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I think Twitter is already pretty great. My suggestions are below: - Twitter is a platform, open it up to allow any clients first class access. - Stop politi

I think Twitter is already pretty great. My suggestions are below: - Twitter is a platform, open it up to allow any clients first class access. - Stop political censorship immediately. It's fine to prevent scams and bot-nets, but do not stifle political speech. - Lower burn rate. Cancel all of the product-oriented projects that are expensive, simply focus on building the infrastructure to make Twitter's platform as inexpensive as possible to maintain. I'd estimate 10% of Twitter's employees are actually needed. - Be very cautious about ads. Do not compare yourself to Facebook for ad revenue generation. This is a long-term decision that will require adequate funding to undertake.

eropple 10y ago
> do not stifle political speech And when that political speech threatens violence or is intended to foment violence against a person or people? 'Cause I'm not saying you're conflating the two, but a whole lot of people for whom this is an axe they grind really kind of constantly do.
- gre 10y ago
  Removing all the anti-hillary trending or pro-bernie hashtags really pissed me off during the election. Google does similar things with auto-complete. Politics is truly separate from threatening to kill/rape people, why are you grouping them? You can threaten people over anything, why conflate threats with political speech? There is real censorship on twitter over political ideas, and threats don't even enter into it.
  - eropple 10y ago
    > Politics is truly separate from threatening to kill/rape people, why are you grouping them? Because it's not. The actions of actively authoritarian/alt-right political actors on Twitter are inextricably tied to the movement itself. Milo Yiannopoulos was not banned for the content of what he said. He was banned for saying things he knew would rile up his base of threatening, assaultive troglodytes into attacking someone based on their political priors. Coca-Cola is not going to pay Twitter if Twitter is a cesspool of people whose idea of political speech is threats. And, right now, a very large portion of it is. And given that free speech has the implication of free association, it's very fortunate that those poor benighted alt-righters who are so very censored have their own places to talk where nobody will get in their way-- --but, of course, it's not about talking about their political ideas at all. It's about forcing others to listen to them. Twitter need not be an accessory to that. There is no great loss, either moral or financial, to the slow leakage of anime avatars and Twitter eggs.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      > Twitter need not be an accessory to that. There is no great loss, either moral or financial, to the slow leakage of anime avatars and Twitter eggs. Many people would say that exact thing if Twitter decided to censor content that was about gay marriage, etc. You are giving Twitter an easy out. Just censor everything that doesn't go over well in the suburban zipcode that best mirrors the target audience of Coca Cola.
      - eropple 10y ago
        If that would make them more money, I expect they would do that. It's obvious from even a cursory look at Twitter's demographics that it wouldn't make them more money and would make them look bad and hurt their bottom line. Much like the alt-right racist contingent makes them look bad and hurts their bottom line. That would be why I am making a clear distinction between "moral" and "financial". The alt-right is immoral and financially negative. The people you so concernedly cite are neither.
        JarlUlvi 10y ago
        You are conflating speech from libertarians (me), and conservatives with some nazis or whatever. Racists don't get a pass on Twitter, unless they are part of BLACK LIVES MATTER.
      - TillE 10y ago
        > Many people would say that exact thing if Twitter decided to censor content that was about gay marriage, etc. Well, since we're talking about Twitter: https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312 https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- grandalf 10y ago
  > threatens violence or is intended to foment violence against a person or people I see no reason why having a clear, public record of such communications is worse than forcing those involved to use a different messaging system. It's just words. The simple answer is press the "unfollow" button, or follow it, read it, and act in your best interests based on it.
  - eropple 10y ago
    Nnnnnno, it's not "just words". It's threatening to kill and rape people, directly attacking their safety and their right to a peaceable life. It's giving a platform to people who are putting the idea in others' heads that they should hurt and kill people. I don't have to follow the "race realist" assholes among us to have the fact that they are given a platform by a company under no obligation to do so--and that they use that platform to gather followers under the direct purpose of separating the white race from the blacks or the Jews or whoever the hate-object-of-the-week is. Their followers do. They are strengthened by being given their platform with which to attract more soft-headed followers. Words have consequences that cannot be waved away so cavalierly. Those consequences may not impact you, but they impact a whole lot of people and they can't be dismissed. The government should, for reasons that make a lot of sense, be reticent (but not wholly unwilling, because the real world doesn't work in absolutes) to intercede here, because freedom of speech with regard to the state is a different thing from respecting and accepting speech by society--but Twitter isn't the government.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      > they use that platform to gather followers under the direct purpose of separating the white race from the blacks or the Jews or whoever the hate-object-of-the-week is I find the sort of speech you describe highly unsavory, but I also disapprove of many other messages. Many people would advise Twitter to suppress the speech of gay people or immigrants, all the groups they hate. The point of speech being speech is that it doesn't harm anyone. If some unsavory group manages to get 5K followers then I'd like to be aware of it and see what they are talking about. Also, for the purpose of law enforcement, public Twitter activity could constitute signals intelligence to help stop crimes. The idea that words have consequences (as you describe) is one of the most anti-liberty ideas in our modern culture right now. It's behind everything from unconstitutional "material support of terrorism" charges based on speech, to prosecuting journalists who report on classified information under the espionage act, to trigger warnings on works of classic literature, etc. By censoring politically charged accounts Twitter likely benefits those groups by allowing them to skate by with coded speech in public but then keep their private rallying cries away from public scrutiny. Keep in mind also that as a company, Twitter will be under pressure from interest groups and governments worldwide to suppress speech. Should we be allowed to criticize China on Twitter? Well, not if the China market becomes important enough to Twitter's revenue. By failing to adopt a firm stance against censorship, Twitter has greatly damaged its credibility as a platform and opened the door to all sorts of censorship requests. There are enough moralistic gatekeepers in the world, why should Twitter be another?
watwut 10y ago
Neither 4chan nor 8chan are terribly profitable. Also, twitter needs to figure out how to make money. That won't go without much more ads.

eropple 10y ago

> do not stifle political speech And when that political speech threatens violence or is intended to foment violence against a person or people? 'Cause I'm not saying you're conflating the two, but a whole lot of people for whom this is an axe they grind really kind of constantly do.

gre 10y ago
Removing all the anti-hillary trending or pro-bernie hashtags really pissed me off during the election. Google does similar things with auto-complete. Politics is truly separate from threatening to kill/rape people, why are you grouping them? You can threaten people over anything, why conflate threats with political speech? There is real censorship on twitter over political ideas, and threats don't even enter into it.
- eropple 10y ago
  > Politics is truly separate from threatening to kill/rape people, why are you grouping them? Because it's not. The actions of actively authoritarian/alt-right political actors on Twitter are inextricably tied to the movement itself. Milo Yiannopoulos was not banned for the content of what he said. He was banned for saying things he knew would rile up his base of threatening, assaultive troglodytes into attacking someone based on their political priors. Coca-Cola is not going to pay Twitter if Twitter is a cesspool of people whose idea of political speech is threats. And, right now, a very large portion of it is. And given that free speech has the implication of free association, it's very fortunate that those poor benighted alt-righters who are so very censored have their own places to talk where nobody will get in their way-- --but, of course, it's not about talking about their political ideas at all. It's about forcing others to listen to them. Twitter need not be an accessory to that. There is no great loss, either moral or financial, to the slow leakage of anime avatars and Twitter eggs.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > Twitter need not be an accessory to that. There is no great loss, either moral or financial, to the slow leakage of anime avatars and Twitter eggs. Many people would say that exact thing if Twitter decided to censor content that was about gay marriage, etc. You are giving Twitter an easy out. Just censor everything that doesn't go over well in the suburban zipcode that best mirrors the target audience of Coca Cola.
    - eropple 10y ago
      If that would make them more money, I expect they would do that. It's obvious from even a cursory look at Twitter's demographics that it wouldn't make them more money and would make them look bad and hurt their bottom line. Much like the alt-right racist contingent makes them look bad and hurts their bottom line. That would be why I am making a clear distinction between "moral" and "financial". The alt-right is immoral and financially negative. The people you so concernedly cite are neither.
      - JarlUlvi 10y ago
        You are conflating speech from libertarians (me), and conservatives with some nazis or whatever. Racists don't get a pass on Twitter, unless they are part of BLACK LIVES MATTER.
    - TillE 10y ago
      > Many people would say that exact thing if Twitter decided to censor content that was about gay marriage, etc. Well, since we're talking about Twitter: https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312 https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
grandalf 10y ago
> threatens violence or is intended to foment violence against a person or people I see no reason why having a clear, public record of such communications is worse than forcing those involved to use a different messaging system. It's just words. The simple answer is press the "unfollow" button, or follow it, read it, and act in your best interests based on it.
- eropple 10y ago
  Nnnnnno, it's not "just words". It's threatening to kill and rape people, directly attacking their safety and their right to a peaceable life. It's giving a platform to people who are putting the idea in others' heads that they should hurt and kill people. I don't have to follow the "race realist" assholes among us to have the fact that they are given a platform by a company under no obligation to do so--and that they use that platform to gather followers under the direct purpose of separating the white race from the blacks or the Jews or whoever the hate-object-of-the-week is. Their followers do. They are strengthened by being given their platform with which to attract more soft-headed followers. Words have consequences that cannot be waved away so cavalierly. Those consequences may not impact you, but they impact a whole lot of people and they can't be dismissed. The government should, for reasons that make a lot of sense, be reticent (but not wholly unwilling, because the real world doesn't work in absolutes) to intercede here, because freedom of speech with regard to the state is a different thing from respecting and accepting speech by society--but Twitter isn't the government.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > they use that platform to gather followers under the direct purpose of separating the white race from the blacks or the Jews or whoever the hate-object-of-the-week is I find the sort of speech you describe highly unsavory, but I also disapprove of many other messages. Many people would advise Twitter to suppress the speech of gay people or immigrants, all the groups they hate. The point of speech being speech is that it doesn't harm anyone. If some unsavory group manages to get 5K followers then I'd like to be aware of it and see what they are talking about. Also, for the purpose of law enforcement, public Twitter activity could constitute signals intelligence to help stop crimes. The idea that words have consequences (as you describe) is one of the most anti-liberty ideas in our modern culture right now. It's behind everything from unconstitutional "material support of terrorism" charges based on speech, to prosecuting journalists who report on classified information under the espionage act, to trigger warnings on works of classic literature, etc. By censoring politically charged accounts Twitter likely benefits those groups by allowing them to skate by with coded speech in public but then keep their private rallying cries away from public scrutiny. Keep in mind also that as a company, Twitter will be under pressure from interest groups and governments worldwide to suppress speech. Should we be allowed to criticize China on Twitter? Well, not if the China market becomes important enough to Twitter's revenue. By failing to adopt a firm stance against censorship, Twitter has greatly damaged its credibility as a platform and opened the door to all sorts of censorship requests. There are enough moralistic gatekeepers in the world, why should Twitter be another?

watwut 10y ago

Neither 4chan nor 8chan are terribly profitable. Also, twitter needs to figure out how to make money. That won't go without much more ads.