I can't say I understand his reasoning. As I see it, the most toxic part of Twitter "debates" is harassment from hundreds or thousands of pilot fish, not the number of likes on the shark's tweet.
I can't say I understand his reasoning. As I see it, the most toxic part of Twitter "debates" is harassment from hundreds or thousands of pilot fish, not the number of likes on the shark's tweet.
They need more tools than just mute and block, and they need to be more proactive on verification and bot-banning. At this point, the most interesting problem is no longer scaling up...
They need more tools than just mute and block, and they need to be more proactive on verification and bot-banning. At this point, the most interesting problem is no longer scaling up infrastructure and design/architecture of code because it's been done with Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Google. Now the most interesting problem is defense against bots and against automation of harmful behaviour. Email spam is/was a huge problem but we developed both technical and legal tools to punish that bad behaviour and disincentivize it.
Twitter, Facebook, etc. should be hosting a competition with an open data set showing millions of posts/tweets and other features of them such as IP address, time of posting, etc. so that other developers can try and tackle the technical problem.
What if the solution is just to have SpamAssassin work for social media and having a distributed blocklist maintained by Twitter, Facebook and various governments, companies and non-profits?
It's an offensive, tongue-in-cheek term, but the issue is not really bots, it's "weaponized autism" - if you somehow cross (or somehow get the attention of, i.e. Sandy Hook families) certain...
It's an offensive, tongue-in-cheek term, but the issue is not really bots, it's "weaponized autism" - if you somehow cross (or somehow get the attention of, i.e. Sandy Hook families) certain categories of Twitter/social media celebrity, their followers will make your real life miserable. You could look at both of the recent right-wing terror attacks (MAGAbomber and Pittsburgh shooter) as extreme examples of this, though the issue isn't confined to the right-wing. The platform is intrinsically linked to the problem, but the issue transcends the platform.
to say this is a bad idea is probably understating it, to say the least. likes can't really be replicated by any other of twitter's current functionalities, which basically means they're...
to say this is a bad idea is probably understating it, to say the least. likes can't really be replicated by any other of twitter's current functionalities, which basically means they're disappearing a feature, probably in the name of some cynical bullshit numbers game involving user engagement. the ostensible reason here they give is bullshit most likely, and if it isn't is the most delusional, tech bro libertarian garbage i think i've ever heard. debate on twitter is about as useful for the collective of human intelligence as lighting a library on fire with a molotov, and removing likes is not suddenly going to address any of the massive fucking problems the website has--but i guess that stuff's not impacting their bottom line yet.
i greatly dislike basically all the twitter clones that currently exist, but i've never been more tempted to just fuck off and use mastodon. it's a petty reason, sure, but it really personifies everything wrong with twitter and a lot of social media websites in general, and at some point you just can't rationalize away the dumpster fire. twitter has been trending in a bad direction for a long time, and at some point there's just nothing to gain from being super active on it anymore.
Twitter will never be a place for reasonable place for discussion because it's one distinguishing feature - really short posts - means that no actual deep discussion is possible short of the...
Twitter will never be a place for reasonable place for discussion because it's one distinguishing feature - really short posts - means that no actual deep discussion is possible short of the people willing to post 20 tweet threads which is stupid as hell.
I agree that this is a terrible idea. You can't have very good debate when you are limited to 280 characters without having 20-part Tweets (which nobody bothers to read, or if they do, they take...
I agree that this is a terrible idea. You can't have very good debate when you are limited to 280 characters without having 20-part Tweets (which nobody bothers to read, or if they do, they take advantage of it to attack one point or take it out of context). Even if they had unlimited message length, I feel that Twitter (the site, not the company) has a "culture" (if that's the appropriate word) of hot-takes that don't require much effort, so trying to force people to engage on a more intellectual level is a fruitless endeavor (they would have needed to never have it to begin with to encourage real discussion, IMO). I don't go to Twitter to debate people, I go there to see a few memes, get stream notifications for some people I like on Twitch, and see Trump air his dirty laundry.
Even though the like button doesn't encourage real discussion, the alternative is either people not engaging at all (which looks really bad to investors), or saying stuff like "this", "I agree", "sums it up", "same", and "what they said" because people are lazy and won't bother typing out their own thoughts if they mostly or completely agree with someone else. The like button offers a bit of a straw poll as to who has more people agreeing with them, though later replies are at a disadvantage.
This also doesn't stop the problem of other people ganging up on a person and ad homineming them.
If this is actually something they're considering, I don't think they understand the different ways people use "likes." Putting them potentially at odds with "healthy conversation" seems so weird...
If this is actually something they're considering, I don't think they understand the different ways people use "likes." Putting them potentially at odds with "healthy conversation" seems so weird to me.
Personally, I often use "likes" to convey things to people I interact with on Twitter, like "hey, I saw this thing and read it and identified with it or liked it in some way." Or I use it in a conversation thread, to mean "thanks for your response, I read it but have nothing to add."
as mentioned upthread by @Miroona, twitter seems to be neither confirming nor denying the possibility of removing the feature, although additional reporting seems to have dispelled the idea of...
as mentioned upthread by @Miroona, twitter seems to be neither confirming nor denying the possibility of removing the feature, although additional reporting seems to have dispelled the idea of removing likes being a definite thing and happening "soon" like the OP article i posted seems to imply. they definitely don't seem to know how people use likes, though, yeah. i think they're trying to bolster the bookmarks feature as a pseudo-replacement for it, but bookmarks kinda suck and as far as i know they're a private thing so there's no interaction involved, which would severely inhibit it as a replacement to the current like feature.
Seems like it isn't actually planned to happen "soon" (or at least they don't want to commit to it): https://twitter.com/bborrman/status/1056915020422860800 I think I'll edit this post's...
I was not able to find another source beyond the Telegraph link nor was I able to access the full version of the article running it through Archive.org or various Firefox extensions. That being...
I was not able to find another source beyond the Telegraph link nor was I able to access the full version of the article running it through Archive.org or various Firefox extensions.
Update: In a statement, Twitter neither confirmed nor denied the report, adding that it was indeed in the process of rethinking "everything." It said, "As we've been saying for a while, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing healthy conversation, that includes the like button. We are in the early stages of the work and have no plans to share right now."
I think they think of how people use Twitter differently than I do. The service has always struck me as having a bit of a one-to-many relationship in that a celebrity individual or organization of interest can post something and have it disseminated to many people. It's something one subscribes to so it becomes a feed, rather than a conversation. It's a tool of promotion rather than discussion.
I understand people can use it differently but overall, firing short bursts of 1-2 liners is a format that doesn't encourage reciprocal discussion of any kind; in my mind, it actually discourages it.
I can't say I understand his reasoning. As I see it, the most toxic part of Twitter "debates" is harassment from hundreds or thousands of pilot fish, not the number of likes on the shark's tweet.
They need more tools than just mute and block, and they need to be more proactive on verification and bot-banning. At this point, the most interesting problem is no longer scaling up infrastructure and design/architecture of code because it's been done with Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Google. Now the most interesting problem is defense against bots and against automation of harmful behaviour. Email spam is/was a huge problem but we developed both technical and legal tools to punish that bad behaviour and disincentivize it.
Twitter, Facebook, etc. should be hosting a competition with an open data set showing millions of posts/tweets and other features of them such as IP address, time of posting, etc. so that other developers can try and tackle the technical problem.
What if the solution is just to have SpamAssassin work for social media and having a distributed blocklist maintained by Twitter, Facebook and various governments, companies and non-profits?
It's an offensive, tongue-in-cheek term, but the issue is not really bots, it's "weaponized autism" - if you somehow cross (or somehow get the attention of, i.e. Sandy Hook families) certain categories of Twitter/social media celebrity, their followers will make your real life miserable. You could look at both of the recent right-wing terror attacks (MAGAbomber and Pittsburgh shooter) as extreme examples of this, though the issue isn't confined to the right-wing. The platform is intrinsically linked to the problem, but the issue transcends the platform.
That's a good point, though maybe I made a Freudian slip and want to see the social media outlets go away? ;p
to say this is a bad idea is probably understating it, to say the least. likes can't really be replicated by any other of twitter's current functionalities, which basically means they're disappearing a feature, probably in the name of some cynical bullshit numbers game involving user engagement. the ostensible reason here they give is bullshit most likely, and if it isn't is the most delusional, tech bro libertarian garbage i think i've ever heard. debate on twitter is about as useful for the collective of human intelligence as lighting a library on fire with a molotov, and removing likes is not suddenly going to address any of the massive fucking problems the website has--but i guess that stuff's not impacting their bottom line yet.
i greatly dislike basically all the twitter clones that currently exist, but i've never been more tempted to just fuck off and use mastodon. it's a petty reason, sure, but it really personifies everything wrong with twitter and a lot of social media websites in general, and at some point you just can't rationalize away the dumpster fire. twitter has been trending in a bad direction for a long time, and at some point there's just nothing to gain from being super active on it anymore.
Twitter will never be a place for reasonable place for discussion because it's one distinguishing feature - really short posts - means that no actual deep discussion is possible short of the people willing to post 20 tweet threads which is stupid as hell.
I agree that this is a terrible idea. You can't have very good debate when you are limited to 280 characters without having 20-part Tweets (which nobody bothers to read, or if they do, they take advantage of it to attack one point or take it out of context). Even if they had unlimited message length, I feel that Twitter (the site, not the company) has a "culture" (if that's the appropriate word) of hot-takes that don't require much effort, so trying to force people to engage on a more intellectual level is a fruitless endeavor (they would have needed to never have it to begin with to encourage real discussion, IMO). I don't go to Twitter to debate people, I go there to see a few memes, get stream notifications for some people I like on Twitch, and see Trump air his dirty laundry.
Even though the like button doesn't encourage real discussion, the alternative is either people not engaging at all (which looks really bad to investors), or saying stuff like "this", "I agree", "sums it up", "same", and "what they said" because people are lazy and won't bother typing out their own thoughts if they mostly or completely agree with someone else. The like button offers a bit of a straw poll as to who has more people agreeing with them, though later replies are at a disadvantage.
This also doesn't stop the problem of other people ganging up on a person and ad homineming them.
If this is actually something they're considering, I don't think they understand the different ways people use "likes." Putting them potentially at odds with "healthy conversation" seems so weird to me.
Personally, I often use "likes" to convey things to people I interact with on Twitter, like "hey, I saw this thing and read it and identified with it or liked it in some way." Or I use it in a conversation thread, to mean "thanks for your response, I read it but have nothing to add."
as mentioned upthread by @Miroona, twitter seems to be neither confirming nor denying the possibility of removing the feature, although additional reporting seems to have dispelled the idea of removing likes being a definite thing and happening "soon" like the OP article i posted seems to imply. they definitely don't seem to know how people use likes, though, yeah. i think they're trying to bolster the bookmarks feature as a pseudo-replacement for it, but bookmarks kinda suck and as far as i know they're a private thing so there's no interaction involved, which would severely inhibit it as a replacement to the current like feature.
I use likes to bookmark tweets. I often go back and search my likes to find tweets more easily.
Seems like it isn't actually planned to happen "soon" (or at least they don't want to commit to it): https://twitter.com/bborrman/status/1056915020422860800
I think I'll edit this post's title/link to something more current, since it seems like the Telegraph story is being denied.
Does anyone have the article in full?
I was not able to find another source beyond the Telegraph link nor was I able to access the full version of the article running it through Archive.org or various Firefox extensions.
That being said, Slashdot has this tidbit to add:
I think they think of how people use Twitter differently than I do. The service has always struck me as having a bit of a one-to-many relationship in that a celebrity individual or organization of interest can post something and have it disseminated to many people. It's something one subscribes to so it becomes a feed, rather than a conversation. It's a tool of promotion rather than discussion.
I understand people can use it differently but overall, firing short bursts of 1-2 liners is a format that doesn't encourage reciprocal discussion of any kind; in my mind, it actually discourages it.