Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter
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This is interesting for a couple reasons:
- Nobody who's actually used Twitter has asked about increasing the character limit of tweets. However, it does sound like something an outsider would say about the service.
- That specific tweet is long, yes, but also really poorly-written ("thoughtful?" huh?) and frankly kind of boring. The first way I saw it is via this response:
https://twitter.com/caitlin__kelly/status/912795950476857344
Caitlin's version is far better, and guess what? Fits in 140 characters.
- Jack doesn't seem to know what the word "arbitrary" means.
So what do actual Twitter users want?
- A way to edit tweets without changing their URLs
- Twitter to get rid of the hate speech and Nazis in a competent fashion (and not, for example, ban Lowtax because a Nazi lied about him making a death threat)
- Twitter to follow its own policies in general, especially to stop making exceptions for famous people who break them
- The "name certified" process to actually work. Lowtax wouldn't have been banned if his name had been certified, but his application to certified his name was rejected with no reason given despite meeting all Twitter's requirements
- If conversations are made by linking tweets together, for Twitter to show them in a more reasonable fashion instead of the stupid thing they currently do
- I personally would like the ability to temporarily mute an account. If someone I like is sending 40 live-tweets about Games of Thrones, something I don't give a shit about, please give me an "ignore this user for 2 hours" option. Right now I can only unfollow or block him, those are permanent
- Generally, people want Twitter to demonstrate some basic competence of the sort that doesn't seem to exist for any web-based products.
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I dunno about you, but reading people's essays on twitter where they try to /1
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@bb36e talk about some complex issue 140 characters at a time is really 2/
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@bb36e annoying. So maybe there is some value to this change. But it's probably not the most important one they could make. /3
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@bb36e Yeah but I see that as an UI issue. It's annoying because of how Twitter displays them.
Twitter knows there are 12 tweets, each a reply to a previous tweet by the same user... if they wanted, they could display that in a single "conversation" now. They have all the data they need to draw that UI.
And yeah, some of those tweets might branch out into other discussions, but I was using Usenet clients in 1997 that could cope with that in their UI. (I know, I know, everything from the 90s is lost arcane knowledge now known only by disrespected priests of a long-dead religion.)
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@blakeyrat By Twits, for Twits. I cannot for the life of me comprehend how something so insipid became a worldwide phenomenon.
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@bb36e said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
@bb36e annoying. So maybe there is some value to this change. But it's probably not the most important one they could make. /3
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
ban Lowtax because a Nazi lied about him making a death threat
is banned from twitter?
@bb36e said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
I dunno about you, but reading people's essays on twitter where they try to /1
That's what TwitLonger is for
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@masonwheeler It must be because everybody using Twitter is so stupid all the time forever. There can't possibly be any value to it.
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Twitter to get rid of the hate speech and Nazis in a competent fashion (and not, for example, ban Lowtax because a Nazi lied about him making a death threat)
I am convinced only the top 1% of the 1% of twitter users ever see a death treat or anything problematic directed at them. For 99.99% of twitter users, it's no problem at all.
In fact, if twitter gave popular users the ability to effectively moderate anonymous communication, they'd lose one of the major attractions of their platform - ability for ordinary joes to follow and occasionally interact with celebrities. And if that interaction sometimes turns into telling an opposing team's sport star to fuck themselves, well, needs of the many and all that.
Twitter doesn't seem to be in touch with their "base", but so far, they've (IMO smartly) stayed away from splintering their platform into a hundred closed private communities.
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Re: longer tweets.
I am OK with that, but it should be a DLC. You pay 50 cents per longer tweet (buy 10-pack for $1). That solves Twitter's financial situation (bye bye ads) and limits most of the tweets to 140 chars, while reserving the long tweets for when you really need them.
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Twitter to get rid of the hate speech and Nazis in a competent fashion (and not, for example, ban Lowtax because a Nazi lied about him making a death threat)
Yeah, there have been a lot of false positive bannings on this front, and I guess based on your comment that they aren't getting rid of the actual problems.
@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
The "name certified" process to actually work.
This thing has always kind of bothered me. The blue checkmark is just so generic. It seems like there should be something else to go along to identify what has been verified. Most of the accounts I see mean nothing to me. I have no idea who "Lowtax" might be, for instance. But it sounds like the kind of right winger I'd enjoy following.
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@masonwheeler said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
@blakeyrat By Twits, for Twits. I cannot for the life of me comprehend how something so insipid became a worldwide phenomenon.
It's pretty cool in that people from all over can directly communicate. When I first head about "micro-blogging" it sounded dumb, but it's actually pretty cool. Of course, like anything else, there are drawbacks.
Also: You may need this:
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Twitter to get rid of the hate speech and Nazis in a competent fashion (and not, for example, ban Lowtax because a Nazi lied about him making a death threat)
Well, he also posted what Twitter may consider child pornography on the day he was banned, so there's that.
Also, he did threaten the guy (BakedAlaska, who is pretty much a neo-Nazi and definitely a total fuckhead) when he said that he would put him in a room and flood it with concrete. Not exactly a credible threat in my opinion, but a threat it was.
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@cartman82 But there's TwitLonger so who would ever purchase a long tweet?
Oh you blocked TwitLonger links? Let me know how that works out for you.
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@polygeekery I'd say it's about as legitimate as gigX saying he'd find The_Judge and cut off his hands, but since gigX is from eastern Europe, that's actually somewhat legitimate.
(That's beside the fact that he apparently would throw threats like this around regularly)
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@bb36e flagged for digital blackface.
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@polygeekery said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
he also posted what Twitter may consider child pornography on the day he was banned
She looked 17?
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@polygeekery said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Well, he also posted what Twitter may consider child pornography on the day he was banned, so there's that.
I should have elucidated on this more.
On the day he was banned he posted a video of his child dancing naked.
I have no reason to believe he is a child pornographer. It was likely just a cute video that parents might find cute. But...that would technically be child pornography. I think. It is definitely the type of thing that a shitload of people would flag. It happens frequently on Facebook from what I understand.
But we don't know because Twitter does not usually give reason for banning on such low profile cases.
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@jaloopa ha. I was clarifying that as you replied.
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@jazzyjosh said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
@cartman82 But there's TwitLonger so who would ever purchase a long tweet?
Oh you blocked TwitLonger links? Let me know how that works out for you.
Show more ads to people with a lot of TwitLonger links
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@polygeekery I saw it stream in as I reached the end of the thread
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@jazzyjosh said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
@cartman82 But there's TwitLonger so who would ever purchase a long tweet?
Oh you blocked TwitLonger links? Let me know how that works out for you.From my experience, TwitLonger works the same way as pastebin. You click the link and it opens a new ugly page with the text (and ads, IIRC). Not the same as having a long tweet right there in the feed.
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@cartman82 The app I used to use when I was on twitter a lot had twitlonger integration so it would just show up in the feed.
Another thing I've seen is people writing a long rant in their notes app and then posting a screenshot
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@jaloopa The app I use used to open twitlonger links inline, but for some reason that stopped working a while ago.
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
- I personally would like the ability to temporarily mute an account. If someone I like is sending 40 live-tweets about Games of Thrones, something I don't give a shit about, please give me an "ignore this user for 2 hours" option. Right now I can only unfollow or block him, those are permanent
I don't get why they have a temporary mute option for words, but not for accounts. Twitter?
Alternate suggestion- being able to mute specific conversations. And then you can yell at them if they don't thread their livetweets.
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@jazzyjosh said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
@cartman82 But there's TwitLonger so who would ever purchase a long tweet?
How will people humblebrag about how much money they have unless they can make sure every tweet they make is more than 140 characters?
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@cartman82 said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
I am convinced only the top 1% of the 1% of twitter users ever see a death treat or anything problematic directed at them. For 99.99% of twitter users, it's no problem at all.
Probably true.
But everybody follows or has seen mentions of people who are negatively affected by Twitter's shitty enforcement of its own policies, and that's really what makes the public perception.
People think flying is unsafe not because they've personally been involved in a plane crash, but because they've seen plane crashes on the news.
@cartman82 said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Twitter doesn't seem to be in touch with their "base",
That's an understatement.
@cartman82 said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Re: longer tweets.
I am OK with that, but it should be a DLC. You pay 50 cents per longer tweet (buy 10-pack for $1). That solves Twitter's financial situation (bye bye ads) and limits most of the tweets to 140 chars, while reserving the long tweets for when you really need them.I'd actually be 100% for that too. That's a great idea.
@boomzilla said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
This thing has always kind of bothered me. The blue checkmark is just so generic. It seems like there should be something else to go along to identify what has been verified. Most of the accounts I see mean nothing to me. I have no idea who "Lowtax" might be, for instance. But it sounds like the kind of right winger I'd enjoy following.
He's more of a general troublemaker. I'm not sure he ever really expresses any political opinions.
As far as name verification, the problem is:
- Even if you follow every guideline to the letter, there's a very good chance your verification request will be denied
- Twitter never gives a reason for denying the request and there's no way to contact a human and ask
- If your request is denied, you can't do it again for a long period of time (I think 3 months?)
- Twitter gives preferential treatment to users with verified names (thus a KNOWN Nazi sympathizer can easily boot off a comedian)
Basically, Twitter handles name verification the same way Google handles... well, pretty much everything.
@polygeekery said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Well, he also posted what Twitter may consider child pornography on the day he was banned, so there's that.
That wasn't why he was banned.
He was banned because of a post he made that said something like, "the best way to deal with Nazis is to bury them in cement". (I didn't see the actual tweet, for obvious reasons.)
Asshole Neo-Nazi whose name I won't share somehow managed to convince Twitter (probably through the cachet of his verified name) that this was a personal threat against him. Which, BTW, also means sending Twitter an email that basically said, "BTW I am a huge Nazi and I'm quite open about it".
@polygeekery said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Also, he did threaten the guy (BakedAlaska, who is pretty much a neo-Nazi and definitely a total fuckhead) when he said that he would put him in a room and flood it with concrete. Not exactly a credible threat in my opinion, but a threat it was.
Oh you have more info on this than I did. Was it a personal threat, or a general non-serious threat against a vague group? The former's bannable, the latter's a joke.
@thegoryone said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
I checked my own twitter feed. It's nearly entirely made up of Football Manager clips or competition retweets (which I haven't won).
You curate your own feed, so. If you don't like that stuff, fix it.
I followed a guy who used to post great stuff but then every post turned into just bitching about stuff. Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch. Petty stuff too. "Starbucks mispelled my name on my latte cup!" Fuck him, I unfollowed.
@coderpatsy said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
I don't get why they have a temporary mute option for words, but not for accounts. Twitter?
Yeah it's like they VAGUELY understand the problem exists, but they "solved" it in a way that:
- Doesn't actually solve it
- Took way more development resources than the more obvious solution that works
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Oh you have more info on this than I did. Was it a personal threat, or a general non-serious threat against a vague group? The former's bannable, the latter's a joke.
I believe it was referencing BakedAlaska himself. I cannot find an archived copy of the tweet. The best I was able to do was this Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDickShow/comments/71tozq/comment/dnddp2v
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
I followed a guy who used to post great stuff but then every post turned into just bitching about stuff. Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch. Petty stuff too. "Starbucks mispelled my name on my latte cup!" Fuck him, I unfollowed.
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
That wasn't why he was banned.
He was banned because of a post he made that said something like, "the best way to deal with Nazis is to bury them in cement". (I didn't see the actual tweet, for obvious reasons.)
Asshole Neo-Nazi whose name I won't share somehow managed to convince Twitter (probably through the cachet of his verified name) that this was a personal threat against him. Which, BTW, also means sending Twitter an email that basically said, "BTW I am a huge Nazi and I'm quite open about it".Are you at all sure that this is what happened? I looked briefly but I don't think Twitter told him why they did it, did they?
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@polygeekery said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Are you at all sure that this is what happened? I looked briefly but I don't think Twitter told him why they did it, did they?
Twitter never tells anybody anything. They follow the Google model when it comes to customer service. "We deleted you. We won't tell you why. There's no appeal. Fuck you."
And yes, while it's "technically" a threat, telling someone you want to lock them in a room and fill it with concrete is obviously a joke. At least to me. I can guarantee if Twitter had verified Lowtax's name a couple months ago when he tried, he would not have been banned.
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
And yes, while it's "technically" a threat, telling someone you want to lock them in a room and fill it with concrete is obviously a joke. At least to me.
To me also. But it is still a threat. He probably should not have been banned for that, but it is within their TOS to do so.
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@polygeekery I didn't deny that. But I also find it extremely difficult to believe that Neo-Nazi Guy has never broken anything in Twitter's TOS.
Selective enforcement is worse than no enforcement in some ways. For example, when a fucking NAZI stays on the service and a comedian does not.
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@blakeyrat it's not
illegalagainst the TOS unless you getcaughtflagged for it
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"140 was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit"
If it was based on 160 character SMS then it wasn't arbitrary.
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@slapout1 said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
If it was based on 160 character SMS then it wasn't arbitrary.
@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Jack doesn't seem to know what the word "arbitrary" means.
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@slapout1 said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
"140 was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit"
If it was based on 160 character SMS then it wasn't arbitrary.
Then why wasn't the limit set at 160? Why 140? Why not 150? Why not 153? Why not 147?
Unless there is a technical explanation, e.g., the SMS limit minus some overhead that our system needs = 140, then 140 is an arbitrary number.
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@el_heffe said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Then why wasn't the limit set at 160? Why 140? Why not 150? Why not 153? Why not 147?
20 characters were reserved for the username.
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
20 characters were reserved for the username.
Perhaps other metadata too. It's been meaningless for quite a while now, as the reply link info has been out of the tweet itself in the first place, plus Twitter uses full Unicode and not the subset safely supported by any receiver of an SMS (which would be basically a cut-down ASCII).
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@dkf said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Perhaps other metadata too. It's been meaningless for quite a while now, as the reply link info has been out of the tweet itself in the first place, plus Twitter uses full Unicode and not the subset safely supported by any receiver of an SMS (which would be basically a cut-down ASCII).
Twitter was designed before the media-SMS system (or whatever they call it-- the one that supports long messages, unicode and image embeds) was universally supported.
I mean yeah it's a different world now, but.
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@cartman82 said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
twitter users ever see a death treat or anything
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@bb36e said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
@bb36e also, since we're on twitter:
YES LITERALLY THIS. THANK YOU SO MUCH. END OF THREAD!!! 👆♥️♥️
Substandard looping. 0/10.
https://i.imgur.com/r73VJe3.mp4
edit: I didn't put <big>, why is it bigging
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@blakeyrat said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
The "name certified" process to actually work.
https://twitter.com/StrongBadActual/status/912458542464077825
Let's look at the EXTENSIVE DOCUMENTATION:
An account may be verified if it is determined to be an account of public interest. Typically this includes accounts maintained by users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas.
(Yes, that is the entirety of the documentation).
Strong Bad is of public interest and fits into the following categories: music, acting, media, and other key interest areas.
Is there a single person on the internet who hasn't heard of Homestar Runner, Strong Bad, or Trogdor the Burninator?
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@ben_lubar said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Is there a single person on the internet who hasn't heard of Homestar Runner, Strong Bad, or Trogdor the Burninator?
You're the only person I've ever heard mention any of those, and I don't watch the videos you post
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@jaloopa said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
@ben_lubar said in Nobody running Twitter uses Twitter:
Is there a single person on the internet who hasn't heard of Homestar Runner, Strong Bad, or Trogdor the Burninator?
You're the only person I've ever heard mention any of those, and I don't watch the videos you post
A game based on Homestar Runner has 43 references on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Bad's_Cool_Game_for_Attractive_People
The Homestar Runner page has 34 references:
The page about a single character from Homestar Runner who is mainly known for checking his email with unusual hand-wear has 29 references:
Next you'll tell me you've never heard of Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Batman, or Borderlands.