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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Says Follower Count is Meaningless
In a fireside chat in New Delhi, India, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Monday the "follower count" metric on the social platform is meaningless. Talking in front of a live audience, the Twitter co-founder said it was probably unwise to include and emphasize on the follower count on his social network, a move he said the company did not realize while implementing it back in the day. "Back then, we were not really thinking about all the dynamics that could ensue afterwards," he said.
"One of the things we did was we had people follow each other -- so you can be a follower of someone," Dorsey said, explaining the thinking that went into carving some of the core features of Twitter. The company listed the number of people you had, and "made the font size a little bit bigger than everything else on the page. We did not really think much about it and moved on to the next problem to solve. What that has done is we put all the emphasis, not intending to, on that number of how many people follow me. So if that number is big and bold, what do people want to do with it? They want to make it go up."
"So when you open Twitter and you see that number is five. It is actually incentivizing you to increase that number. That may have been right 12 years ago, but I don't think it is right today. I don't think that's the number you should be focused on. I think what is more important is the number of meaningful conversations you're having on the platform. How many times do you receive a reply?"
Dorsey's remarks comes as he has publicly acknowledged that the company is rethinking about some of the core features of Twitter. late last month, a report claimed that Twitter was also thinking about discontinuing the "likes" feature -- Twitter neither confirmed nor denied it. On Monday, Dorsey reaffirmed that focusing on number of likes and retweets is not healthy.
Dorsey is not the only Twitter co-founder who has, of late, shown disdain for the follower count. Last week, Ev Williams expressed a similar sentiment. "I think showing follower counts was probably ultimately detrimental. It really put in your face that the game was popularity," he said at a conference.
"One of the things we did was we had people follow each other -- so you can be a follower of someone," Dorsey said, explaining the thinking that went into carving some of the core features of Twitter. The company listed the number of people you had, and "made the font size a little bit bigger than everything else on the page. We did not really think much about it and moved on to the next problem to solve. What that has done is we put all the emphasis, not intending to, on that number of how many people follow me. So if that number is big and bold, what do people want to do with it? They want to make it go up."
"So when you open Twitter and you see that number is five. It is actually incentivizing you to increase that number. That may have been right 12 years ago, but I don't think it is right today. I don't think that's the number you should be focused on. I think what is more important is the number of meaningful conversations you're having on the platform. How many times do you receive a reply?"
Dorsey's remarks comes as he has publicly acknowledged that the company is rethinking about some of the core features of Twitter. late last month, a report claimed that Twitter was also thinking about discontinuing the "likes" feature -- Twitter neither confirmed nor denied it. On Monday, Dorsey reaffirmed that focusing on number of likes and retweets is not healthy.
Dorsey is not the only Twitter co-founder who has, of late, shown disdain for the follower count. Last week, Ev Williams expressed a similar sentiment. "I think showing follower counts was probably ultimately detrimental. It really put in your face that the game was popularity," he said at a conference.
So what the hell have I been paying the click-farms for?!
Winning opinion wars is all social media is about nowadays, and having a higher number of echoing shitheads is what makes you win.
It really put in your face that the game was popularity,
Oh, really?
bickerdyke
I hope they burned him
That arrogant way they talk about their sheeple. Quite disgusting. I don't want to be treated that way.
So now the number of followers is meaningless, you should focus on the number of meaningful discussions you can have on the platform...are we talking of the same platform full of bots, trolls and kid in their mom's basement? How many meaningful discussions you can have on Internet? Two in a month? Pleeeeaseeee mister Dorsey.
You need more numbers to indicate:
Bot Followers
Paid Followers
Creepy stalkers
He obviously doesn't like the idea of users taking their numbers to advertisers and cutting a deal directly with them, instead of twitter grabbing every red cent that comes out of the platform. He also probably doesn't like the idea of having the fact he suspends the accounts of people with millions of followers continuously thrown in his face.
Expect this to be eliminated or subtly fudged, maybe a new number like "Validated Followers", something mostly useless for people to negotiate with.
I think he's right. Increasingly our society is becoming a reputation society where the digitital mediation of behaviour and social interaction allows our social capital to be quantified.
A similar example would be the "snapstreaks" on Snapchat. This is basically quantifying how good friendships are, and it's causing a lot of stress in teenagers.
Digital technology allows social pressure to be designed on a hitherto unknown scale. The Stasi was a beta-test. China embraces this with its social credit system. We should not let our culture slide in the same direction.
If they get rid of it for users, you better believe that Twitter itself will continue to track it, since it's an advertising platform.
Or maybe a 'value add' for the Kardashians of the world will be to make them pay to find out what their follower count is.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Monday the "follower count" metric on the social platform is meaningless.
Well, he if anybody should be able to have it removed then.
Then we will see if it really is meaningless to others than himself.
Jack can say what he wants about the "meaningless" follower count; it still means more than the arbitrary (and partisan) "verified" blue checkmark.
More generally, I can see why Jack, who's made so many partisan and unpopular moves (and no doubt has plans to make plenty more), would downplay the idea of popularity in this way.
Frightening. Jack just equated "meaningful conversation" with "what statements provoke the most responses". Welcome to the future of Twiiter, where clickbait and trolling is considered "meaningful" simply because they provoke the most responses.
What the heck is Twitter for if not popularity?
whatever figure you use to indicate something, will be played and abused.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Never understood why people so frantically use twitter. I can understand why companies are on it, as companies will be anywhere they see potential buyers or can efficiently communicate with customers. But why in the world would anybody be on it as a private citizen?
Why stop there? The whole of twitter is meaningless.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Thus making Trump the most meaningful person on Twitter.
Guess he got something right for once. *duck*
massive drops in their followers. Elon Musk is one. So what to expect of Twitters response. Its a feature not a problem!.
How will I measure my self-worth now?
Meaningful conversations?
Don't they ban people for having the wrong opinions? Or asking the wrong questions?
And the follower count wasn't implemented for no reason, it's a competitive element. They certainly didn't do that by accident.
Guy sounds like a chronic liar
This would actually make a lot of sense. You could use this excuse to validate shutting down those whom you don't think should have a voice, which aligns with Twitter's actions
When a company's most visible user is allowed a platform to launch hate attacks against both groups of people an individuals, there is indeed a problem.
Are their people doing meaningful things with Twitter, that far outweigh the damage done by the twitter president using twitter as his main propaganda outlet?
What would Trump do, if twitter either banded him, or if twitter had to close their doors, because half of all subscribers, unsubscribed, just like I did?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Frightening. Jack just equated "meaningful conversation" with "what statements provoke the most responses". Welcome to the future of Twiiter, where clickbait and trolling is considered "meaningful" simply because they provoke the most responses.
I believe that has been Twitter's modus since day one. Having meaningful conversation within Twitter's system simply doesn't happen.
Although it is a great place to commit career suicide.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Frightening.
Jack just equated "meaningful conversation" with "what statements provoke the most responses".
Welcome to the future of Twiiter, where clickbait and trolling is considered "meaningful" simply because they provoke the most responses.
That is what Twitter is today. All public Internet forums are this way, /. included. Everything funded by ad impressions is this way, and every popularity contest runs this way, including /. comments.
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I don't think clickbait and trolling is even twitter's biggest problem. No, the original 140 character limit made having a meaningful conversation so difficult most people weren't even going to bother and even after they increased it to a slightly less meaning-restricting 260 the culture was already set.
As much as Dorsey may talk about how what matters are the meaningful conversations, the reality is that it's always been a narcissistic point scoring game where what really matters is your popularity, which is measured in your follower count. To fix this would require some massive changes that would then in turn alienate most of their users, so fixing it is basically a Catch 22. Do nothing and it continues to be one of the most toxic places on the internet, but fix it and you're going to lose a lot of your users because it's ceased to be the toxic snakepit they enjoyed.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
nothing more than a communist anti-Trump hate farm. All right wing commentary has been purged. It's just a place for NPC's to pat each other on the back and pretend they matter!
ran for office too. Consequences indeed.
It's why every Youtube video ask you to comment on the video now. It tells the Advertisers you were paying attention to the content and therefor were more likely to notice the adverts. Otherwise you might have just scrolled right past their ads, or worse if you're a paid "influencer" folks might be ignoring you.
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he'll get back to us on banning the neo-Nazis. I mean, one thing at a time, seriously, you guys.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
is to shutdown twitter. It really doesn't matter what metric he considers meaningless or meaningful, the simple truth is that any metric is going to be gamed because social media is nothing more than a popularity contest in order to validate some egos. Kill the likes, even the follower count, it wont make a difference because if you provide any number to use as a metric there will be people who compete to have the higher number.
Unfortunately he experiences the cognitive dissidence that would allow him to understand such things as that understanding would completely destroy the revenue stream that keeps him in mansions and allows him the ability to produce sound bites like this.
... is for social networks like this to hide follower/fan counts. Show it only to the owner of the account, make the world a better place.
Isn't this the guy who said no one needs more than 140 chars or something like that?
Hasn't Twitter abundantly demonstrated that to be completely false?