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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

#331

Post by idm »

pmorelli wrote: post #330
hnthroooow wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no way to verify this is true, but I was told that they bought GNIP because (this sounds too ridiculous to type) they forgot to invoice them for two years for firehose access...when they remembered, GNIP couldn't afford the invoice, so buyout! Like I say, it's a rumor that may have shades of truth, but that's what I heard.

As someone who worked on that acquisition, that rumor is total horseshit.

I love apocryphal tales like this.

There's a kernel of logic to the original assertion. It has a "gee whiz" irony, coded as a moral story: the biggest brains in the world forgot to get paid. Twitter's perceived revenue problems are juxtaposed with the obviousness of just taking the money they were owed, as if the answer to Twitter's Big Question were there the whole time. Finally, it explains a really major acquisition in Twitter history; it answers an outstanding question in everybody's minds. That little vignette has all the fixings for a great Silicon Valley tall tale.

The fact that it's totally false, by public refutation, seals the deal. I love it!

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#332

Post by mathattack »

tyingq wrote: post #180
mathattack wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a title, and titles are free. If you want to see a lot of VPs, go visit your friendly neighborhood bank. :-)

Outside of banks, a VP title usually means "company officer", and usually comes with perks and legal changes that do cost something.

It's very company dependent.

2 data points from other industries, based on LinkedIn:

1) Ogilvy & Mather: 7,289 employees, 188 with Vice President in the title.

2) Johnson & Johnson: 63,072 employees, 1,154 with Vice President in the title.

3) Microsoft: 129,445 employees, 2,514 with Vice President in the title.

I think Vice President doesn't mean as much as it used to. :-)

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#333

Post by minimaxir »

dang wrote: post #329
laser wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you getting downvoted? People seriously need to lighten up ;)

Yes, of course it's totally fine for people to post their excitement about something like that. It may be a tangent, but it's a specific, interesting tangent, not the generic kind of off-topic discussion which is predictable. Also, there's a huge difference between a community member sharing excitement with fellow users vs. someone showing up just to promote something. But note that OoTheNigerian's comment eventually…

Thanks for the clarification on policy. At the least, I now know that self-deleting a comment that is in the wrong does not stop downvotes/flags.

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#334

Post by dang »

minimaxir wrote: post #333
dang wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course it's totally fine for people to post their excitement about something like that. It may be a tangent, but it's a specific, interesting tangent, not the generic kind of off-topic discussion which is predictable. Also, there's a huge difference between a community member sharing excitement with fellow users vs. someone showing up just to promote something. But note that OoTheNigerian's comment eventually…

Thanks for the clarification on policy. At the least, I now know that self-deleting a comment that is in the wrong does not stop downvotes/flags.

Hmm, that doesn't sound quite fair. I wonder what we could do better there.

I didn't see the comments that you erased, but based on many things you've posted in the past, I'm sure they were in good faith and driven by concern for the quality of HN, which is something we appreciate even in the rare case of a misfire.

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#335

Post by SapphireSun »

inimino wrote: post #306
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…

> If he had to go through the press, everything he said would be filtered by editors and fact checkers. Are you joking? The press would say "'...', Donald Trump said on Monday". Anyone who can't infer the "Donald Trump said" part from the Twitter UI shouldn't be unsupervised near a computer or a newspaper.

You're 100% correct, though some of his sitting on the toilet thoughts might not make it to the public. What the news, when its being done correctly, does is provide surrounding context to interpret the remarks. This is valuable even for normal politicians as, it bears repeating, it is impossible for the population as a whole to be informed on every issue, and most people aren't informed on even a few. Low information constituents will misinterpret remarks without context.

It also encourages him to publicize views that can withstand press scrutiny. The outrageous stuff we see on Twitter might have been self censored if he had to tell it to a skeptical press that will place them in context.

Prior presidents have been very circumspect in what they say, which has reduced the pressure on this point. Extreme situations pressure us to discard gray areas. In order to maintain a healthy civic discourse, we need everyone to cooperate more and be more generous to the other side, but this can't be done unilaterally or you just get steamrolled.

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#336

Post by grandalf »

narrator wrote: post #19
grandalf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a big name in tech anymore Donald Trump is making headlines using Twitter every day. I think that once users/victims become immune to Facebook's dark patterns, Twitter will look pretty good. The only thing it can do to screw that up is continue censoring content and allowing botnets.

What's just bizarre is that they were seriously considering censoring Donald Trump's account at one point and even announced it. From a purely business standpoint, that was a dumb idea even to propose. It makes you wonder about the rationality of management and if they view the company as some sort of hipster San Francisco hobby paid for by VCs and not as a profit making enterprise.

> dumb idea

Most definitely. I think the management logic went something like the following:

- Why aren't twitter's ad impressions worth a fraction of Facebook's?

- Because FB uses an algorithmic feed which allows more precise targeting based on engagement, which has a lot more data points than Retweets or replies.

- OK let's build that.

- Done

- Wait, why is there unsavory content showing up as a trending topic on Twitter?

- Because people engage with it, and due to the shape of Twitter's graph, there's a much greater chance of users encountering content that has not been as thoroughly vetted by the social filter (compared to Facebook).

- We must stop this.

- How, we already offer verified accounts and disallow overt harassment.

- Well, let's just remove unsavory stuff from the trending list.

- Done

- Wait, that didn't really stop it, what else can we do?

- Censorship

- Love it, let's do it. We can help the cause of good by preventing users from seeing content that we deem unsavory.

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#337

Post by wyck »

SapphireSun wrote: post #258
wyck wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you thing censorship is the answer to your irrational fears? Thank god we don't live in the 17th century or you would be burning people at the stake for the same reasons.

Why are my fears irrational? Are you saying he can't destroy most of human life on earth with the push of a button? We may disagree on his temperament, but the material fact remains.

Can and will are not the same, that's why your fears are irrational. Unless you have some specific point on why he would as you say "push the button".

Anyhow this was about censoring an opinion on Twitter, if you want to dilute your judgement then by all means go ahead, but this does come at a cost and censoring someone one twitter to prevent an imaginary war is certainly a stretch of the imagination, and I'm being polite.

There is an actual argument that Hillary was going to impose a no fly zone on Russia in Syria. Would that have somehow alleviated tensions? Let's not forget about the red line, the sarin gas smuggled out of Libya (Bengazi), and the murder of Qaddafi in the streets, all very pertinent to the region. But alas I talk about things which can be argued and not "feelings", the hallmark of the emotionally comprised.

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#338

Post by rahrahrah »

snowwrestler wrote: post #179
rahrahrah wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah? And Facebook isn't a social network either, it's an advertising brokerage? And Google isn't a search engine, it's an advertising brokerage? The Financial Times isn't a newspaper, it's an advertising brokerage? Spotify isn't music streaming, it's an advertising brokerage?

And they all have engineering teams dedicated to their ad technologies? With VP level leadership or higher? Why are we making everything a question?

I'm keeping in theme with the parent comment? I'm glad you agree it's retarded?

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#339

Post by pron »

al3xnull wrote: post #314
pjc50 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is equally "loud" on Twitter. And you're not allowed to hurl racist abuse at speakers in public, either. (You know, if there was some kind of agreement that tweets containing only the wood "boooo" were definitely not harrasment, that might actually be an improvement on the current situation. It's the "I'm going to find you and murder you" and " incoherent string of racial slurs with frog emoji " that are the…

I don't know where you are from but in the US you most certainly are allowed to hurl racist slurs at speakers in public. It's up to the rest of the crowd to then shout back and speak truth back to the racist. As long as the racist is not shouting how to kill said public speaker or speaking libel, he's legally allowed. Granted, we get into international situations and Twitter is private anyway. Just noting that "allow…

Don't you think services should generally strive for a higher behavior standard than the US penal code? Should anything that doesn't land you in jail be accepted?

Re: Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

#340

Post by whywhywhywhy »

rtpg wrote: post #270
hyperdunc wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might have the courage, but do they have the judgement to decide who's an actual neo-nazi? Twitter has a history of political partisanship. They'll ban "racist" conservatives but allow minority "terrorist" organizations.

There's a Pacific Ocean-sized gulf between the current policy and your nightmare scenario. Slippery slope and all that, but they un-suspended Richard Spencer for "reasons".

It's not a nightmare scenario, they literally let terrorists use the platform no problem
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