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Twitter's Fucked

• smt88 10y ago
  This is an excellent assessment with more depth and nuance than its title suggests. It also isn't the same old Twitter-bashing. I hate Twitter, but I don't necessarily agree that it's too broken to fix. There's a place for a Twitter-like product in the world, and Twitter is already entrenched. The question of a Twitter revamp is this: will it alienate existing heavy users? Will that effect be counterbalanced by new users?
• ivraatiems 10y ago
  Yep. Yep, yep, yep. And Twitter's response is to ban some, but not all harassers, using the algorithm of "whoever is high profile and we don't like politically." That gives said harassers surprisingly legitimate reasons to claim censorship by Twitter as a company, despite the fact that they were in clear violation of Twitter's ToS and deserved to be banned. I refer of course to the Milo Yiannopoulos situation (edit: I said the article didn't mention. I missed the mention.). The man deserved what he got, but there are dozens of accounts that were his "executors" - doing the actual harassment for him in many cases - who got off scot-free, while he remains banned. There is no consistency. I think there's a possibility that the arbitrary enforcement is partially because Twitter knows that if it were consistent in enforcing its own rules, so much of its population of users would disappear that it would be hobbling itself. The only "safe" way to use Twitter now is as an echo chamber - only follow people you like, only talk to people who think the same way you do. That's a waste.
  • dyeje 10y ago
    The article does mention Milo, it has an entire section dedicated to it actually.
    • ivraatiems 10y ago
      You're right, I missed it somehow. Sorry.
  • Daviey 10y ago
    I created a parody account for a celebrity, which was getting quite popular. Without discussing it first, they just removed the account and ignored 3 x emails asking them why. I was gutted.
    • ivraatiems 10y ago
      Well, like any good social media platform, they have no actual support. It's impossible by design to ever speak to an actual human who works at Twitter except via form-email smoke signals.
      • intoverflow2 10y ago
        >It's impossible by design to ever speak to an actual human who works at Twitter There absolutely is, if you have a friend of a friend work there in which case you can get special backchannel treatment and they'll ban whomever tweets something unpleasant at you.
        • dabockster 10y ago
          Isn't this the case at most of the "trendy" tech companies?
        • makemoniesonlin 10y ago
          *whoever
      • TorKlingberg 10y ago
        Well, having people answer phones costs money, and you are not paying for Twitter. Your "data" and "eyeballs" aren't actually worth much. Would you be ok with a premium rate number where you pay per minute?
        • ivraatiems 10y ago
          Actually, that's... not a terrible idea. It's not the best idea, but pulled off right, a simple "we'll help you but if it's not a security issue, site downage or a serious harassment incident you gotta pay" is way better than current help models for social media/large sites.
  • gaius 10y ago
    The only "safe" way to use Twitter now is as an echo chamber - only follow people you like, only talk to people who think the same way you do. That is by no means safe, when brigaders are actively looking for opportunities for whipping up a mob.
    • ivraatiems 10y ago
      True. I should add "and use copious blocklists and never look at your mentions" to that list. Basically, you'd get the same experience by having an email list of your friends.
      • ajacksified 10y ago
        Or Facebook.
        • dabockster 10y ago
          Or [insert 2016 social network] for that matter.
  • bballer 10y ago
    > "I think there's a possibility that the arbitrary enforcement is partially because Twitter knows that if it were consistent in enforcing its own rules, so much of its population of users would disappear that it would be hobbling itself." This x100. If you have no followers and no one is re-tweeting your vitriolic slime, why should twitter care, they simply want you to stay on the platform. Now if your circle has reach and you are a known public name, they must act as if they care. They play politics to please the masses, without subjecting the masses to the same politicking.
    • visakanv 10y ago
      The inverse can also sometimes work. If you're a newsworthy public figure (say, the President of the USA), you get away with violating the rules, shilling your product, etc: https://www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-play-basketball-with-President-Obama/answer/Barack-Obama https://www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-play-basketball-with-...
      • bballer 10y ago
        The inverse only works when you are a public figure with greater power/sway than those who enforce rules, ToS, standards et cetera, or if you have an insider track with those who enforce the rules who can elevate you above them (the rules), ignore them, or give you a free pass (ie you are friends with a high up employee at twitter).
      • vectorpush 10y ago
        > shilling your product I'm not sure that a plug/PSA about a government program really counts as "shilling your product", we're talking about a program that was enacted by the congress and signed into law by the president, at a minimum it's totally distinct from plugging a product that you own or profit from.
  • gadders 10y ago
    The article says that Milo didn't deserve what he got, and I agree. You may not agree with his politics but people of all stripes have done worse. I guess we'll end up with a conservative twitter clone, and a liberal twitter, and no-one will ever face the "danger" of seeing viewpoints they disagree with.
    • snaky 10y ago
      Conservatives are ok with freedom of speech, 'safe zones' are invented by progressives.
      • ivraatiems 10y ago
        Definitely not true of current neocons. They use freedom of speech as a cover for "let me say whatever I want to say" while ignoring it when it suits them. As a live-right-now example, the mods of /r/The_Donald on Reddit are preemtively banning users before Trump's AMA to prevent dissent, and have stated plainly they will delete any unflattering questions.
        • MustardTiger 10y ago
          That sub has never had anything to do with free speech. It is an incredibly restricted hubox/circlejerk, and is very clear about this. They don't use freedom of speech as a cover, they outright say they don't value it at all.
        • michaelbuddy 10y ago
          yeah and that's a Trump specific forum and they have RULES on the side for what is banned. Contrast that with r/news where it's purported to be 'news' not some partisan subreddit. You will get banned for having an opinion mods don't like. Not only that but those same mods will simply ban you from other subreddits they are mods for. r/news and r/worldnews was hit with that the other day. You're example is false equivalency. And what you call a preemptive ban, you'll actually discover that they are quite used to being brigaded on that subreddit and they know who participates. And bans aren't necessarily permanent there.
  • Neetpeople 10y ago
    I have personally lost the belief that you can actually change someone's opinion on almost anything. So an echo chamber doesn't have to be a bad thing. I think people overestimate the value of having your beliefs challenged, does it ever really change someone's mind? If that's the case, you might as well view twitter as entertainment and to clue into the things you care about, in which case it can be pretty useful.
    • ivraatiems 10y ago
      You can change somebody's opinion, just not through one direct interaction. An opinion change requires time, internal rationalization, and repeated exposure. An echo chamber is bad because it not only repeatedly re-broadcasts beliefs, it also amplifies them. "The President is wrong and should be voted out of office" can turn into "The President is wrong and ought to be shot" in an echo chamber environment much faster if there's nobody around to say "wait, hold up, maybe don't."
      • TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
        Most likely at that point, they are making the opinion for themselves and you probably have very little in the decision making
        • ivraatiems 10y ago
          Yes, that's exactly what is happening. You can't reach into somebody's brain and make them change, but you can plant little idea-seeds that grow into change.
          • asQuirreL 10y ago
            Recent studies [Nolan 2010] have shown this method to be tricky and dangerous, but effective. [Nolan 2010]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception P.S. Sorry... couldn't resist ;)
      • Spellman 10y ago
  • michaelbuddy 10y ago
    >The man deserved what he got No. Twitter incorrectly used him as some kind of example. They had also did temp bans on him in the past and also the immature move of removing his check mark. The harassment was happening WELL before Milo was tweeting the ghostbuster. Milo wrote the article. Milo's tweets weren't anywhere NEAR harassment level. Trolling a famous person on twitter is not harassment and brigading. And as many have already shown the ghostbuster herself was just as guilty in the past of attempts at brigading. There's even some communication from her where she was actually thrilled the incident would give exposure to her and the movie. Whatever people think of this, Milo didn't cause her any suffering or feeling of being 'unsafe' Other harassers were deplorable. Milo was not in that category.
    • gluelogic 10y ago
      Removing his blue check was especially ridiculous to me. "Because you are who you are, you can no longer be verified."
      • scholia 10y ago
        If you're Verified, you have access to a Verified Twitter stream, which means you can avoid seeing anything from people who are not verified. This provides a civilized version of Twitter that is mostly populated by smart and funny people. So Twitter removed a professional jerk from the Verified streams while allowing him to continue as a rabble-rouser.
        • dabockster 10y ago
          > This provides a civilized version of Twitter that is mostly populated by smart and funny people. Twitter circa 2009 before Kutcher vs CNN? This still exists?
          • scholia 10y ago
            Only if you are Verified ;-) I did suggest some time ago that Twitter could monetize by charging a high fee for verification (with, say, passport scans and other personal details). Sadly, they do it free.
  • munificent 10y ago
    > The only "safe" way to use Twitter now is as an echo chamber "Echo chamber" is a deliberately pejorative term, which I think is unfair here. If you use Twitter to discuss your beliefs, then, yes, it functions like an echo chamber, and that can be a bad thing because when your beliefs are wrong, they won't be constructively challenged. But I generally use Twitter to discuss my interests. Sure, the line between the two is fuzzy, but I think there is a difference. I love pixel art, and follow a lot of pixel artists. Does that make my feed a "pixel art echo chamber"? I guess so? But that seems to me about as harmless as joining model railroad club.
    • jackmott 10y ago
      My beliefs are all right now though, so I prefer an echo chamber.
    • pawn 10y ago
      "because when your beliefs are wrong, they won't be constructively challenged." Does this ever happen? It seems to me like every time someone says something unpopular, the world goes on a witch hunt to destroy that person's life. That's not what I call "constructively challenged". I call it "just short of hanging them, which is what people really want to do." I'd love to see a world where I could debate a matter with someone without everyone getting so emotionally charged that logic gets thrown out the window, and ideas that are incorrect can be pointed out to a person without everyone hating one another.
      • davidivadavid 10y ago
        I must say I'm similarly perplexed by this notion. Every time I've witnessed a "debate" where people "constructively challenge" people who have opposite views, it ended in a shouting match. I'm happy to avoid any such "debate." In my experience, the kind of debate you describe tends to happen far more often between people who have (paradoxically?) similar views, and who just like to explore ideas and challenge each other. That intellectual trait is completely orthogonal to the views themselves. The closest thing I tend to compare it to is the charity principle, but that may not encapsulate everything quite right.
  • pbreit 10y ago
    Are there approaches like silent bans or usage of degrees of separation that would help matters?
  • the_economist 10y ago
    "The man deserved what he got" If Milo deserved to be banned, then so does 30-40% of Twitter. He did nothing wrong, and certainly nothing worse than this: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/756219192878268416 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/756219192878268416
    • st3v3r 10y ago
      Saying he did nothing wrong is ignoring the entirety of the situation. At the very least, you have to agree that falsifying tweets from another user was against the ToS, and thus earned him his ban.
  • dustingetz 10y ago
    I think this is caused by chilly US legal climate, not inherent to Twitter, fwiw
  • cubano 10y ago
    Milo's ban was perhaps the best thing that could have ever happened to him, and while I agree he didn't deserve it, serendipity often works in odd backhand ways.
  • hasenj 10y ago
    > The only "safe" way to use Twitter now is as an echo chamber - only follow people you like, only talk to people who think the same way you do. That's a waste. Which is what Facebook is right now.
  • rabboRubble 10y ago
    I "safely" follow the @theRealDonaldTrump comedy show. I don't like him or think like him, but it's sure fun to have a firsthand view on the dumpster fire that is the 2016 election.
    • boneheadmed 10y ago
      Funny, I thought the comedy show was the DNC Convention! #Fake #Corrupt #"Missing emails" #BuyInfluence #Pander #DelfectToRussians #LOLOL! http://www.frontpagemag.com/sites/default/files/uploads/2014/06/donkey.jpg http://www.frontpagemag.com/sites/default/files/uploads/2014...
      • sctb 10y ago
        Please do not comment like this here.
        • boneheadmed 10y ago
          Why? Truth hurts. If you really want a place with highly regulated comments, go back to FB.
• ISL 10y ago
  It's certainly possible to insult someone in 140 characters, but it's equally possible to complement them. (This post: 136 characters)
• rufus_2 10y ago
  The banning of Milo is beyond hypocritical, the person he was "harassing" said far worse things, yet she remains and keeps her little blue check. What a joke.
  • OneNoteIsFree 10y ago
    Twitter is partially owned by a Saudi prince. We'll be pretending if we said it doesn't change things.
  • SloopJon 10y ago
    I'm not familiar with the entire exchange, but I think the last straw was Milo posting fake screenshots of homophobic tweets from Leslie.
  • intoverflow2 10y ago
    She also actively encouraged her followers to harass back to the people she was harassed by. Which he was accused of inciting although he never actually said it while she openly told they to do it and boasted about it. But yeah one is a flavour of the month celeb and the other is a loudmouth who doesn't meld well with Twitter employees political leanings. But both violated TOS and both should have been banned.
• 67726e 10y ago
  I don't think the author knows the definition of "violence"
  • bballer 10y ago
    Yeah he used the term "violence" as a drop in substitute for the term "troll". Not to dismiss that one can incite or promote violence via trolling, but they are not unanimously equivalent.
  • dspillett 10y ago
    I think he has a fair idea: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/violence http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/violenc... 2. Strength of emotion or of a destructive natural force
    • golemotron 10y ago
      2 devalues 1. Don't do it.
    • michaelbuddy 10y ago
      You're broadening / redirecting that definition. One can have violent feelings or reactions to something, such as someone suffering PTSD, mental breakdown, emotional reaction to medicine. But one can't just claim that words that they don't like spoken by someone are violence committed on them. At that point you get into the "you're raping me with your thoughts" and that's just irrationality. If one were irrational words will no longer retain meaning anyway.
  • MustardTiger 10y ago
    He does, he is being deliberately dishonest to get attention. Ironic, given his criticism of twitter as a medium.
  • thex10 10y ago
    'An action that intentionally hurts other people' sufficed for me. Why do so many HN commenters have trouble reading this simple idea?
• OneNoteIsFree 10y ago
  Not to mention that its really easy to buy followers. There's at least one trending topic daily that is clearly bought (See who's tweeting it and they'll be xyz Fan and pqr lover bots)
• SeanDav 10y ago
  I am probably in a very small minority, but I have never seen the point of Twitter. It has almost limitless potential to destroy your life by taking something out of context and copying it to millions. I shudder to think of the number of times I have made a tasteless throwaway comment or colourful joke that, if taken out of context, would have had dire consequences. It has almost limitless potential to take up all your attention, trying to stay up to date with what everyone is saying. I can't think of a single thing I am missing out on, by not having an active Twitter account, but can think of many reasons to not have one.
  • jomamaxx 10y ago
    You're not in the minority, you're in the majority. Not that many people actually use Twitter. That you think you are in the minority is a weird cultural phenom - people with the loud voices behaviours signal to us what is 'normative' even if it is not! Because you see a lot of people using Twitter, you think 'everyone's doing it'. In reality - most people are far more neutral/central than the voices in the web. And most people just don't care about such things. Try ignoring Twitter for a few months. You won't feel left out, trust me. It's mostly noise.
    • gaius 10y ago
      It's not helped by organizations such as the BBC who report on what happens on Twitter as if it is actually news.
      • jomamaxx 10y ago
        "It's not helped by organizations such as the BBC who report on what happens on Twitter as if it is actually news." Ah. That's a trick used by 'credible news outlets' to promote an ideology when they're supposed to remain 'neutral'. When a journo wants to say something ideological, but is limited in editorial scope by supposed 'neutrality', all he needs to do is find a Tweet somewhere that says what he wants, and can then publish it and say 'people are saying XYZ' - as though it represents a 'popular view' - even though it does not. I am not ideological or political, but it's far more common among left-ish leaning editorialists. About 85% of people working at the BBC, CBC, CNN are left of centre, they are professionals and are pretty good at trying to remain neutral, but the biases come out one way or another. The editorial chiefs don't care because they're cut from the same cloth - so as long as the veneer of professionalism is there (and they're not offending advertisers) it flies. 80% of news - even at the 'reputable sites' is total fluff. They need to keep writing about something. So they invent the news. In another sense this is not a new phenom: in the old days everyone read/watched local news. They report on the most inane thing: cats stuck in trees. But people loved it because it was super local and relevant to them, i.e. 'gossipy'. Twitter is the 'gossip' for the new urban types that don't have strong local social networks to gossip within. At my grandmothers house, people would stop in, chat for 20 mins with Gran, and after they were gone I had no idea why they stopped by! It was just gossip. That's the 'old timey' Twitter!
• ryanmarsh 10y ago
  Does Twitter have to be Facebook to not be "fucked"? I don't understand these statements that "Twitter is fucked". Twitter could improve filtering and safety but if it never changed I'd probably still get my news from it for the rest of my life. I just can't think of a better app for my use cases. I often like Twitter Moments, like something funny or some pop culture stuff I wouldn't have picked up on. Every time there is breaking news Twitter carries it first. I don't want longer tweets. That's what URL's are for. If you want to discuss really distill your thoughts and thread them. I'm on here to scan for stuff that lights up my brain not have an Op-Ed shoved in my face taking up the whole screen. I just don't understand. I love twitter.
  • jnevill 10y ago
    I don't think it needs to be Facebook to not be fucked, but I agree with OP that it could change it's user metrics to better affect behavior. Maybe similar to rep here on ycombinator.com where you get downvoted by the community if you are an ass or not adding productively to the conversation. Combining rep with privileges like stackoverflow.com where a user can't DM until they hit a certain rep, or can't cause a notification on other's devices when they tweet would curtail sock-puppeting and other trollish behavior that plagues Twitter. As for up to date news, I follow Google's top 10 searches in Feedly (where I follow hundreds of sites) and it works as a pretty decent up-to-date top news trend that gets updated every hour or so. I can appreciate if every hour or so is too slow for some folks though. I'm not in media, and don't really care if Rihanna fell of the stage a few minutes ago during her concert, but I totally get it if others do.
    • ryanmarsh 10y ago
      Googles news is based on typical journo sites mostly. Twitter provides unfiltered live on-scene coverage and commentary, statements by police often are Tweeted as the press conferences are happening or in lieu of them. Ever since Sully landed a plane in the Hudson news on Twitter has just been a different beast and I love it. Nothing else is "good enough" for me.
  • mrweasel 10y ago
• meerita 10y ago
  Trying to stop people trolling, insulting or having bad behavior is a waste of time. Instead of that, make tools so people can filter the noise properly.
• im_down_w_otp 10y ago
  I'm sympathetic to the author's general ideas, but also find myself perturbed by the myopic cheapening of the term "violence". (chars < 140)
  • thex10 10y ago
    I found the author's usage of the term eye-opening rather than myopic!
    • im_down_w_otp 10y ago
      Interesting. The way it was used seemed hyperbolic & better replaced w/ something like, "banal", "vapid", "uncivil" or "derogatory". (< 140)
• jomamaxx 10y ago
  It's an interesting treatise, but I suggest the author is describing media in general. Tech has only amplified the faults of media: emotionally visceral and passionate (i.e. as opposed to dispassionate or objective) news gets the clicks. Very proud and 'credible' news outlets face this problem and it's real. Either get the clicks or go out of business.
• gkya 10y ago
  Twitter is best for announcing things: events, blog posts, updates, software version and the like, plus maybe a link. Anything else is unfit for the platform. The strings are too short.
  • rocky1138 10y ago
    Actually, what I find Twitter best for is directly talking to CEOs, lead developers, lead marketers, or other people in high positions. They usually reply. For instance, I asked John Carmack if he'd ever consider doing anything on the Atari Jaguar again (he ported Wolf3d and Doom to that platform back in 1993) and he replied saying that he'd more likely do Apple ][ stuff if he went retro. How many times in a person's life do they directly talk to John Carmack? It's amazing that you can just type a few things in and someone that powerful replies to a relative nobody.
• bechampion 10y ago
  twitter 2.0 is 141 chars
• jklinger410 10y ago
  >The root problem with Twitter is that the product is carefully engineered to cultivate maximum violence. Hard to make it past this part. Not sure what definition of violence you're using.
• ScaryRacoon 10y ago
  I like how everyone now wants an echo chamber of their own ideas and are so uncomfortable with someone who challenges their opinions that they demand a service change the way it operates. I'm not saying the bashing/harassment is okay, it isn't.
• squigs25 10y ago
  Another issue that contributes to anger on Twitter is that comments on tweets are displayed based on the time which they appeared. So angry and unhelpful comments often appear at the top, even if no one likes them, because they were posted first.
• iRobbery 10y ago
  140 Characters; 100% agree, it should have been a minimum requirement of the message length instead maximum.
  • rch 10y ago
    Effective comment, and you still have 32 characters to spare.
    • iRobbery 10y ago
      :) Nah, (confirmed by downvotes hehe) it is not really that effective comment imho either. It is a common (quick) thought i think many will have that read paragraph about the 140 char limit. And my statement is not very specific, nor a 'fix' for the problem and could be argued to be untrue for.. other reasons (e.g. the more you write the more chance a certain point will not be agreed upon by reader and discards the whole message because of that, and sorts) And I could have dedicated pages on how much you write isn't that important, often it is the reader, that can't be arsed to read it anyway. If twitter would do a bit more on rewarding 'good' (and yes.. who am i to say what is good) behaviour; though some might describe that again as censorship. Creating another discussion.
• atemerev 10y ago
  People are tired from crybullies. We need a place where freedom of speech still matters. Freedom of speech doesn't include invading someone's privacy (this is illegal; doxxing, stalking etc. should be banned and actively fought against). But if you can't handle insults, it is not anyone's job to prevent them. There's always "Block" button, and then, there's always "delete account" button.
  • eropple 10y ago
    Explain to me how effective blocking individuals is when you're being spammed by dozens and hundreds of people with so little to do that they will happily go create egg accounts to continue harassing you. It's not practical or feasible to block all of them. So people should delete their accounts because they get brigaded? To hell with that, and with the people who think that is a social norm worth protecting. "Crybullies." And I literally thought this could not get any sillier a thing.
    • throwanem 10y ago
      Without taking a stance on either side of this contentious issue, I would note that it should be technically feasible to offer an option which would auto-block any account that hasn't established a certain extent of "not a troll sockpuppet" bona fides - for example, by being more than a few weeks old, and having a certain degree of engagement with the community at large. Accounts which fail to meet these criteria, and persist in attempts to abuse someone already recognized as being targeted, might be automatically suspended or banned. I don't care for Twitter particularly, but it's a thing that exists, and it's not likely to go away any time soon. And I don't care for shitposter brigades at all. As the current brouhaha demonstrates, manual intervention in high-profile cases is no solution at all. Twitter's engineering team is easily capable of an automated solution; all they need is for their management to turn them loose on the problem. I'm not sure why that hasn't yet happened. Of course it's impossible for any automated solution to make everyone happy - but what we're looking at right now is a response that has made everyone unhappy. Twitter can do better. I hope they take this incident as sufficient reason to do so.
• ChrisArchitect 10y ago
  What's Happening. https://blog.twitter.com/2016/see-whats-happening https://blog.twitter.com/2016/see-whats-happening Twitter's best promotional explanation ever I'd say.
• smacktoward 10y ago
  I made a version of this argument three years ago here: http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/02/i-kind-of-hate-twitter/ http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/02/i-kind-of-hate-twitter/ Twitter's core problem is that its product's design encourages users to behave badly. Mechanisms are baked deeply into it that make it very difficult for its users to come across as anything other than jerks. Even those with the best of intentions fall afoul of these mechanisms by accident periodically, sometimes with serious real-world consequences like loss of a job or important personal relationships. Users with bad intentions, meanwhile, are enabled and rewarded by other mechanisms. Twitter is a Perfect Storm of bad discussion software design.
• raiyu 10y ago
  Every platform that is public and anonmyous runs afoul of this, this isn't just twitter. You can look at Youtube comments, reddit, pretty much any forum. What's missing is that other platforms, like Facebook, took a very hard stance on this and forced people to signup as their real identities. Twitter, can easily follow suit. That won't fix all of the problems, but it will go towards improving things and it won't require massive product updates and changes to the UX. Given that their MAU growth numbers are low, and no longer the number that they want the public market to focus on, actually instating this now wouldn't even be that damaging from a reporting perspective, and if they bled out a few users that weren't really contributing it could go a long way to improving things. Technically there is a privacy setting that twitter doesn't play up that can be used for people that want to use twitter as a consumption platform and limit the interactivity from other people. Twitter is still fundamentally different and more open than facebook and with requesting non-anonymous users they can still keep that open platform and potentially clean up some of the outlier conversations that seem to be a focus for so many people of what's wrong with twitter.
  • sievebrain 10y ago
    HN is public and anonymous and mostly manages to not suffer this problem, due to the heavy manual labour of the moderators and a whole lot of selection bias in its userbase. To a slightly lesser extent, Slashdot has also licked that problem: for any story that attracts enough comments (more than 300) the top rated ones are often pretty good and the worthless ones start auto-collapsed. Even though Slashdot gets a lot of jip these days, some of it deserved, I've still spent many enjoyable hours reading some of the top rated comments there. Especially nice is the fact that upvotes must have an adjective attached, which gently nudges users into certain kinds of behaviour. For instance it's the only site I've encountered where people often post extremely funny comments despite the serious topics. The moderation system there encourages that sort of behaviour.
    • heed 10y ago
      Also Metacritic has managed to keep foul comments under control.
    • 10y ago
• TheAceOfHearts 10y ago
  WRT the "Harasser’s Paradise" section: a few months back I uninstalled the Twitter app from my phone and I started using the mobile site. It works great and it kills bullshit notifications.
• patrickmay 10y ago
  Speech is not violence. The author's conflation of the two trivializes actual physical violence.
  • jnevill 10y ago
    Speech can definitely be violence and suggesting otherwise trivializes emotional abuse and trauma faced by those that suffer from PTSD and other mental illnesses.
    • patrickmay 10y ago
      Speech can be abusive; I see no one trivializing that. It is not violence.
  • peterwwillis 10y ago
    http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/aboutnvc/nonviolent_communication.htm http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/aboutnvc/nonviolent_c... https://www.heartland.edu/documents/idc/What%20is%20violent%20comm%20and%20nvc%20(Winters).pdf https://www.heartland.edu/documents/idc/What%20is%20violent%...
    • nostrebored 10y ago
      Again, in both cases it's using violence as a rhetorical trick. Verbal and emotional abuse of children are serious issues, but they do NOT have to be violent for them to be horrible. The conflation of the two muddies the language that we have to describe the events that happen to us. If someone says, my parents were very violent to me, what would you assume happened? Doesn't knowing that there was physical abuse help give context that helps you respond to the situation?
      • peterwwillis 10y ago
        Did you even read the links? 'Violent speech' and 'violent communication' are a form of violence. They have a nuanced definition. They can be used in multiple ways. Language is not strict. It is fluid, it changes over time, and in this case, totally applies to the subject. You are arguing for an unrealistic, unenforceable, overly-literal use of language.
• EGreg 10y ago
  In addition, Twitter lets anyone contact anyone with any kind of content, and will send a notification to the recipient. As a result, any person or bot with a Twitter account has the ability to interrupt your life with an invasive, hateful message at any time. What? I thought they had to follow you for your Direct Message to reach them. So I can contact potential advisors through twitter if I can't figure out their email address?
  • csixty4 10y ago
    You can open up your DMs so anybody can message you now.
    • EGreg 10y ago
      I believe you are wrong: https://cl.ly/0a2C3d432i1W https://cl.ly/0a2C3d432i1W https://support.twitter.com/articles/14606 https://support.twitter.com/articles/14606 It does say If you are sending Direct Messages to accounts that do not follow you, you may need to verify your phone number. and I did verify my phone number - still nothing.
      • csixty4 10y ago
        It's not on by default. TBL probably doesn't have it enabled. It's on the Security settings page[1] [1] https://twitter.com/settings/security https://twitter.com/settings/security
• lossolo 10y ago
  I wonder why twitter will not use Machine Learning to remove terrorism propaganda from their social network? I mean you can train neural networks to recognize terrorism spreading accounts and tweets. It's not black magic, NLP to get intent + classification of known/blocked terrorist accounts and just train. Then show message "Sorry but this tweet looks like abusing our rules, please wait until our staff will check it" or something like that. If you do nothing where you can then you are just accomplice to spreading terrorism.
  • ceejayoz 10y ago
    The likely end result of that is just coded communication. As a similar example, Facebook's "no gun sales" policy now has people selling a pair of socks for $650 using a picture that just happens to have a gun in the background. (Examples: https://twitter.com/ecined/status/756940120826097664 https://twitter.com/ecined/status/756940120826097664 https://twitter.com/monteiro/status/756639900796088320 https://twitter.com/monteiro/status/756639900796088320)
    • hiou 10y ago
      And you honestly don't think machine learning will be able to detect that as a gun sale?
      • ceejayoz 10y ago
        The more it does, the more coded it gets. I still have to dig into my spam folder's contents periodically to rescue important emails for the same reasons.
  • artursapek 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure they allow it because the government asked them to. It can provide useful intelligence. I doubt detecting and removing that stuff is beyond the Twitter team's technical capabilities.
• Disruptive_Dave 10y ago
  Total side beef: can we all please stop comparing Pokemon Go DAUs with those of massive social platforms that have been around for years and years? It's just silly.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• epberry 10y ago
  I actually think none of these things are Twitter's biggest problems and that while they are big issues Twitter could gradually, painstakingly fix them through thoughtful policies coupled with careful engineering. Their biggest problem is Facebook rapidly building Twitter's future inside Facebook. What I mean is this: I agree with Jack's vision of Twitter being a "window to the world", a place where you can instantly get a sense of what your compatriots are thinking and how they are reacting to news. They have two features which accomplish this pretty well: hashtags and live video. When crazy things are happening Twitter is one of the best ways to "live" the event through those two features. Jack appears to have taken this to heart and recently said that Twitter's future will heavily involve breaking news. This also addresses one of the big complaints in this post - you can't have a thoughtful debate in 140 characters. But you can react! And you can absorb little pieces of information and media. Unfortunately for Twitter, Facebook has also seen the writing and the wall and has built superior versions of hashtags and live video directly into their experience. I have seen a noticeable improvement in the specificity and granularity of their trending topics lately and we've all seen over the past couple weeks how effective and raw (maybe too raw) their live video is. So I don't think Twitter is fucked - I think their future still, after all these laggard years, has a lot of potential. The problem is they have to stare down an 800,000 pound blue and white gorilla to win.
• TimJRobinson 10y ago
  How about a rating system for people? And each rating could also be biased by the rating of the person giving the rating. Kind of like pagerank for people. Then the posts of those who have the most positive ratings float to the top of the stream. Sure trolls will support other trolls but I'm pretty convinced most people are good people and should easily outnumber and be able to take down gangs of trolls online. This way the community self moderates and is able to weed out the undesirables and assholes on the platform all by themself, no intervention required. The people you rated highly could also float to the top of your stream so if you enjoy the trash talking of milo or similar characters you can still see them without them poisoning the well for everyone else.
  • DaveSapien 10y ago
    Agreed!
  • protomyth 10y ago
    Look up Advogato and their trust metrics.
  • scholia 10y ago
    There is a sort of rating system, in the follower ratio. Each follower represents a "vote" for the value of that person's Twitter stream. It's not only the number but also the ratio. There are people who have 200,000 followers because they are following 200,000 people. This tells you their tweets are worthless. (And if you're following 200,000 people, you're not reading their tweets.)
• tetrep 10y ago
  While I agree with most of the author's points, I'm not convinced at how possible it would be to have a product that "adopts the market-orientation and ad hoc network of Twitter" in such a way that "harassment would be impossible." While deep learning and similar technologies can certainly make it much more difficult to harass someone, you can't rely on the content of someones message[0] nor can you rely on the network status of an individual, as spam accounts won't be readily differentiable from new accounts, and blocking new accounts from contacting people defeats the "ad hoc network" requirement. [0]: People are great at communicating meaning non-literally (see: definition of literally) and one of the ways that manifests itself is through slang, which is going to break anything but a so-close-it-might-as-well-be-AI system. If you ban a word or phrase, it's meaning will be communicated through another word or phrase. The insulting adversary has an advantage here, as they can use other real words and phrases that would otherwise be innocuous to insult you, it would be especially advantageous to use popular/common words/phrases as replacements (see: euphemisms). It's certainly possible to train a system in hindsight, but I highly doubt you could do so in real-time and any delay in reacting to new slang means that's when antagonists will strike. Hell, you could even do asynchronously defined insults, send many messages containing various words phrases and then announce, shortly after their delivery, what they mean (heh...).
  • ctvo 10y ago
    Why did you jump to ML as the solution to a vague product description (and then proceed to outline how it'd be difficult to do with ML)? Twitter 2.0 could do something as simple as forego the linear timeline (and the restrictions that that imposes re: filtering) and still achieve all the goals the author outlined.
• Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
  I agree with a lot of this article, but want to call out this point for discussion: >This means if you follow someone for what they have to say about professional improv comedy, you also get to hear them trash your religion, berate the intelligence of people who vote the way you do, and otherwise rant about and retweet topics you don’t want to hear about. This sounds like the author is asking for Twitter to build an echo chamber for him? I would rather not have that for my account tbh and I would like to discourage Twitter from heading in this direction (though it has already started to do some of that).
  • sievebrain 10y ago
    Just tweet tagging would do the trick. Probably tweets are too short to auto-tag, but medium manages to do it for longer form content.
• d4rti 10y ago
  Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed (https://www.amazon.co.uk/So-Youve-Been-Publicly-Shamed/dp/0330492284 https://www.amazon.co.uk/So-Youve-Been-Publicly-Shamed/dp/03...) is an interesting book that goes into some detail on the moral outrage and abuse side of social media.
• stcredzero 10y ago
  The severe limitation on the size of tweets selects for puerile violence rather than thoughtful, mutually satisfying interactions. It's not just the size of tweets, though that does exacerbate things. The entire attention economy of online social media rewards viral attention, and therefore it rewards outrage politics. (Politics in the general sense of Homo sapiens following its social mammal instincts.)
  • ryanmarsh 10y ago
    Give them 500 characters. It doesn't matter it's the commons. You want people to behave? Teach real civics in the schools.
    • stcredzero 10y ago
      It doesn't matter it's the commons. Oh yes, it does! There's a ton of historical, economic, and game theoretic work that indicates this matters. A lot! You want people to behave? Teach real civics in the schools. That only provides the information, not the incentive. If you want people to behave, give them a stake in society.
      • ryanmarsh 10y ago
        All good points. Perhaps I was too flippant. To clarify, it does matter how people behave. I just have little faith that the commons won't continue to fall tragedy to itself without some sort of indoctrination (or incentive system as you pointed out).
• johnwheeler 10y ago
  I haven't experienced harassment (only have 100 followers), but here's what I don't like. Can't edit tweets People follow you and unfollow you if you don't follow them back in a day or two. Webcam porn stars like your tweets to draw attention to themselves. Inconsistent user experience. Do I click the profile picture to edit my settings or edit my settings to change my profile picture? I always forget. http://twitter.com/johnwheeler_ http://twitter.com/johnwheeler_
• niftich 10y ago
  Yesterday, I saw this chart [1] from Twitter's Q2 2016 earnings report, and noticed that US users are only 21% of Twitter's 313 million monthly active users. Presumably, other anglocentric (ie. posting in English about topics relevant to English speakers) users push this figure much higher than 21%, but: Does the kind of posting culture the author writes extend to the international, non-anglocentric portion of the audience? I'm not entirely convinced it does. For example Twitter is very popular in Turkey, where it's part of social culture [2][3], and while a great deal of 'western' content is consumed, most of the user-generated discourse is either casual or latently political. Trying to find English-speaking media covering abuse on Turkish Twitter only lead me to this article [4] about a political clique harassing users about political stances, and that was a sponsored effort, not 'organic' acts by self-organizing users. Twitter is also fairly popular in Japan [5], where pop culture phenomena drive much of the engagement. While I agree with nearly all of the points presented in this analysis, I'm just not sure it represents most of Twitter's non-US userbase, which is significantly larger in aggregate than its US users. [1] http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5797c8ca88e4a71b008badb3-960/twitter.png http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5797c8ca88e4a71b008... [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2014/03/25/turkeys-twitter-ban-shutting-down-technology-or-social-culture/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2014/03/25/turkeys-twi... [3] https://www.socialbakers.com/statistics/twitter/profiles/turkey/ https://www.socialbakers.com/statistics/twitter/profiles/tur... [4] http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/turkey-twitter-trolls/ http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/turkey-twitter-trolls/ [5] http://mashable.com/2013/10/22/japan-loves-twitter/ http://mashable.com/2013/10/22/japan-loves-twitter/
• JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  You put that much thought into the analysis but couldn't do the same for the headline? "Fked" is a cop out word used when you don't have enough mental juices left to actually describe what you want to describe.
• jonstokes 10y ago
  True story: I was at a fundraiser in SF in about 2009, and over the course of the evening I found myself chatting about Twitter on two different occasions: once with Bill Maris of Google Ventures, and once with Joi Ito. Bill and I were actually talking about what kind of investments GV was looking to make. He stressed that GV was looking to invest in businesses that were actually good businesses. As a counterexample, he brought up Twitter, which at the time he considered to be a "good investment" (said with a grin and a wink) but not a "good business". I had one of those feelings that you get when somebody really smart just shared with you The Truth. Later I found myself in a conversation with Joi, I think as part of a group and not one-on-one, and Joi was talking about Twitter's lack of revenue. Joi was an early stage investor in Twitter, and he was telling us something to the effect of, "once we have all these users, we're going to bring everyone to the table and figure out how to monetize and what we can charge for." Over the years I've thought a lot about Bill's distinction between a "good investment" and a "good business", and about Joi's "users first, money later" optimism. I always felt like Bill would be proven right in the long-term, and I think at this point he sorta has been. Ultimately, though, either approach to investing can work -- but if you're gonna do the Joi thing, you gotta know when to get out of the trade. (I have no idea if/when Joi got out... just stating a general principle.)
  • harryh 10y ago
    Bill is wrong. Twitter's revenue per user is quite good. Their problem is that user growth is poor. They can't get enough users to meet their goals. Joi was correct that focusing on users first was the correct decision. They just haven't been able to execute on that goal as well as they hoped for.
    • majani 10y ago
      There is evidence from past social networks that if you don't hit critical mass of mainstream user adoption, and you've got these lofty valuations, the company is in for a really bad time
      • harryh 10y ago
• harryh 10y ago
  It's worth nothing that John's thoughts here are no doubt heavily influenced by his experiences on twitter during the LamdaConf/Moldbug incident.
• joshstrange 10y ago
  The part about different kinds of content that get shared reminds me of this CGP Grey video that talks about what causes us to share things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
  • flush 10y ago
    Yeah, this is exactly what I thought of too. Searched for "CGP" and there your comment is! :)
• equivocates 10y ago
  Yeah, why didn't they make twitter more like Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, LiveJournal, Medium, MySpace, or Facebook?
• Talha-Ansari 10y ago
  That's so embarrassing how they can remove any account. People do so many things to make their followers on twitter but if we start getting ban like this, I'm no more on twitter from now.
• KirinDave 10y ago
  I know this sentiment will be unpopular here. But so am I (to the point where moderators have "rate limited" me until such time as I stop speaking on SJ issues) so... I think it's no surprise that suddenly the previously pro-twitter and "pro freedom of speech and welcoming spaces for all even if they're unpopular" folks are mad at twitter. This article is hot on the heels of twitter banning Milo Y for cheerfully orchestrating yet another race baiting campaign against a black woman in cinema, and just a few months after Degoes himself got a lot of heat on Twitter and lost nearly all corporate sponsorship, having to rely on the businesses of friends for reduced funding for LambdaConf. This is a "hot take" in the Twitter parlance. And of course, banning Milo and shunning LambdaConf didn't fix the root causes or stem the tide of harassment of other behaviors that make the twitterLeft continue to be mad. To directly address TFA's content, it's not possible in the modern era to be "non-political" because the definition of "non-political" varies so radically. More on this in a moment, but being "non-political" is neocon code for, "not offending me" (in the same way that "safe space" is actually code for "inoffensive space") and that's a rather complex and customized product to deliver. It's very interesting though. We've all ended up in a place where the platform sort of holds us hostage. We feel compelled to share our bite-sized rhetoric chunks and then castigate people for being "unfair" and banning "rational argument" without considering that (and I stress, all sides of every issue has these people) a nearly unending torrent of ill-considered hate vomits at everyone involved in even the minutest controversy. _It's totally irrational to demand people remain rational under these circumstances._ The neurotypical human simply cannot be expected to handle the way Twitter amplifies negative data. And yet, we cannot possibly deny the pivotal importance Twitter (and in abstract, media like it) has had on rapidly disseminating information that I think most people here would absolutely agree should get out. For example, Twitter rapidly spreads media and information about social unrest worldwide, has laid bare many abuses of official power in the West, and has been incredibly important for disseminating viewpoints during the current American election. This conversation is valuable even though it is "political." It has value in every case where it brings raised awareness about the human experiences that define political conflict, social unrest, and violence worldwide. The key difference is that in every case where twitter is used for news reporting and rapidly sharing personal perspectives, it trumps every other media. Twitter simply outshines every other media sharing design we've ever seen for news. Degoes is dead and demonstrably wrong that it's only cute and tidy tweets that get huge sums of retweets. Many of the most successful tweets in the sphere of "politics" are just raw information. "Donald Trump said this." "Egypt's government is doing this." "This is happening in Libya." The same 140 character limit that quashes all but the most clipped conversations and promotes media actually severely limits the spin one can actually craft around any given fact and strongly favors media delivered so fast that any substantial working or processing has to be automated. That's probably to the platform's overall credit. If Twitter has a future, it's as a news platform that makes everyone into a journalist. If Twitter is doomed, it's because it forces everyone into a common scrum of a debate where even if we could type more to more eloquently debate, it wouldn't matter because the overwhelming pressure of people tossing out quit hate fastballs would erode the conversation. Those of us who are opponents of Degoes worldview overall are still in violent and absolute agreement that the platform needs more tools to curb 'harassment'. While we may differ on the subject of what harassment is in this case, we agree that ultimately Twitter needs to develop sophisticated tools for managing incoming content and filtering it. They've refuse to do so. Maybe 2-3 years ago, we could argue it wasn't feasible at scale, but I think the industry has progressed to the point where we don't believe that anymore. It's entirely feasible to do even basic bayesian classifiers at "twitter scale". It could be done client side, even! Ultimately, there have to be trapdoors in this for news and shocking information. A social conservative may not like it if we bring up some of Donald Trump's more outrageous turns of phrase, but if it's timely and corroborated data then it probably has value, and I suspect most people would appreciate receiving it even if it's only from one wing of their social graph. Twitter's successful future isn't in some clever blocklist as Degoes suggests. I don't think it's about longer formats or an emphasis on rich media, either. It's in deeply understanding the content of tweets and finding a way to push timely, critical information to you via an amenable arm of your social graph. If you need to hear about the Muslim Spring through Pat Robertson to digest that information, so be it. That is you. If you need to hear about it through your favorite liberal pundit Colbert, that too is you. This is semantic analysis and machine learning in an unprecedented level of ambition, but I don't think anyone doubts it can technically be done.
• guelo 10y ago
  This makes no sense. Several of the issues he identifies are also problems on Facebook but they haven't hurt that network: 140 Characters: I rarely see "thoughtful exchange of complex ideas" on Facebook which allows as much text as you can type. Perverse Mechanics: it's the same metrics used on Facebook and every other social network out there. Terrible Filtering: Same filtering as Facebook.
  • niftich 10y ago
    Facebook requires a real name and most people provide it, because they also use it as a Friends & Family social network. We've also drilled into an entire generation's heads that employers will check Facebook, so realistically most of the conversation on Facebook these days is either carefully groomed, or Tumblr-style Buzzfeed reposts, or personal updates scoped to friends & family. Twitter is intended to be public -- as private accounts vastly limit your audience, and at that point, you have much better alternatives to share content within your circle like Tumblr or Facebook or Instagram. You can adopt a pseudonymous identity, and most importantly, you can tag (ie. 'reply to') other public accounts, essentially arbitrary people.
• robobro 10y ago
  This is the same guy who made the dumb article, "destroy all ifs". He probably just wrote this article to troll hackernews
• codingdave 10y ago
  The problem is deeper than these details -- Twitter's product doesn't solve a problem. It adds communication to the world, with certain unique flavors... and some people have found ways to use it to improve reporting on news, events, or marketing. Some people have found ways to solve minor problems for themselves, specifically. And because of those things, it has found its traction. But there is no major underlying problem shared by millions that Twitter solves. Which is why it also struggles to maintain a userbase.
• bitL 10y ago
  Twitter's role is in providing a nice mirror to narcissists. There is a huge population segment with these characteristics and Twitter's existence is guaranteed unless somebody comes with even more beautiful mirror. That's how they get their numbers; anything beyond that is just piggybacked on top of this.
• j2kun 10y ago
  > In fact, it’s hard or even impossible to fit a single intelligent thought into 140 characters. He said, in fewer than 140 characters...
• devishard 10y ago
  My rule is that if nobody would pay for your service, you probably don't have a worthwhile business. If Google instituted a $0.99 monthly fee to use Google search, people would line up to pay it. They don't have to, because their business model works differently, but they could do that, and it would work. I'd probably pay for an account. If Facebook instituted a $0.99 monthly fee to use that, a lot of people would do it just because it keeps them in the loop with their friends. And in fact, many people would be willing to pay $2.99/mo for a business account which gets to do more (like post more events or whatever). Again, this isn't their business model, but this would totally work as a business model. People would pay for Uber de-facto; they do pay for Uber. Likewise, half my coworkers have bought coin packs in Pokémon Go. In general, lots of games do pay models. If Twitter added a $0.99/year fee, there would be a clone written in a more scalable architecture taking all their users within a week. Some businesses would keep Twitter accounts, but that number would decrease as they lost users. Remember that Twitter added some minor advertising and instantly started losing users. There are tons of other startups with this problem. The idea these days is, get a bunch of users and introduce ads. The problem there is that when you add ads, you're fundamentally changing your service. It's a bait-and-switch. And once you do the switch, if people weren't willing to pay for your service before, they're not going to want to start paying for it in the form of ads.
  • xseven 10y ago
    "The idea these days is, get a bunch of users and introduce ads." That's exactly what Google and Facebook did. All I can take from your comment is "if hypothetical scenario then my opinion is true"
    • devishard 10y ago
      Do you disagree with my hypothetical scenarios? That is, do you think if Google/Facebook introduced subscription fees nobody would subscribe? Would you pay to read Twitter? Do you think that anyone would?
      • nostrademons 10y ago
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• jdp23 10y ago
  > I actually think that, for technology companies, more people will choose providers that are completely non-political. There's no way for a tech company to be "completely non-political." So I actually think that people will continue to prefer providers whose politics they see as compatible with theirs. And it seems to me that tech companies like Google and Microsoft and Apple (in their public pushback against government surveillance) and AirBnB (bringing in Eric Holder to do a non-discrimination policy) see things similarly. Specifically when it comes to harassment and hate speech, while I certainly agree with his points of making it easier for people to protect themselves, in the end there's no way to avoid taking a political stance. Twitter (like Facebook and most other large social networks) has a policy that "you may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease". Obviously that's an inherently political position. But conversely, not having a policy like that -- saying that attacking, threatening, and promoting violence against people based on these characteristics is okay and it's up to them to use the tools to insulate themselves from it -- is just as political. There really isn't a neutral position. [Of course this is the same guy who doesn't see that a decision to let Curtis Yarvin speak at his conference is just as political as a decision not to. To be clear, I'm not saying it was a right or wrong decision; I'm just saying it was political either way.]
• CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
  > There are four types of content that can earn you retweets: > > 1. Indignant > 2. Insulting / Harassing > 3. Cute / Funny > 4. Insightful / Intelligent ... > Of these four kinds of content, two are inherently violent, > and the other two have the potential for violence (mean jokes, condescension). Today I learned that sharing an intelligent/insightful comment is potentially violent enough to be worth commenting on. I guess I'll just make dumb and obvious statements from now on, since I value peace.
  • oldmanjay 10y ago
    This continued attempt to redefine violence to include words disturbs me in a very fundamental way. It's a legitimate attempt to make thoughtcrime viable by people who firmly believe all human ills can be solved if you just wag enough fingers in faces.
• forloop 10y ago
  > (edit: I said the article didn't mention. I missed the mention.) Amazing your comment is top—given you didn't read the article. > The man deserved what he got From what I've seen (I'm no expert on the subject), that's debatable.
  • jjnoakes 10y ago
    Wait, missing one mention equates to not reading the entire article? Amazing indeed.
    • nardi 10y ago
      "Milo" appears nine times in the article. The discussion about him is a large part of the content.
      • jsmthrowaway 10y ago
        To be fair, the points about that person were almost near the end after heavy points about the product, it "felt" like conclusion territory which I often skip if I've gotten the point already, and to be honest, I about ran out of steam by that point too. Is it so crazy to imagine that someone reads an article that makes its point quite clearly even before the conclusion, and comments upon it after reading solely its meat? Hell, I almost closed the article once I saw that person's name, even. A lot of people here just are snapping to criticize over this, which is oddly reminiscent of a subtext of the article, not doing this comment section any favors, and specifically discussed in the HN guidelines. Now that I've made a substantive comment: who cares, seriously?
    • forloop 10y ago
      > Wait, missing one mention equates to not reading the entire article? Amazing indeed. See nardi's comment. Amazing indeed!
      • jjnoakes 10y ago
        Keep reading the discussion. Amazing indeed!
• benten10 10y ago
  Finally! In HN I have finally truly found the loving, caring crowd that really cares about ethics in game journalism above everything else! Keep up the good work folks!
• glomek 10y ago
  > Free speech has a legal definition, and Twitter doesn’t qualify. The legal definition of free speech is based on a moral principle, for which Twitter does qualify. When a platform such as Twitter or Facebook becomes the de facto public square, then a ban from Twitter or Facebook is a de facto ban from the public square. I don't care about Milo in particular, but I do care about the fact that censorship by Twitter or Facebook is real censorship.
• trestles 10y ago
  a bit of a strange argument. Twitter's salty environment is the nature of the beast in many ways. He seems to have some idealized nature of "how it should be" vs "how it is". Also, make clear distinctions about where you feel Twitter went wrong as a business and where you just don't like it ( <- this is by far my biggest pet peeve of engineers talking about other products). Pretty pointless article.
• 6stringmerc 10y ago
  >This means if you follow someone for what they have to say about professional improv comedy, you also get to hear them trash your religion, berate the intelligence of people who vote the way you do, and otherwise rant about and retweet topics you don’t want to hear about. Wow, this is a really impressive observation that I think I, and maybe others, have sensed but couldn't quite express. This is super relevant to me in the music sphere, as I enjoy the art form but find numerous "Twitter Winners" like Father John Misty toxic in the long term. Disclosure: I needled FJM on Twitter following his immature diatribe that dropped 7 F-bombs on an un-expecting family-oriented afternoon because its hurtful to fans and other artists.
• hsod 10y ago
  I don't get why everyone wants Twitter to be not-Twitter. The fact that anyone in the world can read and reply to your tweets (and vice versa) is fundamental to Twitter. It seems like what people want is an entirely different service, something like Slack or group chat with invite-only groups.
• dabockster 10y ago
  >This means if you follow someone for what they have to say about professional improv comedy, you also get to hear them trash your religion, berate the intelligence of people who vote the way you do, and otherwise rant about and retweet topics you don’t want to hear about. I actually like this aspect of non-filtering. It forces exposure to differing opinions and makes people think.
• dddrh 10y ago
  I'll bite on the Twitter 2.0 comment. In some sense, I see the descriptions he made in Snapchat. The ability to consume content from where ever I choose, but my ability to reach out and converse with people who create content is limited by their desire to create a 1:1 connection with me. I wasn't a big fan of Snapchat when it first came out, but over time it has interested me with some of the decisions that they have made to really make the product about consuming moments that are personal to me, as well as interesting to me.
• coders 10y ago
  Twitter is not a news site, they can censor whatever they want. They are in the advertising sales business they'll tweak their product to maximize the returns on their business.
• bad_user 10y ago
  I disagree with the author because I've seen much more hostile content on Facebook, which doesn't exhibit any of the author's identified causes. I also think John De Goes doesn't mention the elephant in the room with which he got burned, the last LandaConf along their policy and handling of the created situation. And far from me to judge that situation in this comment, but I find his judgment compromised, to say the least, if not disingenuous. As for some of his claims, I'm actually glad that Twitter doesn't filter my content. I DO NOT want any more filter bubbles. I actually want the people I respect to show me their religion and political beliefs. In fact I want disagreeing opinions, even if painful, because that's how I learn. I'm a tolerant kind of guy and I want to see the world for what it is. And if I can't tolerate somebody, then I'm not interested about his work or jokes either.
• gavanwoolery 10y ago
  I agree and disagree (in a friendly manner!). Yes, Twitter can be (and often is) a violent battleground. IMHO, this is not the reason it is failing (in fact, these battles drive high engagement). Politics get violent, no matter where you express them, no matter the character limit. That's just the nature of the beast - half the people in the world disagree with the other half. Censorship is too difficult to execute at high level, because as it has been shown in the past, the people controlling the censorship are often biased. The way I have found Twitter to be enjoyable is to not get involved in political threads (and yes, I have made the mistake of doing so, several times). I do not share the same political ideology as many of the people I interact with on Twitter, but I nonetheless respect their right to have an opinion. So long as I do not turn Twitter into my soapbox, I enjoy it (same thing applies to Facebook for me). If you completely block out people you disagree with (as many tweeters do), you will have a very narrow view of the world. I think there is value in Twitter, and it could easily repair itself if it cared enough (unfortunately, it seems to care very little about improving itself at the moment). One thing Twitter has done right: I have made more real-world friends (as in, people I have met in person) via Twitter than I have Facebook. Twitter encourages befriending people you do not know, Facebook still carries the privacy stigma. Here are things that Twitter should do if it wants to improve: - Fix the blue sticker. Stop handing it out to arbitrary people, and ignoring real influencers (example: thousands of video game streamers have the sticker, but Richard Garriott, one of the most influential game creators, does not). Allow people to apply for the sticker with a nonrefundable paid application (just enough money to pay the staff to evaluate whether or not they warrant the sticker). - Monetize popularity the right way, and get rid of all the fake followers. Get rid of people who follow then unfollow just to get a high follower/following ratio. This makes people who build their follower base the honest way seem underrated/undervalued. Come up with a better ranking system than number of followers (i.e. how influential are your top 20 followers?). - Emphasize and reward the flagging of fake accounts. Put the twitter population to work at eliminating spam and fake followers. - Sometimes I want to express things that are not exactly advertisements, but if I want to promote them (using money) they will get marked as an ad ("promoted"). This just cheapens the value of whatever I want to promote. Its really not necessary; let users figure out what is an ad and what is not - it is pretty easy. Think of all the people willing to pay to get real exposure for their tweets (not spammy tweets, but just people that want to broadcast their ideas or content). This could be a business model on its own. - Fix your software. I've noticed it makes my browser grind to a halt on some machines. Others have issued complaints across various platforms. - There is much more, but I have probably already gotten too deep.
• Xyik 10y ago
  It's easy to complain and identify problems, I don't really understand why these posts are so popular, but one seems to crop up on HN every month or so. It's kind of tiring to see all this negativity towards something that's done a bunch of good for the world and is fading away. Not everything lasts and that's okay.
• moron4hire 10y ago
  Y'all must be using a different Twitter than the one I'm using. Violence[0]? I mean, I hear tale of it. But I don't have any examples that come to mind [1]. Maybe it's because I'm not a celebrity of any kind, but it really seems like you get out of Twitter that which you put in. [0] disregarding the misapplication of the word here, for a minute. [1] Unless we count that time Zed Shaw called me an evil capitalist war monger or something like that.
• jackmott 10y ago
  I left recently specifically because of Twitters failure to promptly remove obvious bots and users partaking in harassment.
• pkamb 10y ago
  If you post a well-shot picture on Instagram you'll immediately get a bunch of random (but not spam) Likes and maybe a comment or two (I assume people search their interests via hashtag: "#architecture" or "#cars" or etc.). Same with Reddit or Hacker News; post a comment and you'll often get an upvote/reply/comment/banter in return. On Facebook your IRL friends will Like your stuff. Without a meaningful number of followers, on Twitter you get nothing. Hashtags eat into your 140 characters, and are mostly used ironically or for singular events/causes, which aren't really appropriate for the majority of tweets. So no one's going to find it via search or hashtag. There are no communities/topics/forums/subreddits to join. No way to tweet at all the other people who like this one thing. So to get any kind of notice/interaction with a Tweet of your own you're left to tweeting at someone else, which feels wrong/argumentative/pushy for all the reasons this article laid out. Infinitely more intrusive than a comment reply. Hoping that they either retweet you or reply to you, which gets your tweet those precious views, favorites, and replies enjoyed (and dreaded) by the most average tweet of a well-followed account. Those metrics (and lack there-of) either lead you to not tweet yourself and only follow [celebrities / internet-celebrities / news] or constantly [reply-to / tweet-at / annoy / troll] those same high-profile accounts. Which is better for Twitter?
  • visakanv 10y ago
    My tactic is this, and I've used this in several different circles – look for people who are moderately influential in a field, but not super famous (say less than 2k followers). Then follow them, and tweet positive things at them, or ask genuine questions, and contribute. There's usually a group of people who all talk to each other, and you can gently get into the conversations if you're careful. Once you do that, and you've made decent contributions a couple of times, they'll typically follow you. Now I can "ask Twitter" a question and get interesting responses from dozens of people. But it takes time and effort, which I suppose most people aren't willing to spend.
• jcbeard 10y ago
  Umm, so twitter is a private company. Yeah, they can censor whoever they like. Can the NYT censor if they want? YES! Should they, likely not b/c of backlash from people like us. What we have to realize, is that unless there is a non-profit totally open "commons" then there is really no recourse for us. Did Twitter damage us monetarily? Are they even responsible outside of their terms of service? Suspect even that has language that subjects it to change at any time. In short, the idea that "twitter's fucked" is well...stupid. You can say what you want, but you know what...twitter can kick you off at any time. That's just the way it works. Has been that way since the days of BBS and later AOL/Compuserve (and yes, I was kicked out of many of those rooms too).
• Disruptive_Dave 10y ago
  Has anyone ever had substantial conversations about the idea that maybe, just maybe, this is a human beings problem? As in we're not conditioned nor designed to communicate in such an environment? And that this type of access to the public and each other is so new (in the greater scheme of the world) that we have no damn clue what we're doing? Or is everyone going to continue to make arguments that are heavily based on the presumption that we're all good little boys and girls who only desire / are capable of having "meaningful interactions" online and that's the natural state of things by which everything should be analyzed?
  • visakanv 10y ago
    Those are two extreme positions, most of the substantial conversations I have lie in the middle. We typically assume that humans are not well-adapted (yet) to communicating in a digital format, and so we're still developing norms and ways of communicating tone and so on. We're not all good little boys and girls, but we do want to have good conversations with one another, and so we try and do what we can to make things better as we go.
  • visakanv 10y ago
    Those are two extreme positions, most of the substantial conversations I have lie in the middle. We typically assume that humans are not well-adapted (yet) to communicating in a digital format, and so we're still developing norms and ways of communicating tone and so on. We're not all good little boys and girls, but we do want to have good conversations with one another, and so we try and do what we can to make things better as we go.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• cptskippy 10y ago
  Is "Twitter's" a valid contraction? My understanding of contractions was that they were only used with pronouns and helping verbs but I can't find where this is stated in online definitions. It makes me very uncomfortable.
• nhangen 10y ago
  I've been using Twitter since 2006-2007, and for a long period of time I absolutely loved, ranted, and raved about it. The problem is that now, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do on Twitter to offer or receive value. Last night I was blocked by someone I followed for simply offering a tame retort to a comment they made whilst blocking someone else. When I tweet, nothing happens. Granted, I'm not the most interested Twitter user in the world, but I'd like to think I have the occasional insight that might be worth reading, favoriting, or sharing. The only time I actually see engagement is when I'm using it for current events, and respond to strangers. One would think that when this happens, you might be able to cultivate those engagements into future correspondence, but nope...it's all event based, and I have no time for that. Despite my conservative nature and Jack's recent behavior/antics, I do like Twitter and want it to succeed, but it's not going to be long before I stop using it and eventually stop registering accounts for new businesses. We have more fun with Snapchat.
• ppod 10y ago
  If you use twitter as described in this article, then that's the kind of experience you will have. It's kind of like being in a large crowded public space. If you are loud and assertive and determined to stand up for everything you believe in, even with strangers, then you will run into trouble no matter how good your opinions or how polite you are. "everyone can send anything to everyone" is twitter's USP. I can't think of another many-to-many broadcast (publish-subscribe) platform. That is what makes it successful, and it is vulnerable to competitors who use that model, but I can't think of many. Snapchat kind of works like that, right?
• 0xmohit 10y ago
  I recall somebody describing retweets in a sentence: A dog barks. Several other dogs bark.
• Yabood 10y ago
  I think killing the 140 character limit will severely damage Twitter and turn into a tumblr-like website. I do agree with the author on some of the technical aspects he mentioned like filtering. I'd add to that list how conversations are structured, they are a complete mess. It gets worse too if you're building a product that leverages their API.
• shklnrj 10y ago
  I really think milo is correct when he says that Twitter would support anyone who is higher in the position of claiming to be victim. Whether that person is victim or not does not matter. Twitter does not stand for free speech for sure in my opinion.
• stevebmark 10y ago
  This is from the same guy who thinks "diversity" in tech means capitalists and libertarians in the same room. His opinions are not worth reading. Twitter does have major problems but this is not an insightful, original nor helpful piece on them.
• kefka_p 10y ago
  I, for one, do want technology companies making ethically informed decisions. It doesn't mean they will always make the right ethical decisions, but it has a far higher chance of positive outcome than simply avoiding the matter altogether. I can understand why the author is somewhat frightened by the prospect, but fear doesn't justify inaction. To say Twitter isn't free speech because it has limitations seems dubious. The U.S. is fairly well-regarded on the rights of speech, but even here there are limits. That doesn't mean free speech doesn't exist, it means it is paired with responsibility with penalties for failure to abide by those responsibilities.
• nikdaheratik 10y ago
  I wonder how much of root of this can be reduced to election year political nonsense. A year from now, it's going to be much less annoying to be on the Internet. The author is right that the product has some major flaws, especially around harassment, but no one else seems to want to take over the space. And Facebook, Tumblr, G+, etc. are all much worse platforms for the kind of discussion that happens on Twitter. So I think the toxic environment can definitely put a ceiling on the number of new users, so does the timeline issues, but it could probably just keep plodding along for another 5+ years as-is until these issues are worked out or something much better is put in place (not likely, but possible, IMO).