Dearest readers, today I'd like to share that yes, occasionally I watch or rather listen to the Joe Rogan Experience. I started watching shorter clips on YouTube after a few friends talked me into it, and needless to say I was hooked. I like Joe's wide selection of people that he interviews, his objective stance mixed with personal feelings and opinions that are usually very well informed, and the fact that he is a tough guy who knows how to control both neutral conversation and heated debate. His interview with Jack Dorsey, CEO of both Twitter and Square (yay Square haha, I use it and love it). I keep tabs on all the controversy Twitter has been through lately in regards to banning people and its terms and conditions clashing with Western free speech laws and other issues that pop up. This is why I went through the entire interview and made some notes that I found interesting.
To be honest, before this interview, I built up Jack as the enemy other because I like being tough and hold strong opinions, so I hated the fact Twitter bans people for what would have been normal tough talk a few years ago. Now, having seen the interview, I understand why Joe didn't rip him to shreds and I see Jack no longer as the enemy other, but as a CEO with a dilemma, stuck between rock and a hard place trying to figure out how to push onwards and upwards in a healthy way. So, let me go over my pick of interview highlights, and then I'll add some closing comments.
My pick of interview highlights goes according to the interview timeline, so let's get into it :)
So there you have it, dearest readers- a bunch of points from the interview that I find the most important. Here's what I think about the whole thing. First, I think that Twitter as a platform is far from perfect and needs lots of help from outside in, so it should be more transparent about its thought process. Second, I still believe Jack is not the enemy- he's simply trying to get Twitter where it needs to be- and excellent tool for global conversation and crowdsourced solutions. Third, I think that reliance on this and other giant platforms betrays the megalomaniac in each and every one of us. If your views are useful according to you, and Twitter won't give you a platform, find another way or simply focus on your local community instead. Not everyone's ideas are a good match for country-wide or even global exposure. Fourth, I believe that terms and conditions of platforms like Twitter will always be more restrictive than US free speech, and that's something people need to work with if they want the exposure the platform will give them. Fifth, people need to understand the difference between powerful ideas, weaponized ideas and hateful trolling on Twitter, and that the platform itself will react against two out of three all the time, so it's up to the users to figure out what their posts essentially are. Sixth and final, I also believe that Twitter as a comm platform cannot be uninvented, so we better work with it to make it a global platform that is always the best version of itself.
What do you think? :)
To be honest, before this interview, I built up Jack as the enemy other because I like being tough and hold strong opinions, so I hated the fact Twitter bans people for what would have been normal tough talk a few years ago. Now, having seen the interview, I understand why Joe didn't rip him to shreds and I see Jack no longer as the enemy other, but as a CEO with a dilemma, stuck between rock and a hard place trying to figure out how to push onwards and upwards in a healthy way. So, let me go over my pick of interview highlights, and then I'll add some closing comments.
My pick of interview highlights goes according to the interview timeline, so let's get into it :)
- Jack said that hashtags were not invented by Twitter, but by its users. Did not know that, find it interesting.
- The platform evolved from public announcements to conversations and addressing anyone anywhere openly- again it was evolution, not intentionally set up that way by Twitter.
- Once Twitter saw what its users came up with, Twitter did make it easier to search by hashtags, and used @ as a way to see all mentions of you more easily.
- Jack expressed the idea that Twitter was discovered, as in that it touched on something foundational in human communication,as well as the idea that consequently Twitter cannot be uninvented.
- When you get a follower, it's something you worked on to deserve it. On the other hand, people can insert themselves into any conversation and gain instant spotlight that way, for better or for worse, even annonimously. Jack says people have taken advantage of this and gamed it. He is therefore trying to figure out how to deal with this on a deeper level by asking himself what the company is incentivizing when people open the app and use it.
- Jack admitted his company hasn't been open enough about their thinking and decision making process, and this is something he hopes to change.
- Jack has read Twitters terms of service, but not Instagram or Facebook's, for example. He admits people run into lots of issues because nobody reads the terms and is hoping for a better way to convey them and talk about them with users.
- Jack says that Twitter can see patterns of behavior especially with trolls who start one account after another, and sometimes they'll ban an account simply for that reason, which is not apparent to users looking from outside in. They look at same email, same phone #, IP address, even device ID. I found this interesting, looking at behavior instead of the post text itself.
- Joe compared Instagram and Twitter and inferred that there's less toxic conversations on Instagram, then Jack said it's because it's post oriented whereas Twitter is conversation oriented so that's why.
- What Jack likes about Twitter is that it's more raw because it's text coming directly from a user's raw thinking process.
- An interesting point on character limit increase to 280 was that in some languages you can't say much with that few characters e.g. German, whereas in Japanese 280 characters can be almost 280 words. Jack therefore recognized that if Twitter wants to be a global platform, it needs to have global considerations. Jack also makes a clever point there's no one Twitter, the conversations and dynamics are different based on topics like politics, sports, tech...
- Right to social media access: Jack says that in terms of warning or banning over hate speech, they look at conduct not speech. They track the number of mutes, blocks and reports the action of a user uttering something has created and decide what to do from there. They also look at related accounts and whether all of them are acting to go after someone.
- AI and machine learning: Jack says AI is used to identify disruptions and attacks e.g. in replies to posts and it pushes them further down in order to clear things up for other users. Jack however admitted that they're still in the process of figuring out how to react the right way most of the time.
- Content permanency: Jack believes the future of online content is that it will all exist at the same time for a long time or forever. He sees the future is not about suspending accounts or erasing content, but about promoting a healthier conversation.
- The right to speak on social media: Joe says figuring out who you should let speak is a problem cross-platform - Twitter and podcasts to name a few. There are no clear guidelines because this isn't an easy matter to resolve. One example, in terms of both Trump and Obama, is where Jack said they have a clause that allows for powerful individuals like presidents to stay on Twitter even if they break some of the lighter terms and conditions. He says it's because seeing what they write and how they think is in public interest and should be part of public discussion, not suppressed by any platform.
- Global role: Jack truly believes that Twitter will become increasingly important in global discussions on solving global problems like environmental issues and poverty, and he wants to find ways to ensure that the conversations are healthy and productive. The word healthy keeps popping up but more from me on that later.
- Echo chambers and personality cults: Jack is really worried about the current Twitter setup where users follow people and create echo chambers. Currently, he thinks this is dangerous as it kills diversity of opinion on different matters. To him, the best way to break out of that is to follow hashtags. This was a clever move already pulled by Instagram.
- Video clip sharing: In terms of video clips shared on Twitter, Joe says he's surprised by how little it's used. Jack answered it depends on the topic e.g. they're used more for sports, but he also says that Twitter is the kind of platform where you can get the point across faster, you can index and search text versus going through a whole video just to get the main points.
- Jack's role in Twitter headquarters: Jack points out there's always debate within Twitter headquarters, but feels his job is to ask questions that spark the debate and create good results, not participate in the debate per se.
So there you have it, dearest readers- a bunch of points from the interview that I find the most important. Here's what I think about the whole thing. First, I think that Twitter as a platform is far from perfect and needs lots of help from outside in, so it should be more transparent about its thought process. Second, I still believe Jack is not the enemy- he's simply trying to get Twitter where it needs to be- and excellent tool for global conversation and crowdsourced solutions. Third, I think that reliance on this and other giant platforms betrays the megalomaniac in each and every one of us. If your views are useful according to you, and Twitter won't give you a platform, find another way or simply focus on your local community instead. Not everyone's ideas are a good match for country-wide or even global exposure. Fourth, I believe that terms and conditions of platforms like Twitter will always be more restrictive than US free speech, and that's something people need to work with if they want the exposure the platform will give them. Fifth, people need to understand the difference between powerful ideas, weaponized ideas and hateful trolling on Twitter, and that the platform itself will react against two out of three all the time, so it's up to the users to figure out what their posts essentially are. Sixth and final, I also believe that Twitter as a comm platform cannot be uninvented, so we better work with it to make it a global platform that is always the best version of itself.
What do you think? :)