Comment by martinald
3 days ago
To be honest though it is still by far the best place to get "news" about (very recent) current affairs. Obviously there is an incredible amount of disinformation on it, but if you can filter that out mentally (though I don't know how possible that is), you tend to get a far more 'real time' take on things.
Me and a friend were talking about this before - for big news stories I/we would instinctively put rolling news on. Now it's usually Twitter I check.
This is compounded by the fact that so many political events 'happen' on Twitter/X (and for Trump, Truth Social then screenshotted onto Twitter). Even without Trump I would say the majority of UK political 'intrigue' is done directly on twitter.
So I think it's actually the other way round; media outlets use it quite a bit because instead of press conferences and what not a lot of news comes straight onto it.
Btw, this isn't too say traditional journalism doesn't have a place - it absolutely does and most of the current affairs content I read is on that. But for 'fast moving' events Twitter has managed to keep its place in my eyes, which I'm surprised about to be honest. Bluesky does not have anywhere near the same momentum which really shows you how important network effects are.
I loved seeing Dave Chappelle dismiss his critics by quipping "Twitter is not a real place." Changed my whole view of social media. It's only seems real if you're on the inside of it.
And yea, I would question the utility of getting a 'real time feed' of what rumors people think they heard.
People post plenty of videos of things happening. Often clipped so that context is removed (for example Manchester airport thugs getting kicked by police, without the preceding part where they attacked the police before that).
Huh. I find it worse than useless for current news.
I also keep reminding myself that more Americans play golf than use Twitter
You really just need the journalists tweeting without an intermediary editor to make it more useful than any news that you can pay for. Plus, being less american centric is a benefit, not a drawback, unless the only news you care about is american.
> (though I don't know how possible that is)
Not possible if you are exposed to it periodically. So the value of 'news' source seems to be negative.