I know they can’t control people who obviously feel so terrible about themselves that they use this as their outlet to abuse other users, but boy would Twitter be a nicer place to be if they did the things suggested in this article I linked to below. I have never seen people behave in public the way that abusive users behave online, because I’m sure they know it’s socially unacceptable and would never do it. Obviously, they feel their “freedom of expression” means people have no choice but to listen to them. If they said these things in public, people would just turn around and walk away from them. On the internet, they know it’s harder for people to tune them out. At the moment on Twitter, the only choice is to ignore it or spend way too much time reporting them, or find a third party software to help maintain what we don’t want or need to see. Just having a way to mass control the @ mentions would be huge! Also, to be able to report a hashtag so Twitter could just see all the @ mentions coming from the hashtag and going toward one user (like the hundreds at a time I would get) so they can monitor the abuse all at once instead of the user needing to report each account individually. Because you know what keeps me away? It’s all the people who don’t follow me but do follow a hashtag and see where everyone is being shitty, then show up in my mentions to be part of the problem for the sake of being part of something, and I was tired of giving them a platform to access me to do this. If you want to be part of something, do yourself a favor and be part of a charity organization or volunteering to help people or animals in need. THAT is something you can be part of that actually does some good.
*Sidenote: I have received several emails from people who think I am back on Twitter because they can see my profile again. I am not using Twitter at all. I just locked my account so my user name isn’t released to the public.
I don’t think the “in real life conversation” analogy is all that correlative for a few reasons.
I think first, tweets are persistent *which is a big reason why defamtion therein is close to libel than slander. Though in the early days of chatrooms, etc there seemed to be more flexible interpretation as use models were, and are, still being sussed out).
perhaps that is why some newer gen social networks are playing with non-persistent posted content..There are interesting pop books such as “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age” that explore data impermanence and its value
(some intelligence theory describes intelligence as imperfect memory).
To some extent, I think displacement strategies (a’la “Wag the Dog”, etc) emerge as a forgetting analog.
Also, as the articles speaks to, “public” mode is a big part of the twitter use model. So one can walk away from a speaker, but the speaker is still in the square (and those curating a public image probably will sneak a peak regardless of blocking technology – I fear that may be worse for thee many communication means, but then (as the article brings up) some of the inherent structure is one->one (in the open) so individuals can (and do) respond…but the broadcast funnel has always had problems with that (“the switchboard is lighting up like a christmas tree”)
and the tactical positions of that will be exploited. highly connected nodes will exploit the “bully pulpit” relying on the value of connections and less connected nodes will cluster in “grassroots” relying on raw nodal volume
TBH, I don’t really see a lot of difference in various sides of whatever conflict – each side has determined that the other is “being shitty” (not a term I, personally, use. I find the sentiment both distasteful and unhelpfully reinforcing bias).
I think the problem is systemic.
I wonder if altering the control structures will split the formats (as the article mentions) making it, essentially, a news/advertising platform one one side
and another chat program on the other.
WHich could make the system as a whole neither fish-nor-fowl and relegate it to myspace status (it seems the under <25 crowd is already using other systems much more heavilly..though that's an anecdotal observation)
In the end Gleik may have it right. Despite the happy, serendipitous occurrences (which is going to happen with volume..not that different than how gambling rewards) – it may not really be a genuine social network (in the pure sense)
Happy to be able to comment again! Yay!
As for this, well, yeah. It sucks. I’m fortunate I haven’t had to deal with it much on Twitter, but I think you did the smart thing here. Lock your account and take a break and if you ever feel like coming back, great! And if not, well, there’s more time in your day now! (I find I’m actually much happier when I put down my phone, so…yeah.)
might work, at first i was like no, but the no was from selfish reasons. So I re read the article and realized people who don’t know me largely ignore me, so how would this be different? That’s not like a oh no i’m so lonely cry, that’s just factual. Also true in real life, of course i don’t break into other people conversations in real life, usually. So the point is I could see this working, after I put my selfishness aside. Anyways I view twitter as two town hall meetings 1 is: people being like “I’m angry why am I angry? I’m not sure but i have to yell and go rabble rabble at people and ruin their days” and the 2nd is like: “would you care for some more tea, lovely weather we’re having. Pip! Pip! Look at these adorable mammal pics”(btw I love the adorable mammal pics, and one of the main things i miss seeing from you on twitter) then people in between those two groups.
I miss you, but I understand.