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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.
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.
Today, "fascist" and "anti fascist" is like "flammable" and "inflammable."
My account was banned about a month ago. I published several tech articles, including one featured on highscalability.com with my Twitter username, and I gained a few hundred followers. I even got my current job from a recruiter that saw my Twitter account there. Also, I made more money with the last book I published with Addison-Wesley from Amazon affiliate links I published to Twitter and a few other places than I made from the publisher! I can't tell how much of that was from Twitter versus other places, but I would guess it's the vast majority. Losing my Twitter account is going to cost me money.
Reduce "echo chambers"? What are you gonna do show me twitts from the other end of the political spectrum? Show me twitts of people I don't actually follow?
Maybe what I want is an echo chamber. I thought the point of Twitter was to follow people whose posts you find interesting.
Also I think they block people way too easily: I've seen blocks for twits you can hardly find controversial and that weren't attacking anyone. In addition now there's talk of preventing people who have been blocked before from opening new accounts. One unfair block and you're out forever?
Do they really think that's a good idea?