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Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

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Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#101

Post by 1123581321 »

allemagne wrote: post #82
plorkyeran wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article specifically argues that the retweet button causes problems that manual retweeting didn't, and so he did invent the thing that's actually a problem.

I think I understand that argument, but I'm not convinced that it's really all that true or that the actual button being added to Twitter was all that consequential. Is a manual task like copy/paste and writing quotemarks really enough "friction" to reduce what seems like a pretty natural human drive on social media? Would doing it over and over again not make it just as "automatic" as a single button push for power…

The article says Twitter saw a lot more retweeting after implementing the button. (“After the retweet button debuted, Wetherell was struck by how effectively it spread information. “It did a lot of what it was designed to do,” he said. “It had a force multiplier that other things didn’t have.”)

It seems like they saw an immediate change in behavior and results, enough to conclude the button directly affected behavior. My anecdotal experience was similar. Though I agree we will never know how effective would have been the third party tools or how much the delay in third-vs-first-party development would have affected Twitter’s growth.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#102

Post by daveFNbuck »

splendidHaiku wrote: post #15
daveFNbuck wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy in the article doesn't even work at Twitter. He's not in a position to remove it.

Maybe other people work at twitter who could remove it? Questions was why not just remove it.

The people who are in a position to remove it aren't the ones who said it's like handing a loaded weapon to a 4-year-old, so they don't have the reason to remove it that the question was referring to.

They have a more nuanced view and are quoted in the article saying that they're looking into how to modify the interface to "encourage more consideration before spread".

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#103

Post by wutbrodo »

cgag wrote: post #84
malvosenior wrote: post #14

It's so annoying when platforms and product managers think they know better than their users. People want to retweet and they will even if you remove this feature (as they were before it existed). It basically comes off as Twitter doesn't like the users they have or the behavior they want. It's really hilarious that they use Gamergate as an example of why retweets are bad. That was a massive manifestation of the abov…

i find it hard to believe that people think it's as simple as gamers just plain hating women for no reason, but it seems to be repeated all the time

I have no feelings about gamergate in particular, but ive seen this applied to enough cases of lies enshrined into the mainstream consensus (when even a quick Wikipedia search provides a more balanced view): people are far stupider and more dishonest than you're probably calibrated for.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#104

Post by Zak »

krajzeg wrote: post #97
nostrademons wrote: post #74

Reading through some of the comments here, it occurs to me that there's a moral trilemma at play here: you can have power , you can have righteousness , or you can have impartiality , but you must pick 2 out of 3. If you bring something new into the world that gives new voice or new capabilities to previously disenfranchised groups, then you have a choice between explicitly selecting who you bestow this power on (in…

"Choose two out of three" triangles are sexy, but I fail to see how this applies here. Doing nothing doesn't really mean choosing to be impartial and righteous at the same time, and there is no way to both moderate and be impartial if you actually run a platform. I see it as every platform being able to choose a point on a sliding scale between enforcing its morality and being impartial. The more moderation you do, t…

I don't think that argument applies here. The article isn't advocating censorship or legal restrictions on social media. Instead, it's saying that reducing friction from a very specific content-sharing workflow and giving it a prominent position in the UI of social media sites may not have been a good design decision.

Edit: I intended this as a reply to a different comment, but it has a reply now so I'll leave it as-is.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#105

Post by pwinnski »

dvtrn wrote: post #92
minimaxir wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ambiguity was a deliberate strategy of Gamergate (and still is a deliberate strategy even today of those with similar disposition).

Is it truly possible to know if this was a deliberate strategy of Gamergate? I’ve heard this statement before and when I try to politely challenge it...the results aren’t as kind in return. Hoping that isn’t the case here, because I am perhaps inappropriately curious if an answer exists.

Yes, it's beyond possible. It's a certainty. Contemporaneous logs[0] revealed the deliberate efforts of mysoginistic trolls to pretend their motivations were more palatable.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/new-chat-logs-show-ho...

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#106

Post by happytoexplain »

malvosenior wrote: post #14

It's so annoying when platforms and product managers think they know better than their users. People want to retweet and they will even if you remove this feature (as they were before it existed). It basically comes off as Twitter doesn't like the users they have or the behavior they want. It's really hilarious that they use Gamergate as an example of why retweets are bad. That was a massive manifestation of the abov…

I'm sure some percentage of Gamergate members were honest, but it would be naive to think the movement wasn't characterized by a dramatic majority of simple hatred.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#107

Post by pjc50 »

brokenkebab wrote: post #75
minimaxir wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ambiguity was a deliberate strategy of Gamergate (and still is a deliberate strategy even today of those with similar disposition).

Do you realize you are employing typical defence of any conspiracy theory when facing the fact that an alleged conspiracy doesn't look consistent to be real? And I mean absolutely literally. That exact statement I heard from people who believe in ZOG.

We know gamergate was a conspiracy because someone found the IRC channel where the conspirators were conspiring.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#108

Post by minimaxir »

Frondo wrote: post #99
minimaxir wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ambiguity was a deliberate strategy of Gamergate (and still is a deliberate strategy even today of those with similar disposition).

It's not just gamergate that uses that ambiguity -- think of how the "okay" symbol ("o" formed with thumb and first finger, remaining three extended upward) has been repurposed as a white power gesture; all of the group photos of proud boys and other white supremacist groups now have them all holding up that distinctive "okay" hand gesture, because it's a call out to their values and to the people that share them. Bu…

Yes, that's what I was alluding to.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#109

Post by krajzeg »

Zak wrote: post #104
krajzeg wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Choose two out of three" triangles are sexy, but I fail to see how this applies here. Doing nothing doesn't really mean choosing to be impartial and righteous at the same time, and there is no way to both moderate and be impartial if you actually run a platform. I see it as every platform being able to choose a point on a sliding scale between enforcing its morality and being impartial. The more moderation you do, t…

I don't think that argument applies here. The article isn't advocating censorship or legal restrictions on social media. Instead, it's saying that reducing friction from a very specific content-sharing workflow and giving it a prominent position in the UI of social media sites may not have been a good design decision. Edit: I intended this as a reply to a different comment, but it has a reply now so I'll leave it as-…

It does apply a little if you extend the definition of "moderation" to include choosing the right set of features in order to direct your users' behavior.

That said, I was mostly replying to the parent comment, not discussing the main thesis of the article.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#110

Post by dvtrn »

pwinnski wrote: post #105
dvtrn wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it truly possible to know if this was a deliberate strategy of Gamergate? I’ve heard this statement before and when I try to politely challenge it...the results aren’t as kind in return. Hoping that isn’t the case here, because I am perhaps inappropriately curious if an answer exists.

Yes, it's beyond possible. It's a certainty. Contemporaneous logs[0] revealed the deliberate efforts of mysoginistic trolls to pretend their motivations were more palatable. [0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/new-chat-logs-show-ho...

Interesting. Proceeding to read your link this moment

I admit-despite being someone who plays a lot of video games quite frequently I didn't wade into these waters because from the sidelines it looked like a lot of people painting things with very wide brushes and a lot of static noise that made trying to sift through any of it more annoying than it was worth.

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