There's an article I was introduced to yesterday: Do We Need a New Digital Regulatory Agency in the U.S.?
It argues that it it is the agencies and the experts within the agencies that need to become more technologically literate to be able to advise creation and implement the laws that have tech impacts.
Congress isn't supposed to be experts on subjects, they're supposed to be the representatives of their people with occasional domain knowledge in certain areas of importance to their constituents. We can't (and shouldn't) expect every member of congress to be an IT expert.
https://techpolicy.press/do-we-need-a-new-digital-regulatory... ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32555365 )
I never understood why tech people have such a strange enamor towards Twitter. Can’t be an industry power dev without it. Can’t start a company without it. Having a healthy Twitter following is often more important than having actual users—even to investors. Twitter is digital hype.
I agree. It’s time to replace Twitter. The only question is what exactly is it that anchors people to the platform? Even though it’s hard to imagine, we know that news motivates people (it happened with the WhatsApp -> Signal exodus). Where’s the “Signal for Twitter” we can all migrate to?
If the key is not just creating a social platform, but also a hype engine, maybe what a competitor needs to realize is that hype doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You have to do silly algorithmic things so that content can go viral. Maybe the secret is to be open about how you manufacture hype rather than do it behind closed doors? Maybe in a way that people can verify it was done fairly?
If I had to take a stab, it's a combination of networking effects (obviously), simplicity and the short text limit, which forces authors to mostly be concise and optimize for a 140 character attention span. This is also supercharged by the fact that you can (mostly) access everything anonymously - if I'm linked to Twitter, I know I can read/watch it and it will mostly be concise. I don't even bother clicking a link to FB, for example.
> - The only group who could really hold Twitter accountable are shareholders, but why should they care if the public and Congress don't? The money will roll in either way.
This might be what does it because is it true that the money is and will keep really rolling in? Twitter doesn't pay a dividend and is it reasonable to expect that the company's stock value should increase that much going forward?
Twitter's gross profit numbers aren't as large as you'd think given the household name recognition of the brand. You might be as surprised as I was to discover that meme-stocks like AMC and GameStop are approximately the same size as Twitter in terms of gross profit. Perhaps Twitter is just as much of a big name but ailing dinosaur as those businesses? Or if you want to make comparisons within social media, isn't it surprising that Snap's ~$2.8 billion cap gross profit is right up there with Twitter's ~$3.2 billion. How did that happen? It is also interesting that snap's market cap is only 2/3rds of Twitters despite a much closer delta between the two companies reported profits.
On the whole, things aren't looking too good for the social media right now, take for example facebook losing active users YoY. I often wonder what zeitgeist web properties are going to be remembered as a BIG thing that receded in popularity in the course of about a decade, say like bell-bottom denim jeans from the 60s or disco music from the 70s. Could it be social media for the 2010s?
Anyhow if they aren't paying dividends and they aren't able to keep growing at pace with expectations what exactly are they delivering in terms of value to shareholders?
Given that the allegations are about defrauding shareholders by actively deceiving them and sweeping things under the rug. Twitter's shareholders might be better off revolting against the current leadership to recoup their loses than to look the other way and let this slide.
I agree that, generally, it would be better for the US to have a better regulatory mechanism for large tech companies, but the consent decree is likely a strong tool in this particular case.
- This Congress is ill-equipped to understand tech, much less hold it accountable. As long as the people are happy, Congress is happy.
- Lord knows the people are ill-equipped to get how bad this is. They already watched this company allow a rogue employee to shut off the account of the President of the United States (before they chose to do it as policy; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/02...) and watched this company deploy a username-to-telephone lookup service publicly where they'd intended to deploy a security protocol (https://www.ghacks.net/2022/08/08/twitter-confirms-that-a-da...). The public doesn't understand why they should care.
- The only group who could really hold Twitter accountable are shareholders, but why should they care if the public and Congress don't? The money will roll in either way.
Unless they've managed to commit an SEC violation (in which case, slap on the wrist incoming), there are no consequences for this kind of bad behavior until someone powerful gets seriously hurt. I'm glad Mudge is doing the right thing, but extremely pessimistic much will come of it. My recommendation is to shed Twitter as a user.