this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
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Twitter, now X, was once a useful site for breaking news. The Baltimore bridge collapse shows those days are long gone.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

I mean it was never actually a good place for news, aside from the top five trending stories, if you wanted infinite bad takes on them.

[–] [email protected] 133 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I'd argue it was a good place for FAST news. For a lot of major events you can find posts and videos from users before the media releases anything, which is kind of a first for humanity at least in terms of accessibility.

Now, if you're looking for ACCURATE news...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I'd say that it was useful to gather sources that had to be vetted for accuracy. Honestly, I'd also say it made a good source for the media, where they'd have the job of vetting it and putting out material with more delay but also more accuracy.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Yep I heard that it was great for journalists looking for info on a developing story. You could usually follow a hashtag around to find videos from different angles and witnesses to follow up with / interview.

Hopefully that builds up on the new platforms too

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

Its specific speed/accuracy tradeoff made it a very good fit for news which you need to know quickly, but had low stakes if it was incorrect. A great example of this transit delays/cancellations, where you probably don't care about the specific reason why a train is delayed and just want alternative options asap.

It was often much more effective to directly follow transit agencies and/or workers for info, rather than use their official website.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 7 months ago

It was good for fast news in the same way that I can multiply long numbers fast by always saying 62 immediately.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's no longer a good place for news, discussion, or even real opinions. It's just an echo chamber of hate and closed-mindedness, and increasingly just bots talking to each other.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Right, and though it is certainly worse, my argument is that this was true before the rich brat bought it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It depends. In the early days of the Android ROM scene, Twitter was the best place for news. Cyanogen and all the crews basically announced their new releases exclusively on Twitter. There has been a similar vibe for other scenes over the years as well. Discord is largely taking over that space these days, but I miss the simplicity of following one or two people whose updates I cared about a bunch over the new reality where I'm in 30 Discords and they're all chock full of notifications for endless nonsense I care nothing about.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

I mainly used XDA then, but you right. I had truly forgotten how nice it was around '10 - '11.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

It was big among the netsec/sysadmin crowd too, it was the first place you'd hear of 0-days in the wild, or whether a popular site/service was down.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

You could follow journalists you like or outlets though