Twitter Is 'Rethinking' Its Service, and Suspending 1M Accounts Each Day (washingtonpost.com)

Twitter's CEO told the Washington Post he's "rethinking" core parts of Twitter: Dorsey said he was experimenting with features that would promote alternative viewpoints in Twitter's timeline to address misinformation and reduce "echo chambers." He also expressed openness to labeling bots -- automated accounts that sometimes pose as human users -- and redesigning key elements of the social network, including the "like" button and the way Twitter displays users' follower counts. "The most important thing that we can do is we look at the incentives that we're building into our product," Dorsey said. "Because they do express a point of view of what we want people to do -- and I don't think they are correct anymore."

Dorsey's openness to broad changes shows how Silicon Valley leaders are increasingly reexamining the most fundamental aspects of the technologies that have made these companies so powerful and profitable. At Facebook, for example, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has commissioned a full review of his company's products to emphasize safety and trust, from mobile payments to event listings.... In recent months, Twitter has made several changes to promote safety and trust. It has introduced new machine learning software to monitor account behavior and is suspending over a million problematic accounts a day.... Dorsey said Twitter hasn't changed its incentives, which were originally designed to nudge people to interact and keep them engaged, in the 12 years since Twitter was founded.

Comments

Ugh, Twitter

[93 Escort Wagon]

Setting politics aside for the duration of this post...

Twitter is doing its utmost best to destroy what little utility is left on the platform. I logged in yesterday for the first time in a couple weeks (which shows you where I’m at with Twitter nowadays). Right at the top was the annoying “in case you missed it” section, which I routinely flag “see less often” but continues to show up every time I log in. But then, below that, something new - two blocks, each containing numerous posts, where two accounts I follow had been mentioned by other random accounts or had been liked by other random accounts. THEN, below that, were now two paid advertisements in a row - and each one is significantly larger than has been the norm, since the advertisement (aka “promoted”) thing started.

So, at that point I’m roughly five or six page scrolls down - and I haven’t even hit my actual timeline!

Oh, and “notifications”... I’ve got about a hundred unread notifications. I stopped checking those months ago because Twitter started shoving random crap in there. It used to be that section only included stuff you’d actually want to get notified about, like new followers or direct messages. Now, any real notifications are buried in a sea of garbage posts.

It used to be that Twitter was the best place for breaking news, which was the only reason I got on the platform at all. But now, it’s basically worthless. I know they need to monetize somehow, but destroying the platform’s actual utility isn’t going to make them more money.

Private property can be treated as public spaces

[alternative_right]

The government has done this before: if your private property acts like a public space, it can be regulated like a public space.

Really interesting stuff, whichever side you come down on in this issue.

In my view, most of this drama could have been avoided by retaining common carrier status to webhosts and making an antitrust case against Google. If we did it Microsoft, we should do it to this new company which is doing the same stuff that Microsoft did.

Re: MAGA

[AmiMoJo]

The supreme court didn't "punt on the issue"; they ruled in his favour.

Not really. https://www.theguardian.com/la...

They ruled that the way the decision to require him to bake the cake had been flawed, but not the decision itself. Indeed, from the text of the decision:

"The courtâ(TM)s precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws"

So the question isn't settled either way, it looks like it will have to be re-examined.