Twitter’s Do-Or-Die Moment
Twitter is at a crossroads. Will Jack Dorsey listen to users and their demands, or let the social media platform fade into the sunset?
Twitter is one of the darlings of the tech and media world, which is fortunate because without its enthusiastic demographic, the social network might have died a rather painful death months ago. Twitter has recently suffered from declining usership and bad press. But even so, the year ahead feels like a crucial moment for Twitter, given all the problems it faced in 2016 and the growing criticism around its management of trolls. We all want to know what will happen.
Cry For Help
Stunningly, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey put out a public tweet in the waning days of 2016. He asked users and fans what changes the social network should make to address its challenges. It was an interesting move. You could say it more or less admitted that the social networking site knows there are numerous issues it needs to fix.
Unfortunately, despite Dorsey’s show of good (if rather desperate) will, the year has not begun well. In the very first week of 2017, three prominent users—all of whom are writers—have quit the network. Two of the people who removed their accounts, writers Sherman Alexie and Ta-Nehisi Coates, cited that it had become too much of a distraction to their writing.
Troll Crossing
However, the third user, author and feminist Lindy West, directly cited the network’s failure to address the trolls and Neo-Nazis that target her for her views. Trolls have been seen as the network’s biggest problems and Lindy drew even more attention by writing an op-ed in the Guardian about why she quit. She wrote:
“I hate to disappoint anyone, but the breaking point for me wasn’t the trolls themselves, it was the global repercussions of Twitter’s refusal to stop them. The white supremacist, anti-feminist, isolationist, transphobic “alt-right” movement has been beta-testing its propaganda and intimidation machine on marginalised Twitter communities for years now and discovered, to its leering delight, that the limit did not exist. No one cared.”
Fixing Twitter
If it wasn’t clear already, West has now made it totally transparent that Twitter is not a safe space for high profile women writing about topics that trolls feed off. While that’s certainly Twitter’s most ethical and pressing concern, it’s not the only challenge. Here are some leading “suggestions” that Twitter users, fans, critics, and techies offered in response to Dorsey’s semi-desperate request.
Make Tweets Editable
Unlike Facebook and Instagram, it’s not possible to edit a Tweet after it’s sent. If an error is made, a user has to delete and re-issue the tweet—or suffer the consequences of having a typo or factual error. This really irks users, who tend to use Twitter in an instantaneous way, where mistakes are common. Loads of users have called for Tweets to be editable after they’re sent.
Allow Users to Subscribe to Threads
The “Tweetstorm”—wherein a user sends off a slew of Tweets all related to one topic in a single thread, so you can read it from start to finish—is becoming a popular way of using the medium. However, tweetstorms tend to be something you have to follow in real time. If a subscription option were available, users would be notified each time a Tweet was added to a popular thread, thereby making the use of Tweetstorms more trackable.
Have a Public Editor
The idea of a public editor owes itself to journalism. It is essentially an independent ombudsman who, though hired by the institution, is not beholden to it. A public editor on Twitter could point out what the network is doing wrong from the inside and make sure it stays accountable to itself.
Improve the Lists Function
Though Twitter does have a list function, it’s not easy to use and hasn’t been updated for some time. Many users would like the ability to swipe through different lists to see what people are saying around certain topics—i.e. politics, sport, media—rather than have them all in one feed. This functionality could make Twitter much more management and user friendly.
While Twitter faces an uphill battle, hopefully the powers that be can listen to their users and make the necessary changes to keep Twitter on our screens and in our hearts.