Twitter/X revised TOS causing a stir

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X updated their TOS to include a not-uncommon far-reaching rights grab for content and a mandatory inclusion in the platform’s AI training, among other things. It’s causing quite an uproar in the weather community.

Now’s a great time to give Stormtrack a plug! It’s the solution to all of this if even just part of that community tried coming here.
 
I woke up the other day to my phone exploding due to a mass increase in my follower count on Bluesky. I went from exactly 200 followers I think on Wednesday evening to 309 as of this posting. Nearly all of them look like familiar names from X.

I guess my most prominent thought on this is...*this* is what it took some people to leave that site???
 
Stormtrack: exists for 50 years and struggles to attract users. Bluesky: pops up overnight and a third of wxtwitter signs up to to it. Is there a codebase for a turnkey social network? Maybe ST should default to a social network format and keep the forum as a secondary? Unless there's some other reason people avoid it that I'm missing.
 
Stormtrack: exists for 50 years and struggles to attract users. Bluesky: pops up overnight and a third of wxtwitter signs up to to it. Is there a codebase for a turnkey social network? Maybe ST should default to a social network format and keep the forum as a secondary? Unless there's some other reason people avoid it that I'm missing.
The staff periodically discusses making Stormtrack more like a social media site. But things get messy in a hurry and with small staffing and no/limited income, it becomes intractable.
 
Bluesky has been around for awhile, and Jack Dorsey’s involvement probably has more to do with its rapid rise than any out-of-the-box code base. What Is Bluesky, and How Is It Different From Twitter?

I think we should appreciate Stormtrack for what it is - a smaller community, but a quality one, that goes deeper with quality, long-form, curated content. We would lose all or most of that as a social media network.
 
They may open accounts on Bluesky but at the end of the day they'll all still be on Twitter/X because that's where the "fans" are, and the fans won't follow because it's hard to migrate an audience to a totally new platform.

I'm with Jim on this one. Enjoy ST for what it is and who's here. If it's everyone else who isn't here that is desired, then it's probably best to spend time where they are and enjoy that platform for what it is as well.
 
I'm just now seeing this thread since I've been elbows deep with harvest for the past nearly three weeks.

I'll point out that the TOS for Facebook/IG, as well as YouTube have similar provisions, and have for some time. The one for YouTube in particular is worded almost identically from my recollection. The same people who I've noticed bellyaching about the TOS on X by and large post on YouTube and FB/IG quite regularly. I'd probably have a lot more respect for their reactions if they'd drop those platforms as well, but as Sean pointed out, they're not going to leave where the fans are, particularly those who have large followings.

As far as myself, I don't see any need to get yet another SM platform that I'll barely use. When the current batch of platforms inevitably get replaced in the same manner that Xanga, Myspace, etc did 15 some years ago, I doubt I'll migrate to whatever is next. I don't have any real kind of "following" on my X or IG to begin with, so going to that effort to build a following that I don't have on another platform doesn't seem like the best use of what time I do have to work with. I probably sound a lot older than 37 in saying that, but I've got enough going on in my life right now that what spare time I do get is used for other things.
 
I'm glad I'm not some big social media chasing superstar, I have no idea how I would keep up with the dozens of these platforms now. Basically, have Facebook for family and keep tabs on close friends, but I'm not on X, IG, Threads, or wherever WxTwitter has fragmented to now much for two reasons: 1. I don't care for the drama and 2. I'm taking a break from chasing that may become permanent. Kind of took Skip Talbot's advice - if it isn't fun anymore, then I need to re-evaluate why I'm doing it.
 
If you have a Twitter/X account, go to the "For You" (the algorithmic) tab and scroll and see how far you go until you see a post with an external link. I scrolled through 50 posts on mine and didn't see a single one.

"For You" is heavily forced on users, and most have just acquiesced to it. When I post something with an external link, only a handful of my followers see it and engage with it, always the same ones who engage with my content the most. No one new ever sees those.

This is the single biggest beef I have with Twitter/X. They've completed the banishment of the web to keep traffic exclusively on their platform, preventing users from tangibly benefiting in any way. It's all a one-sided transaction now. Their monetization requirements are not attainable for most users (5 million impressions in 3 months), and even if you could meet that, that's essentially paying them a multi-hundred to multi-thousand dollar fee in content value in order to be monetized.

I'm currently checking out Bluesky. At first glance, it seems to be on the right track (right now the TOS isn't very rights-grabby & external links aren't suppressed), but history keeps me from being optimistic about it long-term.
 
The days of protected creativity are coming to an end, except for artists and industries (like film and music) who are backed with big funds, lobbyists, politicians, lawyers, celebrities and unions. Independent photographers and cinematographers are at the bottom of the food chain. Just wait until social media outlets like YouTube and X figure out how to use the material they have been collecting for years.

This reminds me of the days when I worked for private companies like newspapers and magazines. I was either a salaried employee or a contractor. They paid me for the work, but they retained use rights and copyright surrender forever. The only problem is that social media outlets are mosquitos. They suck the blood life out of your hard work and pay nothing to the majority of producers. The real suckers are the photographers and videographers who provide footage for the very elite people who are making the big money, e.g., during live broadcasts. They need to demand a lot more of the cut.

Even with millions of views, I have never made a cent from a single social media clip, because they cleverly manipulate the requirements for monetization so 99.9% of participants get nothing. F-them. I pulled most of my clips with over 500k views from YouTube a while ago.
 
If you have a Twitter/X account, go to the "For You" (the algorithmic) tab and scroll and see how far you go until you see a post with an external link. I scrolled through 50 posts on mine and didn't see a single one.

"For You" is heavily forced on users, and most have just acquiesced to it. When I post something with an external link, only a handful of my followers see it and engage with it, always the same ones who engage with my content the most. No one new ever sees those.

This is the 46258th phenomenon that jars me and forces me to recognize that I must be abnormal in many respects. I've certainly noticed X pushing the algorithmic feed (currently dubbed For You) harder and harder over the past couple years, but it's been of minimal consequence to me. As long as a chronological Following feed exists, I have and will continue to spend all my time there. It would require a spectacularly "wise" and altruistic algorithmic feed for me to opt in voluntarily.

And surprisingly, even now, both the web and Android apps still default to the feed that you previously viewed. Thus, Following is what I usually see upon opening the site or app. What I simply can't understand is why so many people roll over and accept the algorithmic feed -- just because it every once in a while gets presented as the first view upon login, counter to what I just described? It's one thing with unsophisticated grandmas who don't even know two feeds are available, but it seems even reasonably savvy users who do understand that a deterministic chronological feed exists -- like in the chasing community -- have inexplicably decided to acquiesce to For You. It's absolutely baffling.

For people sharing storm content like us, the only conceivable upside to the existence of For You is the lottery-like shot at going viral through algorithmic voodoo, rather than needing an organic network of followers with large audiences retweeting your stuff. But then, doesn't that perfectly encapsulate many of our peers' behavioral drives on these platforms? Always willing to sacrifice a healthy everyday median experience to chase the dragon of mass virality.
 
It was probably easier paying protection money to the mafia to let you try and build a successful business in the Bronx in the 1940s than it is to get the Big Tech companies to allow you any benefit from participating on their platforms.
 
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