Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#31

Post by notduncansmith » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:15 AM UTC

wsn_101 wrote: post #21

danShumway wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be a variety of reasons. If you forced me to guess though, I think the most straightforward, simplest one is that threatening account deletion is a good way to force older users to become active again, which will increase engagement on their platform and allow them to deliver more ads. In other words, the same reason that Facebook will start spamming your email if you stop logging in. I can't imagine any man…

>>In other words, the same reason that Facebook will start spamming your email if you stop logging in. Are you sure that's what is actually going on? patio11 calls it lifecycle email marketing, and Nir Eyal thinks it is just a harmless way to keep your users "hooked". Why would you even say such things about such a brilliant technique which provides such great joy to the "growth hackers"? Oh, I just got a "notificati…

For what it’s worth, I haven’t heard Nir Eyal call it “harmless”.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#32

Post by manigandham » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:16 AM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #18

Sendotsh wrote: post #15

I understand why some people are upset about it (Eg due to accounts of deceased people), but I was really REALLY hoping to snap my first name which was registered by a European person 10 years ago, has 0 followers, and has never posted. I definitely feel like they could compromise and at least delete those blatantly unused ones.

Not posting on twitter doesn't mean the account is unused. Lots of people make accounts and follow people and are DAU but never post.

Activity isn't based on posting. You have to at least login in the past 6 months.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#33

Post by pentae » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:21 AM UTC

I really sometimes wonder if it would be a net negative or net benefit to humanity if we could just shut down Twitter. I don't use it but I can't remember the last time I heard something positive happening on there. From my standpoint it's all just trolls, hate, arguments, trump, drama and angry mobs using the platform for censorship.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#34

Post by paulintrognon » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:23 AM UTC

avian wrote: post #20

Did Twitter already delete inactive accounts in the past? When I created my account in 2008 my preferred handle was taken by an empty account that seemingly never posted anything. With this recent news about account deletions I was curious if maybe I could get it, so I checked it again. I was surprised to see that it’s now a very active account with a “joined in” date in 2014. So it looks like the old inactive one wa…

Maybe the first user just deleted his/her account.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#35

Post by cryptozeus » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:24 AM UTC

pentae wrote: post #33

I really sometimes wonder if it would be a net negative or net benefit to humanity if we could just shut down Twitter. I don't use it but I can't remember the last time I heard something positive happening on there. From my standpoint it's all just trolls, hate, arguments, trump, drama and angry mobs using the platform for censorship.

That is because you are not using the platform but watching the news. Guess what is going to be on the news ? Only the outcry. Twitter has matured in last few years and is a fantastic platform if you know whom to follow. People crying about Twitter are not there to connect or learn from others, they are just there to cry and harass others.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#36

Post by shinryuu » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:24 AM UTC

pentae wrote: post #33

I really sometimes wonder if it would be a net negative or net benefit to humanity if we could just shut down Twitter. I don't use it but I can't remember the last time I heard something positive happening on there. From my standpoint it's all just trolls, hate, arguments, trump, drama and angry mobs using the platform for censorship.

Datapoint of one. I recently landed a freelance gig thanks to Twitter.

I’m sure there are many positive things happening. You don’t hear about them as loudly.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#37

Post by lgeorget » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:25 AM UTC

pentae wrote: post #33

I really sometimes wonder if it would be a net negative or net benefit to humanity if we could just shut down Twitter. I don't use it but I can't remember the last time I heard something positive happening on there. From my standpoint it's all just trolls, hate, arguments, trump, drama and angry mobs using the platform for censorship.

That's also due to the news bias. If you never take the train yourself and only listen to the news, you can get the impressions that they crash or arrive late all the time and wonder why railway companies are still allowed to run...

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#38

Post by benhurmarcel » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:37 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #4

I wonder what the real reason for account deletions is. Could it be possible they have overflowed their primary / foreign key allocation necessary to support further user growth? Depending on their internal architecture, a migration to a wider key might not be feasible within the time horizon they have. Maybe it's easier to delete accounts? If they have weird sharding and a lot of microservices, this might be their o…

> Or maybe they have metrics that show new users skip signing up when their desired name is unavailable.

Well I know I did.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#39

Post by pmontra » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:47 AM UTC

What they mean about GDPR compliance is a mistery. GDPR doesn't apply to deceased persons:

Recital 27

> This Regulation does not apply to the personal data of deceased persons.

> Member States may provide for rules regarding the processing of personal data of deceased persons.

Each country has its own rules. This is a summary https://www.twobirds.com/en/in-focus/general-data-protection...

However the tweets of a deceased person can contain personal data of an alive person. How do they handle that when the author can't agree to changes of policies anymore? But how can FB's memorialized accounts handle that?

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#40

Post by adventured » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 7:54 AM UTC

undefined3840 wrote: post #5

atticmanatee wrote: post #3

It never ceases to amaze me how Twitter is so unprepared for anything they do. This was something Facebook did a few years ago Even Google+ (rest in peace) had a similar feature. How could they have forgotten that dead people may have used their platform, and living relatives would be upset? Either Twitter is completely run by amateurs - since its inception - or by people who just don’t care. Which one is worst, I wo…

It’s pretty disappointing. Their share price has been completely flat since IPO. I’m surprised shareholders have not revolted against Jack being a part time CEO. Clearly there needs to be some dedicated focus to clean up the app. So much potential to be so much better.

> It’s pretty disappointing. Their share price has been completely flat since IPO. I’m surprised shareholders have not revolted against Jack being a part time CEO.

It's not disappointing, it's amazing that it's worth $24 billion now. A fair value is less than half that, and even at a 50% reduction that'd be at a obscenely generous 30-40 PE.

The premise of the outcome being disappointing supposes that there is anything that could have reasonably been done to meaningfully bolster the share price during that time. As opposed to Twitter in reality being a mature, slow growth, second tier social network (which is what it will always be no matter who is running it).

Dorsey has done a great job fixing the operational disaster that Twitter was previously. The reason the Twitter stock has been flat since the IPO, is because it was comically overvalued at the IPO, not primarily because it has been operated poorly since then. Based on its operating results contrasted with now, Twitter should have been worth a minimum of 3/4 less at its IPO than it was (probably more reasonably it should have been worth ~90% less at IPO, and worth a minimum of 50% less right now).

2015 | revenue $2.2b | op expenses $1.9b | op income -$450m

2018 | revenue $3b | op expenses $1.6b | op income $453m

The disaster that Dorsey inherited, he fixed. Flipping operating income by a positive $900 million in three years. A spectacular outcome for a business doing $3b in sales.

Twitter is still an independent business today solely because of the operational improvements that Dorsey made to push Twitter into sound profitability. If not for that, Twitter would have already been forced into selling itself (which was a common discussion prior to the dramatic improvement in operational results).

Boost sales $800m and drop operating expenses by $300m. That's as good as it is going to get for Twitter as a business conceptually. There is no scenario where it's going to be the next giant social network or a juggernaut like Facebook, there is no high growth scenario waiting to be discovered. The very nature of Twitter guarantees that can never happen, it can't attract enough participants to that style of social broadcast & consumption.