All six of the speakers immediately said Twitter was realistically the only place you can keep up with the conversation. Having an extensively curated list means that anytime anything breaks (and often a few hours before) you are going to hear about it on X/Twitter.
I would love to know if there is anything even close to the reach of X. It has a lot of problems - but if you want to track breaking news, I can't think of anything else close to it.
Interesting take. I'm not aware that anyone is doing vote rings or vote buying very successfully (considering that my own blog also makes it at an expected rate, and I know there isn't a group of friends voting that up) but I kinda assume that this is a thing for some of the bigger launches where they are hoping for conversions. Beyond a defined group coordinating their posts or votes, though, surely HN's front page can't be seen as vetted beyond "oh this looks trendy/hype"? People don't vote only after trying out the product or reading the full article. In many cases that would mean voting after it has already disappeared off of the front page for good
This is key.
And all the commentary here is negative, skeptical and mean. It’s like Slashdot when Apple started ascending and everyone was complaining that iPods will never catch on.
Unless you're curbstomping AI for being "slop", you'll get an instant deluge of downvotes.
FSM help you if you post something positive =)
Ramen
Seriously, if you're working on anything worthwhile, you can wait for the weekly digest. Everything else just seems like hyperiding.
HN is a nice consolidated view - and I pull up the home page 2-3 times a day (and have done so for 10+ years every day) - but, there is a firehose of information coming in on X - particularly if you have a very highly curated list - and some people are insanely high signal - Karpathy for instances always seems to zoom in on important things.
That's literally just gossip. The same dynamic existed with episodes of Friends and Game of Thrones.
Everyone gathers around the water-cooler and discusses the newest happenings, but that's not science and it's not engineering. You're not passing around serious white papers and looking over peer reviewed publications and datasets, it's just... gossip. It has the same value as gossip and is completely optional.
> by lunch it's kind of old news
It's hype.
There's A LOT more tech stuff than people realize but the anti-AI crowd on that site is nuts.
This is just busy work chasing nothing but vanity.
Like asking heroin addicts what heroin they prefer. What an utter waste time.
I think I lasted <1 week after this takeover.
Reminds me of Christians and free will.
Still, I'd advocate to leave social media in general. And certainly to get off twitter.
Correct me if I'm wrong: I'm asserting that having a principle is an inalienable belief that actually guides behavior, not selectively applies to behavior.
Though generally: yes, I agree: get off twitter, and I'd go a step further and say..minimize all social media involvement.
I don't mean that in a fully negative way, since belief and choices are rarely atomic.
Take, for example, someone who believes animals shouldn't suffer unnecessarily. That can manifest anywhere from veganism to just avoiding factory farmed meat. I wouldn't point at any one position on that spectrum and say they don't believe their own stated principle, but I would say that some have weaker convictions than others.
I agree with your assertion regarding the degree to which a principle guides behavior. And id probably walk back my original position somewhat, because having a principle and adhering to it absolutely and fanatically is untenable at most and inconvenient at least.
Still, I'd argue there's value in a human engaging in some sort of periodic "principles audit" to take stock of their past behaviors/actions and recalibrate future behavior.
Then again, I'm an optimist....
I do agree with this. I would call it "introspection" and a healthy person should be fairly introspective in general, either taking dedicated time to consider their actions and beliefs, or continually keeping them in mind when making decisions.
I'm more astounded that people think every single part of it is a cesspool when in reality there are gems to be found that aren't in any other X alternative like Bluesky or Mastodon or (lol) Threads.
The net result is that X shows breaking news, in the same way that the (infamous) meme of bullet holes marked on the WWII plane only shows part of the story - the people who have departed the platform aren't posting, and thus X is only breaking news from a subset of people.
This might be fine for certain types of topics. For understanding the zeitgeist on culture and politics, though, you can't filter your way towards hearing from voices that are no longer posting at all.
And those voices may be unequally represented in X for similar reasons - perhaps (somewhat) uncorrelated from politics, but simply due to the UX consequences of prioritizing commenters willing to pay the platform.
Leading with the supposed "nazi salute" really detracts from the other, much more legitimate and substantive issues you raised.
Ya ya; Musk is such a secret Nazi that he accidentally gave himself away with a wave that used to be commonplace and fell out of fashion after WWII; way before Musk was born. You cracked the code!
He grew up in apartheid South Africa, where his grandparents moved because they wanted to support apartheid. His grandparents were nazis; as in Errol Musk has stated they were in the "German [Nazi] Party but in Canada", and supported Hitler in the 1940s. Elon would have picked up on these influences, and Elon himself has supported AFD, the current german nazi party. By all accounts, it's not out of character for Elon to heil. I mean, if we for some reason are discounting the obvious visual evidence that he did, in fact, heil.
Pleas explain to me how that wasn't a nazi salute.
>Elon himself has supported AFD, the current german nazi part
No, the current nazi party is Die Heimat (or whatever they call themselves). AFD just wants common sense immigration reform.
Also the absolute height of stupidity to conclude he didn't do it despite quite literally having to take a tour of Auschwitz because he wasn't stopping the Nazis on his site.
Add to that the dozens of times we've learned about US Republicans praising Hitler and Elon quite literally being the biggest donor.
You're not a serious person.
lol https://www.axios.com/2025/01/23/elon-musk-nazi-joke-adl
If anything you're not the serious person here.
Here you go:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-...
and another:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/05/florida-inte...
He shard a video of a podcaster arguing Hitler had no desire to exterminate Jews and the Holocaust deaths were logistical failures.
His comments in Germany about too much past guilt.
The never-ending stream of tweets about white solidarity.
Restored white supremist accounts on X.
You're the new flat earther movement.
>He shard a video of a podcaster arguing Hitler had no desire to exterminate Jews and the Holocaust deaths were logistical failures.
The episode covered a lot of material that had nothing to do with WW2 or the Holocaust and Elon never endorsed any particular claims in it. In any case, Elon took down the post and put up a community note debunking Cooper's argument after people pointed it out.
You can find the episode here: https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-darryl-cooper
>His comments in Germany about too much past guilt.
I agree with it. Why should people people feel guilty for the actions of others? It serves no purpose other than to further mass immigration. Elon Musk wants to end mass immigration into western countries which is why he supports right wing political parties in Europe and America. That doesn't make him or those political parties "nazi". You can oppose mass immigration without being a nazi.
> Everybody involved in that story was condemned by mainstream Republicans.
lol huh?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/16/first-thing-...
> In any case, Elon took down the post and put up a community note debunking Cooper's argument after people pointed it out.
Ahh yes, the genius billionaire who doesn't understand basic English. That just coincidentally didn't realize he was platforming Nazis. That continues to spread racist bullshit on his X account.
> Why should people people feel guilty for the actions of others?
My point exactly. You're a child.
You're the new flat earthers.
>Ahh yes, the genius billionaire who doesn't understand basic English.
Do you remember everything that gets said in a multi-hour podcast? Do you even listen all the way through?
>flat earthers
I think you are living in a bubble. I suggest you go touch grass and maybe even talk with your Republican neighbors about their beliefs.
Really it could have happened to any of us.
ADL is not concerned with anti-semitism anymore, they'renonly concerned about silencing xriticism of Israel. This became clear when they updated their definition of anti-semitism to include anti-zionism and opposition to Israel. They have lost all credibility.
And AFD is most definitely a nazi party. Just because there are less polished nazi parties as well does not make them non-nazis. They have an ethnonationalist agenda, focusing on German ethnicity as the basis around which to build the German nation state. Contrast this with civic nationalism, the non-nazi liberal take on nation states, in which citizenship is based on a cultural identity and belonging, not your Germanic descent.
>And AFD is most definitely a nazi party. Just because there are less polished nazi parties as well does not make them non-nazis. They have an ethnonationalist agenda, focusing on German ethnicity as the basis around which to build the German nation state. Contrast this with civic nationalism, the non-nazi liberal take on nation states, in which citizenship is based on a cultural identity and belonging, not your Germanic descent.
The AFD is actually rather moderate. They want mass deportations for unassimilated migrants, i.e. people who don't speak German, don't work, commit crimes, etc. What's actually radical is the idea that you can import those with no connection to Europe and suddenly they are just as European as anyone else because you gave them citizenship.
Indeed, wish we could do the same with insular Jewish communities in the northeastern US that siphon off welfare while running fraudulent charities that are basically a way to siphon money from unexpected natives across the country.
And on a rational note, you're just writing up an army of strawmen to dunk on, and your arguments are not answering mine, they're nothing but rhetoric.
I don't think I can convince you. I hope some day you realize you're on the wrong side of history.
Or maybe you could just take off the mask fully and admit you're a racist. That would be preferable to this pathetic "centrist" roleplay.
I <3 israel
Quick, you need to do something about it!!!
But yes, we can agree that it's not his worse sin. Just adds to a long list.
I still can't believe we're doing this. Even after Elon has allowed X to devolve into a cesspit of Nazis. Even though he had to take a tour of Auschwitz because of his insensitivity to it. Even though he's the biggest donor to a party that cant stop idolizing Hitler in group chats that leaked, even though he wont stop talking about the destruction of the white race, even though he wont stop race-baiting himself, even after all that and a handful of other things youre totally convinced he didn't do a Nazi salute.
edit: The degree to which people are dishonest or just unbelievably gullible is pretty astonishing. It's like arguing wtih flat earthers.
Probably the least impactful factor for most users.
Unfortunately, independent of the politics, Musk destroyed X with many many odd decisions. Rebranding from Twitter to X is one of the top ones.
reddit is #4, NYT is #11, Fox is #16, AP is #18, CNN is #21.
The rational question isn't "Why is anyone still using it?", it's "Why aren't you?"
The answer would appear to be emotional/ideological on your part, which is fine, but not very honest to express like this.