Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/30/suggestions-for-improving-twit.html
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So long as “new features” doesn’t mean mucking about with how the timeline works by default (again), yes!
John Scalzi had a good list of security/privacy/troll management features, most of which read like they’d be feasible to implement:
https://www.google.ca/amp/whatever.scalzi.com/2016/02/16/what-i-want-out-of-twitter/amp/
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The single most important two things for Twitter to do in 2016:
- Go back to a chronological timeline
- Ban actual Nazis
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It’s never felt as though they really had an idea who their product is for- so they swing between allowing tools for power users (or not), they swing between allowing devs to build neat third party stuff (or not), and they muck with some of the very attributes that people value most (timeline, only seeing tweets from those you follow, etc…).
My twitter use has declined a fair bit over the last few years- it’s become less useful to have conversations there (if the conversations are of any importance) as you’ll get jumped by an angry horde of bots/sea lions, and that leads to more inward-facing conversations (which aren’t as helpful, as there are fewer voices and fewer viewpoints).
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“I’m merely emphasizing that nobody on the outside can tell if they did or not.”
What a wonderful piece of communication! It shows that the whole point is not one of blame, but of needing to recognize perspective in solving Twitter’s problems.
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?
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Automatically add bold text reading “retweeted Neo-Nazi lie” to any applicable Tweet posted by a prominent public figure. Permanently ban any user who posts three or more of such tweets.
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I agree with all of his suggestions. Too bad Twitter won’t do it.
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Exactly. And it’s too bad, because it’s a reasonable list that they probably already have the data to implement with. If they didn’t want to bog down the server side with extra processing, a lot of the features could be added to a client-side app.
But they won’t, and it will be hard for third-party vendors to fully implement because of the aforementioned third-party issues.
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Ban @realdonaldtrump.
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Happened to me just the other day. Got jumped on by about 5-10 RF trollies offering nothing more than juvenile threats. Something I’ve found interesting though: Just the other day I replied to someone accusing USA Today of bias in their tweet about trump’s 3500+ lawsuits. The person I replied to had an avatar of a young woman, and I asked, essentially, “what bias are you talking about?” From that point forward, I got a bizarre mixture of replies questioning [my manhood, my veteran’s status, my lack of profile images, that I was driving trollies ‘young girls’, etc, etc] pretty much anything (hoping to find a pressure point, no doubt) instead of actually responding.
Getting to the point where there isn’t anything useful to do on Twitter other than driving trollies other users. And that doesn’t strike me as a viable business model.
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Wouldn’t help for long. He’s about to get the password for @potus. Burning the whole platform down may be the only option after all.
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It also fends off the usual “MY FRIEND THAT WORKS AT BLAH BLAH DOES CARE ABOUT THE PROBLEM”
Yes, of course! Many of us have friends that work at tech companies or do ourselves, but they are generally not the sort of role where they are able to implement their changes for the better of the company and thus the world.
It’d at least keep the idiots in the media from reblogging every single coke-addled thought that goes through his pinhead.
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No, it isn’t.
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It’s a wonderful… idea.
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I thought he was going to get his own account for that? @potus45?
I doubt he’ll use it much anyway. I think he values the Trump brand more than the POTUS one and doesn’t like being reminded that he’s going to be a public employee.
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He has zero interest in or capabilities of separating the office from his personal branding. He’s not expecting to be held to the public, either.
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Oooooh, that sounds like a fantastic thing to remind him about, as often as possible. 
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He’s not taking a salary though, right? The US is his new charity work now that the Trump Foundation is no more.
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Beyond his run-by-proxy for profits that he’s already working to funnel public funds through.
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