Twitter: “A Honeypot for Assholes”

Twitter

Charlie Warzel, writing for Buzzfeed, with a massive condemnation of Twitter and their handling of trolls and abuse on their platform:

According to 10 high-level former employees, the social network’s long history with abuse has been fraught with inaction and organizational disarray. Taken together, these interviews tell the story of a company that’s been ill-equipped to handle harassment since its beginnings. Fenced in by an abiding commitment to free speech above all else and a unique product that makes moderation difficult and trolling almost effortless, Twitter has, over a chaotic first decade marked by shifting business priorities and institutional confusion, allowed abuse and harassment to continue to grow as a chronic problem and perpetual secondary internal priority. On Twitter, abuse is not just a bug, but — to use the Silicon Valley term of art — a fundamental feature.

If I had to venture a guess, I think an outside company buys Twitter within the next 8 months. I see the amount of fly-by bullshit in my @replies on a weekly basis and I know for a fact it’s not anywhere near what other people are getting. I hope someone buys them and makes a better community. Twitter could be, should be, a fantastic place online. It’s not.

Twitter Just Permanently Suspended Milo Yiannopoulos

Twitter

Charlie Warzel, at Buzzfeed:

According to Twitter, it was Yiannopoulos who led the harassment campaign against Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones that inspired the SNL cast member’s decision to leave Twitter. The tweets, many of which targeted Jones for being black and a woman, were the final straw for Twitter, which is taking steps to try to solve its harassment problem.

About-fucking-time.

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Twitter Opens Up Verification Requests

Twitter

Nick Statt, writing at The Verge, on Twitter’s new program that will allow anyone to request a verified account:

Starting today, the company will let users request a verified account on its website by filling out a form with a verified phone number and email address, a profile photo, and additional information regarding why verification is required or helpful. In defining who will get approved, Twitter says “an account may be verified if it is determined to be of public interest.”

Until Twitter can get their harassment problem under some kind of control, I see all of their other announcements through that frustrating lens. Even when they’re things I think they should be doing and could be great for the company.

Twitter Invests in SoundCloud

Twitter

Twitter Ventures has invested around $70 million into SoundCloud. From Recode:

Twitter has invested around $70 million in the music service, as part of a round that should end up in the $100 million-range, according to sources familiar with the deal. The round is expected to value SoundCloud at about $700 million — the same value that investors placed on the company in 2014, when it raised $60 million; since then it has also raised a debt round.

Twitter Bets It All on Jack Dorsey

Twitter

Nick Bilton, who wrote Hatching Twitter, a book I’ve recommended in the past, writes for Vanity Fair about the current state of Twitter:

If these expulsions sound like murders, that’s likely because many of them were committed with the same behind-the-scenes planning and mastery. In every instance, the man who was knocked off had no idea who was behind the coup that led to his demise. In 2013, after the publication of my book Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal, I was greeted with effusive (or enraged) phone calls, text messages, and e-mails from co-founders, board members, and senior employees who were excited to finally learn the true identities of their tormentors. I still occasionally receive calls from people inside the company asking me for information about a recent firing.

Twitter Remains Broken

Twitter

Aleen Mean, writing on her blog, on how in spite of the new features Twitter keeps rolling out, it remains broken in one glaring way: it’s too easy to abuse people on the service.

Time and time again, we’ve been told that the company is working on making things better for targets of harassment. What we see, however, are half-baked enhancements designed to make the service more appealing to advertisers and attempts at enticing new users. Many people have suggested changes they could implement to curb abuse. For example, Randi Lee Harper’s list of suggestions from earlier this year is still on-point.

Twitter Changing Up 140 Character Rules

Twitter

Twitter has announced some changes to how they’re going to be handling tweets, media, and @-replies on the service.

[Y]ou can already do a lot in a Tweet, but we want you to be able to do even more. In the coming months we’ll make changes to simplify Tweets including what counts toward your 140 characters, so for instance, @names in replies and media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos, and polls) will no longer “use up” valuable characters.

Twitter to Not Count Links and Photos in Character Limit

Twitter

Sarah Frier, reporting for Bloomberg, that Twitter will no longer be counting images or links in their 140-character limit:

The change could happen in the next two weeks, said the person who asked not to be named because the decision isn’t yet public. Links currently take up 23 characters, even after Twitter automatically shortens them. The company declined to comment.

Good, finally, still feels like a half-measure.

Azealia Banks’s Twitter Account Gets Suspended

Twitter

XXL is reporting that Azealia Banks’s Twitter account has been suspended.

XXL reached out to a Twitter rep, who told us they don’t comment on individual accounts for security and privacy reasons. They did, however, direct us towards a very specific part of their guidelines: “We may suspend an account if it has been reported to us as violating our Rules surrounding abuse. When an account engages in abusive behavior, like sending threats to others or impersonating other accounts, we may suspend it temporarily or, in some cases, permanently.”

Social Media and the Music Industry

Twitter

Harriet Gibsone, writing for The Guardian, looks at the pros and cons of social media in the music industry. The article itself is interesting, but this tidbit really stood out:

“I mean I’m not a drinker any more, but when Twitter first came out I was, like, drunk tweeting, and nearly put my foot in it quite a few times,” Adele told the BBC last year. “So my management decided that you have to go through two people and then it has to be signed off by someone, but they’re all my tweets. No one writes my tweets. They just post them for me.”

This is probably something that should be put into place by most bands/labels/management. I wonder if there’s a market for an app like this? One that looks and works just like regular Twitter, but any post or reply gets queued up instead of posted immediately. Combine that with some fancy screening of the at-replies section (to filter out harassment, assholes, and spam), and maybe Twitter would be more attractive to celebrities, sports stars, and other public figures.