Back to the Future of Twitter
Twitter should go private and return to its pre-2012 approach of being a centralized service with third-party clients.
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@stratechery
Do you imagine TwitterServiceCo doing no moderation whatsoever: spam, illegal/insurrection stuff, etc?
If so aren't they ultimately responsible in the same way Twitter is now?
Platforms always ban spammers, and if you believe in free speech, isn’t spam speech? Spam is just talking a lot.
Early on any platform’s history, spam is an Omega Event: it will ruin the platform unless it is curtailed. No principle other than survival is relevant.
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@stratechery
@benthompson
Fantastic opinion and piece. Definitely, my
#1
value read on this topic. Thank you for getting this together
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@stratechery
@benthompson
@elonmusk
Maybe consider this for Twitter? Ben’s one of the best tech thinkers & writers out there.
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@stratechery
Thanks! Question: how different your proposal (two companies, one operating the social graph) really is from
@bluesky
? Also, imho, by decentralizing the entity running the graph, you can make it more open than using another governance model.
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@stratechery
What would stop a repeat of the Bill Gross attack? You get majority market share of Twitter clients, then dual post everything to a competitive API service until you can take over.
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@stratechery
@benthompson
Ben, when you mention cumulative loss and earning calls with profit, I get the criticism, but doesn't Tesla have worse results by those metrics? Twitter has disastrous management, but why does Musk get the benefit of the doubt and is referred to as a historical entrepreneur?
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@stratechery
@benthompson
Great and insightful analysis as always, but unfortunately you vastly underestimate the technical challenges involved in moderation. This alone would prevent 3rd party platforms effectively moderating themselves, and all twitter clients would then become a cesspool.
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@stratechery
One thing is missing here. Let's simplify:
I invested... as I believe in its potential... I believe free speech...
However... I now realize
I am offering
I would need
I will unlock it
Very strong "Only I can fix it" vibes.
It's me, me, me.
And we all know what happens next...
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@stratechery
@benthompson
Wouldn't it be weird and confusing to say "did you see that tweet?" and the person didn't due to moderation from TwitterAppCo? Wouldn't that dilute the appeal of a centralized information network?
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@stratechery
Nice analysis and insights. Business wise, loosely-coupled offerings are certainly a solution to the current monolithic quagmire .
BTW —Is there a reason why you categorize the
@Twitter
graph as a
#SocialGraph
rather than a broader
#KnowledgeGraph
?
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@stratechery
the split between the community oriented open infrastructure and the commercial profit oriented advertisement unit would allow to overcome the governance crisis of large social media platforms towards a more sustainable future, based on embedded democracy design principles.
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@stratechery
How would onboarding new users work? If TwitterAppCo acquires them, would TwitterServiceCo have access to their tweets and make them viewable on rival apps?
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