on it.
His management has left scientists reconsidering the value of X
Ayyy
Science focused instances of Mastodon were always superior anyway. Generally if you’re in a profession and looking to have professional focused discussion you want moderation that includes members of your profession. That’s why Reddit medicine and nursing communities were good.
Great news!
Sounds like the removal of verifications was a big cause of this. Now anyone can post anything and have the same weight as a verified professional. Musk’s buyout of twitter was nothing more than a billionaire (backed by the Saudi government) launching an attack on the truth itself.
Article doesn’t need to explain why, other then because it’s a toxic shit hole that’s crashing and burning.
I can bet some of them are researchers that use tweet datasets to conduct various research. After the API price changes its literally too expensive to generate datasets.
To avoid a similar situation in the future, Mastodon is a good choice. They can migrate their account if an instance goes wrong.
Others are more centralized if not totally centralized. It will repeat sooner or later on them.
Are there any academic focused lemmy instances? I’d love a community that requires proof of a degree to join (could still allow users from other instances to comment and participate) and only has science focused communities.
I’m curious about this too. I would love to lurk in some science communities here.
I do know there’s a lot of academics on Mastodon. Mastodon is way more fun than the Twitter ever was, because Mastodon let’s me follow scientists and doesn’t bury their posts.
mander.xyz
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I’d love a community that requires proof of a degree to join
Gross.
Why? What’s nice about lemmy is you can have special purpose instances. It’s no different than having an academic email address. You can still participate on an instance without making an account.
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