Twitter

[vnatale]

These posts were split off from page 7 of the Trump reelection thread - / DS
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What's the word on Al Jazeera news? Is it considered at all credible? Or is it basically a middle eastern version of CCTV 4?

Interestingly...not a bad source, except for Middle Eastern/Islamic stuff.

Given the thread has turned to news sources, I find foreign sources are more factual about US happenings because I suppose they have less in the game than US news sources...ergo more facts and less spin. They also still tend to have more of a wall between reporting and editorial than US news.

Actually, I really have gotten into Twitter this past year. I wouldn't recommend it for pure news, but there are some really, really good and insightful posters (I tend to finance and foreign affairs...so can't speak to quality outside those two topics.)

You will really hate it if you can't stand the occasional poster demolishing something you thought or thought you knew.

However, it takes a while to figure out where posters are coming from and who is good/experts.

Downside...it is really easy to waste a lot of time if you aren't careful. Sorta like here. ;-)

I love Twitter for being able to find the latest about anything right now.

It really has become the media for many announcements for politics, sports, and other aspects of our lives.

If you want to get a good cross section of political views go to my Politics list --

https://twitter.com/i/lists/949428362010943488

I've got 5,000 people on it and it represents the entire spectrum of political opinions.

[glennds]

Kbg and Joypog, I agree re Twitter. It's a decent news feed on whatever topic one is interested in at the time. If you want to dig into the Ukraine invasion, for example, there are some great people to follow.

Is there an easy Twitter way to separate news from poster opinions?

[joypog]

Kbg and Joypog, I agree re Twitter. It's a decent news feed on whatever topic one is interested in at the time. If you want to dig into the Ukraine invasion, for example, there are some great people to follow.

Is there an easy Twitter way to separate news from poster opinions?

Not that i know of. I keep a really streamlined feed for myself (just a few silly accounts) and then I manually search the pundits whose opinions I'm curious about...and then usually their feeds will link to relevant news articles if I want more direct sources. So basically I'm consciously letting opinion makers shape my news diet (as opposed to supposedly neutral news orgs unconsciously shape my news diet).

[vnatale]

Kbg and Joypog, I agree re Twitter. It's a decent news feed on whatever topic one is interested in at the time. If you want to dig into the Ukraine invasion, for example, there are some great people to follow.

Is there an easy Twitter way to separate news from poster opinions?

Yes. You can create custom lists like I have.

You could create one called News and just get tweets from News organizations with no opinions from people like you and me.

Here is a List that someone created that seems to just have tweets from Journalists:

https://twitter.com/i/lists/956277865305210880

Here is another one from the same person that says:

Media Outlets
Media Outlets worth following from the left and right.

https://twitter.com/i/lists/956274793766096896

And, here is one I created! I thought I had created a "News" list but could not find it initially:

https://twitter.com/i/lists/949447323960135681

[vnatale]

Kbg and Joypog, I agree re Twitter. It's a decent news feed on whatever topic one is interested in at the time. If you want to dig into the Ukraine invasion, for example, there are some great people to follow.

Is there an easy Twitter way to separate news from poster opinions?

Yes. You can create custom lists like I have.

You could create one called News and just get tweets from News organizations with no opinions from people like you and me.

Here is a List that someone created that seems to just have tweets from Journalists:

https://twitter.com/i/lists/956277865305210880

Here is another one from the same person that says:

Media Outlets
Media Outlets worth following from the left and right.

https://twitter.com/i/lists/956274793766096896

And, here is one I created! I thought I had created a "News" list but could not find it initially:

https://twitter.com/i/lists/949447323960135681

This was the type of thing that was a minute old and popped up on my Twitter "News" list feed:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 1661207717

[Kbg]

Kbg and Joypog, I agree re Twitter. It's a decent news feed on whatever topic one is interested in at the time. If you want to dig into the Ukraine invasion, for example, there are some great people to follow.

Is there an easy Twitter way to separate news from poster opinions?

Not that i know of. I keep a really streamlined feed for myself (just a few silly accounts) and then I manually search the pundits whose opinions I'm curious about...and then usually their feeds will link to relevant news articles if I want more direct sources. So basically I'm consciously letting opinion makers shape my news diet (as opposed to supposedly neutral news orgs unconsciously shape my news diet).

If there are topics you are interested in you can subscribe to those and then you will get fed a diet of that stuff when you click on that topic (sort of like reddit...anybody besides me think reddit is a complete waste of time? Lots of hype for a while that I think is quite unwarranted.)

Once you get fed the diet(s) of stuff you are interested in you can then begin figuring out who are the quality posters. Quite a bit of it, particularly in finance, is self-promotion but usually the self-promotion is by way of a link to a more in-depth web article or paper which then generates comments where you can see people's take on the article/paper.

Foreign affairs seems to have quite a few academic, ex-mil and think tank types with a fair amount of topic crashing on popular topics (i.e. posting mideast stuff in the Ukraine war topic.)

I dipped into some of the political stuff when I first started reading twitter, but the politics section truly is a big cesspool. Way worse than here in the worst depths of the covid thread. I don't bother with it now.

The general feed is going to feed you whatever Twitter's algos think you think is interesting which really isn't all that bad. I get fed a lot of the above two topics along with some news, some sports and some religious stuff from my faith. On news IDK if CNN and FOX post much on twitter but if they do twitter has figured out I don't care much for either and I usually get fed BBC, Reuters and AP.

In short, twitter has figured out what I would be more likely to read.

I'd love a "Go outside my box today" button. I don't know why platforms don't do that. In twitter you can select between "latest" and them picking everything for you based on what you follow/favorites but I think even "latest" is curated for you.

[vnatale]

[glennds]

If there are topics you are interested in you can subscribe to those and then you will get fed a diet of that stuff when you click on that topic (sort of like reddit...anybody besides me think reddit is a complete waste of time? Lots of hype for a while that I think is quite unwarranted.)

Once you get fed the diet(s) of stuff you are interested in you can then begin figuring out who are the quality posters. Quite a bit of it, particularly in finance, is self-promotion but usually the self-promotion is by way of a link to a more in-depth web article or paper which then generates comments where you can see people's take on the article/paper.

Foreign affairs seems to have quite a few academic, ex-mil and think tank types with a fair amount of topic crashing on popular topics (i.e. posting mideast stuff in the Ukraine war topic.)

I dipped into some of the political stuff when I first started reading twitter, but the politics section truly is a big cesspool. Way worse than here in the worst depths of the covid thread. I don't bother with it now.

The general feed is going to feed you whatever Twitter's algos think you think is interesting which really isn't all that bad. I get fed a lot of the above two topics along with some news, some sports and some religious stuff from my faith. On news IDK if CNN and FOX post much on twitter but if they do twitter has figured out I don't care much for either and I usually get fed BBC, Reuters and AP.

In short, twitter has figured out what I would be more likely to read.

I'd love a "Go outside my box today" button. I don't know why platforms don't do that. In twitter you can select between "latest" and them picking everything for you based on what you follow/favorites but I think even "latest" is curated for you.

Thx, I'll have to give it another try. The self promotion was one obstacle. Sometimes I lack for diversity when the AI is feeding me only what "it" thinks I want. Like a private echo chamber. Love the "go outside my box today" idea for this problem. A feature of all social media seems to be the private echo chamber.

[Kbg]

Thx, I'll have to give it another try. The self promotion was one obstacle. Sometimes I lack for diversity when the AI is feeding me only what "it" thinks I want. Like a private echo chamber. Love the "go outside my box today" idea for this problem. A feature of all social media seems to be the private echo chamber.

Yep, super frustrating. At times I deliberately click on opposites in hopes of jacking up the algos a bit.

[vnatale]

Thx, I'll have to give it another try. The self promotion was one obstacle. Sometimes I lack for diversity when the AI is feeding me only what "it" thinks I want. Like a private echo chamber. Love the "go outside my box today" idea for this problem. A feature of all social media seems to be the private echo chamber.

Yep, super frustrating. At times I deliberately click on opposites in hopes of jacking up the algos a bit.

Again creating a list if the best way for you to go. Or, several lists.

Then you are taking full ownership of what you see and not relying upon what Twitter's algorithms decide to show you.

[Kbg]

Agreed on the lists, they narrow down what you get when you click on one of them.

[joypog]

I like making my own lists...they let me "follow" people without having them show up on my main feed which I keep pretty anodyne.

However, I dislike it when Twitter pulls out (presumably hot) random tweets from one of my lists and post it in my main feed.

[vnatale]

I like making my own lists...they let me "follow" people without having them show up on my main feed which I keep pretty anodyne.

However, I dislike it when Twitter pulls out (presumably hot) random tweets from one of my lists and post it in my main feed.

Main feed is strictly confined to whatever or whoever you follow? Or, is there more?

[joypog]

I'd prefer my main feed to be only whatever I actively follow. But Twitter will intersperse it with random tweets from my lists (who I don't actively follow). I currently follow 7 or 8 people...might squeeze it back down to 2 soon (two local turtles).

[vnatale]

I'd prefer my main feed to be only whatever I actively follow. But Twitter will intersperse it with random tweets from my lists (who I don't actively follow). I currently follow 7 or 8 people...might squeeze it back down to 2 soon (two local turtles).

I so rarely look at my feed and with me following 27,000+ I'd not notice any random tweets. I only follow people who follow me. Therefore, at this point, they have to first follow me and then I follow them. I unfollow anyone who does not follow me.

[vnatale]

This is what Twitter is quite good at / for. Someone who is temporarily living with me and who works at Amherst College told me that they'd received an Alert for a campus lockdown due to a potential active shooter.

There is no other news / media source than Twitter than would so quickly have any details like the below.

Capture.JPG (81.19 KiB) Viewed 1490 times

[dualstow]

Yep

[flyingpylon]

There is no other news / media source than Twitter than would so quickly have any details like the below.

They spread rumors and innuendo that quickly too!