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Wow, what a short-sighted and ill-conceived move on Twitter's part. I know the answer but I still have to ask- has Twitter used the internet before? Don't they

Wow, what a short-sighted and ill-conceived move on Twitter's part. I know the answer but I still have to ask- has Twitter used the internet before? Don't they know how it works? The first thing many people do when they see a controversial tweet (especially from someone well known) is to take a screenshot. This changes nothing.

Eric_WVGG 11y ago
What is appalling to me is that this illustrates how completely out of touch the Twitter management is with their user base.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I simply disagree. Many of these sites didn't originally spring up to serve the public interest. They're an offspring of something that started a couple years ago: Twitter bots that scrape for anyone's deleted messages and then highlight them. Those services are extremely toxic. They meant that as friends of mine joined the service I'd have to warn them: don't delete things on Twitter, because there are asshole bots that will use deleted messages to fuck with you. The public interest implications of some of these new political Twitter services are more straightforward, but that doesn't mean it's Twitter's obligation to sacrifice user experience for what is probably a marginal public interest benefit. Twitter is legitimately caught between the public interest and their own interests, and I'd have trouble blaming them either way. Why do I think the public interest implications here are marginal? A bunch of reasons: * Politicians are quickly going to learn how hostile Twitter is, and assign professional spindroids to their accounts (or to filter the messages that they themselves post). * It's not like Twitter can prevent deleted tweets from leaking. They'll get screenshot anyways. This just keeps the delete-shaming phenomenon from being shoved in everyone's face. On a previous thread about Twitter, someone pointed out that Twitter shouldn't do this because they should behave like infrastructure. But Twitter doesn't want to be infrastructure; the infrastructure market position is very bad for them.
  - kefka 11y ago
    I simply disagree. Many of these sites didn't originally spring up to serve the public interest. They're an offspring of something that started a couple years ago: internet bots that scrape for anyone's deleted messages and then highlight them. Those services are extremely toxic. They meant that as friends of mine joined the service I'd have to warn them: don't delete things on internet, because there are asshole bots that will use deleted messages to fuck with you. The public interest implications of some of these new political internet services are more straightforward, but that doesn't mean it's internet's obligation to sacrifice user experience for what is probably a marginal public interest benefit. internet is legitimately caught between the public interest and their own interests, and I'd have trouble blaming them either way. Why do I think the public interest implications here are marginal? A bunch of reasons: * Politicians are quickly going to learn how hostile the internet is, and assign professional spindroids to their accounts (or to filter the messages that they themselves post). * It's not like the internet can prevent deleted content from leaking. They'll get screenshot anyways. This just keeps the delete-shaming phenomenon from being shoved in everyone's face. On a previous thread about the internet, someone pointed out that the internet shouldn't do this because they should behave like infrastructure. But the internet doesn't want to be infrastructure; the infrastructure market position is very bad for them.
    - tedunangst 11y ago
      This would be almost funny if "the internet" were a single entity going around doing things.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      This would be witty if Twitter were "the Internet", but of course they are not: they are a website on the Internet. Your switch-the-words trope also stops making sense towards the end of the comment. It's kind of an obnoxious way to make a point, too. Next time you snark like that, can you, like, capitalize the words you're substituting? I had to read this twice just to figure out what you were trying to say. Most of us just skim comments.
- koonsolo 11y ago
  As a user, if I delete a tweet, I want it to be deleted. I don't want it to be on the internet anymore, because else I wouldn't have deleted it. Twitter management is defending their users.

Eric_WVGG 11y ago

What is appalling to me is that this illustrates how completely out of touch the Twitter management is with their user base.

tptacek 11y ago
I simply disagree. Many of these sites didn't originally spring up to serve the public interest. They're an offspring of something that started a couple years ago: Twitter bots that scrape for anyone's deleted messages and then highlight them. Those services are extremely toxic. They meant that as friends of mine joined the service I'd have to warn them: don't delete things on Twitter, because there are asshole bots that will use deleted messages to fuck with you. The public interest implications of some of these new political Twitter services are more straightforward, but that doesn't mean it's Twitter's obligation to sacrifice user experience for what is probably a marginal public interest benefit. Twitter is legitimately caught between the public interest and their own interests, and I'd have trouble blaming them either way. Why do I think the public interest implications here are marginal? A bunch of reasons: * Politicians are quickly going to learn how hostile Twitter is, and assign professional spindroids to their accounts (or to filter the messages that they themselves post). * It's not like Twitter can prevent deleted tweets from leaking. They'll get screenshot anyways. This just keeps the delete-shaming phenomenon from being shoved in everyone's face. On a previous thread about Twitter, someone pointed out that Twitter shouldn't do this because they should behave like infrastructure. But Twitter doesn't want to be infrastructure; the infrastructure market position is very bad for them.
- kefka 11y ago
  I simply disagree. Many of these sites didn't originally spring up to serve the public interest. They're an offspring of something that started a couple years ago: internet bots that scrape for anyone's deleted messages and then highlight them. Those services are extremely toxic. They meant that as friends of mine joined the service I'd have to warn them: don't delete things on internet, because there are asshole bots that will use deleted messages to fuck with you. The public interest implications of some of these new political internet services are more straightforward, but that doesn't mean it's internet's obligation to sacrifice user experience for what is probably a marginal public interest benefit. internet is legitimately caught between the public interest and their own interests, and I'd have trouble blaming them either way. Why do I think the public interest implications here are marginal? A bunch of reasons: * Politicians are quickly going to learn how hostile the internet is, and assign professional spindroids to their accounts (or to filter the messages that they themselves post). * It's not like the internet can prevent deleted content from leaking. They'll get screenshot anyways. This just keeps the delete-shaming phenomenon from being shoved in everyone's face. On a previous thread about the internet, someone pointed out that the internet shouldn't do this because they should behave like infrastructure. But the internet doesn't want to be infrastructure; the infrastructure market position is very bad for them.
  - tedunangst 11y ago
    This would be almost funny if "the internet" were a single entity going around doing things.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    This would be witty if Twitter were "the Internet", but of course they are not: they are a website on the Internet. Your switch-the-words trope also stops making sense towards the end of the comment. It's kind of an obnoxious way to make a point, too. Next time you snark like that, can you, like, capitalize the words you're substituting? I had to read this twice just to figure out what you were trying to say. Most of us just skim comments.
koonsolo 11y ago
As a user, if I delete a tweet, I want it to be deleted. I don't want it to be on the internet anymore, because else I wouldn't have deleted it. Twitter management is defending their users.