this text and the background ideas and understanding is a big nonsense. Twitter started, like all others, to privatise a general function of telecommunication. The transport of text as a part of transport data.

It is based on a special rule in the today telecommunication: Separation, fractionising, monopolising. But this is not part of the technical systems. Therefore, they have to adapt this blocking and deformation of the technical base.

Therefore, what we have to do? Open the telecommunication, based on the implicit existing technical functions. no more.

greetings, willi
Asuncion, Paraguay
willi.uebelherr@gmail.com

But there are a few changes they could make to create a more positive user experience. Firstly, slightly increase the post size. I’ve been using Gab.ai recently, and the 300 char limit allows real conversations to occur; in contrast Twitter’s 140 chars permits only a banal, or a sharp, form of words. Short post size actually encourages some of the behaviour we all rail against!

“I’m sure many of us have ideas about how we could make Twitter meet our needs better. One suggestion that came my way: “actually moderating threats and hatespeech.””

OK, I almost stopped reading there, despite the interesting premise of the article. And here is another lesson that Twitter would do well to take from Gab — all censorship is self-censorship, with only directly criminal activity off limits. On Gab, you can mute both users and words, so if I never want to see another alt-right zealot banging on about MAGA, just mute the term ‘MAGA’, and all of those posts vanish from your timeline. Easy, effective and entirely in the hands of the user — no bias, other than self-bias, is involved in this censorship.

The final thought I have about microblogging platforms will probably be more controversial, but I think is equally important. The ability to edit or delete posts also encourages a more thoughtless or cavalier use of the service — when you can ‘clear up’ after yourself, you don’t have to be so concerned about what you post. If editing/deletion were not present — just as in real life conversation — the overall level of discourse would likely improve. And you’d also quite easily be able to spot people you’d potentially not want to interact with, if their timeline was littered with ill-thought-out or obviously drunken missives, for instance.

It really wouldn’t take much to ‘fix’ Twitter, but the big question is whether even in the current state a co-op or similar could afford the over-valuation that it currently enjoys. My suspicion is, sadly, not. I also hold out little hope that the changes I mention above will be implemented, even though they would help address the ‘abuse’ problem that has become an albatross around Twitter’s neck. There’s none so blind etc.