
Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presidency possible - ryan_j_naughton
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/05/21/twitter-co-founder-im-sorry-if-we-made-trumps-presidency-possible/?utm_term=.acf61ce3d39e
======
broodbucket
>“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and
ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” Williams told
the Times. “I was wrong about that.”

I despise this quote so much, and I'm far from a Trump supporter. If you need
to censor speech in order for your side to win, maybe you have bigger issues
than Trump's twitter account.

~~~
intended
This idea of unfettered free speech is going to kick the bucket, and very very
soon - I am sorry to say.

Be well warned - the stuff happening on reddit, the tools being developed by
moderators are the epitome of the road to hell being paved with good
intentions.

The old generalized ideological position of Free Speech is no longer tenable,
whether we like it or not.

I'm a proponent of Free Speech, and I've spent the time to understand _why_
its important, and why Humanity has valued it and argued for it.

The ideas behind it are sound.

It falls flat when having to deal with the modern internet.

In the simplest explanation - Free Speech was _NEVER_ designed to deal with
things like channel saturation and specialized targeting of the human hind
brain which happens today.

The Free speech model is the bazaar of ideas model. Everyone can see all
ideas, and decide for themselves what is best. Heinous ideas are important
because at the very least - people can define themselves against it.

Modern impediments to free speech arise because small groups of humans have
new abilities to disrupt the bazaar.

They can spam a single message, they can overwhelm normal discourse, and we
have learnt that emotion over comes reason regularly. That's how the brain is
designed.

In the same way environmental rules are made to prevent abuse of the commons,
or pollution of common land, rules _will_ be made to "protect" free speech.

How those conflicting ideas will be meshed, is beyond me.

Without such rules, motivated people can and _will_ abuse/spam the shit out of
a communication channel in order to take control of it.

fundamentally - the human brain itself is un-prepared for this environment.

Therefore, rules will be made to ensure that the human brain is not completely
harmed by it.

~~~
dorgo
I don't understand why nobody came up with a technical solution for this
problems yet. It can't be that complicated. Make a better Twitter. Add
reputation management. Enforce strict rules on argumentation. Reduce/forbid
redundant arguments. Add better structure for arguments. Arguments should be
as short as possible but not shorter. Add ratings to arguments (a la
hackernews).

~~~
ManlyBread
It won't work for the same reason it doesn't work for reddit - it still needs
to be maintained by a human. Which means that bias and agendas will enter at
some point of the process and there's absolutely nothing a mere user can do
about it.

>Add reputation management

Doesn't work at all for reddit, the "karma" means nothing, the karma
requirements for some subreddits only make it harder for new users to join or
to have any kind of a meaningful discussion. On top of that posting in some
subreddits automatically gets you banned from many others, regardless of the
opinions actually expressed, which means you can't even try to have a
meaningful discussion with people holding an opposing view. Not like it
matters though, any solid argument is labeled as "concern trolling" anyway and
thus deemed banworthy.

>Enforce strict rules on argumentation. Add better structure for arguments.
Arguments should be as short as possible but not shorter.

Again, a human will have to do that, which in case of reddit means biased
moderator decisions, selective enforcement of ToS and admins editing your
comments.

>Add ratings to arguments

Easily gamed, as evidenced by any upvote system (reddit especially, their
"anti-brigade" measures are laughable and pretty much punish everyone aside
from the people who are actually "brigading").

------
grandalf
In 2016 the US was still vulnerable to a Kardashian style PR stunt attack.
Trump performed this attack over and over again and garnered an estimated $2B
of free advertising from it.

Trump used Twitter to do this, but he could have used other social media.
Trump's tweets were not newsworthy because Twitter routed them to millions of
people but because large media firms wanted to monetize the hysteria created
by the tweets so they had their newsrooms run coverage of each and every
tweet.

~~~
GuiA
_> In 2016 the US was still vulnerable to a Kardashian style PR stunt attack.
Trump performed this attack over and over again and garnered an estimated $2B
of free advertising from it._

This hits the nail on the head. Late stage capitalism has completely fused
media, news, and entertainment. This means that any person or organization who
manages to "hack" the news cycle (i.e. finds a way to be in the spotlight on a
very regular basis) can reap great profits. Like a presidency.

I don't agree that he could have used any other social media to the same
effect. Information propagates and decays on Twitter much, much faster than on
other mainstream platforms: if I post something, everyone who follows me sees
it right away, and very few tweets are seen a few days after they have been
posted. No other mainstream social network is like this. These properties have
led to Twitter becoming the new AP stream for journalists, aka the entry point
to the news cycle. If you want to dominate the news cycle, dominate Twitter -
be it with racist tweets or asking for free chicken nuggets.

Twitter as a media apparatus has naturally played a great part in electing
Trump. The Twitter leadership isn't composed of economists or political
scientists or sociologists, so of course this kind of stuff lies completely
outside of their concern (unless it brings good PR, like it does now). Same
goes for Facebook, although the role it plays in the equation is different.

~~~
grandalf
> I don't agree that he could have used any other social media to the same
> effect. Information propagates and decays on Twitter much, much faster than
> on other mainstream platforms

I certainly agree that Twitter's characteristics are unique, but I think there
was also a lot of awareness of Trump going into the election and so I wonder
if he could have done the same thing with a simple blog.

My biggest curiosity is that now that he's shown that the attack can work, how
many candidates will enter the next election doing it and how unusual will
they be...

~~~
GuiA
_> how many candidates will enter the next election doing it and how unusual
will they be..._

2020 is still a while away, but a few leads:

Kanye West:

“Rappers are philosophers of our now, celebrities are the influencers of our
now, just look at the president. [Trump] wasn’t in politics and won.”

Mark Zuckerberg:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/zucke...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/zuckerberg-2020/513689/)

------
danblick
If you're interested in this topic, I would highly recommend Neil Postman's
book, "Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show
business".

I agree with claims that Postman predicted Trump's rise back in 1985:

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/02/amusing-
oursel...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/02/amusing-ourselves-to-
death-neil-postman-trump-orwell-huxley)

The book is written about television, but the main ideas are still applicable
to online newsfeeds and social media.

The book unpacks the phrase: "the ideas that are convenient to express become
the content of a culture". If the most convenient form of communication is
long-form writing in newspapers or pamphlets, people will get their
information from (long-form writing in) newspapers or pamphlets. If it's
television, they will get information from (visual, snappy, "entertaining")
video. If it's Twitter, people will end up talking about ideas that can be
conveniently expressed in 140 characters or less.

------
GuiA
_“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and
ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place”_

\- Ev Williams

 _" Really don't want to get in politics. I just want to help invent and
develop technologies that improve lives. Feels so bizarre."_

\- Elon Musk

 _" For one week, political stories are off-topic. Please flag them. Please
also flag political threads on non-political stories. For our part, we'll kill
such stories and threads when we see them. Then we'll watch together to see
what happens."_

\- HN Moderation team

It's okay, maybe some day Silicon Valley will realize that technology and
politics aren't two concepts that you can neatly disentangle from one another,
and that building tech never "automatically" makes the world a better place on
its own. If you are touching human lives, you are "in politics".

~~~
baq
this is why scientists and technologists should run for office. kind of 'if
you don't want to do it, you're qualified'.

------
IanCal
Somewhat concerning statements on their own.

> “I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and
> ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” Williams told
> the Times. “I was wrong about that.”

I'd like to see a more detailed look at why Twitter might not have been a good
idea. I don't think that free, easy communication is a bad thing and I think
it's powered an enormous change for good. The sentiment expressed in the
quotes sounds worryingly similar to proponents of censorship.

I just think that Twitter is a bad way of communicating anything vaguely
complex.

~~~
GuiA
_> I'd like to see a more detailed look at why Twitter might not have been a
good idea._

You've got the answer right in your post:

 _> I just think that Twitter is a bad way of communicating anything vaguely
complex._

The medium is the message. Build a social network where the main mode of
communication encouraged is short, eminently shareable quips, and the voices
that dominate will be the ones like Donald Trump's.

~~~
IanCal
I think there's more to it than that, which deserves a more thorough critique.
How following and retweeting works, the difficulty of replying, search and
more all play a role in this.

------
mklarmann
Twitter is a simple technology that connects people, and the current
presidency is IMO not their fault.

Twitter just brought up to the surface what was already there but hidden. I am
sorry that everyone now has to go through a lot of pain with the current
presidency. But I think getting there is the only effective way for society to
realize that your (US) political, social and educational system (just to name
a few) are completely broken. And you have got to fix it. Most people didn't
know how bad it is fucked up, now it becomes obvious. You got the president
you earned.

Twitter so just made it possible, that you are able to face your true
challenges.

Don't blame the messenger...

~~~
gurkendoktor
> Twitter just brought up to the surface what was already there but hidden.

We "know" through pop science that Facebook makes you miserable:

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-mentally-strong-
pe...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-
do/201603/science-explains-how-facebook-makes-you-sad)

On some level that's a mechanism that's "already there" in everyone, but
Facebook is clearly more than a messenger if it influences how we feel. It
wouldn't be surprising to find out that Twitter has a negative impact on us as
well.

But I agree that there are many systemic problems that Twitter has nothing to
do with.

------
russellbeattie
I stopped using Twitter after the election. The inability to express complex,
nuanced, thorough ideas and responses, combined with its popularity (or at
least, mass media influence), directly lead to Trump's election. The character
limit, which I had perceived as merely an inconvenience for years, is actually
a fundamental flaw which enabled a demagogue like him to succeed, and I refuse
to participate in that stupidity any more. If Ev really wants to make amends,
he should get Twitter to immediately expand the character limit to take away
Trump's excuse for short, inflammatory posts, forcing him to try to actually
put together coherent, intelligent sentences that express fully thought out
ideas.

~~~
formula_ninguna
I was thinking about stopping using Twitter but then realized that I'd never
begun using it.

------
Hoasi
Twitter is not a discussion forum. It is great as a polished RSS feeds reader
& writer combined though. You can share quick messages and respond to people
with Twitter, sure, but that is more like texting. Useful as it may be, it's
still not the best way to discuss with someone, let alone with several people
together. But brevity and repetition make Twitter an ideal medium for
propaganda. No wonder some people use it as such.

------
aaron695
I wonder if he gets the irony, or he just doesn't get it?

A large part of why people lashed out and voted Trump was their impression
places like Twitter censored their point of view.

------
dreta
I'd say this is an Orwellian statement, but at this point i got so used to
Twitter silencing voices they disagree with i'm shocked they didn't just ban
Trump long ago, since they banned people for pettier reasons multiple times.

Hillary got more support on Twitter than Trump. The reason places like Twitter
helped Trump in any signifficant fashion was that they let Trump reach people
directly, and not through the media which are still lying, and slandering the
president, and trying to paint a false picture of what's going on in the
country.

------
urda
AKA:

> Twitter co-founder: I'm sorry we didn't use our platform to silence an
> opposing view point.

Shame. Silencing someone else because you disagree makes you many, _many_
times worse than them. Sunlight and exposure is the best disinfectant, not
this play.

~~~
fictioncircle
Hey, if you want to legalize government propaganda go ahead. It's pretty clear
sunlight is an ineffective disinfectant in that scenario.

~~~
nhebb
> if you want to legalize government propaganda

Some argue that the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 already did that:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2013#Smith-
Mundt_Modernization_Act_of_2012)

------
Grue3
As much as I dislike Trump (for being an obvious Putin shill) and Twitter (for
the mindless 140-character "discourse" it propagates), it is absolutely not
Twitter's fault Trump got elected. It's that Democratic Party has completely
dropped the ball on messaging, strategy, and choosing the right candidate for
the job. And they still won't admit it, which means they'll keep on losing.
Blaming Twitter or other media won't solve anything.

