5 ms·

Comically, when I view this tweet in my browser, at the top right in the "Relevant people" box that Twitter wants me to pay attention to and follow is _another_

Comically, when I view this tweet in my browser, at the top right in the "Relevant people" box that Twitter wants me to pay attention to and follow is _another_ fake yet verified Vitalik account. Honest question: what do Twitter's army of engineers and designers actually do every day? The site is slow, the UI is god awful, and the spam is - as this tweet points - appalling.

claytongulick 4y ago
Activism.
iLoveOncall 4y ago
> what do Twitter's army of engineers and designers actually do every day? They work on more dark patterns to force you to give your phone number or to create an account to read a tweet.
- cowtools 4y ago
  Yes, as someone who does international travel and frequently switches phone numbers, dealing with phone-based 2FA """security""" is a major problem for me. At least I will not waste time on their website. I just never give my phone number out anymore, no matter what because it will be used against me. Even google is trying to hold my account hostage, luckily they have an email forwarding feature so I no longer need to log in.
sbierwagen 4y ago
>and the spam is - as this tweet points - appalling. Incentives. If the expected value of a single spam message is in the micropennies, then you have to send enormous volumes of them, which can easily be detected by automated tools. Cryptocurrency changes this. Now an account hack can net the attacker millions of dollars. This means you can send many fewer messages and invest much more time in each of them.
madeofpalk 4y ago
Heh - in the Relevant people box I've started getting people who I've blocked, and have blocked me!
iudqnolq 4y ago
My favorite example of that is that the people you might want to follow box recommends people you're following already.
- mousetree 4y ago
  You still might want to follow the people you're already following
  - cowtools 4y ago
    You might want to keep following th- WAIT COME BACK DON'T LEAVE
  - mlsu 4y ago
    I used to follow a bunch of people on Twitter. I still do, but I used to, too.
  - iudqnolq 4y ago
    I've wondered if this is supposed to convince you their algorithm is very accurate. Look, it perfectly predicts the training data!
- icehawk 4y ago
  I love it when it suggests people I've blocked. A $32 billion company and they don't realize there's no intersection between people i've blocked and people i want to follow.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
itsoktocry 4y ago
>The site is slow, the UI is god awful, and the spam is - as this tweet points - appalling. I've probably used Twitter for 1 hour+ per day, every day, for years. I hardly even notice the spam. What am I doing wrong? Is it targeting specific niches? Clearly something is working.
- paulgb 4y ago
  Nor sure why you’re being downvoted, it’s perfectly possible to never encounter this stuff on Twitter. If you encounter tweets by crypto-adjacent people (Elon Musk, etc.) or that mention crypto themes, and view the replies, you’ll easily find spam, but if you don’t do that you might never encounter it.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The key is staying away from replies, and in general staying away from “famous/popular” posts (and anything crypto adjacent).
- jay_kyburz 4y ago
  I get some notification spam. Like this. Like this https://twitter.com/mdj7282/status/1563203203490992128 https://twitter.com/mdj7282/status/1563203203490992128
wan_ala 4y ago
gnicholas 4y ago
They're building and A/B testing the new features that blocks you from using the site when you're not logged in, and force you to hand over your phone number if you want to create or use an account.
honkdaddy 4y ago
I've told this story before, but one of my college buddies is an ex-Twitter engineer and I can anecdotally answer this question. He worked about 2h/day. When he _was_ working, it was on a 5 person team whose sole job that quarter was to implement (from scratch) some JS games and stress relief activities to be played by their content moderation staff in their mandated 10min breaks every 30min. He was on the team for probably 5 months before he quit and found another job to continue coasting at, and not once in the whole 5 months did their team deliver anything tangible. From what I understood this sort of dynamic was pretty par for the course at Twitter. I imagine in 50 years companies like Twitter will be used as case studies in business school for how chronically woke-obsessed middle management and career political justice warriors had a measurable tendency to kill otherwise profitable companies in the 2010s-30s. There is just 0 financial justification for the business and management frameworks put forward by these folks, and getting to peer into the Twitter corporate chat, team makeups, hiring processes, and general political climate made it clear to me how much poor money is being spent at many of these companies, and that when the song eventually ends, I'm certainly not hoping to be the one holding the bag.

claytongulick 4y ago

Activism.

iLoveOncall 4y ago

> what do Twitter's army of engineers and designers actually do every day? They work on more dark patterns to force you to give your phone number or to create an account to read a tweet.

cowtools 4y ago
Yes, as someone who does international travel and frequently switches phone numbers, dealing with phone-based 2FA """security""" is a major problem for me. At least I will not waste time on their website. I just never give my phone number out anymore, no matter what because it will be used against me. Even google is trying to hold my account hostage, luckily they have an email forwarding feature so I no longer need to log in.

sbierwagen 4y ago

>and the spam is - as this tweet points - appalling. Incentives. If the expected value of a single spam message is in the micropennies, then you have to send enormous volumes of them, which can easily be detected by automated tools. Cryptocurrency changes this. Now an account hack can net the attacker millions of dollars. This means you can send many fewer messages and invest much more time in each of them.

madeofpalk 4y ago

Heh - in the Relevant people box I've started getting people who I've blocked, and have blocked me!

iudqnolq 4y ago

My favorite example of that is that the people you might want to follow box recommends people you're following already.

mousetree 4y ago
You still might want to follow the people you're already following
- cowtools 4y ago
  You might want to keep following th- WAIT COME BACK DON'T LEAVE
- mlsu 4y ago
  I used to follow a bunch of people on Twitter. I still do, but I used to, too.
- iudqnolq 4y ago
  I've wondered if this is supposed to convince you their algorithm is very accurate. Look, it perfectly predicts the training data!
icehawk 4y ago
I love it when it suggests people I've blocked. A $32 billion company and they don't realize there's no intersection between people i've blocked and people i want to follow.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

itsoktocry 4y ago

>The site is slow, the UI is god awful, and the spam is - as this tweet points - appalling. I've probably used Twitter for 1 hour+ per day, every day, for years. I hardly even notice the spam. What am I doing wrong? Is it targeting specific niches? Clearly something is working.

paulgb 4y ago
Nor sure why you’re being downvoted, it’s perfectly possible to never encounter this stuff on Twitter. If you encounter tweets by crypto-adjacent people (Elon Musk, etc.) or that mention crypto themes, and view the replies, you’ll easily find spam, but if you don’t do that you might never encounter it.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The key is staying away from replies, and in general staying away from “famous/popular” posts (and anything crypto adjacent).
jay_kyburz 4y ago
I get some notification spam. Like this. Like this https://twitter.com/mdj7282/status/1563203203490992128 https://twitter.com/mdj7282/status/1563203203490992128

wan_ala 4y ago

gnicholas 4y ago

They're building and A/B testing the new features that blocks you from using the site when you're not logged in, and force you to hand over your phone number if you want to create or use an account.

honkdaddy 4y ago

I've told this story before, but one of my college buddies is an ex-Twitter engineer and I can anecdotally answer this question. He worked about 2h/day. When he _was_ working, it was on a 5 person team whose sole job that quarter was to implement (from scratch) some JS games and stress relief activities to be played by their content moderation staff in their mandated 10min breaks every 30min. He was on the team for probably 5 months before he quit and found another job to continue coasting at, and not once in the whole 5 months did their team deliver anything tangible. From what I understood this sort of dynamic was pretty par for the course at Twitter. I imagine in 50 years companies like Twitter will be used as case studies in business school for how chronically woke-obsessed middle management and career political justice warriors had a measurable tendency to kill otherwise profitable companies in the 2010s-30s. There is just 0 financial justification for the business and management frameworks put forward by these folks, and getting to peer into the Twitter corporate chat, team makeups, hiring processes, and general political climate made it clear to me how much poor money is being spent at many of these companies, and that when the song eventually ends, I'm certainly not hoping to be the one holding the bag.