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Tag: tweets

  • Twitter Testing Voice Tweets on iOS

    Twitter Testing Voice Tweets on iOS

    Recognizing that text doesn’t always convey the nuances someone may be feeling, Twitter is testing voice tweets.

    Over the years, Twitter has unveiled a number of features designed to help people communicate more, from longer tweets to scheduled tweets to retweeting with media. Its latest effort, however, may be its most ambitious yet.

    According to Twitter’s Maya Patterson and Rémy Bourgoin, the company is testing voice tweets. The new feature is accessible via the wavelength icon at the bottom of the composer window.

    “Each voice Tweet captures up to 140 seconds of audio,” writes Patterson and Bourgoin. “Have more to say? Keep talking. Once you reach the time limit for a Tweet, a new voice Tweet starts automatically to create a thread. Once you’re done, tap the Done button to end your recording and go back to the composer screen to Tweet.

    “People will see your voice Tweet appear on their timeline alongside other Tweets. To listen, tap the image. On iOS only, playback will start in a new window docked at the bottom of your timeline and you can listen as you scroll. You can also keep listening while doing other things on your phone or on the go.”

    Twitter hopes this new feature will lead to “a more human experience.” It should be interesting to see what people do with voice tweets.

    Image Credit: Twitter

  • Twitter Testing ‘Fleets’: Disappearing Tweets

    Twitter Testing ‘Fleets’: Disappearing Tweets

    In an effort to better compete with Instagram and Snapchat, Twitter is testing a new feature called “Fleets.”

    Twitter has been working to compete with newer social media platforms that have eclipsed it, in terms of monetizable users. Twitter has also received its fair share of negative press in the last couple of years, with many critics saying the company doesn’t do enough to stop trolls and online harassment. The company has been experimenting with a number of features designed to help users retake control of the conversation and give them the tools to fight trolls.

    Starting Wednesday, Twitter is testing Fleets, tweets that disappear after 24 hours. Fleets are currently being tested in Brazil, but the company hopes to expand them to other markets if they prove successful.

    Twitter Product Lead Kayvon Beykpour explained the new feature in a series of tweets:

    “We’ve been listening to this feedback and working to create new capabilities that address some of the anxieties that hold people back from talking on Twitter. Today, in Brazil only, we’re starting a test (on Android and iOS) for one of those new capabilities. It’s called Fleets.”

    — Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) 3/4/20

    “Fleets are a way to share fleeting thoughts. Unlike Tweets, Fleets disappear after 24 hours and don’t get Retweets, Likes, or public replies– people can only react to your Fleets with DMs. Instead of showing up in people’s timelines, Fleets are viewed by tapping on your avatar.”

    — Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) 3/4/20

    “We’re hoping that Fleets can help people share the fleeting thoughts that they would have been unlikely to Tweet. This is a substantial change to Twitter, so we’re excited to learn by testing it (starting with the rollout today in Brazil) and seeing how our customers use it.”

    — Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) 3/4/20

  • Twitter Fixes Serious Vulnerability in Android Client

    Twitter Fixes Serious Vulnerability in Android Client

    Twitter announced Friday that it has patched a serious vulnerability in the official Twitter client for Android.

    According to the announcement on the company’s blog, the bug “could allow a bad actor to see nonpublic account information or to control your account (i.e., send Tweets or Direct Messages). Prior to the fix, through a complicated process involving the insertion of malicious code into restricted storage areas of the Twitter app, it may have been possible for a bad actor to access information (e.g., Direct Messages, protected Tweets, location information) from the app.”

    The company does not have any evidence the vulnerability was actually exploited, but is choosing to error on the side of caution. Twitter is contacting—via email or the app—any users who could have been exposed and providing instructions on what they should do.

    In the meantime, all Android users should update to the latest version, where the vulnerability has been fixed. iOS users are in the clear, as the bug appears to have only impacted the Android client.

  • Twitter Adds Features Making Embedding Easy

    Twitter Adds Features Making Embedding Easy

    Twitter has made it easier to add rich, responsive Tweet displays directly to your website or CMS. There are now 3 options:

    1. Factory Functions – Allows you to easily generate timelines for any web app.
    2. oEmbed API – Integrate profile, list, like, or collection timelines directly into your CMS.
    3. publish.twitter.com – A website that lets you customize the feed and get the code you need to copy and paste into your site.

    List template example:

    Grid template example:

    Timeline types – User timeline:

    Find more examples of what you can do at publish.twitter.com here.

    Per the Twitter blog:

    As part of these improvements, we’ve also removed the need to create and save widgets to your account. Of course, if you already have timeline widgets, you can always access them in your Twitter settings. But, going forward, you won’t need to log in to create or configure embedded timelines, and you’ll never need another widget ID again. All you need is a public profile, list, like, or collection URL to get started.

  • Zac Efron Posted an … Interesting MLK Day Tweet

    Zac Efron was garetful for two things on Monday, and he decided to put them both in the same tweet.

    One was the late, great Martin Luther King Jr., and the other was …

    An Instagram follower milestone?

    “I’m grateful for a couple things today: Martin Luther King Jr & 10 million followers on IG,” the actor tweeted to his 11.4 million Twitter followers.

    He followed the post with two darker0skinned emojis, a #1 finger sign and a fist.

    Let’s just take a look at some of the reaction:

    Efron was recently attacked on social media for missing the High School Musical 10-year reunion special.

    It’s hard to be a star on Twitter.

  • Twitter Killed the Favorite, Now It Needs a Save Button

    Twitter Killed the Favorite, Now It Needs a Save Button

    Twitter just killed the favorite – the star you’ve known and loved for years – and replaced it with a “like” in the form of a heart. Does it change a whole lot? Probably not. Fav’ing wasn’t the most important tweet action anyway. That, of course, goes to the retweet.

    Still, it seems like everyone is pissed. Just take a look at Twitter right now and do your best unscientific poll of user sentiment. The majority of people tweeting about the change are tweeting some level of disapproval. Why is Twitter trying to be Facebook with the “like”? or Why is Twitter trying to be Instagram with that heart or Why the hell did Twitter get rid of something that distinguished itself from the pack? The favorite was pure Twitter, through and through, and now it’s dead.

    Ok fine. It’s dead. Really, everyone will get over it.

    But now Twitter needs to add a “save” button.

    Sure, most of your uses of the favorite star over the years have probably been to show approval someone’s tweet, or agree with it, or like what they’re saying.

    That’s not the only thing Twitter’s fav star was used for, however. A smaller, but still important use of the favorite was to simply bookmark or save a tweet for later. Scrolling through your feed and see a tweet with a recipe you want to make later? Fav it. Scrolling through your feed and see a strange GIF you want to show a friend later? Fav it.

    But there were also the times when you’d want to favorite a tweet that you found awful, repugnant, or otherwise distasteful. Let’s say something that Donald Trump just tweeted. Newsworthy? Sure. I want to save that tweet for later. But do I like it? Do I heart it?

    Probably not.

    Like I said before, people will probably use the heart the same way they use the star – for the most part. But Twitter needs to give users an option to easily bookmark a tweet for later – a sort of “save without endorsement” button.

  • Twitter Favorites Are Dead, Now You Must “Like” Tweets with a Heart

    Twitter Favorites Are Dead, Now You Must “Like” Tweets with a Heart

    The Twitter favorite, the star, is dead.

    Twitter has decided to swap favorites for “likes” and stars for hearts on both its main platform and on Vine. Now, Twitter’s three main properties – Twitter proper, Vine, and Periscope – will all use hearts to signal agreement, interest, solidarity, etc with a post.

    “We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we’ll be calling them likes. We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite,” says Twitter

    “The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.”

    Users are very familiar with he concept of a heart, from both Tumblr and Instagram. And as for “likes”, well we’re all pretty used to giving out those.

    The one thing about favoriting tweets with a star is that people used the feature to bookmark, or save tweets. You might not “like” the tweet – in fact you may hate it and disagree vehemently – but you might still fav it in order to preserve it, in a way.

    But Twitter’s right in saying the heart icon and “liking” is more universal. And if we know anything about Twitter’s latest strategy to get more people using Twitter, it’s a desire to be more universal.

  • Deleted Politician Tweets Site, Which Twitter Blocked, Now Preserved on Internet Archive

    When Twitter decided to kill API access to Politwoops and Diplotwoops, sites the archived the deleted tweets of politicians across the world, it was a pretty big blow to transparency.

    “Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable? No one user is more deserving of that ability than another. Indeed, deleting a tweet is an expression of the user’s voice,” said Twitter in defense of its decision.

    Despite the protests of dozens of rights groups, Twitter stuck by its decision. Twitter blocked the US version of Politwoops on May 15, and the final blow came in August when it shut the operation down in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Denmark, Portugal, Egypt, Estonia, France, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, Macedonia, Norway, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey and the Vatican.

    You might not be able to track newly-deleted tweets from the world’s top politicians – but you can now search through all the old ones. Open State Foundation has announced that it has uploaded the entire Politwoops archive to the Internet Archive.

    Here you’ll find all 1,106,187 deleted tweets from 10,404 politicians across 35 countries.

    ‘Social networks should take into account international norms about transparency and the right to information’, says Arjan El Fassed, director of Open State Foundation. ‘When politicians turn to social networks to amplify their views, they are inviting greater scrutiny of their expression’.

    Earlier this month, human rights and transparency groups penned an open letter to Twitter asking it to restore Politwoops’ API access.

    “Twitter’s reasoning conflates transparency and accountability with privacy. We agree that when users decide to delete tweets they are engaging in expression—but add that the public has a compelling interest in the expression of public officials. Recognizing this public interest, courts have long held that public officials do not receive the same treatment for privacy. Further, when public officials use Twitter to amplify their political views, they invite greater scrutiny of their expression. Journalists and civil society utilize tools like Politwoops to understand the views and commitments of the people these politicians represent—and the politician or candidate’s own intents and perspective. In this case, the citizen’s right to freedom of expression —which includes access to information—outweighs the official’s right to a retroactive edit,” wrote the groups, which include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch, and Fight for the Future.

  • Twitter Kills Sites Across the World That Archived Politicians’ Deleted Tweets

    Twitter Kills Sites Across the World That Archived Politicians’ Deleted Tweets

    One of the biggest operations for preserving politicians’ deleted tweets has been shut down.

    The Open State Foundation say that Twitter has cut off its API access for its Politwoops and Diplotwoops sites. The sites were simple – they just pulled deleted tweets from politicians’ profiles and made them visible for the world to see. It was about transparency, according to the siterunners.

    But apparently, Twitter does not agree. The company reportedly said that every user – public or private – has the right to delete their tweets.

    “Twitter said that its decision to suspend access to Politwoops followed a ‘thoughtful internal deliberation and close consideration of a number of factors’ and that it doesn’t distinguish between users. Twitter wrote: ‘Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable? No one user is more deserving of that ability than another. Indeed, deleting a tweet is an expression of the user’s voice.’” says Open State Foundation.

    The places where Twitter’s API refusal has effectively shut down Politwoops are Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Denmark, Portugal, Egypt, Estonia, France, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, Macedonia, Norway, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey and the Vatican. It also includes members of the European Parliament.

    Twitter blocked the US version of Politwoops on May 15.

    “What our elected officials say is a matter of public record, and Twitter is an increasingly important part of how our elected officials communicate with the public. This kind of dialogue between we the people and those who represent us is an important part of any democratic system. And even in the case of deleted tweets, it’s also a public part — these tweets are live and viewable by anyone on Twitter.com and other platforms for at least some amount of time,” said the siterunner, Sunlight Foundation, at the time.

    “Unfortunately, Twitter’s decision to pull the plug on Politwoops is a reminder of how the Internet isn’t truly a public square. Our shared conversations are increasingly taking place in privately owned and managed walled gardens, which means that the politics that occur in such conversations are subject to private rules. (In this case, Twitter’s terms of service for usage of its API.)”

    The latest move means Politwoops has been cut off in all remaining countries of operation.

    “What politicians say in public should be available to anyone. This is not about typos but it is a unique insight on how messages from elected politicians can change without notice,” says Open State Foundation director Arjan El Fassed.

    [Open State Foundation via The Guardian]

  • What Does Google’s New Tweet Section Mean For You?

    What Does Google’s New Tweet Section Mean For You?

    Google and Twitter have been teasing us with a new integration of tweets into Google search results for months, but this week they finally made the official announcement. Real-time tweets are now showing in Google search results on mobile devices with desktop integration to come soon.

    What do you think of the new feature? Do you see any opportunities to help your site or online presence? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    The integration takes the form of a carousel that appears in search results, which lets you swipe sideways to see various tweets. It only appears on some searches, and it’s unclear how and when exactly Google decides to show them. The examples we’ve seen have been for Twitter profile searches, celebrity searches, and newsy/trendy topic searches.

    The placement of the tweets in search results varies. I assume it’s based on now relevant Google feels those tweets are to a particular search. If the search is related to an event, perhaps Google will be more likely to show them toward the top while it’s actually happening. I’m only speculating.

    Google isn’t saying much of anything about how it determines what tweets to show or how it shows them. It’s refusing to answer questions about this, and the blog posts from both Twitter and Google on the integration are pretty short and vague. It’s easy to understand why this would be the case. They don’t want people to game the system and abuse the feature.

    It’s entirely possible that we’re only seeing the very beginning of what Google will ultimately do with its newfound tweet access. We spoke with Stone Temple Consulting’s Eric Enge about the new integration, and he believes Google will be doing a lot of experimenting and potentially evolving its use of the tweets.

    Earlier this year, after Google’s deal with Twitter was announced, we had a conversation with Enge about some studies his company had conducted, including one that analyzed Google’s use of tweets at the time. There were a lot of interesting findings in those, which you can learn more about here. Now that the new integration is live, we wanted to see what Enge thought about it, and if he can see any validations or contradictions to what the study found. Here’s what he told us:

    Right now the integration between Google and Twitter is quite light. Currently, it’s only visible from Smartphone devices. In addition, it’s clear that they are experimenting. For example, when you search on a name, such as “Taylor Swift”, you see tweets that she has put out there. Yet, the initial release showed tweets that mentioned her. This is typical of Google, where they experiment with different implementations to see what works best, before settling on one for the longer term. I expect this experimentation to continue.

    What this means for visibility in the short term is not much at all. This process is in the very early stages. Think of this as Google proving that they can access, process, and leverage the data from the Twitter firehose. I’d expect more substantial integration sometime soon. The whole process may take months to play out.

    What I’d love to see is Google do something involving personalization related to Twitter. I.e., if you share a link in a tweet, and then later search on a related topic, that particular article might rank higher in the search results. I have no way to know if they are getting enough info to implement something like this, but it would be a very cool feature for them to be able to add.

    As you know, our two most well-known studies on Twitter evaluated how Google Indexes tweets, and how to maximize Twitter engagement. The current integration tests between Google and Twitter don’t really feature anything that would dramatically change the conclusions of either of those studies. I think the real story is yet to come.

    Frankly, I expect both studies to change. Twitter indexing could well skyrocket, as our indexing study showed indexation rates for Tweets of just over 7%. Imagine if this jumps to 50% or more. This could be a huge deal!

    In addition, the simple act of rendering tweets in search results will not create a new source of engagement, which is whether or not you are able to get displayed. In particular, how timely are you with Tweeting our news. If you are fast with this, your tweet will get far more attention than ever before.

    Overall, I think this initial integration is big news because it’s the start of a process. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the story unfolds!

    It does seem like Google may use hashtag searches as an indication of when users might want to see tweets. While not all hashtag searches yield twitter results, others mainly related to things that are being talked about a lot at the time do.

    Under Google’s previous Twitter deal, it had a realtime search feature, which included tweets in addition to content from other services. It would be cool if they could bring content from other sources like Instagram, Facebook, etc. into the carousel, at least for hashtag searches as hashtags extend well beyond the Twittervese these days. Either way, Google’s approach seems like all the more reason to include hashtags in tweets for visibility purposes. It is unclear how often people are actually searching Google for hashtags however.

    As you can see in the screenshots, the tweet section displays media (images/gifs/videos) from tweets. This seems like a greater incentive to include media in tweets, as they are more eye catching on the Google results page.

    In terms of which tweets Google chooses to show, it could be taking any variety of factors into account. It does say “Popular on Twitter,” on some carousel results, but it sometimes shows tweets that are only seconds old and haven’t had much time to become too popular, so it’s likely taking other popularity signals into account. Possibly follower count or popularity of shared links, for example.

    In its initial blog post, Google showed an example of a search for Malcolm X, and included a tweet from Stacy Parker LeMelle, who has 10.5K followers. The tweet was just 12 seconds old. Google is likely using the popularity of the actual link being shared as a signal as well. That same tweet included a link from the New York Times, which was no doubt shared plenty of times.

    Ahead of the actual integration launched, we also talked with Conversocial CEO Joshua March about how it might impact the reputations of Twitter users and businesses. It may be early in Google’s integration, but as it stands now, it does make the tweets quite prominent, particularly when they appear at the top of the page. The lessons from that discussion pretty much still apply to what Google has already rolled out.

    “Tweets from customers about issues or bad service experiences could be on the front page,” said March. “If businesses have a social first approach to customer service then they can tackle these quickly and head on, creating positive engagements that will show up instead. This deal has the potential to accelerate the kind of service-related Twitter crises many brands have already experienced.”

    If nothing else, the feature could net some who show up in search results some new Twitter followers.

    What are your initial impressions of the rollout? Do you like Google’s approach? How would you like to see them change it? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • Google Puts Real-Time Tweets in Mobile Search Results

    Google Puts Real-Time Tweets in Mobile Search Results

    Earlier this year, Google and Twitter made nice and struck a deal to bring more tweets to Google search results. Today, the fruits of said deal are going live on mobile.

    Of course, it’s not as if you couldn’t surface tweets in Google search results if you tried – but this new deal gives real-time tweets more prominence in mobile search results.

    For instance, a search for Taylor Swift may display a carousel of her tweets at the top:

    Or a search for a timely topic like Malcolm X (it’s his 90th birthday today) might bring up a carousel of recent tweets about him:

    Of course, more specific Twitter-oriented searches like “NASA Twitter” or “#madmen” are more likely to pull up Twitter results, and place them higher up on the page.

    It appears that what some spotted in the wild earlier this month is pretty much how Google plans to use tweets – at least for now. Currently, these Twitter-heavy results will only show up for U.S. user searching in English, and only on the iOS and Android Google apps and the mobile web.

    The companies say it’s coming to desktop “shortly”.

    “It’s a great way to get real-time info when something is happening. And it’s another way for organizations and people on Twitter to reach a global audience at the most relevant moments,” says Google.

    “By deeply integrating Twitter’s real-time content into Google search, we hope you find it easier than ever to explore your interests across both Twitter and Google,” says Twitter.

    It’s important to note that this isn’t a rebirth of Google’s realtime search feature. But it is a step toward more real-time information in Google search. Twitter has over 6,000 tweets per second coming in through its firehose – and now Google, once again, has access to it.

  • People Who Tweet While Driving Are Doing It ‘All the Time’, God Help Us

    AT&T has been running its “It Can Wait” campaign for a few years now, shining a light on the country’s continued problem with distracted driving. Every so often it puts out a survey and every time the result come back it’s like oh my god what the hell are people doing.

    First things first – 61 percent of people say they’re still texting and driving. That’s obscene. Stop texting and driving. Whatever you have to say is not that important, I assure you. Even if you’re texting a friend to implore them to stop texting while driving. That’s still not a good reason to text and drive.

    But we knew people are texting and driving. Every recent survey confirms this. AT&T’s new survey looked at other smartphone-related activities and found the following:

    Smartphone activities people say they do while driving include:

    • Text (61%)
    • Email (33%)
    • Surf the net (28%)
    • Facebook (27%)
    • Snap a selfie/photo (17%)
    • Twitter (14%)
    • Instagram3 (14%)
    • Shoot a video (12%)
    • Snapchat (11%)
    • Video chat (10%)

    God help us all.

    But wait, there’s more.

    “30% of people who post to Twitter while driving do it ‘all the time.’”

    At least when you’re texting, there’s a recipient in mind. Someone is likely going to read/give a shit about your message. On Twitter, you’re just sending out 140-character farts into a vacuous netherworld populated by people who couldn’t give less of a shit about your Chipotle. Tweeting while driving has to be the most self-absorbed activity on the planet.

    Anyway, carry on. Just keep your eyes out for those who aren’t.

  • Scott Walker’s Twitter Team Needs to Get Its Sh*t Together

    Scott Walker’s Twitter Team Needs to Get Its Sh*t Together

    Though he hasn’t made a formal declaration, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is going to throw his hat in the ring for the 2016 Presidential race eventually.

    But before he does that, his social media team really needs to get its shit together.

    Here’s a recent tweet from Scott Walker’s account:

    Note that it’s signed “TW”, which means “Team Walker”. Any tweet from the Governor himself are signed “skw”.

    Walker’s Twitter team is just a little off with that tweet.

    It’s actually been a little over 408 years, as it was first established on May 4,1607.

    Ok, people make mistakes. Happens to me all the time. No biggie.

    But it took his team 50 minutes to “rectify” the error: That’s just too long in the age of social media. You can’t go leavin math errors up there for an hour – come on, guys. Next time it might not be some dumb tweet about Jamestown – it could be something a lot more serious.

    The original “Twitter typo” is still up. The team hasn’t deleted it. I guess that’s a good sign for transparency?

    Image via Michael Vadon, Wikimedia Commons

  • ‘2 Drunk 2 Care’ Tweeter Gets 24 Years for Fatal Crash

    ‘2 Drunk 2 Care’ Tweeter Gets 24 Years for Fatal Crash

    Kayla Mendoza, the Florida woman who sent an infamous string of tweets before causing fatal car crash back in 2013, has been sentenced to 24 years in prison.

    According to police, Mendoza went out for margaritas after work and at approximately 1:45 am, the then 20-year-old drove onto the Sawgrass Expressway in Broward County – driving the wrong way. Soon after, she slammed head-on into another car, killing both people inside.

    The sad story was highlighted by an ominous tweet sent less than three hours before the crash:

    Mendoza pleaded guilty to two counts of DUI manslaughter earlier this year. She actually faced up to 30 years in jail, but was only handed 24. She will also serve six years probation and is never allowed behind the wheel for the rest of her life.

    According to NBC Miami, Mendoza begged for forgiveness during her sentencing.

    “No matter how much time passes they will never leave my heart. I think about them everyday and I regret my choices everyday,” she said. “I don’t remember deciding to drive that night so I can’t even tell you what was going through my mind when I made that decision. I have no excuses for anything I’ve done, I just ask for forgiveness,” she said while reading a prepared letter.

    The families of the two she killed were unforgiving, apparently. They asked for the maximum sentence, saying she ruined their lives forever.

  • Twitter Deploys New Algorithm to Fight Abuse

    Twitter Deploys New Algorithm to Fight Abuse

    Twitter has a known and admitted problem with abusive content – one that truly embodies the phrase “no silver bullet.” How do you stop people from harassing others? How do you prevent people from tweeting abusive content? You can’t ban everyone. You surely can’t stop people from creating multiple accounts. You can’t prevent people from hurling verbal garbage at others.

    Especially when you continue to rally under the flag of free speech.

    To combat the problem, Twitter has taken a bunch of baby steps as of late. It tripled the team that handles reports of abuse and harassment, and began asking suspended users to verify a phone number and delete offending tweets before reinstatement. It updated its policies to specifically ban revenge porn and other content posted without a user’s consent. It made reporting threats to the police a little easier. It implemented a new notifications filtering option.

    But now Twitter is deploying a new algorithm to fight the abuse. It’s is testing a way to automatically detect abusive tweets based on a number of factors, including age of account and similarity to previously flagged tweets.

    Twitter’s leaving this a bit vague, as the specifics of the tool aren’t really laid out in the company’s announcement:

    “We have begun to test a product feature to help us identify suspected abusive Tweets and limit their reach. This feature takes into account a wide range of signals and context that frequently correlates with abuse including the age of the account itself, and the similarity of a Tweet to other content that our safety team has in the past independently determined to be abusive. It will not affect your ability to see content that you’ve explicitly sought out, such as Tweets from accounts you follow, but instead is designed to help us limit the potential harm of abusive content. This feature does not take into account whether the content posted or followed by a user is controversial or unpopular,” says Twitter.

    What this likely means is that Twitter won’t remove a tweet when it’s detected by the system, but will likely hide it from the mentioned users’ notifications.

    Twitter execs have floated this sort of approach in the past – saying you might have the right to say something, but Twitter doesn’t have to be your megaphone. It’s limiting the reach of tweets, without removing them entirely.

    This action makes a lot of sense when you consider the company’s recent insistence on achieving a balance between protecting users and protecting free speech.

    Twitter is also giving its support team another option – the account lockout.

    “In addition to other actions we already take in response to abuse violations (such as requiring users to delete content or verify their phone number), we’re introducing an additional enforcement option that gives our support team the ability to lock abusive accounts for specific periods of time. This option gives us leverage in a variety of contexts, particularly where multiple users begin harassing a particular person or group of people,” says Twitter.

    There’s another policy change as well, as Twitter is making rules barring threats a bit more vague in order to give its support team more leeway to punish certain activity.

    “We are updating our violent threats policy so that the prohibition is not limited to “direct, specific threats of violence against others” but now extends to “threats of violence against others or promot[ing] violence against others.” Our previous policy was unduly narrow and limited our ability to act on certain kinds of threatening behavior.

    It’s a subtle change, but now a user only has to say “I wish someone would kill JANE SMITH” as opposed to “I’m going to kill JANE SMITH” to qualify for a reprimand (or more, depending on how actionable the threat appears).

    No silver bullet. There never will be when it comes to online speech.

    Image via Garrett Heath, Flickr Creative Commons

  • ESPN’s Britt McHenry Should Be Fired, Says Twitter

    ESPN’s Britt McHenry Should Be Fired, Says Twitter

    According to a growing number of Twitter users, ESPN reporter Britt McHenry deserves a steeper punishment than a brief suspensions.

    The hastag #FireBrittMcHenry has surged in popularity, as people continue to scold the reporter for her actions, as well as ESPN for their decision to suspend her for one week.

    If you missed the Britt McHenry story, here’s a refresher.

    Earlier this week, a surveillance video caught the reporter and former Stetson University soccer player berating a towing company employee after her car was towed in Washington DC. McHenry insulted the employees’ weight, appearance, and level of education. The video went viral, garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

    “That’s why I have a degree and you don’t,” said McHenry at one point. “Maybe if I was missing some teeth, they would hire me here, huh?”

    Watch the video below:

    She later apologized for her actions, saying,

    “In an intense and stressful moment, I allowed my emotions to get the best of me and said some insulting and regrettable things. As frustrated as I was, I should always choose to be respectful and take the high road. I am so sorry for my actions and will learn from this mistake.”

    ESPN suspended her for one week.

    It appears it is the opinion of a good number of folks out there that this is not good enough.

    McHenry has not made a statement beyond her Twitter apology. The New York Post suggests that ESPN should reinstate McHenry until it has the full story. What do you think?

    Image via Britt McHenry, Twitter

  • Clorox Washes ‘Racist’ Bleach Joke

    Clorox Washes ‘Racist’ Bleach Joke

    Clorox has become the latest in a long line of companies to say something dumb on Twitter. It won’t be the last.

    Looking to piggyback on all the chatter surrounding the new Apple emojis, which made their debut earlier this week, Clorox sent out a tweet with an image of a Clorox bottle composed entirely of existing emojis.

    “New emojis are alright, but where’s the bleach?” it read.

    In case you’re not caught up on the latest emoji news, the thing about the new emojis is that they contain a more racially diverse set of faces.

    Cue the outrage:

    Clorox has since removed the tweet and apologized, saying it wishes it “could bleach away that last tweet.”

    You know, toilets, sinks, tubs, wine, etc.

    There are two sides to this, both of which are maddening and ridiculous. On one hand you have Clorox – more specifically whoever runs Clorox’s social media presence. When your job is to run a large company’s social media, I’d like to think you’d be a little less myopic. That seems like an important trait of a social media manager.

    You have to be able to step back, look at the big picture, and see how a tweet or Facebook post could be misconstrued. Let’s call it the ooooooooh, I see principle. Or maybe the duuuuuude, c’mon rule.

    How could that tweet actually make it out?

    On the other hand, you have the social media outrage machine.

    You really think Clorox was making a racist joke? You honestly believe that whoever runs Clorox’s social media accounts thought to themselves hey, I’m going to black people bleach their skin – but you know, in a haha type of way!

    Lessons learned – 1.) hire a better social media manager and 2.) be a little more selective when it comes to where you sling your outrage. Save it for the intentionally racist garbage spewed out across the internet on a daily basis. There’s plenty.

    Now, let’s all focus on this truly offensive thing Clorox posted this week…

    Image via Clorox, Twitter

  • Twitter Adds Comment Feature To Retweets

    Twitter Adds Comment Feature To Retweets

    You know how before when you retweeted something, it just tweeted out the exact tweet you were retweeting unless you quoted it yourself and added something that the 140-character limit would allow you to squeeze in?

    Twitter is now making it easier for you to add your own comments to a retweet without counting the original tweet against your character limit. You do have a limit, but you get 116 characters in a new comment box to make your point.

    To use the feature, just click the retweet button, and you’ll see the comment box above the tweet.

    For some reason the original tweet doesn’t display in an embed, but oh well.

    Just so you know, you can’t retweet your own quote tweet. I don’t know why you’d think that you could since you can’t retweet your own tweets in the first place, but Twitter felt the need to point that out, so I might as well too.

    The feature is available from the iOS app and the web version of Twitter. It will hit Android soon, the company says.

    According to TheNextWeb, Twitter is planning to include support for the feature in its API, so the functionality will work with third-party apps.

  • Twitter Ads, Coming Soon to Your Profile

    Twitter Ads, Coming Soon to Your Profile

    One of Twitter’s main goals – just like Facebook or any other social network – is the find that perfect balance between advertising and a pleasant user experience. That’s why the company is reportedly torn on whether or not to implement autoplay videos in users’ timelines. That’s why you hear Twitter execs discussing “ratios” all the time (one sponsored tweet per 20 organic tweets, for instance).

    Now, Twitter’s running a test that likely toes that line for many. As of now, Twitter is experimenting with putting ads in your profile.

    From Re/code:

    Twitter is bringing promoted tweets, the app’s signature ad unit, to people’s profile pages as part of a new test. That means when you visit the page of another user, you may find a targeted Twitter ad waiting for you a few tweets into that user’s stream.

    The ads are separated from other tweets by a small bumper that creates a break in the stream, and a label that reads “Suggested by Twitter” — you can see an example at the bottom of this post. A company spokesperson confirmed Twitter is testing the new ad placement.

    These “targeted” ads are only appearing on a small fraction of profiles for now, and only showing up for logged-in users.

    Of course, as Twitter gets further into this test, that could change. Not everyone that uses Twitter is an actual Twitter member – and the percentage of non-logged-in users visiting the site could increase greatly as real time tweets are reinserted into Google search results.

  • Kanye West Is Tweeting Naked Photos of Kim Kardashian

    Hi. What are y’all up to this afternoon?

    Kanye West has spent the last hour or so tweeting out mostly naked photos of his wife, Kim Kardashian.

    Swish.

    It appears this is a celebration of Kim Kardashian hitting 30 million Twitter followers, which is a substantial number of anything.

    She appears to appreciate the gesture:

    Just thought y’all should know. Carry on.

  • Kids Read Mean Tweets, Reminds Us Bullies Suck

    Kids Read Mean Tweets, Reminds Us Bullies Suck

    On Jimmy Kimmel Live! there’s an ongoing skit segment where “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets”, showcasing (as the name suggests) superstars reading hurtful tweets from average schmucks.

    Since celebrities are too privileged to bear the weight of feelings, it’s a good chuckle for us, reminding them that before they drove around in their golden Lamborghinis and swam in Luis Vuitton pools full of naked models, they too were once human:

    On March 11th, The Canadian Safe School Network and advertisement agency John St. published a video on YouTube titled “Kids Read Mean Tweets” which parodies the “Mean Tweets” series and takes the format to a whole new level.

    What starts off as presumed and familiar comedy turns into an inevitable backslap of reality proving once again that Canadians know better than us: Cyber-bullying is no joke.

    At first, a young girl reads a tweet slut shaming her with accompanying background laughter. The final kid on the screen lowers her head, reading a tweet that says, “No one likes you. Do everyone a favour. Just kill yourself.” before walking off the set.

    “It’s easy to laugh at rich celebrities reading some of the terrible things people have said about them online. We condone it. We even revel in it,” the advertiser, Canadian Safe School Network, said in a statement, as reported by AdWeek.

    “But this same behavior is turning almost 40 percent of Canadian kids into victims of cyberbullying. It’s a growing epidemic that invades their lives and leaves many feeling like there’s no way out.”

    Canadian Safe Schools even launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise money, which would go into spreading the video around and raise awareness about the troubling issue.

    It’s unclear of whether or not the tweets are legitimate, as a Twitter search didn’t turn up or match some of the tweets featured in the video. Even if the messages are fabricated, it doesn’t derail the fact that cyber bullying is ongoing issue that pushes children to an early grave.

    Here’s hoping that some of those millions of nightly viewers that watch talk shows take a gander at a more serious issue. Perhaps NBC or Mr. Kimmel can find it in their hearts to make the video more prominent.