> the problem is that they encourage unsuspecting and naive people to pimp their every thought and action for attention from internet strangers in exchange for

> the problem is that they encourage unsuspecting and naive people to pimp their every thought and action for attention from internet strangers in exchange for getting blasted with targeted ads. I don't know why you're getting downvoted for this (I just upvoted you), it's spot on. My tl/dr for the incident described in the story was "idiot treats Twitter like it's the group of friends she's at the bar with, the expected happens, idiot is surprised". It's a "platform failure", in the sense that hawking addictive products to people naive enough to use them does not speak well for the people who do it; in this case they did it with a platform on the Internet. But the general problem is much older than the Internet and I don't expect it to change any time soon.