Noticing increasing anti-cycling posts on twitter

[Tangled Metal]

Although turnover is immense it hadn't made a profit, or positive net income, since 2019, and even then only a moderate one. There isn't any money for those interested in profit.

That being the case I'm not sure at all either why Musk bought it thinking he could make money, or why employees thought the business model could continue ad infinitum. It wasn't a viable business model as it was, and seems unlikely to suddenly become one moving forward. It seems he may do nothing more than hasten the demise that was eventually inevitable anyway.

One word wechat! Chinese twitter plus plus plus. One stop shop for so much in China. The west hasn't got the full benefit but aiui for the Chinese nationals there's n payment systems and so much more meat to it. As such it makes money. BTW we often do business through wechat with one of our Chinese suppliers. It gets a faster response than email ever did.

There were some pundits saying that musk could expand into the field of wechat by adding other services. Wasn't musk involved with PayPal afterglow. However he a Tawt who has messed up because of his own high opinion of himself and political views too. Bad business!

[Cugel]

Although turnover is immense it hadn't made a profit, or positive net income, since 2019, and even then only a moderate one. There isn't any money for those interested in profit.

That being the case I'm not sure at all either why Musk bought it thinking he could make money, or why employees thought the business model could continue ad infinitum. It wasn't a viable business model as it was, and seems unlikely to suddenly become one moving forward. It seems he may do nothing more than hasten the demise that was eventually inevitable anyway.

One word wechat! Chinese twitter plus plus plus. One stop shop for so much in China. The west hasn't got the full benefit but aiui for the Chinese nationals there's n payment systems and so much more meat to it. As such it makes money. BTW we often do business through wechat with one of our Chinese suppliers. It gets a faster response than email ever did.

There were some pundits saying that musk could expand into the field of wechat by adding other services. Wasn't musk involved with PayPal afterglow. However he a Tawt who has messed up because of his own high opinion of himself and political views too. Bad business!

Musk bought tweetylie to use as his personal megaphone. His actions indicate that he'll lend the megaphone to those who give him sycophantic adoration but not to those others less enamoured of the fool's various infantile sayings and doings.

Hopefully the megaphone battery will run out of power (the advert income); the wrist strap will break (no support staff); and the thing will fall heavily on to Musk's foot, where it generally resides in his geet gabblin' gob. Let us hope that he then follows the traditional path of such fellows and disappears up his own fundamental orifice.

Cugel

[Lance Dopestrong]

Well, the only difference now is Musk is using it as a megaphone in addition to the shouty political and common interest groups that use it as such. You know the sort, you either agree with them completely or you're automatically a nazi/commie/terf/gammon/insert-puerile-plqyground-name-tag-to-taste Musk is little different to half the people and groups that already use it.

The world will he a much nicer place indeed if they all disappear along with him. People might then start to have rational discussions and identify common groubd again instead of simply outing ever louder and getting each others backs up and becoming more entrenched and divisive with each passing day.

[Tangled Metal]

You're just an anti free speech nazis! Lol!

Just n thought I'd get a little puerility into things. Don't really mean it. Of course it it's OK for the mouthpiece of bbc sport then it's OK for everyone.

[Galactic]

Surprised no-one has mentioned Mastodon yet. I moved over at the end of last year, and it's a far nicer place to be - not just to avoid trolls and bots, but to have conversations about interesting things. Being of the 'don't feed the trolls' persuasion (experience tells me we can't reason with them, interacting only gives them the energy to continue their spew), I have no regrets closing my twitter account and making new friends on Mastodon.

[awavey]

I think people vastly overrate the actual reach of things like twitter, it gets lots of hype (because thats how its ad model makes advertisers pay more to be part of it) and mentioned alot because the MSM use it as a lazy & cheap way to write stories. The Express and Mail and increasingly local newspapers often have stories that are literally just peoples reactions on twitter to a topic.

remember Musks contention on the purchase of twitter all along was that the user numbers were vastly inflated and mostly bots. but they estimate there are 450million twitter users worldwide, which sounds alot, but TikTok has over a billion, thats 1/6th of the planet, Youtube has 2.2billion. Facebook nearly 3billion.

so actually people making videos about cycling on youtube, have nearly 4 times as a big a user base to reach than anyone on twitter who in reality are just shouting into the void and maybe just surrounding themselves in a little bubble with people who agree with them, almost makes you want to eat a packet of crisps doesnt it.

[fastpedaller]

It's my belief that in a few years (maybe 5?) many users of social media will look back and think...... why did we ever do that?

[colin54]

Anti-cycling posts are more analogue than digital in West Lanc's, I see these posters defaced quite often, slightly concerning that somebody would go to the trouble of taking out a spray can to do this; and more worrying, that they may also be in charge of a motor vehicle.
They are normally plain and without the blacked out words, I don't know who posts them in their original form.

[mattheus]

It's my belief that in a few years (maybe 5?) many users of social media will look back and think...... why did we ever do that?

I joined twitter around 2007 (same year as my first cycling forum, I held out from Facebook for quite a few years, only registering as certain local organisations made it their only external comms channel :rollseyes: )

When are you gonna come rescue me?!?

[Jdsk]

I’ve stated to notice that when cycling groups/organisations post anything about cycling to promote or encourage cycling that the majority of the reply’s are directly anti-cycling or passive aggressive anti-cycling posts.
...

Thanks for raising this.

1 It's sometimes totally frustrating. I'm not sure that there's much more that you can do than stay factual, positive and polite. Using other media to talk to sensible people who don't care as much as about HPVs might help with perspective.

2 A vast amount of it is outgoup hatred that happens to be triggered by something about bikes, or people on them, or what they wear, or some remembered incident. It's common to see the same effect in this forum, although the relevant outgroup here is a different group of road users. Or people on HPVs who have come to different conclusions about avoiding head injury. The Orwell Test can help in identifying what's happening.

Jonathan

PS: Some other social media platforms have been mentioned. I'd separate the harmful effects of some of these companies from the fact that some people choose to use them to communicate with each other, whether I agree with their content or not.

[mattheus]

2 A vast amount of it is outgoup hatred that happens to be triggered by something about bikes, or people on them, or what they wear, or some remembered incident. It's common to see the same effect in this forum, although the relevant outgroup here is a different group of road users. Or people on HPVs who have come to different conclusions about avoiding head injury. The Orwell Test can help in identifying what's happening.

Orwell Test?!? Hmmm ... <gosh, this is taking some googling ... ah, found something:>
https://medium.com/@umairh/why-authorit ... d8e2c1bf55

A very interesting read, but didn't really tell me what The Orwell Test is! The nearest is this:

When I look at America today, I see a nation failing in many ways. Economically, socially, culturally, politically. But also, now, in a deeper way than ever before. America is failing what I’ll call Orwell’s Test.

What do I mean? Orwell once said: “in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” If that phrase were a test, would you say that we — in fact you, yourself — are passing or failing it?

[mattheus]

p.s. I agree about the "outgroup hatred" thing. Definiitely a common motivation for some of the more bizarre comments you see.

[Jdsk]

The Orwell Test consists of swapping people/organisations/countries/road users that you like for ones that you don't like and vice versa when you see a story/forum post/tweet.

Jonathan

PS: I don't know the origin or how close that is to anything that he ever suggested.

[fastpedaller]

Maybe, just maybe, in a few months (it may take longer) in the light of a high-profile court case, we will see the DM go the same way as the News of The World......... here's hoping!

[mattheus]

Maybe, just maybe, in a few months (it may take longer) in the light of a high-profile court case, we will see the DM go the same way as the News of The World......... here's hoping!

I think it's a long shot ... but you never know. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.