Category: Social Media

I struggled to decide which answer I wanted to blockquote; almost all of them made me feel bad for the world.

Then I saw this one. Here’s the CEO of the world’s largest social media network:

I’ve said this already —but I think at this point that I clearly made a mistake by just dismissing fake news as “crazy”— as having an impact. People will analyze the actual impact of this for a long time to come, but what I think was clear at this point is that it was too flippant. I should have never referred to it as crazy.

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Joel Spolsky, on Facebook and Twitter:

Both Twitter and Facebook’s selfish algorithms, optimized solely for increasing the number of hours I spend on their services, are kind of destroying civil society at the same time. Researchers also discovered that the algorithms served to divide up the world into partisan groups. So even though I was following hundreds of people on social networks, I noticed that the political pieces which I saw were nevertheless directionally aligned with my own political beliefs. But to be honest they were much… shriller. Every day the Twitter told me about something that The Other Side did that was Outrageous and Awful (or, at least, this was reported), and everyone was screeching in sync and self-organizing in a lynch mob, and I would have to click LIKE or RETWEET just to feel like I had done something about it, but I hadn’t actually done anything about it. I had just slacktivated.

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Miriam Kramer at Mashable uninstalled the Facebook app from her iPhone:

The initial desire to delete started with Facebook vacuuming up so much space and battery life on my (admittedly old) iPhone 6. But it quickly became clear that my actual, non-battery, capital-L Life was also better off not having Facebook a thumbtap away.

I don’t miss it. I don’t miss the weird sensation of unnecessary updates from ex-boyfriends and other assorted once-familiars. I don’t miss having my train time hijacked by being caught up in the political fights (or the rage-inducing comments that followed them).

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Aliza Rosen at Twitter:

In September, we launched a test that expanded the 140 character limit so every person around the world could express themselves easily in a Tweet. Our goal was to make this possible while ensuring we keep the speed and brevity that makes Twitter, Twitter. Looking at all the data, we’re excited to share we’ve achieved this goal and are rolling the change out to all languages where cramming was an issue.

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Federico Viticci:

I started using the official Twitter client as my main Twitter app on my iPhone and iPad.

For the past six months, I’ve been reevaluating my entire Twitter experience based on the apps I use to read tweets and interact with people. The idea made a lot more sense once I stepped out of my preconceptions: I wanted to understand what 2014 Twitter was like and if that meant sacrificing my nerd cred and use a Muggle’s Twitter app, so be it. But at the same time, I’ve gone back and forth between Twitter and third-party clients, primarily out of habit, but also because they still offer powerful features and design details that I appreciate.

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Twitter:

To help build a more personal Twitter experience for you, we are collecting and occasionally updating the list of apps installed on your mobile device so we can deliver tailored content that you might be interested in. If you’re not interested in a tailored experience you can adjust your preferences at any time (read below). Additionally, if you have previously opted out of interest-based ads by turning on “Limit Ad Tracking” on your iOS device or by adjusting your Android device settings to “Opt out of interest-based ads,” we will not collect your apps unless you adjust your device settings.

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Robert Sorokanich at Gizmodo:

If you’re wondering about the rain and storms in Memphis, you might have gotten a big surprise in your Twitter feed today. WREG News Channel 3 briefly directed its Twitter followers to a link that not only had zero radar information about the #memstorm — it was a PornHub user’s profile.

Whoops. And I totally don’t buy the “we were hacked” excuse.

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In a new support article titled “What’s a Twitter timeline?” the company dropped this little nugget of news:

Additionally, when we identify a Tweet, an account to follow, or other content that’s popular or relevant, we may add it to your timeline. This means you will sometimes see Tweets from accounts you don’t follow. We select each Tweet using a variety of signals, including how popular it is and how people in your network are interacting with it. Our goal is to make your home timeline even more relevant and interesting.

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Sigh.

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Dalton Caldwell and Bryan Berg, on the state of App.net after its first major round of subscription renewals:

The good news is that the renewal rate was high enough for App.net to be profitable and self-sustaining on a forward basis. Operational and hosting costs are sufficiently covered by revenue for us to feel confident in the continued viability of the service. No one should notice any change in the way the App.net API/service operates. To repeat, App.net will continue to operate normally on an indefinite basis.

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image via Federico

The epic burns aside — I chuckled at the Microsoft CEO’s use of the word magic — this exchange highlights something that’s bothered me for a while.

I really find Tim Cook’s approach to Twitter frustrating, despite the massive retweet numbers and blog posts spurred on by each tweet. The use of hashtags coupled with the grammatical errors make him seem unprofessional. While I appreciate that it’s probably Tim himself at the keyboard, having an employee or intern look over these things before they go out the door would be great.

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Adrianne Jeffries at The Verge:

Twitter has shelved a project that would have made it more difficult for the government to intercept users’ private messages without a court order, sources tell The Verge, a sudden reversal for a company that has been ahead of the curve on privacy at a time of creeping surveillance.

Most of Twitter’s content is public, but there are a few channels that users consider private: personal information, protected accounts, and direct messages, which function like a limited email system.

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