5 ms·

Twitter has a fundamental problem Facebook solved years ago

15 points by nols 12y ago

michaelpinto 12y ago
mostly anon user base + limited space to communicate = flaming
hkmurakami 12y ago
They attribute the stagnant user growth to an anymore users, yet how much would their user base outright shrink if they went real ID only a la Google+? As a correlary, now that they are public, which is more important to Twitter: user growth metrics or growth in meaningful engagement on the platform?
whoopdedo 12y ago
Does that 88% statistic normalize for amount of traffic? There may be more mean things said on Twitter, but doesn't a tweet also generate more comments than a Facebook post? From the cited Kick It Out study: As Facebook has the highest number of gated profiles, the amount of authors tracked from that network is significantly lower than Twitter. So they're comparing oranges with apple pie. I almost wonder if there's some stealth advertising here in that "Twitter is 88% better than Facebook at giving your product social media exposure." Also, when did "troll" come to mean saying something negative? It used to be for people intentionally starting arguments for the sake of being argumentative. But now it's become a generic way to nullify an opinion you don't like by saying "you're a troll" to anyone who disagrees with you.
- saurik 12y ago
  I would be highly surprised if Twitter posts got more comments. I have had tweets of mine "trending" in the past, and I would estimate (based on how quickly and how often on those days I'd burn through the 800 recent mention window; I have more exact stats, but I just want an estimate here) I was getting mere thousands of responses. I routinely see Facebook posts with thousands of comments. Essentially every single post to the Stargate Universe has thousands of comments. On Facebook, comments matter: you aren't just mumbling into the void. Facebook surfaces comments of high value so that people viewing the post see them, and makes certain that people you are sort of connected with see your comments. On Twitter, your responses are only seen by people who follow both you and the account to which you are responding, making it so effectively no one ever sees what you said. This means that Facebook comments are first off more interesting to post as a commenter, and secondly more "viral" and can lead more people to your brand. You also, and this to me is the killer issue with this statistic, are able to moderate comments on Facebook: the only place where a person is able to say things is a post on their own timeline; comments that are horrible are under the control of someone who is unlikely to be, at least in that moment, equally horrible, and who are incentivized to make their content not look horrible.
marvel_boy 12y ago
"[...]88% of trolls are on Twitter." And this is the reason of stalled growing of the platform. Anom users is a recipe for disaster.
- wiml 12y ago
  "Anom users is a recipe for disaster", says someone known only as "marvel_boy". I've always been pretty skeptical of the "anonymity causes bad behavior, non-anonymity causes good behavior" theory, especially since the supporting argument usually consists only of a link to a Penny Arcade comic. Certainly some of the best and most humane communities I've been part of have been largely anonymous or pseudonymous, and some of the most vitriolically toxic have been tied to peoples' other (persistent and supposedly "realer") identities.
  - amagumori 12y ago
    anonymous communities tend towards being a cesspool after they reach a certain size. small anonymous communities are often great
    - walterbell 12y ago
      depends on moderation algo, see HN
      - amagumori 12y ago
        true enough. *unmoderated communities of a certain size
- realusername 12y ago
  Anonymous users (nicknames) worked quite well for Reddit, this problem also depends on other factors I guess.
  - Retra 12y ago
    These are the two most important variables in my (personal) experience: Average age of user. Average word count of posts. Raise these (up to a point) and you'll get better content. Lower them, and you'll get worse.
krschultz 12y ago
I think one of the basic optimizations that Twitter could implement would be to implement opt-in real identity and filtering. I use my real name on twitter. I also use my real face. If I could check a box that basically said 'filter out anyone not doing the same', Twitter would be a much kinder place from my perspective. If not that, I would even take a filter that cut out all accounts less than a certain age (not user age, I'm talking about account creation date). Most of the trolls are on brand new accounts that are a few hours/days old, and have few followers. "Don't feed the trolls" puts the onus on the victim to constrain their reactions after being trolled. But "don't give the trolls any attention" is very workable. If I don't hear/see the trolls, then they may as well not exist. I think knowing that you are not actually trolling anyone will reduce a lot of the trolling.
- zimbatm 12y ago
  Real name is a simplification. It assumes that users are less likely to misbehave because they can't change their identity. This is also true for other systems where users can invest value into their accounts but still have the option of anonymity. HN is an example of those. Also, bullies tend to be bullies regardless of the rules.
vinceguidry 12y ago
You can't win on this. Facebook recently came under fire explicitly for their real name policy. Actually, they come under fire a lot for this, we just kinda forget about it until someone new decides to make an issue of it. Anonymity is very useful to a certain kind of person, those whom individuals, call them criminals, are motivated to attack. But bullies themselves will use the tools of anonymity to ply their trade with impunity. You can't have it both ways. If you need anonymity, your only recourse is to stay off of Facebook. Plenty of people have tried to keep their anonymity on Facebook, only to get outed by their huge data engine. I would love to be able to find a happy medium, but at present it doesn't look like there is one. There's some hope that pseudonymity can give people the best of both worlds, but unfortunately does not protect against bullies. The difference I can see is that bullies are unmotivated negative users, that simply need dissuasion from doing what they would otherwise do naturally, whereas the people that truly need anonymity need protection against motivated negative users, criminals, who will find a way to attack the person they want to attack regardless of policy. I can't imagine a policy that can usefully protect against both types of bad actors. Maybe there is one, I dunno. But vilifying the social networks themselves is definitely not the solution. We don't have any idea what they should be doing, so it's unhelpful to lump more hatred onto them.
- zimbatm 12y ago
  I don't think that Facebook asks for real names to prevent bullying. It's a policy to help advertising metrics and create a community rooted in the real world. Bullying happens regardless of those rules anyways. The biggest issue with Twitter is that their system doesn't encourage positive behavior. On HN, Reddit and other forum software value is added to an anonymous identity over time and with the involvement of it's user. Mechanisms like votes are in place to provide a feedback to the user. Account ranking and age gives you credence. It's still possible for users to commit social suicide but it becomes less likely once the account has been padded with history. Twitter on the other hand has two metrics: following and followers.
halisaurus 12y ago
Twitter can fix this with an existing feature that has perceived value to the user base: Open up being a "Verified User" to anyone who uses a real name (or otherwise proves a real identity). Then, allow all users to filter notifications/replies/viewable tweets by whether or not someone is verified. It doesn't remove the option to be anonymous, but others can limit their interaction with anons if they choose. (They could even charge for verification I suppose.) I'm sure plenty of "regular" people (i.e. non-celebrities) would verify themselves for the blue check mark. To date it's been reserved for select users and gained a value on Twitter. They could capitalize on that here very easily. E: typo.
- mikeash 12y ago
  I imagine they would want separate tiers to deal with collisions. "Yes this is my name" is different from "yes I am that well known person." In short, you'd still want to distinguish between a famous no-talent ass-clown and a random office worker of the same name. (And I'll admit it, I mainly posted this comment so I could make the Office Space joke.)
hellbanTHIS 12y ago
>The answer is "real identity." Oh boy here we go. Anybody who's ever followed a Drudge link to a news site that uses Facebook comments knows that isn't true. The Internet is inherently toxic. Right now we're all like Marie Curie fascinated by this glowing thing we found but eventually we'll figure out that although you can do amazing things with it prolonged exposure will kill you.
- makomk 12y ago
  Some people have enough influence that they can often pressure employers into sacking people who say offensive things. For them, real names are a huge benefit because they know who to try and get sacked. It's not so much of a win for anyone who doesn't have that kind of power, but fortunately no-one listens to their views anyway. Basically, there's a kind of structural problem where the "solutions" that get the most press are the ones that benefit the powerful, because they're the people driving the discussion.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
aestetix 12y ago
Another round of this crap. You know who loses when a "real" names policy is enforced? Native Americans, domestic abuse survivors, anyone who wants to express a political opinion without risking their job (or in some countries, their life), people asking intimate questions about sex, and many more. You know who wins? Data brokers who want to buy your data from Facebook. Provide me with evidence that using a "fake" name makes you more likely to cause abuse, and I'll eat these words.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- coderdude 12y ago
  Have you ever played an online game or seen a 40 minute old throwaway account used to attack someone? Fake email addresses to send hate mail. Twilio numbers used to call and harass people. If someone feels like they can deliver abuse anonymously then they're certainly more likely to do so. What I bet you haven't seen is a verified Twitter account used to torture poor souls.
  - aestetix 12y ago
    >Have you ever played an online game or seen a 40 minute old throwaway account used to attack someone? Fake email addresses to send hate mail. Not sure how forcing a legal name is involved with online games, but the others can be solved by simply ignoring the troll. > Twilio numbers used to call and harass people. And if this creeps into legal harassment, I'm sure the person receiving the calls can work with Twilio and law enforcement. > If someone feels like they can deliver abuse anonymously then they're certainly more likely to do so. This is a conclusion provided without evidence. I can easily send someone a bunch of anonymous hate mail using a number of services, but I don't. > What I bet you haven't seen is a verified Twitter account used to torture poor souls. I beg your pardon. Ted Cruz has a verified Twitter account, and I find every word he says to be torture.
    - coderdude 12y ago
      Okay, simply ignore the troll. But that isn't what you asked. You wanted to know if "using a "fake" name makes you more likely to cause abuse" so are you ignoring the obvious cases where it's true or are you actually asking for someone to post links to PDFs where people did studies on it? I'm not saying that any ol' individual will be abusive given anonymity. I'm asserting that more abuse happens when people feel they are anonymous. This isn't a novel concept that I just came up with. >I beg your pardon. Ted Cruz has a verified Twitter account, and I find every word he says to be torture. Can you at least cite some examples?
RexRollman 12y ago
The title is misleading because Facebook hasn't solved anything, unless you felt the world was missing a self-surveillance system.
toast0 12y ago
As someone with a common name, I don't really see how real names help. Is it me, or the guy who lives about 15 houses away with the same name (seriously, although I don't know him, he shows up on the people sites), or the famous author. I could be an asshole online with my real name and have no problems. I learned early however that if you cause the right amount of trouble, the internet connection is turned off.
mandeepj 12y ago
I think the reason why this "fundamental problem" is existing on one social network and white not on other lies on how these two apps are structured. On facebook, there are two modes of creating your presence - personal page and business page. You have choice to approve or reject new friend request or kick an existing friend if s\he is causing any trouble. I don't have official data about trolls on business pages but I am sure it exists there. Contrary to this, on twitter anyone can start following you and wage a war against you. You can unfollow your followers but how many you will do? To avoid any harassment on twitter either users can share their tweets only with their particular lists or have a moderation on who is following them.
A_COMPUTER 12y ago
there is a big problem with harassment on Twitter, but this is capitulation to only one aggrieved group. At least twice Rickey Gervais has tweeted pictures of young women hunters next to their game that has resulted in widespread death threats and harassment of the women. During the Suey Park #CancelColbert thing, I watched as one of her friends systematically told everybody replying to her to "die in a fire", "drink bleach", "kill yourself", and then when someone said the same thing to Park, Park declared she was getting death threats. This is just going to be another system abused to shut one group of people up while another group does the same shit with impunity. The evidence is all there. Just recently I saw an argument about this on "The Mary Sue" where one person demanded proof that the other side of an Internet flame war was also getting death threats. When it was proven, the person declared that because the death threats against these people were not the result of oppression, they mattered less, and talking about them was "derailing the discussion." This is about ideology, not about a general concern for human safety. Some people being harassed don't count.

15 points by nols 12y ago

mostly anon user base + limited space to communicate = flaming

They attribute the stagnant user growth to an anymore users, yet how much would their user base outright shrink if they went real ID only a la Google+? As a correlary, now that they are public, which is more important to Twitter: user growth metrics or growth in meaningful engagement on the platform?

whoopdedo 12y ago

Does that 88% statistic normalize for amount of traffic? There may be more mean things said on Twitter, but doesn't a tweet also generate more comments than a Facebook post? From the cited Kick It Out study: As Facebook has the highest number of gated profiles, the amount of authors tracked from that network is significantly lower than Twitter. So they're comparing oranges with apple pie. I almost wonder if there's some stealth advertising here in that "Twitter is 88% better than Facebook at giving your product social media exposure." Also, when did "troll" come to mean saying something negative? It used to be for people intentionally starting arguments for the sake of being argumentative. But now it's become a generic way to nullify an opinion you don't like by saying "you're a troll" to anyone who disagrees with you.

saurik 12y ago
I would be highly surprised if Twitter posts got more comments. I have had tweets of mine "trending" in the past, and I would estimate (based on how quickly and how often on those days I'd burn through the 800 recent mention window; I have more exact stats, but I just want an estimate here) I was getting mere thousands of responses. I routinely see Facebook posts with thousands of comments. Essentially every single post to the Stargate Universe has thousands of comments. On Facebook, comments matter: you aren't just mumbling into the void. Facebook surfaces comments of high value so that people viewing the post see them, and makes certain that people you are sort of connected with see your comments. On Twitter, your responses are only seen by people who follow both you and the account to which you are responding, making it so effectively no one ever sees what you said. This means that Facebook comments are first off more interesting to post as a commenter, and secondly more "viral" and can lead more people to your brand. You also, and this to me is the killer issue with this statistic, are able to moderate comments on Facebook: the only place where a person is able to say things is a post on their own timeline; comments that are horrible are under the control of someone who is unlikely to be, at least in that moment, equally horrible, and who are incentivized to make their content not look horrible.

marvel_boy 12y ago

"[...]88% of trolls are on Twitter." And this is the reason of stalled growing of the platform. Anom users is a recipe for disaster.

wiml 12y ago
"Anom users is a recipe for disaster", says someone known only as "marvel_boy". I've always been pretty skeptical of the "anonymity causes bad behavior, non-anonymity causes good behavior" theory, especially since the supporting argument usually consists only of a link to a Penny Arcade comic. Certainly some of the best and most humane communities I've been part of have been largely anonymous or pseudonymous, and some of the most vitriolically toxic have been tied to peoples' other (persistent and supposedly "realer") identities.
- amagumori 12y ago
  anonymous communities tend towards being a cesspool after they reach a certain size. small anonymous communities are often great
  - walterbell 12y ago
    depends on moderation algo, see HN
    - amagumori 12y ago
      true enough. *unmoderated communities of a certain size
realusername 12y ago
Anonymous users (nicknames) worked quite well for Reddit, this problem also depends on other factors I guess.
- Retra 12y ago
  These are the two most important variables in my (personal) experience: Average age of user. Average word count of posts. Raise these (up to a point) and you'll get better content. Lower them, and you'll get worse.

krschultz 12y ago

I think one of the basic optimizations that Twitter could implement would be to implement opt-in real identity and filtering. I use my real name on twitter. I also use my real face. If I could check a box that basically said 'filter out anyone not doing the same', Twitter would be a much kinder place from my perspective. If not that, I would even take a filter that cut out all accounts less than a certain age (not user age, I'm talking about account creation date). Most of the trolls are on brand new accounts that are a few hours/days old, and have few followers. "Don't feed the trolls" puts the onus on the victim to constrain their reactions after being trolled. But "don't give the trolls any attention" is very workable. If I don't hear/see the trolls, then they may as well not exist. I think knowing that you are not actually trolling anyone will reduce a lot of the trolling.

zimbatm 12y ago
Real name is a simplification. It assumes that users are less likely to misbehave because they can't change their identity. This is also true for other systems where users can invest value into their accounts but still have the option of anonymity. HN is an example of those. Also, bullies tend to be bullies regardless of the rules.

vinceguidry 12y ago

You can't win on this. Facebook recently came under fire explicitly for their real name policy. Actually, they come under fire a lot for this, we just kinda forget about it until someone new decides to make an issue of it. Anonymity is very useful to a certain kind of person, those whom individuals, call them criminals, are motivated to attack. But bullies themselves will use the tools of anonymity to ply their trade with impunity. You can't have it both ways. If you need anonymity, your only recourse is to stay off of Facebook. Plenty of people have tried to keep their anonymity on Facebook, only to get outed by their huge data engine. I would love to be able to find a happy medium, but at present it doesn't look like there is one. There's some hope that pseudonymity can give people the best of both worlds, but unfortunately does not protect against bullies. The difference I can see is that bullies are unmotivated negative users, that simply need dissuasion from doing what they would otherwise do naturally, whereas the people that truly need anonymity need protection against motivated negative users, criminals, who will find a way to attack the person they want to attack regardless of policy. I can't imagine a policy that can usefully protect against both types of bad actors. Maybe there is one, I dunno. But vilifying the social networks themselves is definitely not the solution. We don't have any idea what they should be doing, so it's unhelpful to lump more hatred onto them.

zimbatm 12y ago
I don't think that Facebook asks for real names to prevent bullying. It's a policy to help advertising metrics and create a community rooted in the real world. Bullying happens regardless of those rules anyways. The biggest issue with Twitter is that their system doesn't encourage positive behavior. On HN, Reddit and other forum software value is added to an anonymous identity over time and with the involvement of it's user. Mechanisms like votes are in place to provide a feedback to the user. Account ranking and age gives you credence. It's still possible for users to commit social suicide but it becomes less likely once the account has been padded with history. Twitter on the other hand has two metrics: following and followers.

halisaurus 12y ago

Twitter can fix this with an existing feature that has perceived value to the user base: Open up being a "Verified User" to anyone who uses a real name (or otherwise proves a real identity). Then, allow all users to filter notifications/replies/viewable tweets by whether or not someone is verified. It doesn't remove the option to be anonymous, but others can limit their interaction with anons if they choose. (They could even charge for verification I suppose.) I'm sure plenty of "regular" people (i.e. non-celebrities) would verify themselves for the blue check mark. To date it's been reserved for select users and gained a value on Twitter. They could capitalize on that here very easily. E: typo.

mikeash 12y ago
I imagine they would want separate tiers to deal with collisions. "Yes this is my name" is different from "yes I am that well known person." In short, you'd still want to distinguish between a famous no-talent ass-clown and a random office worker of the same name. (And I'll admit it, I mainly posted this comment so I could make the Office Space joke.)

hellbanTHIS 12y ago

>The answer is "real identity." Oh boy here we go. Anybody who's ever followed a Drudge link to a news site that uses Facebook comments knows that isn't true. The Internet is inherently toxic. Right now we're all like Marie Curie fascinated by this glowing thing we found but eventually we'll figure out that although you can do amazing things with it prolonged exposure will kill you.

makomk 12y ago
Some people have enough influence that they can often pressure employers into sacking people who say offensive things. For them, real names are a huge benefit because they know who to try and get sacked. It's not so much of a win for anyone who doesn't have that kind of power, but fortunately no-one listens to their views anyway. Basically, there's a kind of structural problem where the "solutions" that get the most press are the ones that benefit the powerful, because they're the people driving the discussion.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

aestetix 12y ago

Another round of this crap. You know who loses when a "real" names policy is enforced? Native Americans, domestic abuse survivors, anyone who wants to express a political opinion without risking their job (or in some countries, their life), people asking intimate questions about sex, and many more. You know who wins? Data brokers who want to buy your data from Facebook. Provide me with evidence that using a "fake" name makes you more likely to cause abuse, and I'll eat these words.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
coderdude 12y ago
Have you ever played an online game or seen a 40 minute old throwaway account used to attack someone? Fake email addresses to send hate mail. Twilio numbers used to call and harass people. If someone feels like they can deliver abuse anonymously then they're certainly more likely to do so. What I bet you haven't seen is a verified Twitter account used to torture poor souls.
- aestetix 12y ago
  >Have you ever played an online game or seen a 40 minute old throwaway account used to attack someone? Fake email addresses to send hate mail. Not sure how forcing a legal name is involved with online games, but the others can be solved by simply ignoring the troll. > Twilio numbers used to call and harass people. And if this creeps into legal harassment, I'm sure the person receiving the calls can work with Twilio and law enforcement. > If someone feels like they can deliver abuse anonymously then they're certainly more likely to do so. This is a conclusion provided without evidence. I can easily send someone a bunch of anonymous hate mail using a number of services, but I don't. > What I bet you haven't seen is a verified Twitter account used to torture poor souls. I beg your pardon. Ted Cruz has a verified Twitter account, and I find every word he says to be torture.
  - coderdude 12y ago
    Okay, simply ignore the troll. But that isn't what you asked. You wanted to know if "using a "fake" name makes you more likely to cause abuse" so are you ignoring the obvious cases where it's true or are you actually asking for someone to post links to PDFs where people did studies on it? I'm not saying that any ol' individual will be abusive given anonymity. I'm asserting that more abuse happens when people feel they are anonymous. This isn't a novel concept that I just came up with. >I beg your pardon. Ted Cruz has a verified Twitter account, and I find every word he says to be torture. Can you at least cite some examples?

RexRollman 12y ago

The title is misleading because Facebook hasn't solved anything, unless you felt the world was missing a self-surveillance system.

toast0 12y ago

As someone with a common name, I don't really see how real names help. Is it me, or the guy who lives about 15 houses away with the same name (seriously, although I don't know him, he shows up on the people sites), or the famous author. I could be an asshole online with my real name and have no problems. I learned early however that if you cause the right amount of trouble, the internet connection is turned off.

mandeepj 12y ago

I think the reason why this "fundamental problem" is existing on one social network and white not on other lies on how these two apps are structured. On facebook, there are two modes of creating your presence - personal page and business page. You have choice to approve or reject new friend request or kick an existing friend if s\he is causing any trouble. I don't have official data about trolls on business pages but I am sure it exists there. Contrary to this, on twitter anyone can start following you and wage a war against you. You can unfollow your followers but how many you will do? To avoid any harassment on twitter either users can share their tweets only with their particular lists or have a moderation on who is following them.

A_COMPUTER 12y ago

there is a big problem with harassment on Twitter, but this is capitulation to only one aggrieved group. At least twice Rickey Gervais has tweeted pictures of young women hunters next to their game that has resulted in widespread death threats and harassment of the women. During the Suey Park #CancelColbert thing, I watched as one of her friends systematically told everybody replying to her to "die in a fire", "drink bleach", "kill yourself", and then when someone said the same thing to Park, Park declared she was getting death threats. This is just going to be another system abused to shut one group of people up while another group does the same shit with impunity. The evidence is all there. Just recently I saw an argument about this on "The Mary Sue" where one person demanded proof that the other side of an Internet flame war was also getting death threats. When it was proven, the person declared that because the death threats against these people were not the result of oppression, they mattered less, and talking about them was "derailing the discussion." This is about ideology, not about a general concern for human safety. Some people being harassed don't count.