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I'm not sure why Tweets and free speech are so closely intertwined in this sort of discussion. Twitter is a for-profit business that isn't profitable. The OP as

I'm not sure why Tweets and free speech are so closely intertwined in this sort of discussion. Twitter is a for-profit business that isn't profitable. The OP asks what would you do to turn it around (which I'm taking as "make it profitable"). Some suggest better prevention of perceived harassment. My Uber driver has the free speech right to tell me 'my father smells of elderberries,' but if they do it's reasonable to assume I will no longer be riding in Ubers. Consequently, Uber sees it in their interest to try to prevent this sort of occurrence. Nobody tells me 'my father smells of elderberries' on Twitter, but if they did on more than a one-off basis I could see myself no longer enjoying the product, and consequently no longer using it, engaging with it, or promoting it. Twitter would be acting rationally to try to prevent this. So really the question becomes, is the damage to their brand and their user base from perceived harassment greater than the damage to their brand and their user base that would be induced by blocking this perceived harassment. Since one harasser can harass many users I suspect that the benefits would weigh in favor of protecting users from perceived harassment. I use "perceived" repeatedly here because I don't think it matters to the business of Twitter whether it's real or over-sensitivity, the customer is always right.

grandalf 10y ago
Broadly censoring accounts based on a subset of the content those accounts have posted is like Uber deciding not to do pickups / dropoffs near mosques. Twitter has a profit incentive not just to censor content, but to make as much of the content as possible paid ads. My suggestion to Twitter was to focus on what I think is the core value prop of twitter -- its infrastructure as a broadcast platform. I realize many people prefer the approach Facebook takes where everyone is required to enter their real name and accounts are linked to credit scores and social security numbers, and login is required to view the content so that an ad can be served. But I think the most promising social media infrastructure is something more like an unfettered Twitter. Simply a medium for exchanging ideas and broadcasting to the world without big media budgets or high production costs. Yes, this gives some prejudiced jackass (or presidential candidate or ISIS) the same facility as highly credible organizations, but I think it's for the best. Twitter's strength is an addressing scheme and non-reciprocal follow graph which allows a lot of expression to happen that would not likely occur otherwise. The challenge for Twitter is to think of itself as an infrastructure company but not think of its product as ads.
- deong 10y ago
  > Twitter has a profit incentive not just to censor content, but to make as much of the content as possible paid ads. The latter implies the former. I promise, Coca-Cola is never going to advertise on Gab. You're never going to see a paid spot for Budweiser on an 8chan board. There is simply no demand from marketers for prime placement alongside death and rape threats, photos of people outside their homes with crosshairs overlaid, etc. > focus on what I think is the core value prop of twitter -- its infrastructure as a broadcast platform. Yes, but every successful broadcast platform I'm aware of imposes some standards on the content they carry. I'm not sure why you think Twitter needs to break from that model.
- lostphilosopher 10y ago
  Wait wait wait, a mosque isn't an individual. What people want Twitter to do is prevent certain individual users from pointing objectionable content at other users; based on those certain users patterns of behavior. So, Uber not picking up a certain cleric because they're known to bite their thumbs at drivers. Maybe a better analogy is a restaurant patron sitting in their own both, but yelling across the room at other patrons. If you own the restaurant, you'd consider silencing them or booting them so they wouldn't detract from the other customer's experiences. (Or maybe I just like analogies.) The complaint I hear from Twitter users isn't that people are broadcasting things they disagree with, it's that Twitter makes it to easy for people to broadcast directly at a specific person. Bearing in mind that anyone has the opportunity to leave the platform if they don't enjoy it. When I was in college I wouldn't have tried to prevent my institution from letting (for example) Milo, speak, I just wouldn't have gone to see him. But if my university let him show up in my dorm room, or gave him my cell phone number, or required me to attend his talk - I'd have had an issue. To be clear, the idea of Twitter being an entirely open broadcast platform has merit, and maybe it would be a better strategy (I assume that's sort of what Gab is trying to be?), but I think the people who say Twitter would be more successful if it pushed back harder on patterns of perceived harassment have a valid point too. I suspect any platform that opens the door too wide to one user bothering another is going to suffer in acquisition, retention, and referral - not a great start to any path to revenue.

grandalf 10y ago

Broadly censoring accounts based on a subset of the content those accounts have posted is like Uber deciding not to do pickups / dropoffs near mosques. Twitter has a profit incentive not just to censor content, but to make as much of the content as possible paid ads. My suggestion to Twitter was to focus on what I think is the core value prop of twitter -- its infrastructure as a broadcast platform. I realize many people prefer the approach Facebook takes where everyone is required to enter their real name and accounts are linked to credit scores and social security numbers, and login is required to view the content so that an ad can be served. But I think the most promising social media infrastructure is something more like an unfettered Twitter. Simply a medium for exchanging ideas and broadcasting to the world without big media budgets or high production costs. Yes, this gives some prejudiced jackass (or presidential candidate or ISIS) the same facility as highly credible organizations, but I think it's for the best. Twitter's strength is an addressing scheme and non-reciprocal follow graph which allows a lot of expression to happen that would not likely occur otherwise. The challenge for Twitter is to think of itself as an infrastructure company but not think of its product as ads.

deong 10y ago
> Twitter has a profit incentive not just to censor content, but to make as much of the content as possible paid ads. The latter implies the former. I promise, Coca-Cola is never going to advertise on Gab. You're never going to see a paid spot for Budweiser on an 8chan board. There is simply no demand from marketers for prime placement alongside death and rape threats, photos of people outside their homes with crosshairs overlaid, etc. > focus on what I think is the core value prop of twitter -- its infrastructure as a broadcast platform. Yes, but every successful broadcast platform I'm aware of imposes some standards on the content they carry. I'm not sure why you think Twitter needs to break from that model.
lostphilosopher 10y ago
Wait wait wait, a mosque isn't an individual. What people want Twitter to do is prevent certain individual users from pointing objectionable content at other users; based on those certain users patterns of behavior. So, Uber not picking up a certain cleric because they're known to bite their thumbs at drivers. Maybe a better analogy is a restaurant patron sitting in their own both, but yelling across the room at other patrons. If you own the restaurant, you'd consider silencing them or booting them so they wouldn't detract from the other customer's experiences. (Or maybe I just like analogies.) The complaint I hear from Twitter users isn't that people are broadcasting things they disagree with, it's that Twitter makes it to easy for people to broadcast directly at a specific person. Bearing in mind that anyone has the opportunity to leave the platform if they don't enjoy it. When I was in college I wouldn't have tried to prevent my institution from letting (for example) Milo, speak, I just wouldn't have gone to see him. But if my university let him show up in my dorm room, or gave him my cell phone number, or required me to attend his talk - I'd have had an issue. To be clear, the idea of Twitter being an entirely open broadcast platform has merit, and maybe it would be a better strategy (I assume that's sort of what Gab is trying to be?), but I think the people who say Twitter would be more successful if it pushed back harder on patterns of perceived harassment have a valid point too. I suspect any platform that opens the door too wide to one user bothering another is going to suffer in acquisition, retention, and referral - not a great start to any path to revenue.