Twitter, now X, was once a useful site for breaking news. The Baltimore bridge collapse shows those days are long gone.

Twitter, now X, was once a useful site for breaking news. The Baltimore bridge collapse shows those days are long gone.

  • Globeparasite@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1055·
    9 months ago

    Twitter, now X, was once a useful site for breaking news.

    the fuck ? No it never was, the finest info you ever could find there was thinly veiled holocaust denial ? If journalists really think fucking twitter was ever an important source of news that explain the downfall of journalism

    • pjwestin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      34·
      9 months ago

      What are you talking about? It was the go-to app for journalists for a decade. They could live report from events in a simple, chronological thread, or collect eye witness reports by quote tweeting personal accounts. I followed the Charlottesville and January 6th riots in real time by reading journalists threads. There was a lot of trival or even harmful bullshit on Twitter, but the way journalists used it was a huge positive.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
      213·
      9 months ago

      It wasn’t the source of the news, but where people would consume news. Most of what the site was actually good for was making a notice with a link to a real article. Like an RSS feed with extra steps.

      That’s why I never got into it. The main way it was actually useful was still totally unnecessary.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        52·
        9 months ago

        Kind of like Tiktok. Tiktok is a great place to find breaking news, but it’s not a great news source.

        • Krauerking@lemy.lolEnglish
          3·
          9 months ago

          Oh yeah, you’ll HEAR about it.

          Tiltok says in a menacing tone about any major incident or minor story.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafeEnglish
        17·
        9 months ago

        The thing that happened 13 years ago and did nothing but overthrow Gaddafi, a man who, even if all criticism of his regime is valid, was replaced with something much worse because NATO doesn’t actually care about democracy for brown people?