The simple answer to this problem has been clear for awhile: Make responses to quote tweets opaque to the original author.

1. Bob quotes a tweet from Alice he thinks his followers will find enraging

2. Bob's followers reply to the tweet with predictable outrage and abuse

3. (present system) Twitter becomes unusable for Alice as she is flooded with mentions from all of the angry and abusive replies to Bob's quote

3. (proposed system) Alice is not shown any of the replies to Bob's tweet. Bob's followers scream into the void.

4. (proposed system, cont'd) Bob's most clever followers know replies will not be seen by Alice, so they @ her directly. However, Twitter is even more clever and has a super-advanced algorithm that goes "if you follow someone who quote-tweeted someone else in the past 48 hours, @-ing the quoted user will not show up in their mentions." New accounts (less than 48 hours old) are also unable to @ anyone at all.

There, I fixed Twitter. Jack, I'll even write out some Jira stories for a very reasonable fee.

It might improve things marginally but at this point it's just an arm's race. Furthermore the people who will manage to work around these limitations will also probably be the more radicalized fringe of the community who are probably the most problematic one as well. It will deter the more moderate and give a larger audience to the radicalized.

Look at how people on Reddit, 4chan and elsewhere manage to identify Twitter accounts from anonymized screenshots in mere minutes in order to have a constructive discussion with the author.

I don't think technology can fix a community as large and diverse as Twitter, 4chan or Youtube. The problem IMO is that it's not even a community anymore, it's more like an amalgamation of thousands of communities with vastly different opinions and mindsets. You can try to isolate the communities as you propose and you end up with something like Reddit with mostly secluded communities. Look at how well it's working for them...

That's why I prefer smaller communities like Hacker News where there's still an actual sense of communities. We all see the same articles, we probably have vaguely similar interests etc... You don't default to assuming that whoever you're disagreeing with is a literal fascist/communist/whatever.

You had me at,

"people on Reddit, 4chan and elsewhere manage to identify Twitter accounts from anonymized screenshots in mere minutes in order to have a constructive discussion".

I assume you mean doxing and stalking. These are the instigators and manipulators... maybe they're the dangerous harassers, but most of the mob can't be bothered.

>...in order to have a constructive discussion with the author.

Yeah, I think I've seen a few of those. Nothing says constructive discussion like death threats.

I don't see how it has been "clear for a while" that this is the solution to all of twitter's problems.

> 3. (proposed system) Alice is not shown any of the replies to Bob's tweet. Bob's followers scream into the void.

The problem of online harassment is not (mainly) that the service UI becomes cumbersome to use for the victim. It's that everyone else can observe they are harassed and the victim loses control over their online presence. Your proposal would actually make this effect worse, because the victim wouldn't even notice anymore they are harassed.

>> "Your proposal would actually make this effect worse, because the victim wouldn't even notice anymore they are harassed."

There's a perspective where this is a good thing, but I think I know where you're coming from. I've seen people on the receiving end of these attacks who say they still want to know about it so they know about any tangible threats.

It could be argued though that when it's known that the quote-tweeted person won't see replies to the quoting tweet, there's no point for a harasser to make threats that won't be received.

Generally, I'm always wary of "out of sight, out of mind" type solutions - for any kind of problem. In this particular case, this assumes harrassers only want the original author to know (and even then are interested in the actual outcome of their message).

I think the "shitstorm" dynamics are more complex and there are different motivations for people to take part in one. E.g., it could be simple venting, virtue singalling to peers in your brigade or you sharing the tweet to others in your circle - nothing that needs any perticipation by the original author.

In extreme cases, an author might not realize what is going on until they find outraged articles about themselves in the news.

See the comparable problem of cyberbullying for an example. There, it's often completely irrelevant whether or not a victim knows about the messages that are written about them. Indeed, they can be bullied on online platforms where they don't even have an account. All that is required is for participants in the bullying to know how to access the messages.

Of course, harrassing PMs are a different issue. Here, you can be sure the messages are exclusively directed towards the author and the harm is being done by having the author read them. Blocking those kind of messages would stop the bullying action itself and could work. But then again, this is not so much different from the oldfashioned blocking we already have.

I’d argue a fair number of people want to know what people are saying about them, it seems like instinct almost. So does it have any affect at that point if everyone knows everyone will look?

That might be the simple answer for Twitter, but the simple answer for everyone else is to avoid Twitter. It should be clear thst broadcasting yourself thst way is inherently unwise in most cases, and that’s even before you add in the toxic community and “engagement first” platform.

It doesn't help much if I avoid Twitter, when all the major news media outlets think that Twitterers are the vox populi, and use it to source their articles.

The corollary is to avoid any source of “news” which does that. Stick to written media in most cases, avoid lifestyle pieces and minimize your exposure to politics. When possible go for primary sources on foreign affairs and cross-reference several viewpoints. Most of all don’t spend too much time with the news, especially the “major” outlets because they’re just poison.

This is lazy or mendacious journalism.

A few Tweets are quoted to give the impression of widespread outrage.

Tweet embedding is a negative value feature that’s helping to corrode regular journalism, and that seems to be of very limited value.

this point was made in, of all places, an episode of Parks & Recreation in 2012 where the moderator at a political debate has to read out a typo-filled question posed to the candidates, and remarks mockingly "and this question is from Twitter, which is something we are apparently doing now".

I believe the solution is verification of everyone by mailing address or something then a filter for unverified.

In the notification settings there are advanced filters to remove notifications from accounts that you don't follow, don't follow you, new accounts, accounts that have unconfirmed contact information. I don't know any other platform that offers so much control. I have been lucky to never experience this type of abuse but if I were under attack I would apply advanced filters until the storm passes. Twitter could certainly do better (and could take more of a stand against cut and dry abuse), but in the meantime there are tools in the hands of users today to take control of unwanted notifications.

I think there are certainly scenarios where this would be useful and preferable, but there is a quote-tweet use case for wanting to mention something to the people you follow but add your own support or opinion in good faith - it allows you to comment with at least a little context.

But this is probably me trying to salvage twitter for the non-toxic purposes and its probably a losing battle. The fact that what you propose is necessary is a terrible state of affairs.

I just wish someone else would come along and eat their lunch already.

If I'm not mistaken, aren't notifications on a quoted tweeted already muted for the quoted user? That is, the user sees the quoted tweet, but isn't notified with each reply/like of the quoted tweet? Just tested it on my own account but maybe I've changed a default at some point.

Doesn't this already exist in "mute thread"?

> Sarcasm, inside-jokes, rhetorical hyperbole, assumptions that everyone is following the same story they are, and so on. I don't know why they do it.

Done well and taken in context, it's funny?

Context-free humor is extremely hard but somehow twitter has managed to evolve that too. @dril may be the most well known example.

Using the internet for "debate" is pretty difficult outside of fairly homogenous, heavily moderated environments. It just about works on HN and even here it only works on certain subjects.

Besides, the entire premise of "debate" runs out for certain subjects: "we're taking away your rights because you didn't argue convincingly enough that you should get to live in peace" is inherently a disaster.

> I don't know why they do it.

Quite simply they're playing to the crowd. That's what gets a reaction, so they do it more. Skinner box conditioning at its simplest.

Same outside the hardest moderated groups on Reddit. Threads that form a distinct pattern every time. For internet points, or twitter followers, or chasing meaningless numbers. :)

Sarcasm and smart works best if used judiciously.

How do you design a system to encourage quality debate? Going on the few places that have had quality debate (Here on HN mostly, Usenet prior to the inrush, well managed forums, Livejournal if you were careful), I'd suggest assembling an audience interested in discussion. Forums used to manage it.

Heavy moderation, not limiting post length and minimising buttons for gathering the lynch mob (I mean buttons for engagement) seems like it helps too. :)

One commonality is that eberything you mentioned is a site that specifically gathers people around a common topic/interest. Twitter puts everything together, so the tweets from the hardware hackers I follow are mixed in together with joke accounts. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with all social media, I just don't understand why we haven't figured out anything better than usenet for keeping interests separated.

Because you have to make assumptions when you only have 140 characters to get an idea through. And yes, I know the limit has been relaxed, but that doesn't change the habit.

Patton Oswalt did a series of tweets that were designed to be taken out of context - they made a clever point about that. Of course, that didn't stop him from continuing to use Twitter prolifically, so perhaps he missed his own point, or at least yours.