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Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

nytimes.com

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Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#281

Post by foldr »

sumedh wrote: post #206
SapphireSun wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing from a business perspective, but at a certain point ethical questions arise. Should Twitter give a world shakingly powerful lier an unfiltered platform to the public? If he had to go through the press, everything he said would be filtered by editors and fact checkers. Incredible business opportunity, but frankly, the fate of the world is in part being determined by Twitter's granting him a platform. I ca…

> Should Twitter give a world shakingly powerful lier an unfiltered platform to the public? All Politicians lie. Twitter is not in the business of being a fact checker.

Not all politicians retweet white supremacists, though.

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#282

Post by legodt »

DanBC wrote: post #265
the8472 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> harassment I do wonder if this word is even appropriate to the situation. Using twitter seems akin to stepping on a soap box on the town square and shouting every single word you say. Maybe nobody will pay attention to you. Or maybe you'll get a crowd of people who think favorably of you. Maybe someone else will step on his own box and have a conversation with you, but still there for everyone to hear. And it goes…

> maybe just because you're too loud. This would be the risk if you stepped on a box of a real place. Or maybe just because you're Jewish. https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/sentencing-remarks-of... > You have to realize that the mob shouting you down probably doesn't really mean to attack a person. It is verbally attacking a public speaker on the city plaza. You get treated akin to an unpopular politician, not a…

I don't know if you got the memo, but HN has a pretty strong voting block of alt-right (neo-nazi) sympathizers. Sorry about your comment getting downed to hell

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#284

Post by jmkni »

OoTheNigerian wrote: post #38
johns wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope using a tweetstorm to announce his departure was a subtle shot at the company's inability to ship a product the way people want to use it.

FWIW, he used our product http://writerack.com to do his Tweetstorm. I feel great!!

Nice work!

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#285

Post by legodt »

AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #257
cekvenich3 wrote: post #114

Jack is now doing political activism. Against the administration.

Twitter's book burning of conservative accounts was horrific. One of the grossest displays from a tech company that I can remember. I have no idea how employees at Twitter aren't up in arms over it.

Bold of you to refer to a Holocaust event when the banned accounts were filled with hate speech, harassment, and neonazi views

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#286

Post by prawn »

madeofpalk wrote: post #204
prawn wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. My thought for this, and I wanted to build a media industry specific alternative to Twitter using it, was to allow a tweet/story to have depth/paging. So, imagine your timeline is a regular, vertical stream. But any tweet could have paging on the horizontal axis, and you'd hit next or swipe to continue reading. Anyone browsing could read the opening tweet and ignore the rest if they wanted. Subsequent tweets wi…

> I wanted to build a media industry specific alternative to Twitter using it Considering really the only people on Twitter is just Media people...

Which is why I'm surprised that the media lap it up rather than collectively building something they have more control over. Of course, it would take an industry organisation to arrange that and in my experience those bodies aren't really capable of doing something at that scale.

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#287

Post by Mathnerd314 »

inimino wrote: post #249
roystonvassey wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. I spent a considerable amount of time on Twitter between August and November of this year. I quit cold turkey primarily because of the widespread negativity. Plus, its endless stream of tweets had a certain cheap novelty factor that coaxes you to spend more time on it than is warranted or necessary. HN and Reddit, to some extent, mitigate this in just the way I want. I'd be interested to hear about what are the r…

In contrast with HN, I find the most salient characteristic of Twitter is that negativity. In the days after the election I started referring to it as the national amygdala. It just became an echo chamber for fear. I mostly solved it by ruthlessly unfollowing people who are just venting their emotions and not engaging in critical thought. I made up for it by following people I disagree with and randomly following peo…

The problem IMO is the limits. Humans can only read so many tweets and follow so many people. Beyond Dunbar's number (150 - 1500 depending on selectivity) they just blur into a big mess. Twitter's added some tools for curation (likes, user lists) but they aren't really powerful enough to filter tweets in real-time. They need something like Reddit's automod or a machine-learning filter.

The point of Twitter & other social media is empowering the user; they can encourage community members to step up and take civic responsibility, but Twitter's responsibility as such is to provide the platform rather than to run the show. I guess they could openly declare Twitter to be part of the DNC platform, but that would lose a ton of users (although not so much in terms of content). They're better off following a policy similar to Facebook of attempted neutrality.

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#289

Post by cmod »

inimino wrote: post #222
angry-hacker wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the platform just the best medium for harassing and trolling? What else can you do with 140 chars? Have you ever heard about good tweets? It's always negativity.

Since the election I've been spending time on HN and to a lesser extent Twitter. Every time I visit Twitter I find myself instinctively reaching for the downvote button, but there isn't one. About the only thing you can do when someone says (or retweets) something totally idiotic on Twitter is either unfollow, or, of course, reply. In other words, there is no way to register disapproval without simultaneously calling…

I found "resetting" my timeline to be helpful. Post-election the entire Twitterverse felt like an indignation machine, but then I realized it was a machine I had made.

This Chrome extension worked perfectly for me: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/twitter-unfollow/m...

I've unfollowed everyone (eight years worth of following!), and have been slowly rebuilding the timeline. Strangely cathartic, and the FOMO fades quickly.

It's also nice to start from zero again, rebuilding your interests and filling your universe with thoughtful people in a deliberate and considered way. I wish more social networks made un-collecting as intuitive and organic as following/collecting.

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#290

Post by jon-wood »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #260
morgante wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. I've been a VP without being an officer.

I know this may be naive, but what does the officer part entail or mean?

An officer has authority to sign contracts on behalf of the company.
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