5 ms·

Twitter Is Great. An Asshole Filter Would Make It Even Better

18 points by curtis 9y ago

Profragile 9y ago
What a totally libtarded article!
mcny 9y ago
Speaking of more control, why does everyone insist on trying to make my experience better? Why can't these "social" services let me be? Just give me a reverse chronological feed (newest item first, no sorting, no filtering) add some ads in between if you must but clearly mark them as sponsored content. There, done. Why do they insist on optimizing everything for everyone. I don't want it. I don't need it. If you're reading this, please stop. Or at least give me an opt-out!
- StavrosK 9y ago
  > why does everyone insist on trying to make my experience better? Why not? However, it sounds like your problem is that they're making it worse.
- krapp 9y ago
  Social media is a business. You're there to generate content that engages people with the platform and increases its value, and those sites are designed to optimize you both as a content producer and a product. And the shareholders do appreciate your willingness to do that for free.
neom 9y ago
Am I the only one who would pay $10/mth for twitter if it meant I could only be tweeted at by other people who are also paying?
- tw1010 9y ago
  Do you really think it's that bad? Can't you just ignore them?
  - sp332 9y ago
    How would you read messages sent only from certain people? I mean there's a whitelist but nothing like allowing a whole category of people.
    - tw1010 9y ago
      Well if you're fine with ocular whitelisting then you could just try to not let the comments you find offensive affect you.
      - sp332 9y ago
        That sounds terrible. If someone is socializing or doing business, they don't want to wade through graphic death and rape threats at the same time. Even if it were possible to make themselves desensitized, why would they want to? That sounds like a recipe for not letting anything affect them, even messages they want.
- anomie31 9y ago
  Like somethingawful.com?
- arnaudsm 9y ago
  There's no known correlation between being Rich and not being an Asshole.
  - neom 9y ago
    Totally. I'm kinda off topic, sorry. More the epic amounts of troll and fake accounts. I deleted my Twitter account at about 15k followers, the trolling and spam got too much. Point well taken! :)
  - vim_wannabe 9y ago
    I think he meant a paywall, kind of like how some services don't waste their time offering free accounts and receiving tons of support requests. Billy Gates also famously pondered charging a fee for sending email to reduce spam.
    - krapp 9y ago
      Paying for an account also leads people to feel they're entitled to do whatever they like with it, which might be counterproductive to encouraging civility.
      - jhanschoo 9y ago
        I’ve more commonly heard anecdotes to the opposite conclusion; receivers of free work often value it little and feel entitled to request improvements, while paying users value the service enough to pay.
- hylianwarrior 9y ago
  Yeah, you're the only one.
malvosenior 9y ago
That's pretty rich coming from Mother Jones. They've had a history of extremely toxic Twitter usage. Here is one example: https://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/01/14/take-a-gun-and-put-it-in-your-mouth-and-pull-the-trigger-mother-jones-editor-loses-it-on-twitter https://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/01/14/take-a-gun-and-put-...
aaronchall 9y ago
Mother Jones is the most extreme left-wing publication I can think of. This particular article is not much of an exception, and I have flagged it. To address the point, though, I've been working on making my twitter feed better. I mute SJW's on sight. I've got an annoying hashtag and the words "Trump" and "Russians" muted as well. I try to constructively engage when I run into someone I wouldn't mind following, but who is clearly at least temporarily being an Twitter activist in a way that I disagree with. I try to mostly tweet about programming topics, though. But I've been talking with my friends about "the Twitter problem". We think it might be better to just quit following our Twitter accounts and go back to blogging and RSS feeds to stay on top of each other.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Mother Jones is the most extreme left-wing publication I can think of. Eh, Mother Jones editorial position is somewhere between the center of the neoliberal faction and the center of the social democratic faction of the Democratic Party, somewhere in the center-left. If they are the most left-wing publication you can think of, you either have a very narrow or right-leaning exposure. Here's a far more left-wing publication: http://revcom.us/revolution/current-en.html?1 http://revcom.us/revolution/current-en.html?1
  - sheepmullet 9y ago
    In truth mother jones is about as far to the left as is acceptable to people in the center. Kind of like brietbart on the right. Sites like Revcom are the infowars of the left. People in the center will categorise you as an extremist if you start quoting them.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
"I love the world, except for all the people." "I have an opinion. I am entitled to express it. You? Not so much. I don't want to hear your shit while I tout the value of free speech." "I'm a privileged white male. Of course, I think it is totes normal to expect everyone else to kowtow to my comforts instead of me learning to not be a butt. I see zero correlation between my bad behavior and the invective aimed at me. LA LA LA not listening."* In all seriousness, I am all for figuring out how to foster a more civil environment anywhere people interact socially. But these sorts of solutions are not it. In fact, they tend to be counterproductive. * Not All Privileged White Males. Just, you know, the (hypocritical) assholes.
philwelch 9y ago
If you wanted to specifically design social media platforms to optimize for meanness and radicalization, I don't know if you could do any better than Twitter and, to a slightly lesser extent, Tumblr. In fact, I think a better term would be "antisocial media". Start by making everything anonymous and easy to bot. Then add a length limit, thus eliminating all chance for nuance and optimizing for cheap slogans. Then make sure reposts and low-context replies are cheap, but high-context threaded discussions are expensive or impossible. Twitter without replies or retweets would be considerably better. It would cover virtually all of the good use-cases of Twitter while eliminating the bad.
- majewsky 9y ago
  > Twitter without replies or retweets would be considerably better. Twitter started out without replies and retweets. Both features were initially invented by users and only added to the UI after their use was already widespread.
dogruck 9y ago
Filtering out “assholes” is not the path to great good.

18 points by curtis 9y ago

What a totally libtarded article!

mcny 9y ago

Speaking of more control, why does everyone insist on trying to make my experience better? Why can't these "social" services let me be? Just give me a reverse chronological feed (newest item first, no sorting, no filtering) add some ads in between if you must but clearly mark them as sponsored content. There, done. Why do they insist on optimizing everything for everyone. I don't want it. I don't need it. If you're reading this, please stop. Or at least give me an opt-out!

StavrosK 9y ago
> why does everyone insist on trying to make my experience better? Why not? However, it sounds like your problem is that they're making it worse.
krapp 9y ago
Social media is a business. You're there to generate content that engages people with the platform and increases its value, and those sites are designed to optimize you both as a content producer and a product. And the shareholders do appreciate your willingness to do that for free.

neom 9y ago

Am I the only one who would pay $10/mth for twitter if it meant I could only be tweeted at by other people who are also paying?

tw1010 9y ago
Do you really think it's that bad? Can't you just ignore them?
- sp332 9y ago
  How would you read messages sent only from certain people? I mean there's a whitelist but nothing like allowing a whole category of people.
  - tw1010 9y ago
    Well if you're fine with ocular whitelisting then you could just try to not let the comments you find offensive affect you.
    - sp332 9y ago
      That sounds terrible. If someone is socializing or doing business, they don't want to wade through graphic death and rape threats at the same time. Even if it were possible to make themselves desensitized, why would they want to? That sounds like a recipe for not letting anything affect them, even messages they want.
anomie31 9y ago
Like somethingawful.com?
arnaudsm 9y ago
There's no known correlation between being Rich and not being an Asshole.
- neom 9y ago
  Totally. I'm kinda off topic, sorry. More the epic amounts of troll and fake accounts. I deleted my Twitter account at about 15k followers, the trolling and spam got too much. Point well taken! :)
- vim_wannabe 9y ago
  I think he meant a paywall, kind of like how some services don't waste their time offering free accounts and receiving tons of support requests. Billy Gates also famously pondered charging a fee for sending email to reduce spam.
  - krapp 9y ago
    Paying for an account also leads people to feel they're entitled to do whatever they like with it, which might be counterproductive to encouraging civility.
    - jhanschoo 9y ago
      I’ve more commonly heard anecdotes to the opposite conclusion; receivers of free work often value it little and feel entitled to request improvements, while paying users value the service enough to pay.
hylianwarrior 9y ago
Yeah, you're the only one.

malvosenior 9y ago

That's pretty rich coming from Mother Jones. They've had a history of extremely toxic Twitter usage. Here is one example: https://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/01/14/take-a-gun-and-put-it-in-your-mouth-and-pull-the-trigger-mother-jones-editor-loses-it-on-twitter https://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/01/14/take-a-gun-and-put-...

aaronchall 9y ago

Mother Jones is the most extreme left-wing publication I can think of. This particular article is not much of an exception, and I have flagged it. To address the point, though, I've been working on making my twitter feed better. I mute SJW's on sight. I've got an annoying hashtag and the words "Trump" and "Russians" muted as well. I try to constructively engage when I run into someone I wouldn't mind following, but who is clearly at least temporarily being an Twitter activist in a way that I disagree with. I try to mostly tweet about programming topics, though. But I've been talking with my friends about "the Twitter problem". We think it might be better to just quit following our Twitter accounts and go back to blogging and RSS feeds to stay on top of each other.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Mother Jones is the most extreme left-wing publication I can think of. Eh, Mother Jones editorial position is somewhere between the center of the neoliberal faction and the center of the social democratic faction of the Democratic Party, somewhere in the center-left. If they are the most left-wing publication you can think of, you either have a very narrow or right-leaning exposure. Here's a far more left-wing publication: http://revcom.us/revolution/current-en.html?1 http://revcom.us/revolution/current-en.html?1
- sheepmullet 9y ago
  In truth mother jones is about as far to the left as is acceptable to people in the center. Kind of like brietbart on the right. Sites like Revcom are the infowars of the left. People in the center will categorise you as an extremist if you start quoting them.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

"I love the world, except for all the people." "I have an opinion. I am entitled to express it. You? Not so much. I don't want to hear your shit while I tout the value of free speech." "I'm a privileged white male. Of course, I think it is totes normal to expect everyone else to kowtow to my comforts instead of me learning to not be a butt. I see zero correlation between my bad behavior and the invective aimed at me. LA LA LA not listening."* In all seriousness, I am all for figuring out how to foster a more civil environment anywhere people interact socially. But these sorts of solutions are not it. In fact, they tend to be counterproductive. * Not All Privileged White Males. Just, you know, the (hypocritical) assholes.

philwelch 9y ago

If you wanted to specifically design social media platforms to optimize for meanness and radicalization, I don't know if you could do any better than Twitter and, to a slightly lesser extent, Tumblr. In fact, I think a better term would be "antisocial media". Start by making everything anonymous and easy to bot. Then add a length limit, thus eliminating all chance for nuance and optimizing for cheap slogans. Then make sure reposts and low-context replies are cheap, but high-context threaded discussions are expensive or impossible. Twitter without replies or retweets would be considerably better. It would cover virtually all of the good use-cases of Twitter while eliminating the bad.

majewsky 9y ago
> Twitter without replies or retweets would be considerably better. Twitter started out without replies and retweets. Both features were initially invented by users and only added to the UI after their use was already widespread.

dogruck 9y ago

Filtering out “assholes” is not the path to great good.