7 ms·

Twitter accidentally suspends its own CEO's account

139 points by dudisbrie 10y ago

paki123 10y ago
Brilliant.
Jedd 10y ago
> just setting up my twttr...again > (account suspension was an internal mistake) Did he really just abbreviate his company name ... and no other words?
- detaro 10y ago
  throwback to his first tweet: https://twitter.com/jack/status/20 https://twitter.com/jack/status/20 Back then, Twitter was called twttr.
  - martin-adams 10y ago
    Not just his first tweet, Twitter's first tweet.
    - ben_jones 10y ago
      Bull shit. We all know the first tweet was either 'test' or 'hello, world'.
      - 6stringmerc 10y ago
        Compiler Error?
      - orta 10y ago
        Heh, probably but if you have database access then it can be anything you want.
      - typetypetype 10y ago
        ...followed by a whole lot of "gudsfgjhgfkjhgdasf"
    - PinguTS 10y ago
      Can't be, because it is tweet number 21 as you can see from the ID (assuming the first tweet hat ID 0). Tweet number 1 is just not available.
- jbrooksuk 10y ago
  twttr is what Twitter used to be known as, and Jack's tweet is in reference to https://twitter.com/jack/status/20 https://twitter.com/jack/status/20
- hackcrafter 10y ago
  There is a lot of color to the context of this tweet which is very well described in Hatching Twitter [0]. Definitely would recommend, even for entertainment value, but definitely for the SV lore and understanding these references. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Hatching-Twitter-Story-Friendship-Betrayal/dp/1591847087 https://www.amazon.com/Hatching-Twitter-Story-Friendship-Bet...
Pigo 10y ago
The interview was pretty interesting. Sacca's description of how they make it hard to follow what's going on, even though they know first, sums up why I don't use Twitter. Twitter always feels like I'm walking into the middle of someone else's conversation or inside joke. I rarely have enough context to engage, but people who like to just be loud, or talk to themselves, or don't have a clue can go to town. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
- coldpie 10y ago
  I use Twitter a lot, but mostly only as a content consumption platform. I follow people who make things I like and who say things on Twitter that I enjoy reading. The idea of using it as a conversation platform is insane to me. Sometimes I have trouble fitting a single sentence into a tweet.
  - eternalban 10y ago
    > fitting ... into a tweet. I enjoy the constraint and view it as a minor new art form, similar to the constraints of a Haiku. Seeing that '0' when I'm done is generally mildly pleasurable for me.
    - yabatopia 10y ago
      Great, but how many people online read, write or enjoy writing Haiku? If writing a Tweet requires as much time and (intellectual) energy as a Haiku, than I'm not surprised that the growth of Twitter is tanking.
      - proksoup 10y ago
        I enjoy reading things that have more time and intellectual energy put into them. This is not true of a lot of twitter ... but the short constraint I think is the only thing that really moves the needle in that direction on there.
    - iamatworknow 10y ago
      I almost exclusively follow stand up comedians on Twitter, and the character limit is perfect for a concise one line joke. I will actually avoid any "twitlonger" links or images of text, because that's not what I'm there to see. Likewise, I've unfollowed quite a few people on Instagram when they start regularly posting pictures of text. Maybe I'm just a format purist snob?
the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
Did they restore his followers from a backup or do you keep them through suspension?
- kintamanimatt 10y ago
  It's a suspension, not a deletion, which implies it's possible to resume the account. It seems logical that the state of the account would be entirely preserved for later restoration.
  - logicallee 10y ago
    so why does the article report that only 3.8 out of 3.9 million followers were restored? While overall I would say that is pretty much a rounding error, if we look at it very carefully you have to ask: did literally 100,000 people proactively choose to unsubscribe, from an account that obviously remains important, and moreover during a time when it was inactive? Would his tweet have been so 'spammy' that 1 out of 39 of his every follower decided on that basis alone to unsubscribe? If the full number of followers were not restored, it raises the question of why not? I don't know how to get historical "number of followers" information - as of this moment : https://twitter.com/jack https://twitter.com/jack the numbers I see are " 20.6K tweets, following: 2,2264, followers: 2.63M, likes: 15.1K, lists: 3" for good measure and lest someone try to rewrite history here's a screenshot I just took: http://i.imgur.com/JJQKPI9.png http://i.imgur.com/JJQKPI9.png The figure CNN quotes is: "Soon after Dorsey was reinstated, his number of followers was showing up as only about 145 -- a steep drop from the roughly 3.9 million he had previously. The figure later popped back up to around 3.8 million." So what exactly happened to cause 1.2M twitter followers to decide to unfollow him? Sure, he's a heavy tweeter - I wouldn't follow him due to the level of spam - I mean who send 20,000 tweets in 7 years - that's 7+ per day at least. but the people who did choose to follow him - if the CNN quote above is accurate - aren't people I would expect to unfollow him exactly around this time. So if CNN's figure is accurate -- what happened? And why the drop of 1 million subscribers, or in other words one in three subscribers that he had had?
    - dustingetz 10y ago
falcolas 10y ago
This illustrates the limitations of machine learning and automated processes when applied to the real world. Until GAI is achieved, you really need to couple ML with humans to correct the mistakes made by ML. Think Iron Man, not Ultron.
kevin_b_er 10y ago
I wonder if Twitter is susceptible to mass report attacks. I strongly suspect many of these systems just automatically suspend someone for too many reports. This makes it convenient if you don't like someone else's politics to just get a group to mass report them and you can silence whomever you want.
- pjc50 10y ago
  This is definitely a problem which some users have been exploiting on twitter.
- Kenji 10y ago
  Happens on youtube all the time. There are raids to take other people's videos down, usually communities between which there is a feud. Also, people like ASMR artists have seen a lot of takedowns of completely innocuous videos where they crinkle paper or something, just because people flagged it because they thought it's stupid and ridiculous.
- phyzome 10y ago
  It is. I won't go into details, but yes, it can be gamed.
mikebay 10y ago
Twitter should be shutdown totally. Disabling and hiding peoples posts.. quite typical american mainstream censorship, just like facebook and google. Twitter? - no thanks. Since @Twitter is now in the #censorship business, I will no longer use its service for my constitutional right to free speech. #GoodbyeAll - by James Woods
fowlerpower 10y ago
Silicone Valley companies wield too much power when it comes to these sorts of things. This is just another example of this, if they don't self regulate there will be laws that regulate them. Google was banning people's email and their entire digital life because of buying multiple pixel phones. This is an unrelated issue but they took it upon themselves to just use their unlimited power to screw people. It's like your electricity company shutting off your heat because you didn't pay for some stove, if they sold both things. These companies would so themseves a lot of justice by setting up a this party group that manages hear abuses and is impartial.
- freehunter 10y ago
  It's stuff like this that's going to bring more regulation to the Internet. The game industry purposefully created an independent group to regulate their businesses to avoid government regulation that was imminent. I agree that Internet companies need to do the same. No one wants regulation, but it's going to happen one way or the other. Either we do it ourselves on our own terms (like the ESRB) or the government does it on their terms (like HIPAA).
- swang 10y ago
  > Google was banning people's email and their entire digital life because of buying multiple pixel phones. I thought they unbanned most of the actual people. a large majority were just bot accounts used to buy up the pixel.
  - parthdesai 10y ago
    They unbanned them because the story took off and it was bad PR for Google. Had the story never taken off, I'm pretty sure those accounts would still be banned.
- gnicholas 10y ago
  "Silicone Valley" is actually in Southern California—land of the implants.
  - 10y ago
EJTH 10y ago
Read this some where on some other forum, is this true? > So yesterday someone found out that you can get any account banned if reports reach ~1000. Is this somehow related?

139 points by dudisbrie 10y ago

Brilliant.

Jedd 10y ago

> just setting up my twttr...again > (account suspension was an internal mistake) Did he really just abbreviate his company name ... and no other words?

detaro 10y ago
throwback to his first tweet: https://twitter.com/jack/status/20 https://twitter.com/jack/status/20 Back then, Twitter was called twttr.
- martin-adams 10y ago
  Not just his first tweet, Twitter's first tweet.
  - ben_jones 10y ago
    Bull shit. We all know the first tweet was either 'test' or 'hello, world'.
    - 6stringmerc 10y ago
      Compiler Error?
    - orta 10y ago
      Heh, probably but if you have database access then it can be anything you want.
    - typetypetype 10y ago
      ...followed by a whole lot of "gudsfgjhgfkjhgdasf"
  - PinguTS 10y ago
    Can't be, because it is tweet number 21 as you can see from the ID (assuming the first tweet hat ID 0). Tweet number 1 is just not available.
jbrooksuk 10y ago
twttr is what Twitter used to be known as, and Jack's tweet is in reference to https://twitter.com/jack/status/20 https://twitter.com/jack/status/20
hackcrafter 10y ago
There is a lot of color to the context of this tweet which is very well described in Hatching Twitter [0]. Definitely would recommend, even for entertainment value, but definitely for the SV lore and understanding these references. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Hatching-Twitter-Story-Friendship-Betrayal/dp/1591847087 https://www.amazon.com/Hatching-Twitter-Story-Friendship-Bet...

Pigo 10y ago

The interview was pretty interesting. Sacca's description of how they make it hard to follow what's going on, even though they know first, sums up why I don't use Twitter. Twitter always feels like I'm walking into the middle of someone else's conversation or inside joke. I rarely have enough context to engage, but people who like to just be loud, or talk to themselves, or don't have a clue can go to town. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

coldpie 10y ago
I use Twitter a lot, but mostly only as a content consumption platform. I follow people who make things I like and who say things on Twitter that I enjoy reading. The idea of using it as a conversation platform is insane to me. Sometimes I have trouble fitting a single sentence into a tweet.
- eternalban 10y ago
  > fitting ... into a tweet. I enjoy the constraint and view it as a minor new art form, similar to the constraints of a Haiku. Seeing that '0' when I'm done is generally mildly pleasurable for me.
  - yabatopia 10y ago
    Great, but how many people online read, write or enjoy writing Haiku? If writing a Tweet requires as much time and (intellectual) energy as a Haiku, than I'm not surprised that the growth of Twitter is tanking.
    - proksoup 10y ago
      I enjoy reading things that have more time and intellectual energy put into them. This is not true of a lot of twitter ... but the short constraint I think is the only thing that really moves the needle in that direction on there.
  - iamatworknow 10y ago
    I almost exclusively follow stand up comedians on Twitter, and the character limit is perfect for a concise one line joke. I will actually avoid any "twitlonger" links or images of text, because that's not what I'm there to see. Likewise, I've unfollowed quite a few people on Instagram when they start regularly posting pictures of text. Maybe I'm just a format purist snob?

the_mitsuhiko 10y ago

Did they restore his followers from a backup or do you keep them through suspension?

kintamanimatt 10y ago
It's a suspension, not a deletion, which implies it's possible to resume the account. It seems logical that the state of the account would be entirely preserved for later restoration.
- logicallee 10y ago
  so why does the article report that only 3.8 out of 3.9 million followers were restored? While overall I would say that is pretty much a rounding error, if we look at it very carefully you have to ask: did literally 100,000 people proactively choose to unsubscribe, from an account that obviously remains important, and moreover during a time when it was inactive? Would his tweet have been so 'spammy' that 1 out of 39 of his every follower decided on that basis alone to unsubscribe? If the full number of followers were not restored, it raises the question of why not? I don't know how to get historical "number of followers" information - as of this moment : https://twitter.com/jack https://twitter.com/jack the numbers I see are " 20.6K tweets, following: 2,2264, followers: 2.63M, likes: 15.1K, lists: 3" for good measure and lest someone try to rewrite history here's a screenshot I just took: http://i.imgur.com/JJQKPI9.png http://i.imgur.com/JJQKPI9.png The figure CNN quotes is: "Soon after Dorsey was reinstated, his number of followers was showing up as only about 145 -- a steep drop from the roughly 3.9 million he had previously. The figure later popped back up to around 3.8 million." So what exactly happened to cause 1.2M twitter followers to decide to unfollow him? Sure, he's a heavy tweeter - I wouldn't follow him due to the level of spam - I mean who send 20,000 tweets in 7 years - that's 7+ per day at least. but the people who did choose to follow him - if the CNN quote above is accurate - aren't people I would expect to unfollow him exactly around this time. So if CNN's figure is accurate -- what happened? And why the drop of 1 million subscribers, or in other words one in three subscribers that he had had?
  - dustingetz 10y ago

falcolas 10y ago

This illustrates the limitations of machine learning and automated processes when applied to the real world. Until GAI is achieved, you really need to couple ML with humans to correct the mistakes made by ML. Think Iron Man, not Ultron.

kevin_b_er 10y ago

I wonder if Twitter is susceptible to mass report attacks. I strongly suspect many of these systems just automatically suspend someone for too many reports. This makes it convenient if you don't like someone else's politics to just get a group to mass report them and you can silence whomever you want.

pjc50 10y ago
This is definitely a problem which some users have been exploiting on twitter.
Kenji 10y ago
Happens on youtube all the time. There are raids to take other people's videos down, usually communities between which there is a feud. Also, people like ASMR artists have seen a lot of takedowns of completely innocuous videos where they crinkle paper or something, just because people flagged it because they thought it's stupid and ridiculous.
phyzome 10y ago
It is. I won't go into details, but yes, it can be gamed.

mikebay 10y ago

Twitter should be shutdown totally. Disabling and hiding peoples posts.. quite typical american mainstream censorship, just like facebook and google. Twitter? - no thanks. Since @Twitter is now in the #censorship business, I will no longer use its service for my constitutional right to free speech. #GoodbyeAll - by James Woods

fowlerpower 10y ago

Silicone Valley companies wield too much power when it comes to these sorts of things. This is just another example of this, if they don't self regulate there will be laws that regulate them. Google was banning people's email and their entire digital life because of buying multiple pixel phones. This is an unrelated issue but they took it upon themselves to just use their unlimited power to screw people. It's like your electricity company shutting off your heat because you didn't pay for some stove, if they sold both things. These companies would so themseves a lot of justice by setting up a this party group that manages hear abuses and is impartial.

freehunter 10y ago
It's stuff like this that's going to bring more regulation to the Internet. The game industry purposefully created an independent group to regulate their businesses to avoid government regulation that was imminent. I agree that Internet companies need to do the same. No one wants regulation, but it's going to happen one way or the other. Either we do it ourselves on our own terms (like the ESRB) or the government does it on their terms (like HIPAA).
swang 10y ago
> Google was banning people's email and their entire digital life because of buying multiple pixel phones. I thought they unbanned most of the actual people. a large majority were just bot accounts used to buy up the pixel.
- parthdesai 10y ago
  They unbanned them because the story took off and it was bad PR for Google. Had the story never taken off, I'm pretty sure those accounts would still be banned.
gnicholas 10y ago
"Silicone Valley" is actually in Southern California—land of the implants.
- 10y ago

EJTH 10y ago

Read this some where on some other forum, is this true? > So yesterday someone found out that you can get any account banned if reports reach ~1000. Is this somehow related?