Journalism is broken.
How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can’t
131–140 of 246 posts
Re: How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can’t
#132A lot to unpack recently with Twitter and Jack. A few thoughts.
1. Jack doesn’t seem passionate about product, especially Twitter.
2. Kara seems to lack the vocabulary to talk about product which is both surprising and confusing, given her niche and time spent in it. She also doesn’t understand that Twitter has evolved way beyond Jack. “Why don’t you know, it’s your product!” she kept asking. The fact he doesn’t know says a lot. It’s out of any one persons control. Maybe the AI has already taken over ...
3. The most interesting thing Kara said was when she suggested Twitter be a public utility. More and more I think we need the National Public Internet. She almost asked a great question about needing fire, police and garbage. Then she mixed metaphors and started discussing those things literally, and Jack went off about doxing.
4. The most important take away for me was how unaligned Jack and Kara were. Never did they find common ground. Never were they speaking the same language. Twitter could not facilitate meaningful dialogue between two willing people motivated to be good actors. This isn’t about how bad threaded replies are. It’s about human connection and conversation in the medium of real time public text. It doesn’t work.
Edit: I've tried to clean these thoughts up a bit if you care to read more: https://www.nicholasjrobinson.com/blog/quick-take/karajack-q...
Re: How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can’t
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe we hang out in different circles, but I've never heard the level of insults IRL that I have read on Twitter. I have a feeling the large majority of those doing the insulting would be terrified to say those things to someones face because they know a physical altercation would end up being the common response.
Ok. Let’s put forth some baselines. In real life most people don’t grievously insult each other (discount passive aggressiveness, microagressions, bravado, boasting and other ultralight insults) Most people on Twitter don’t insult each other. A low percentage of people do in both cases. Does Twitter facilitate and provide a more lubricated vehicle for insult? Possibly?
> Most people on Twitter don’t insult each other. A low percentage of people do in both cases. Does Twitter facilitate and provide a more lubricated vehicle for insult? Possibly?
Possibly? Absolutely. The foundation of Twitter is the retweet. Without it, there is no sharing, and stuff can't 'go viral'. Most people don't insult each other, but they sure do like and retweet insults, false facts and other negative stuff ruining online communities.
Retweeting is the ultimate cop-out, because you didn't have the guts to say those things, but had no issue having it show up on your feed and those of your followers. You were just "sharing".
Re: How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can’t
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here it goes, from a few days ago (I'm not the OP): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6687123/Mother-arre... Sorry for the Daily Mail link but it looks like the mainstream press hasn't catch up on the subject. Afaik transphobia is not on the same level with "bomb threats or holocaust denial" but apparently people get arrested for it.
Daily Mail reporting will be grossly inaccurate on this subject. I suspect this was not for a single incident but as part of a campaign of harrasment. There's a lot of that going on against trans people at the moment, often enabled by twitter and the gutter press.
Boris Johnson has practically said the same thing in his latest editorial in The Telegraph [1], i.e. that that woman was transphobic and that the U.K. police should focus on other more stringent tasks (like knife crime). Transphobia is ugly but it’s not on the same level as Holocaust denial and people shouldn’t get arrested for it.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/10/police-wasting-t...
Re: How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can’t
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Section 127 [of the Communications Act 2003] has been used to prosecute a young man who tweeted his frustration about being unable to see his girlfriend due to airport closure. His tweets, which were made without intent to carry out their content or incite others to do so, resulted in his conviction for being a menace under the Act – thankfully that conviction has now been overturned;" https://www.libertyhumanrights…
1) I can't see a description of what he said, but if it's the case I remember he said something about blowing the airport up and someone reported it to police as a threat. Twitter is a broadcasting service, and you're responsible for how it is read. You don't get a pass because you totally didn't mean it that way. I can't get upset about this one. 2) & 3) Doesn't sound like arrest/prosecution? I don't doubt a lot of…
The OP mentioned arrest. You then wanted example of prosecution. I cited 3,300 cases of being detained and questioned, but that clearly didn't satisfy.
There does not need to be 100s of successful prosecutions a year for there not to be consequences of police action (whether it be warnings, being detained, arrests, prosecutions, jail) and for there to be serious chilling effects.
EDIT:
> You don't get a pass because you totally didn't mean it that way
I'm no lawyer, but isn't intent a critical part of analysing someone's actions in prosecution (and perhaps why Liberty mentioned it)?
Re: How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can’t
#136Twitter sucks as a discussion platform but it excels as an insult delivery system.
Which is strange because I see more targeted rage here on a VC forum. The Twitter page I've cultivated has low/no rage and even interesting conversations. Sure, if I venture to gender, race, or politics, Ill be greeted by the rage machine. So volitionally choose to stay out of it. Cultivate who you follow to a narrow tech field, and be very careful that whom you choose doesn't invest in hate and rage mechanics. Faceb…
Ahh, but you have discovered the crux of the problem Twitter faces. I have done as you did, culling my Twitter to only include interesting people in my industry who I can learn from. What happened?
My Twitter use dropped off a cliff. The people I follow write interesting articles or give good talks, but are incredibly boring on Twitter, or retweet stuff that once more puts me face to face with the 'regular Twitter' dumpster fire.
"Microblogging" works for traffic or service updates, and commercials. Its use case narrows to almost nothing when it comes to human interactions, which require more substance than what a provides.
Re: How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can’t
#137Is there a Twitter client / UI that presents threads (with all their replies) on one page with indentation / nesting, i.e. like HN / Reddit?
I think this is what you are talking about:
Re: How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can’t
#138A lot to unpack recently with Twitter and Jack. A few thoughts. 1. Jack doesn’t seem passionate about product, especially Twitter. 2. Kara seems to lack the vocabulary to talk about product which is both surprising and confusing, given her niche and time spent in it. She also doesn’t understand that Twitter has evolved way beyond Jack. “Why don’t you know, it’s your product!” she kept asking. The fact he doesn’t know…
We already have Twitter as a utility, its called ActivityPub and dozens of products and thousands of independent instances are now using it.
If Twitters higher ups were serious about "being a utility' they would federate on what is on track to become the browser social protocol from the W3C.
Re: How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can’t
#139Twitter sucks as a discussion platform but it excels as an insult delivery system.
On Twitter any form of context is lost pretty quick. But it's a formidable machine for viral marketing, no matter who is the target and what is the message. It's the most efficient social media but also the most toxic. It also became the main source of news for online media, who spend their time making up stories based on Tweets.
The Covington Catholic School incident is a perfect example of made up news originating from Twitter.
Re: How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can’t
#140Twitter has this public utility value: a place where you can get updates on air quality during a wildfire, when the official agency websites are buckling under the traffic. Some report having good experiences by following a very selective group of people with shared interests. But it’s interesting that both Facebook and Twitter evolved into these negative, emotional, politically charged, environments when they moved…
> But it’s interesting that both Facebook and Twitter evolved into these negative, emotional, politically charged, environments when they moved from a chronological list of updates from your curated set of friends and followers, to an algorithmic one that shuffles in “popular” content.
Because that's where the money is? fake outrage, drama, division and negativity. Reddit is no different. People love dirty laundry and scandals. These social media are the new tabloids, you know, the magazines nobody buys but everybody reads...