7 ms·

Twitter’s Problem Isn’t the Like Button

67 points by kaboro 8y ago

metildaa 8y ago
Twitter is dying, and upper management is creating the conditions for these toxic twitter users to ruin the site. Twitter has royally wrecked the API and done numerous other things that hurt the platform, but the content generated by a subset of users is what has created this lethal situation for Twitter as a platform.
- mhuffman 8y ago
  Twitter was dying since it began ... remember it's very difficult growth after inception ... and that it can't seem to make money no matter what it does? I believe Twitter is a monument to the 2010's second dot com bubble, and in the future, will be looked back on like pets.com is now.
  - mattbierner 8y ago
    Twitter is like 12 years old and has somewhere over 300 million users. It has been public for five years. Whatever it may be, it is not pets.com
    - User23 8y ago
      To be fair, selling food and toys to childless yuppies was at least a facially rational business model. I have to admit I'm impressed Twitter has managed to find greater fools to fund their shenanigans. I guess being the President of the United States's favorite social network is bankable.
    - lmm 8y ago
      > Twitter is like 12 years old and has somewhere over 300 million users. It has been public for five years. And has never shown a profit. > Whatever it may be, it is not pets.com What if the runways are just longer this time around?
      - spinchange 8y ago
        It's the go-to personal broadcast platform of the President of the United States of America.
      - HappySweeney 8y ago
        > And has never shown a profit. Twitter has had profitable quarters. https://www.recode.net/2018/2/8/16989834/twitter-q4-2018-earnings-revenue-jack-dorsey https://www.recode.net/2018/2/8/16989834/twitter-q4-2018-ear... https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/27/twitter-posts-record-100m-profit-but-loses-1m-users/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/27/twitter-posts-record-100m-...
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    The classic "You can't make money with a social network." example?
  - mannykannot 8y ago
    Like it or not, twitter's social consequences mean that it cannot be dismissed as just another pets.com.
czardoz 8y ago
Quite honestly, I feel like most of the media websites do the same thing. Write negative articles for more clicks, virality, etc. For example, this article could have been a piece on educating people on how to use Twitter correctly (follow your interests, don't respond to trolls, think critically), but instead focuses on how things are all dark and bad. That being said, the solutions proposed here are actually sound IMO.
- _trampeltier 8y ago
  Everyone want to make money. They sell ad space, not news.
  - User23 8y ago
    I also want to make money, because my landlord doesn't accept my being a wonderful socially responsible person in lieu of rent.
- gaius 8y ago
  Write negative articles for more clicks, virality The unofficial motto: "Enragement is engagement!" Actually it wouldn't surprise me if that was the official motto of some places.
- mannykannot 8y ago
  An Bloomberg article on how to use Twitter correctly isn't going to fix the problem with Twitter, either.
- humanetech 8y ago
  > Quite honestly, I feel like most of the media websites do the same thing. Write negative articles for more clicks, virality, etc. In social media it may not be the writing of the negative articles that is the problem, but more the reinforcement of the negative messages by algorithms designed to keep us on the platform for the longest time, and found out that feeding us disturbing, shocking stuff, conspiracy theories, etc. works best to keep us engaged. The concept is well described in Max Stossel's Medium article "How Everyone Lost Their Mind… Except you" [0] > "Have you noticed that everything seems like it’s falling apart? Have you noticed that the world is crumbling in exactly the way you thought it would? Have you felt recently like you’re the only one who gets it, and everyone else just doesn’t understand… like the world has been going crazy and everyone else is getting sucked in to their conspiracy theories, or fooled by mainstream media [..] Doesn’t it feel like everyone except for you, and maybe your tribe has lost their freaking minds?!" [0] https://medium.com/@maxstossel/how-everyone-lost-their-mind-e1cede28a30 https://medium.com/@maxstossel/how-everyone-lost-their-mind-...
Kaveren 8y ago
> "The notion that harassment and negativity are important for countering echo chambers should be the first to go." > "First, tweets from blocked users should no longer appear in the replies to a tweet." Being able to respond with an alternative viewpoint without having your reply made invisible is not necessary for countering echo chambers? Even on HN and Reddit, many people use the downvote button improperly. It should be a button to downvote content that doesn't contribute to the discussion, or is spam, or morally bankrupt. It's not anything closed to this in practice. I think this is how the block feature will be used if you can just block someone to delete their replies. I'm not a fan of removing likes from Twitter.
- weregiraffe 8y ago
  >It should be a button to downvote content that doesn't contribute to the discussion, or is spam, or morally bankrupt Yeah, this is never going to work, because it is all subjective.
  - Udik 8y ago
    The temptation to use it to punish for opinions we don't like is just too strong. And as soon as somebody start using it that way, everybody else follows.
    - wetpaws 8y ago
      I like how person mentioning a practice of downvoting for unpopular opinions got downvoted for unpopular opinion
  - camdenlock 8y ago
    Is it really ALL subjective? Can't SOME of these things be quantified by some objective measure as determined by science? Why are things like (e.g.) gravity and (also e.g.) psychological disorders allowed to be quantified, whilst sociological concepts are simply "all subjective" and (presumably) not the stuff of science? In actuality, we as a species are quite capable of creating theories for anything using science, and OP's categorical suggestions are not exempt merely because they deal with morality. Perhaps if we did converge on a widely approved standard for some of these morally-interesting questions about censorship and moderation, the overall productivity and quality of our discourse on forums like Reddit and Twitter might improve.
eksemplar 8y ago
Maybe they should disable the ability to comment instead? It seems to me that comments are often a big problem on social media. When comments stay relevant and informative, like they do here on HN, for the most part anyway. They are an asset to the social media, but as soon as they become something else they become a big problem. Maybe they shouldn’t be disabled entirely, but instead you’d need to be approved by the poster to comment? I could see a value in giving users the control over you would allow to comment on your tweet.
- Kaveren 8y ago
  That takes the social out of social media. Also gives way to a complete echo chamber.
  - eksemplar 8y ago
    What’s social about a bunch of strangers screaming profanities at each other? It should really be called angry mob media, if anything. I see your point of course, but I’m not really worried about creating echo chambers by giving users more ownership over their own conversations. If you started screaming at me in the real world, I’d walk away and probably never talk to you again. That’s an echo chamber, but it’s relatively harmless, and I think the same thing would apply to almost all of social media. I’m sure political tweeters would be terrible at it, but would it really change anything? Right now thousands of people are trolling each other in Donald Trumps twitter feed, but do you think they make a difference? I don’t, in fact I don’t think anyone has ever really been pursauded of anything in a political twitter comment section. Mean while, the rest of us are taken hostage by the angry mob and a lack of control of what ought to be our content.
- Marazan 8y ago
  Twitter communities is a similar idea I had a while ago. The ability to create invite only super-hashtag. Only people invited to the hashtag can reply but everyone can read. It seems to solve many of the current Twitter problems (apart from the whole failing to ban Nazis thing) but does create extra ones around community management of who gets to make invites/kick people from the community has tags
mrweasel 8y ago
I don't think it's fair to blame Twitter. When I first started using the internet (forums, usenet, mailinglists and so on) there where hateful speech, angry mobs, and just plain idiots. The problem is that some people have come to expect that everywhere they go is a safe-spaces, where ass holes don't exists or can be swiftly dealt with. Sure, Twitter needs to have a way to deal with things that are just plain illegal, and for the health of the platform they may need to add some additional policing. But let's face it, it's not the average internet user who are using Twitter. The issues facing Twitter isn't that people are leaving because it's a hostile place. People leaving are either bots or realising that Twitter isn't good place it interact with friends and family. Honestly, most people don't need Twitter, but the media, which is full of Twitter power users, seem to think that it's THE platform. We need to look at Twitter more as a supplement to LinkedIn and not as a Facebook competitor.
- izacus 8y ago
  > The problem is that some people have come to expect that everywhere they go is a safe-spaces, where ass holes don't exists or can be swiftly dealt with. That's such a strange thing to say - isn't that a very reasonable expectation? Even in the outside world, the expectation is that you won't be dealing with assholes every minute of your life when you participate somewhere. And the thing about modern internet is that it's really really hard to find ANY place where you don't have to deal with them. Even HN isn't immune to deliberate trolling and personal attacks.
  - zapzupnz 8y ago
    Though I'll say it's much more civil than, say, reddit. So even if HN isn't immune, it's nice to find a place where the majority of discussion is on-topic and not just endless ad hominem attacks. Granted, HN is rather specific in its userbase.
  - mrweasel 8y ago
    > That's such a strange thing to say - isn't that a very reasonable expectation? Even in the outside world, the expectation is that you won't be dealing with assholes every minute of your life when you participate somewhere. That depends, I can't go into a ghetto area or a bar and say what ever I want and not expect people to react, regardless of how right I may be. I'm sure that this is an unpopular opinion but posting on Twitter is actively seeking out the ass holes and loud idiots.
DanielBMarkham 8y ago
There's a knowledge transfer/attention span problem. With the old 140 characters, or a picture meme, the best you can do is communicate like Frankenstein in the old horror movies: "Fire BAD!" "Sun good!" Life isn't like that. The is the same problem political ads face. If I've only got 10 seconds of your time before you click on to something else, as a writer, I'm going to have to punch you in nose. There's just no other way of using the medium. It's built into the system. But as others here have pointed out, it's not just Twitter, and it's not related to likes by any means. (I have no idea what Twitter thinks they're doing.) I never participated in Quora because of this same thing, and it's much more of a long-form site. For things worth knowing, things that will change your life? You have to invest some time and effort. It's a conversation. It's back and forth -- even when reading a novel. Drive-bys don't do that. So let's look at tech overall. Where we seem to have landed is this weird landscape where everything is either 10 seconds or 100 hours. Yes, there is some nice medium-scale content available, but even then, the creators will tell you that for the most part, people either consume in one of those two fashions. There are a lot of people purchasing long-form content that never use it. It just makes them feel better. We know this now -- and we didn't in the past -- because we instrument the hell out of everything users do. Looking at the stats across multiple sites, I think if you really want to make people's lives better -- and not just sell stuff -- you have to acknowledge human nature and take a stand: are you going to be the 10 second guys or the 100-hour guys? I'd love to see somebody create something that somehow manages both well, with "progressive elaboration" of deep topics and avoidance of anything created that's low effort.
mythrowmyway 8y ago
Twitter is especially toxic for minorities. I am a Sikh and as Indian elections approach, toxicity and fake news of Indian blue ticks have increased substantially. I want to counter it, but my account is just one off and it has also gotten disabled too now. On top, they censored a website that was raising awareness among elected representatives about politically motivated large scale massacres of Sikhs, 1984SikhGenocide.org Tweets go straight to draft if you plug this URL in. How can Twitter ban this on a global scale at behest of Indian government? Then they act chummy about being receptive of both sides views. How can a minority user counter all this negativity because you get flooded nearly instantly. Also, I had to provide my phone number for enabling my account, and considering that my account details can be asked by Indian government effectively means there is a chilling effect on me. Twitter needs to take into account its minoroty users too, because there aren’t many accounts that can counter the propaganda. And the flood of tweets is just immense which then gets spread through WhatsApp. A spin agency sends message on Whatsapp, blue ticks posts on Twitter, screenshotted and posted back on Whatsapp giving it an air of authenticity.
- User23 8y ago
  Hey I want to send you some love from the States. I've never met a Sikh who wasn't an absolutely wonderful person. I have to admit I'm shocked that the Indian government is discriminating against you, given how much your people have contributed to the subcontinent over the centuries.
raverbashing 8y ago
Echo chambers are a problem, at the same time, communication across levels of closeness are different. This is what Twitter needs to get right. A tweet from a friend is different from a tweet from a famous person. Conversations happen differently. (And it seems they have some different behaviours for these tweets) Killing the like button won't help. Taking abuse/harassement more seriously helps, especially things like the obvious targeted DM harassement in the article.
Bantros 8y ago
Twitter's problem, like any other social media, is people
GnarfGnarf 8y ago
The problem with Twitter is that there is not enough "bang for the buck". The meager rewards do not compensate for the time and mind-share that have to be invested in plodding through reams of Twitter dross. There are so many more important and interesting things to do than read banal and insipid posts. I'm happy to have the day's best Tweets sifted by news channels and Jimmy Fallon.
throwawaynpc123 8y ago
negative comments aren't always "harassment"
qubax 8y ago
Twitter has the same problem that reddit, facebook, youtube, etc does. Journalists and the media want to dominate it. Why is twitter so terrible today? Because there are so many toxic journalists on it. https://medium.com/@Haje/who-are-twitter-s-verified-users-af976fc1b032 https://medium.com/@Haje/who-are-twitter-s-verified-users-af... Same thing with reddit. What happened to reddit? A publication company bought it and journalists are desperately trying to turn it into their propaganda platform. Who is leading the charge against facebook and google? Journalists and news companies. Why? Because they want preferential treatment on these platforms and want to turn them into their fiefdoms. The real question isn't why twitter is bad. It's why journalists, news companies, etc are so toxic. Why is journalism today no different than political party evangelism? Every news organization and journalist sound like political advocates and the mouthpiece of a political party. Why are so many journalists and news organizations working so hard to help one party or the other? I thought journalism and news was supposed to be about facts, not political advocacy? It's strange how these journalists loved social media when their political candidate of choice won. Now, they are whining endlessly about social media. They are as much, if not more, of a problem than twitter or any other social media platform.
- simonsarris 8y ago
  Yeah outside of politics and journalism, Twitter is incredible. I think @jack focuses far too much on a crowd that will always be dramatic, negative, and and rife with trolls/attacks/disinformation/pandering, because its part of their job description to be so. This is further awkward because journalistic outfits see themselves as a shining beacon of everything good to a degree that is somewhat comical. Economics twitter, finance twitter, bio twitter, art twitter, intellectual subgroup(s) and unaffiliated smartypants twitter are all amazing. I have met many people through twitter, been invited to private slacks, made real friends, and learned so much. I love the platform. Way more intellectual than any other social network. I just 99% stay away from the political machine on there, and the "toxic rage" that everyone is clamouring about seems to pass me by.
  - zantana 8y ago
    I logged in just to reply to this because I was one who generally doesn't like social media and thought of Twitter as just a proprietary version of RSS. But I had to do some promotion for work and created an account and got hooked in. There is no doubt a lot of junk and the trending stuff tends to be sports and politics, but just like Reddit there is a lot of cool stuff there if you wander off the beaten path. Things like the #pico8 https://twitter.com/hashtag/pico8 https://twitter.com/hashtag/pico8 where people are posting simple pico8 patterns or As the Film Ends https://twitter.com/endingsummary https://twitter.com/endingsummary a bot which posts final sentences from Wikipedia film plot summaries, are just cool. I hope the service can endure in some form so oddball stuff like this will remain.
shiburizu 8y ago
An aside: Why is twitter's website so awful? Every time I might bother to click on the site to see someone's post it's "join twitter now" every 5 seconds with unresponsive touch design that jumps everywhere.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

67 points by kaboro 8y ago

Twitter is dying, and upper management is creating the conditions for these toxic twitter users to ruin the site. Twitter has royally wrecked the API and done numerous other things that hurt the platform, but the content generated by a subset of users is what has created this lethal situation for Twitter as a platform.

mhuffman 8y ago
Twitter was dying since it began ... remember it's very difficult growth after inception ... and that it can't seem to make money no matter what it does? I believe Twitter is a monument to the 2010's second dot com bubble, and in the future, will be looked back on like pets.com is now.
- mattbierner 8y ago
  Twitter is like 12 years old and has somewhere over 300 million users. It has been public for five years. Whatever it may be, it is not pets.com
  - User23 8y ago
    To be fair, selling food and toys to childless yuppies was at least a facially rational business model. I have to admit I'm impressed Twitter has managed to find greater fools to fund their shenanigans. I guess being the President of the United States's favorite social network is bankable.
  - lmm 8y ago
    > Twitter is like 12 years old and has somewhere over 300 million users. It has been public for five years. And has never shown a profit. > Whatever it may be, it is not pets.com What if the runways are just longer this time around?
    - spinchange 8y ago
      It's the go-to personal broadcast platform of the President of the United States of America.
    - HappySweeney 8y ago
      > And has never shown a profit. Twitter has had profitable quarters. https://www.recode.net/2018/2/8/16989834/twitter-q4-2018-earnings-revenue-jack-dorsey https://www.recode.net/2018/2/8/16989834/twitter-q4-2018-ear... https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/27/twitter-posts-record-100m-profit-but-loses-1m-users/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/27/twitter-posts-record-100m-...
- maxerickson 8y ago
  The classic "You can't make money with a social network." example?
- mannykannot 8y ago
  Like it or not, twitter's social consequences mean that it cannot be dismissed as just another pets.com.

czardoz 8y ago

Quite honestly, I feel like most of the media websites do the same thing. Write negative articles for more clicks, virality, etc. For example, this article could have been a piece on educating people on how to use Twitter correctly (follow your interests, don't respond to trolls, think critically), but instead focuses on how things are all dark and bad. That being said, the solutions proposed here are actually sound IMO.

_trampeltier 8y ago
Everyone want to make money. They sell ad space, not news.
- User23 8y ago
  I also want to make money, because my landlord doesn't accept my being a wonderful socially responsible person in lieu of rent.
gaius 8y ago
Write negative articles for more clicks, virality The unofficial motto: "Enragement is engagement!" Actually it wouldn't surprise me if that was the official motto of some places.
mannykannot 8y ago
An Bloomberg article on how to use Twitter correctly isn't going to fix the problem with Twitter, either.
humanetech 8y ago
> Quite honestly, I feel like most of the media websites do the same thing. Write negative articles for more clicks, virality, etc. In social media it may not be the writing of the negative articles that is the problem, but more the reinforcement of the negative messages by algorithms designed to keep us on the platform for the longest time, and found out that feeding us disturbing, shocking stuff, conspiracy theories, etc. works best to keep us engaged. The concept is well described in Max Stossel's Medium article "How Everyone Lost Their Mind… Except you" [0] > "Have you noticed that everything seems like it’s falling apart? Have you noticed that the world is crumbling in exactly the way you thought it would? Have you felt recently like you’re the only one who gets it, and everyone else just doesn’t understand… like the world has been going crazy and everyone else is getting sucked in to their conspiracy theories, or fooled by mainstream media [..] Doesn’t it feel like everyone except for you, and maybe your tribe has lost their freaking minds?!" [0] https://medium.com/@maxstossel/how-everyone-lost-their-mind-e1cede28a30 https://medium.com/@maxstossel/how-everyone-lost-their-mind-...

Kaveren 8y ago

> "The notion that harassment and negativity are important for countering echo chambers should be the first to go." > "First, tweets from blocked users should no longer appear in the replies to a tweet." Being able to respond with an alternative viewpoint without having your reply made invisible is not necessary for countering echo chambers? Even on HN and Reddit, many people use the downvote button improperly. It should be a button to downvote content that doesn't contribute to the discussion, or is spam, or morally bankrupt. It's not anything closed to this in practice. I think this is how the block feature will be used if you can just block someone to delete their replies. I'm not a fan of removing likes from Twitter.

weregiraffe 8y ago
>It should be a button to downvote content that doesn't contribute to the discussion, or is spam, or morally bankrupt Yeah, this is never going to work, because it is all subjective.
- Udik 8y ago
  The temptation to use it to punish for opinions we don't like is just too strong. And as soon as somebody start using it that way, everybody else follows.
  - wetpaws 8y ago
    I like how person mentioning a practice of downvoting for unpopular opinions got downvoted for unpopular opinion
- camdenlock 8y ago
  Is it really ALL subjective? Can't SOME of these things be quantified by some objective measure as determined by science? Why are things like (e.g.) gravity and (also e.g.) psychological disorders allowed to be quantified, whilst sociological concepts are simply "all subjective" and (presumably) not the stuff of science? In actuality, we as a species are quite capable of creating theories for anything using science, and OP's categorical suggestions are not exempt merely because they deal with morality. Perhaps if we did converge on a widely approved standard for some of these morally-interesting questions about censorship and moderation, the overall productivity and quality of our discourse on forums like Reddit and Twitter might improve.

eksemplar 8y ago

Maybe they should disable the ability to comment instead? It seems to me that comments are often a big problem on social media. When comments stay relevant and informative, like they do here on HN, for the most part anyway. They are an asset to the social media, but as soon as they become something else they become a big problem. Maybe they shouldn’t be disabled entirely, but instead you’d need to be approved by the poster to comment? I could see a value in giving users the control over you would allow to comment on your tweet.

Kaveren 8y ago
That takes the social out of social media. Also gives way to a complete echo chamber.
- eksemplar 8y ago
  What’s social about a bunch of strangers screaming profanities at each other? It should really be called angry mob media, if anything. I see your point of course, but I’m not really worried about creating echo chambers by giving users more ownership over their own conversations. If you started screaming at me in the real world, I’d walk away and probably never talk to you again. That’s an echo chamber, but it’s relatively harmless, and I think the same thing would apply to almost all of social media. I’m sure political tweeters would be terrible at it, but would it really change anything? Right now thousands of people are trolling each other in Donald Trumps twitter feed, but do you think they make a difference? I don’t, in fact I don’t think anyone has ever really been pursauded of anything in a political twitter comment section. Mean while, the rest of us are taken hostage by the angry mob and a lack of control of what ought to be our content.
Marazan 8y ago
Twitter communities is a similar idea I had a while ago. The ability to create invite only super-hashtag. Only people invited to the hashtag can reply but everyone can read. It seems to solve many of the current Twitter problems (apart from the whole failing to ban Nazis thing) but does create extra ones around community management of who gets to make invites/kick people from the community has tags

mrweasel 8y ago

I don't think it's fair to blame Twitter. When I first started using the internet (forums, usenet, mailinglists and so on) there where hateful speech, angry mobs, and just plain idiots. The problem is that some people have come to expect that everywhere they go is a safe-spaces, where ass holes don't exists or can be swiftly dealt with. Sure, Twitter needs to have a way to deal with things that are just plain illegal, and for the health of the platform they may need to add some additional policing. But let's face it, it's not the average internet user who are using Twitter. The issues facing Twitter isn't that people are leaving because it's a hostile place. People leaving are either bots or realising that Twitter isn't good place it interact with friends and family. Honestly, most people don't need Twitter, but the media, which is full of Twitter power users, seem to think that it's THE platform. We need to look at Twitter more as a supplement to LinkedIn and not as a Facebook competitor.

izacus 8y ago
> The problem is that some people have come to expect that everywhere they go is a safe-spaces, where ass holes don't exists or can be swiftly dealt with. That's such a strange thing to say - isn't that a very reasonable expectation? Even in the outside world, the expectation is that you won't be dealing with assholes every minute of your life when you participate somewhere. And the thing about modern internet is that it's really really hard to find ANY place where you don't have to deal with them. Even HN isn't immune to deliberate trolling and personal attacks.
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  Though I'll say it's much more civil than, say, reddit. So even if HN isn't immune, it's nice to find a place where the majority of discussion is on-topic and not just endless ad hominem attacks. Granted, HN is rather specific in its userbase.
- mrweasel 8y ago
  > That's such a strange thing to say - isn't that a very reasonable expectation? Even in the outside world, the expectation is that you won't be dealing with assholes every minute of your life when you participate somewhere. That depends, I can't go into a ghetto area or a bar and say what ever I want and not expect people to react, regardless of how right I may be. I'm sure that this is an unpopular opinion but posting on Twitter is actively seeking out the ass holes and loud idiots.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago

There's a knowledge transfer/attention span problem. With the old 140 characters, or a picture meme, the best you can do is communicate like Frankenstein in the old horror movies: "Fire BAD!" "Sun good!" Life isn't like that. The is the same problem political ads face. If I've only got 10 seconds of your time before you click on to something else, as a writer, I'm going to have to punch you in nose. There's just no other way of using the medium. It's built into the system. But as others here have pointed out, it's not just Twitter, and it's not related to likes by any means. (I have no idea what Twitter thinks they're doing.) I never participated in Quora because of this same thing, and it's much more of a long-form site. For things worth knowing, things that will change your life? You have to invest some time and effort. It's a conversation. It's back and forth -- even when reading a novel. Drive-bys don't do that. So let's look at tech overall. Where we seem to have landed is this weird landscape where everything is either 10 seconds or 100 hours. Yes, there is some nice medium-scale content available, but even then, the creators will tell you that for the most part, people either consume in one of those two fashions. There are a lot of people purchasing long-form content that never use it. It just makes them feel better. We know this now -- and we didn't in the past -- because we instrument the hell out of everything users do. Looking at the stats across multiple sites, I think if you really want to make people's lives better -- and not just sell stuff -- you have to acknowledge human nature and take a stand: are you going to be the 10 second guys or the 100-hour guys? I'd love to see somebody create something that somehow manages both well, with "progressive elaboration" of deep topics and avoidance of anything created that's low effort.

mythrowmyway 8y ago

Twitter is especially toxic for minorities. I am a Sikh and as Indian elections approach, toxicity and fake news of Indian blue ticks have increased substantially. I want to counter it, but my account is just one off and it has also gotten disabled too now. On top, they censored a website that was raising awareness among elected representatives about politically motivated large scale massacres of Sikhs, 1984SikhGenocide.org Tweets go straight to draft if you plug this URL in. How can Twitter ban this on a global scale at behest of Indian government? Then they act chummy about being receptive of both sides views. How can a minority user counter all this negativity because you get flooded nearly instantly. Also, I had to provide my phone number for enabling my account, and considering that my account details can be asked by Indian government effectively means there is a chilling effect on me. Twitter needs to take into account its minoroty users too, because there aren’t many accounts that can counter the propaganda. And the flood of tweets is just immense which then gets spread through WhatsApp. A spin agency sends message on Whatsapp, blue ticks posts on Twitter, screenshotted and posted back on Whatsapp giving it an air of authenticity.

User23 8y ago
Hey I want to send you some love from the States. I've never met a Sikh who wasn't an absolutely wonderful person. I have to admit I'm shocked that the Indian government is discriminating against you, given how much your people have contributed to the subcontinent over the centuries.

raverbashing 8y ago

Echo chambers are a problem, at the same time, communication across levels of closeness are different. This is what Twitter needs to get right. A tweet from a friend is different from a tweet from a famous person. Conversations happen differently. (And it seems they have some different behaviours for these tweets) Killing the like button won't help. Taking abuse/harassement more seriously helps, especially things like the obvious targeted DM harassement in the article.

Bantros 8y ago

Twitter's problem, like any other social media, is people

GnarfGnarf 8y ago

The problem with Twitter is that there is not enough "bang for the buck". The meager rewards do not compensate for the time and mind-share that have to be invested in plodding through reams of Twitter dross. There are so many more important and interesting things to do than read banal and insipid posts. I'm happy to have the day's best Tweets sifted by news channels and Jimmy Fallon.

throwawaynpc123 8y ago

negative comments aren't always "harassment"

qubax 8y ago

Twitter has the same problem that reddit, facebook, youtube, etc does. Journalists and the media want to dominate it. Why is twitter so terrible today? Because there are so many toxic journalists on it. https://medium.com/@Haje/who-are-twitter-s-verified-users-af976fc1b032 https://medium.com/@Haje/who-are-twitter-s-verified-users-af... Same thing with reddit. What happened to reddit? A publication company bought it and journalists are desperately trying to turn it into their propaganda platform. Who is leading the charge against facebook and google? Journalists and news companies. Why? Because they want preferential treatment on these platforms and want to turn them into their fiefdoms. The real question isn't why twitter is bad. It's why journalists, news companies, etc are so toxic. Why is journalism today no different than political party evangelism? Every news organization and journalist sound like political advocates and the mouthpiece of a political party. Why are so many journalists and news organizations working so hard to help one party or the other? I thought journalism and news was supposed to be about facts, not political advocacy? It's strange how these journalists loved social media when their political candidate of choice won. Now, they are whining endlessly about social media. They are as much, if not more, of a problem than twitter or any other social media platform.

simonsarris 8y ago
Yeah outside of politics and journalism, Twitter is incredible. I think @jack focuses far too much on a crowd that will always be dramatic, negative, and and rife with trolls/attacks/disinformation/pandering, because its part of their job description to be so. This is further awkward because journalistic outfits see themselves as a shining beacon of everything good to a degree that is somewhat comical. Economics twitter, finance twitter, bio twitter, art twitter, intellectual subgroup(s) and unaffiliated smartypants twitter are all amazing. I have met many people through twitter, been invited to private slacks, made real friends, and learned so much. I love the platform. Way more intellectual than any other social network. I just 99% stay away from the political machine on there, and the "toxic rage" that everyone is clamouring about seems to pass me by.
- zantana 8y ago
  I logged in just to reply to this because I was one who generally doesn't like social media and thought of Twitter as just a proprietary version of RSS. But I had to do some promotion for work and created an account and got hooked in. There is no doubt a lot of junk and the trending stuff tends to be sports and politics, but just like Reddit there is a lot of cool stuff there if you wander off the beaten path. Things like the #pico8 https://twitter.com/hashtag/pico8 https://twitter.com/hashtag/pico8 where people are posting simple pico8 patterns or As the Film Ends https://twitter.com/endingsummary https://twitter.com/endingsummary a bot which posts final sentences from Wikipedia film plot summaries, are just cool. I hope the service can endure in some form so oddball stuff like this will remain.

shiburizu 8y ago

An aside: Why is twitter's website so awful? Every time I might bother to click on the site to see someone's post it's "join twitter now" every 5 seconds with unresponsive touch design that jumps everywhere.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]