“Let’s make Twitter maximum fun!”
How to have maximum free speech and great content for everyone on Twitter
How can we make Twitter maximum fun? I think Elon and Jack have ideas that will take it in a much better direction than what we’ve seen for the past several years. However, the vision they’ve articulated so far is incomplete. In particular, how will they prevent Twitter from becoming overrun by the worst kinds of content if all they do is enable free speech? Something else is needed.
I think the conversation about free speech vs. content moderation on Twitter is misplaced. Most of the current Twitter team’s focus has been spent on trying to figure out who gets to speak, when I think the better problem to focus on is how to let users choose who and what to listen to. That is the path toward maximum fun on Twitter.
Twitter’s Troubles
The problem with limiting speech beyond some fundamental legal limits is that there is no way to have a standard that everyone will agree to. Something deemed “dangerous misinformation” today can become tomorrow’s orthodox opinion. What is great content for one person is not great for others. How can they do one-size-fits all content moderation? They can’t. It’s impossible. While it might have made sense to try this initially, Twitter’s many prominent content moderation failures have shown this doesn’t work even when spending many millions of dollars per year on this problem.
In the US, speakers are legally allowed to say whatever crazy, wrong, eccentric thing they want to as long as it isn’t from one of the few narrowly-defined exceptions to the first amendment. One person’s right to speak doesn’t require someone else to listen though. We can go to a park to hear a speech or concert. We may want to stay and listen to the whole thing or go home early. We can also encounter ranting and raving, nonsense-spouting, crazy people. We don’t have to listen to them at all. We can walk away.
Today Twitter has the worst of both worlds: a failed content moderation system and a feed (the default series of tweets a Twitter user sees) that is driven by “engagement,” which is often a proxy for rage. It should be more like the speech system in the US: little speech prevention, but much more content curation and ability for the users to decide what kinds of tweets they see.
The Top Tweets feed is perhaps the main culprit for the current situation. If Twitter’s algorithm determines a tweet should be included in a user’s top tweets feed, it is in the feed, whether the user wants to see it or not. This is often content from accounts not followed by the user. The signal-to-noise ratio in the feed is often poor. Perhaps that by design—spread out the good stuff, encouraging more scrolling, leading to more “engagement” and ad impressions.
Similarly, if there is content that a given user wants to see, but Twitter’s content moderation system determines is not allowed, then that user cannot see it even if they explicitly followed that account.
Today, Twitter users’ content-curation options are limited. Users can follow accounts, but won’t always see new tweets from that account. Users can block accounts and limit who responds to tweets. Those are imprecise, blunt instruments. The feed is what is really in charge. Twitter’s algorithm “knows what’s best,” even if that feels like every crazy person in the park has a megaphone.
Instead of limiting content creation, Twitter should provide better tools for allowing users to choose which tweets they see and the order and context in which they’re presented.
What could such a system look like?
Elon and Jack on the right track…
Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey have already provided several hints about what they have in mind for the future of Twitter. These are very promising, but incomplete. Most of the focus has been about maximizing free speech. Little has been said about ways to prevent misinformation and abuse, let alone the run-of-the-mill signal-to-noise ratio problems Twitter users encounter every day. Elon has said he doesn’t have all the answers on what will change. It sounds like he might be open to ideas. I think a relatively small number of simple features could vastly improve the experience. Below are the six changes that I think will make Twitter maximum fun.
Let’s start with what Elon already said he will do…
1. Open source the “top tweets” feed algorithm
Open sourcing the algorithm will increase trust with users by making visible how the top tweets feed works, what it promotes and what it deemphasizes. It will also create opportunities for improvement, by letting people from around the world provide suggestions or even code changes. Open sourcing the algorithm would also be useful for other changes listed below.
2. Limit content moderation (deletion of content) to violations of the law
This removes the impossible one-size-fits-all, whack-a-mole content moderation task from Twitter, making the company’s job much easier. This would make standards very simple and objective. Is it illegal? If so, it’s gone. Otherwise it stays.
3. Authenticate all humans
While people will have to be authenticated, Musk has not said that people have to use their real names, which I think is important. That should still enable multiple accounts and pseudonyms. Authentication alone will limit the ability for people to make mischief, and could enable accountability, which would be useful for other changes described below. This would also limit the number of bots on Twitter that are posing as humans and the negative consequences associated with them.
4. Don’t focus on making money (at least in the short term)
“This is not a way to sort of make money. My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important…So the future of civilization, but you don’t care about the economics at all.”
The “engagement” (outrage)-driven, advertising-backed feed appears to be designed to maximize ad revenue. I think Twitter may have actually just found a local maximum where they are trapped. Taking time to find a new model that invites in more users is perhaps a path to much more revenue, but it will take time to get right. De-emphasizing advertising via an outrage-driven feed should create opportunities for other revenue streams.
While these changes will be beneficial, increasing speech without adding tools to enable more focused listening will make Twitter worse for many and definitely not make it a place for maximum fun. More must be done…
5. Increase the ability for users to view content that is most interesting and relevant to them
This is the key to making free speech work on Twitter. How can we make it possible to find and display the best content?
Below are five ways to allow users to control the content they see.
5.1 Jack Dorsey’s suggestion: Twitter protocol
Make feeds accessible as a protocol that is machine readable and allow 3rd parties to integrate. This would allow 3rd parties to create off-Twitter experiences for slicing and dicing Twitter content in new ways that others can use, view, share, etc. These have the potential to be much more interesting than the “top tweets” and “latest tweets” views Twitter offers today.
Necessary, but not sufficient
The above suggestions from Elon and Jack will help a lot, but I understand why many would be uncomfortable with such a free and open Twitter. What could be done to not just open up the platform, but to allow people to improve the signal-to-noise ratio?
Below are new solutions that I haven’t seen anyone else propose. I don’t think any of the following is exactly rocket science, but I have spent a fair amount of time thinking about them. I also wouldn’t be surprised if many others have thought of these, but for one reason or another I haven’t come across them.
5.2 Create additional curated-by-Twitter feeds and feed options
These would be new types of feeds available within Twitter itself that could be done one at a time or combined:
Streamlined feed: only show tweets from people you follow (e.g., no likes, re-tweets or topics in the feed). This would limit algorithmic amplification that can happen with the most divisive content that is often fueled by likes and retweets.
Most liked of the past ____ (hours, days, weeks, months, years). Shows feed sorted by the most liked tweets over a given period of time, but potentially limited to just people you follow.
New: only shows Tweets you haven’t seen before.
Topical feeds - kind of like Twitter lists, but would provide a way to categorize accounts and create feeds from those. For example: sports, science, politics, music
First-time-in-a-while: boosts posts in the feed from people you follow who haven’t posted in a while that you may have missed
5.3 Feed Marketplace
Create a marketplace on Twitter where 3rd-party developers can contribute new feed algorithms. Users could then use feeds that they choose. 3rd parties could make recommendations for the best feeds for different use cases. Lots of possibilities here…
5.4 Customizable Filters
Add the ability for Twitter and/or 3rd parties to create content viewing filters. This could be kind of like a spam filter for email, but with more options. There could be a marketplace of these and perhaps there could be recommended sets of filters or even default filters (that would be visible and easy to turn off). Users could opt in or out of using these. This could allow users to avoid abuse, misinformation, logical fallacies, etc.
Examples:
Context Filters
View a Tweet, but with additional context. Example: Flagged by Politifact/FactCheck/Snopes. This could be a good option for people who appreciated the notifications and warnings that Twitter included with some types of tweets, but with the ability to opt in or opt out of seeing these notifications. My wish list includes a filter that would flag logical fallacies.
Content Blockers
Automatically block viewing Tweets by content or author. Examples: organizations could maintain spammer lists that others could use. This would be more dynamic and easier to maintain than every user manually blocking or muting accounts.
6. User reviews
This would allow for new forms of reviewing and meta reviewing for authenticated users. Slashdot was doing this 25 years ago and it was very helpful!
Tagging posts
This would provide the ability for authenticated users to tag posts with their opinions - funny, insightful, etc. This could be used to drive new feeds and filters, for example a “funny” feed.
Meta reviewing
This would provide the ability for authenticated users to rate reviews. This could be combined with a feedback system, rewards, etc. for people who did the best reviews. There could also be groups of reviewers and meta reviewers who are trusted by different organizations. Users could decide which reviewers they want to rely on, based on their endorsements from other organizations or Twitter users.
This is one set of functionality that would have to be thought through carefully, as it could be subject to gaming! In order for it to work, authentication would probably be required. Allowing unauthenticated reviewers would create many challenges.
Best of Both Worlds
With these six changes, I think we could have the be the best of both worlds on Twitter. No one would need to be censored and yet no one would have to see troubling content they didn’t seek out.
Maximum Fun = Maximum Speech + Best Content
Roadmap
These changes couldn’t all be made immediately. Which order would make the most sense?
Open source the algorithm - start building trust ASAP
Allow people to be authenticated. Not a requirement, but perhaps authenticated accounts could get more privileges right away and then more privileges later (like reviewing).
Create twitter protocol(s) that would make it possible for 3rd party apps to get tweets and other info.
Add new feed(s) and a feed marketplace
Add filters and a filter marketplace
Scale back content moderation to just illegal messages
Authenticated user reviewing and meta reviewing
I think this order would allow for steady improvement over time without scaring off users who would like more ways to curate content ahead of opening up the speech rules on the platform.
Could it work?
If this roadmap were implemented, would it work? Could we have the best of both worlds and a maximum fun Twitter? What did I miss?
Good ideas