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The real problem of Twitter IMO is their retweet feature. This feature fuels hate and unfair attacks. You should never be allowed to take a message sent to som

The real problem of Twitter IMO is their retweet feature. This feature fuels hate and unfair attacks. You should never be allowed to take a message sent to someone’s audience and transfer it to your audience. You should only be able to engage with their audience. The only reason I imagine this feature exists is because it generates engagement and revenue for Twitter.

jtbayly 5y ago
No. The reason it exists is because people like to share things they like. If you removed that button people would copy and paste or screenshot and share.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- whiplash451 5y ago
  If Twitter wanted to stress the sharing feature in a genuine way, they would put your comment below (not on top of) the post you are re-tweeting.
- Mezzie 5y ago
  No, it was initially made as a micro-blogging service inspired by AIM and LJ, neither of which were primarily made for sharing. The Retweet button and the sharing aspect came later.
- pimlottc 5y ago
  > If you removed that button people would copy and paste or screenshot and share. I’m not sure if this would really be worse; it would slow down viral retweets and could induce users to add context or reframe the shared item to better suit their audience. I mean, imagine what it would be like if someone in real life just constantly repeated things their friends said, word for word, to everyone in the room. Yes, people do sometimes parrot things from other people, but more often it’s modified, filtered through their own understanding and viewpoint, adapted to the present context and audience, and selected for relevance and appropriateness.
  - jtbayly 5y ago
    I never said it would be worse. Just that it would happen. But I don’t think that people wanting to reshare in a digital context would bother with the work of rephrasing. They already have the opportunity to add their own thoughts to a tweet they reshare. I suspect it would be practically the same.
  - Karunamon 5y ago
    Funny story; before there was a dedicated button, people did precisely this. You'd see tweets of the form "RT @Someone (their message)" The "adding context" bit didn't really happen, because quoting the tweet ate your own 140 character limit, and a viral RT is always going to get more exposure than your explanatory reply.
- wott 5y ago
  > people like to share things they like. People like to share things they hate, especially on the Internet of the last decade My national subreddit was a perfect example of that, most of the posts were posted by people opposing what was said in the linked article and willing others to rage about it too.
  - beebeepka 5y ago
    Maybe the people you are referring to are professional trolls? At this point I have little doubt any popular website is infested with them. Globally. It's so much worse than even a decade ago
- neartheplain 5y ago
  >If you removed that button people would copy and paste or screenshot and share. And this already happens, often between people who've blocked one another yet want to continue the personal attacks. It's all too easy to open a blocked tweet in Incognito Mode, take a screenshot, add negative comment, and hit post.
  - dionidium 5y ago
    > It's all too easy to open a blocked tweet in Incognito Mode, take a screenshot, add negative comment, and hit post. Which highlights just how confused Twitter is about what they want the "block" feature to be. As I like to say, Twitter is the only website where I get more permissions to view content if I log out. Imagine if your copy of the daily newspaper came with some stories greyed out because the authors of those stories saw something you said online once and decided they didn't like you, so now your paper comes with their stories hidden. But have no fear! You can just log out and read those stores. What a weird feature.
- dionidium 5y ago
  And that's fine. It would still detach that new thread entirely from the old one, so that the target of the ire wouldn't get a million notifications about how they deserve to die or whatever.
dpifke 5y ago
At least when I still used it, you could choose not to receive retweets from accounts you follow. (But it had to be set one followed account at a time.)
dionidium 5y ago
If I'm standing in a circle with you and three other people and I start talking about you like you're not there, about how what you just said is really stupid, about how I can't believe you'd ever say something like that -- we all understand why that's rude. But that's exactly how a retweet functions (and it's how a lot of twitter threads function, too (when somebody starts addressing somebody else in the thread about a third person as though they aren't present)). I try very hard not to operate my twitter presence that way and yet I catch myself doing it, too, because it's how twitter is built!

jtbayly 5y ago

No. The reason it exists is because people like to share things they like. If you removed that button people would copy and paste or screenshot and share.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
whiplash451 5y ago
If Twitter wanted to stress the sharing feature in a genuine way, they would put your comment below (not on top of) the post you are re-tweeting.
Mezzie 5y ago
No, it was initially made as a micro-blogging service inspired by AIM and LJ, neither of which were primarily made for sharing. The Retweet button and the sharing aspect came later.
pimlottc 5y ago
> If you removed that button people would copy and paste or screenshot and share. I’m not sure if this would really be worse; it would slow down viral retweets and could induce users to add context or reframe the shared item to better suit their audience. I mean, imagine what it would be like if someone in real life just constantly repeated things their friends said, word for word, to everyone in the room. Yes, people do sometimes parrot things from other people, but more often it’s modified, filtered through their own understanding and viewpoint, adapted to the present context and audience, and selected for relevance and appropriateness.
- jtbayly 5y ago
  I never said it would be worse. Just that it would happen. But I don’t think that people wanting to reshare in a digital context would bother with the work of rephrasing. They already have the opportunity to add their own thoughts to a tweet they reshare. I suspect it would be practically the same.
- Karunamon 5y ago
  Funny story; before there was a dedicated button, people did precisely this. You'd see tweets of the form "RT @Someone (their message)" The "adding context" bit didn't really happen, because quoting the tweet ate your own 140 character limit, and a viral RT is always going to get more exposure than your explanatory reply.
wott 5y ago
> people like to share things they like. People like to share things they hate, especially on the Internet of the last decade My national subreddit was a perfect example of that, most of the posts were posted by people opposing what was said in the linked article and willing others to rage about it too.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  Maybe the people you are referring to are professional trolls? At this point I have little doubt any popular website is infested with them. Globally. It's so much worse than even a decade ago
neartheplain 5y ago
>If you removed that button people would copy and paste or screenshot and share. And this already happens, often between people who've blocked one another yet want to continue the personal attacks. It's all too easy to open a blocked tweet in Incognito Mode, take a screenshot, add negative comment, and hit post.
- dionidium 5y ago
  > It's all too easy to open a blocked tweet in Incognito Mode, take a screenshot, add negative comment, and hit post. Which highlights just how confused Twitter is about what they want the "block" feature to be. As I like to say, Twitter is the only website where I get more permissions to view content if I log out. Imagine if your copy of the daily newspaper came with some stories greyed out because the authors of those stories saw something you said online once and decided they didn't like you, so now your paper comes with their stories hidden. But have no fear! You can just log out and read those stores. What a weird feature.
dionidium 5y ago
And that's fine. It would still detach that new thread entirely from the old one, so that the target of the ire wouldn't get a million notifications about how they deserve to die or whatever.

dpifke 5y ago

At least when I still used it, you could choose not to receive retweets from accounts you follow. (But it had to be set one followed account at a time.)

dionidium 5y ago

If I'm standing in a circle with you and three other people and I start talking about you like you're not there, about how what you just said is really stupid, about how I can't believe you'd ever say something like that -- we all understand why that's rude. But that's exactly how a retweet functions (and it's how a lot of twitter threads function, too (when somebody starts addressing somebody else in the thread about a third person as though they aren't present)). I try very hard not to operate my twitter presence that way and yet I catch myself doing it, too, because it's how twitter is built!