Words. Ideas. Actions.

03 April 2023

Tonight’s post is a little bit of a throwback. When I first started these, it was a way to fill the void I was feeling as I abandoned Tweeting. But I ended up writing about Twitter quite a lot in those early days. So, as we come to the penultimate planned post here, it’s only fitting that the weekend’s events have forced me to look at the smoldering wreckage my favorite app has become.

Thankfully, these posts have kept me from logging into The Bird Site. I deleted the app from my phone long ago. I’m no longer loading the Explore tab on my laptop every other hour, either. I think it’s finally safe to say that my Twitter addiction is broken. But that doesn’t mean I’m immune to the continuing decline of a platform I spent so much time and energy helping to create. One such anecdote came to me at about 11 a.m. this morning when a friend in a Slack group shared a report that the Twitter logo had been replaced by Doge.

Now, I’m not a financial genius, nor do I have a business degree, but I’m pretty sure that using an image of a meme-ed Shiba Inu in place of an iconic logo which is known around the globe is not great for the potential profitability of your company. Never mind that the change comes days after April Fool’s Day, and during the window of time where the current management announced they would be removing the Verified check marks which helped people figure out which accounts were actually who they say they are. It’s almost like a voluntary self destruction. But through incompetence. 

I usually like to bring solutions to conversations when I point out problems. But as I’ve said here before, I’m not being paid to solve Twitter’s problems any more, so I’ll leave that to others. I will say that if you were looking to add more nails to a rapidly built coffin, making it harder to trust the information you’re getting there would surely do it. 

There are many things which could kill off a social platform. But most of the deadly choices currently being made at HQ seem to be self-imposed. It’s like knowing you’re deathly allergic to peanuts and deciding to sustain yourself entirely on a diet of Butterfingers. It’s not the fastest way to kill yourself, but it will bring additional issues along with completely, painfully destroying yourself. If I were advising Twitter users, I’d make sure that you’ve already downloaded your data, found another place where your community has gathered, and made the patient as comfortable as possible because it feels like they’ve made a Kevorkian-like choice.

See you tomorrow?

[Important note: I don’t make these suicide references unadvisedly. If you or someone you know needs help, though, you can call 988 in the U.S. at any time.]

09 November 2022

I have a post in mind about pundits and metrics and amplifying voices and accountability, but — honestly — watching returns for most of the evening and into the early morning (even on the West Coast) was exhausting. So instead, let’s take a trip around the Twitter product changes I saw today, shall we?

After getting to work, I started seeing reports that the new verification indicators had launched. And then, all of a sudden, they were gone. It seems like the difference between a Verified account and an Official account was confusing. Huh, whodathunkit?

As far as I can tell, the design was questionable. But so was the implementation. And also the educational messaging. As well as the process to get the Official label. Oh, and they closed the application process for what used to be used for identity verification.

As you may imagine, this has caused a bit of chaos on the platform; impersonation was apparently rampant.

There’s much more to say about how this could’ve been done. There is definitely no shortage of ideas. I’m not going to share mine, both out of respect for the people having to work on this under current conditions and also to respect the value of my own ideas, but I do want to point out the way these ideas are coming about. It reminds me a lot of the time Homer Simpson got to design his dream car. 

When I was on the @design team, I had a habit of adding a note to our white boards which read, “I am not the target audience.” It wasn’t a staggering revelation, just a gentle reminder to center our solutions on our customers’ problems  instead of our own. What I fear is happening inside Twitter HQ is that the current ownership is trying to solve the perceived problems, like people changing their display names to the owner’s or the fact that he needs to pay billions in interest in just a few months, instead of the real ones. I guess that’s what happens when you unceremoniously jettison your entire Research team. And surround yourself with people too sycophantic to question you.

One day, I hope to make these posts about something else. Anything else. But, for now, I’m still desperate for something beneficial to happen to the service I miss so much. But it just keeps getting worse and worse. And I’m having a hard time thinking about anything other than Twitter’s role in the world and how this could get so much more disastrous before it gets better.

See you tomorrow?

05 November 

Welp, they did it. They updated the app. Earlier today, I noticed  a new version of the Twitter app in the Apple App Store, and didn’t pay much attention. Then, I noticed the release notes.

Now, as someone who used to write these exact updates, I have a special interest in how well done release notes for apps are in general. For my money, Slack has been constantly the best in the business. But these? These were a special form of hell. We’ll start small: The punctuation, and inconsistent application of it, is atrocious. Voice and tone? I think we know whose voice it is by how well it mimics his tone-deafness. And that just leaves the stunningly surprising content.

The rumors of the $8 per month price (negotiated in an open argument with Stephen King on Twitter) have now proven true. And what does that get you? A Verified checkmark, “just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow.” Seriously‽ Now, anyone with eight bucks can pass themselves off as having gone through what used to be a — yes, confusing and slow — rigorous review to make sure you were exactly who you said you were? It’s bonkers! 

Before I go on, let’s take a moment to review a little history. Verified accounts first started appearing in 2009, in an effort to “help people distinguish the authenticity of accounts that are of high public interest.” In an unbelievably prophetic nugget I found tonight, The CDC was one the first accounts to receive verification. Seriously, look for yourself.

“… the @CDCGov was one of the first Twitter accounts to be verified, in an effort to help citizens find authentic and accurate public health information straight from the source.”

But now opting in to the Twitter Blue subscription service will give you the same visual indicator, as well as higher ranking in timelines and replies, as a government entity or journalist or world leader who had to apply for verification, submit identity-affirming documentation, and agree to additional rules and restrictions about how and when your display name could change. Like I said, bonkers.

The other side of this is that if you haven’t been following each and every drop of ink spilled about the palace intrigue going on inside the bird-themed meeting rooms of 1355 Market Street, you’ll have no idea that this change has taken place. You could have been just living your life, touching grass this weekend, and Monday, you’ll see a Tweet from a newly “verified” account, and assume, “Well, they must be who they say they are because they have a blue check.” B.O.N.K.E.R.S.

I know the history of verification, and its many starts and stops, have aided its cloudy definition. It became a status symbol instead of an indicator of identity. But to just use it as-is for a price, rather than putting in the work to create a new system is not just lazy and short-sighted, it’s potentially dangerous. 

There are lots of good ideas of how this could have been handled better. Heck, I have a few myself. But I haven’t work for The Bird App for more than two years, and I’m definitely not working for free for this ownership, so my ideas will remain private, for now (but if anyone still inside cares to look, there’s definitely a Google doc or two with my name on it which could help). I know that many people who are smarter about this than I have worked on these problems before and can offer intelligent, well considered options for how to make this work. Those are the verification processes and policies that should be built. Not this bonkers, desperate avarice. 

I realize I’m ranting again, but that’s the point of these, isn’t it? (These are supposed to keep me from Tweeting.) So, as I continue to think out loud, a few questions:

• What happens to accounts which are currently Verified if they chose not to pay for a subscription?

• How soon after paying this extortion does the blue check mark appear?

• Are there going to be exceptions for certain accounts which will get the blue check for free?

• What kind of education will people see about the change in the process?

• Can I subscribe to Twitter Blue, get the check mark, and then change my display name to something else, maybe, like, Elon Musk?

I think it’s pretty obvious that the exactitude that used to exist at Twitter is gone, replaced by the urgency to do what the owner says, when the owner says it, or be shown the door. But with all the recent reporting about some employees who got the boot being asked to come back to fix the mess the boss has created, I don’t have much confidence that this won’t get worse before it gets better. And all just days before we’re supposed to look to trusted accounts for accurate, reliable election results. I may have mentioned this before, but it is absolutely bonkers.

See you tomorrow?