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Ask HN: How would you design an alternative Twitter

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Re: Ask HN: How would you design an alternative Twitter

#211

Post by mindcrime »

wufufufu wrote: post #118
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #24

I think you're jumping into the technical bits right away without thinking through requirements/features. Maybe we (the royal 'we' as in all of humanity) shouldn't have a public town square? When you build something to have marginalized voices be heard you are also including all marginalized voices. The MarginalizedVoice super object has EqualRightsForSquirrels as well as HatefulRacistUncle child objects. There are v…

What if we let people design their own content filters? That way the platform itself doesn't have to. You can easily select popular filters from a marketplace and the number one option will probably be "hide hate speech" or "hide all politics".

Bingo. This is exactly what I recently proposed for Twitter. The idea of user defined "filter-sets" where the user chooses what they want to be exposed to. And even further, I proposed the ability to name those filter-sets and share them with others. So if a given user is, for the sake of argument, a "raging Liberal" they can choose a "raging Liberal" filter-set. Likewise, a "raging Conservative" can choose the "raging Conservative" filter-set, a Libertarian can choose the "Libertarian" filter-set, and so on. Much like your market-place idea mentioned above.

"But, but, what about filter bubbles / echo chambers???" one says. To which I say "it's not a problem I'm trying to solve, or particularly interested in. I'm not even sure that's actually a problem per-se to begin with." Seriously, the world is too big, there are too many people and too many ideas, for any one of us to accept being exposed to everything that's "out there".

Filters are a good thing, in fact a necessary thing. Of course we'd like to think that in a well educated, civilized, rational society, people would choose to make some effort to gain exposure to new and contradictory ideas for the purpose of expanding their minds and adapting and learning and what-not. But be that as it may, you still have to accept that some people will choose to filter out things to a lesser or greater degree than some others, and that some people will choose to filter things differently than you will. And that's OK.

Re: Ask HN: How would you design an alternative Twitter

#212

Post by rickspencer3 »

I think the tech stack would whatever is easiest for the specific team you have. The app doesn't seem complicated.

The platform that I would like would:

  - Block links. The platform is for sharing personal thoughts and quips, not spreading marketing or propaganda.
  - Block "re-sharing." This would include detecting and deleting duplicate posts across accounts.
  - Cost a token amount of money. Enough to filter out scammers and bots.
  - No "engagement algorithm," your feed is exactly what you design it to be.
I just want a place where I can see what people are doing, what they have to say, without all the BS, and where people are accountable for the content that they produce.

Re: Ask HN: How would you design an alternative Twitter

#213

Post by dahart »

tootie wrote: post #111
nebqr wrote: post #97

I think that the (dead, gay) Something Awful forums model is a decent solution to content moderation and monetization. An account is 10 dollars (lifetime). If you get banned, you have to pay 10 dollars again. Permabanned = can't come back. Premium? (dms, search, custom avatar) 10 dollars. Change your avatar? 5 dollars. Change someone else's avatar? 10 dollars. Ad free? 10 dollars. Access to archives (posts over a cer…

One-time fees are not very sustainable. Unless the model included essentially building an endowment the first ten years and then funding the business off of interest.

Actuarial science might have a thing or two to say about that. All you need to do is make sure the average amount people pay is greater than the average cost for the life of an account. Before the recent explosion in subscription pricing for everything under the sun, we’d been selling software on one-time costs for fifty years. Subscriptions certainly are attractive and easier for businesses, probably easier to sell with freemium models, but they do have downsides like cancellations and not much money up front (may take longer to recoup investments).

> Unless the model included essentially building an endowment the first ten years and then funding the business off interest.

Ten dollars is surely much greater than the server costs for a single user for a month, or a year. That one-time cost may well be designed to be an endowment of sorts. Plus the avatar changing fees are probably, on average, not one-time fees.

Re: Ask HN: How would you design an alternative Twitter

#215

Post by stinkytaco »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #133
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You want to solve the problem of people saying racist things, so you decide to destroy the public square "Public Square" online is a fallacy. A public square is typically thought of where someone grabs the attention of all passerby and is voicing their thoughts. Those thoughts voiced are short lived and can only be broadcast as far as the sound wave will carry them. Social media like twitter allows millions of peop…

>"Public Square" online is a fallacy. A public square is typically thought of where someone grabs the attention of all passerby and is voicing their thoughts. and if you're a crazy person or verbally abusive or maybe just shouting things that while maybe true are insulting to the public morality then the police come and carry you away.

It feels like a problem of scale. One person shouting and getting carried away, whoever is right or wrong in that scenario, is still one person. Now extend that to everyone shouting at everyone in what has become the de facto public square and the stakes involved in deciding who to carry away feel existential in scale.

Re: Ask HN: How would you design an alternative Twitter

#218

Post by Kye »

nisegami wrote: post #7
Zealotux wrote: post #5

A thing I truly liked about Google+ was the ability to separate contacts into "circles" to differentiate between real-life friends, family, online friends, colleagues, etc. I wish more social networks used that kind of approach.

Twitter just launched a feature called Circles that has been very well received in my social....circle.

They give you exactly one circle. Twitter missed the point entirely.

Re: Ask HN: How would you design an alternative Twitter

#219

Post by kthejoker2 »

Twitter is not a technical problem. We as a society are simply unable to wield such a tool in any useful way.

When you combine three obvious truths:

* people are tribal to the point of irrationality

* controversial clickbait bullshit travels fast and right to page 1, erudite corrections go on page 7 and are cheerfully ignored (see point 1)

* people don't listen, they wait to talk

There is no value in giving everyone such a platform. It achieves no useful purpose whatsoever that cannot be achieved more neutrally, deliberately, and less sensationally.

On Bullshit is required reading.

Re: Ask HN: How would you design an alternative Twitter

#220

Post by duxup »

eddieroger wrote: post #147
duxup wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC App.net was a pay version of twitter. I loved the idea, it got a lot of attention, but it didn't pick up enough users to get going.

It was, with tiers for users, devs, etc. It lacked users, but it also was born in an environment where Twitter wasn't yet "awful" by most people's definition, let alone owned by someone with mixed popularity. If app.net launched today, it may be a different story.

I would certainly like to see more attempts as time goes on.
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