Twitter-rama

When I was looking at diet pill reviews (for research purposes) I got severely distracted by what’s happening on Twitter. Apparently users can no longer see replies from those they are following to those they’re not. And this is causing quite the uproar in the Twittersphere.

I don’t really understand what the hoopla is all about honestly. When I was using my first account I didn’t know there was an option and I’m not really sure I’d want that. It can be incredibly overwhelming seeing a couple hundred replies to people I’m not following and probably have no interest in following. I think that option would be more important to people who want to get more exposure (either for business or vanity purposes) and not so much for people that are really there for interaction.

And Twitter has stated on their blog that they’re taking a load off their servers by taking this option off especially because 98% of their users choose not to use it. Considering the complaining that happens when Twitter goes down I would think that people would be happy they’re improving their performance. I am, of course, very wrong about that. A small, but very vocal, minority has the masses stirred up and revolting. And most of the masses don’t know what’s going on.

For instance, some people really think that Twitter is cutting out replies completely. And others think that the celebrities won’t be able to get their replies because they’re not following many people. But replies still work and it’s still possible to send a reply to someone who isn’t following you and whom you aren’t following. You wouldn’t know that by looking at the search for #fixreplies, though. There are a lot of misconceptions about what’s going on and those misconceptions are being egged on by people who are trying to get noticed and become part of the Twitter elite (or have been and just want to be influential).

Twitter needs to explain to people that they can still send replies to people they follow, who follow them and people that are neither followed or following. Those are affected. What’s different is that by default if I’m not following @auntjane and you are, but I am following you when you send Aunt Jane a reply  I won’t see that. Because why would I want to see a reply to someone I’m not following, effectively making your conversation with her like a phone call I’m eavesdropping on? That doesn’t even make any sense to me. But then in this social setting I’m more comfortable with a small group of people interacting and less with eavesdropping on conversations or making myself more important than I really am.

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