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Casey Fiesler @cfiesler
, 9 tweets, 4 min read Read on Twitter
The fact that Twitter is reportedly removing "likes" in order to "promote healthy conversation" (with, as far as I can tell, no justification beyond "jack thinks it will work") is a darn compelling argument for that company to hire actual, trained social computing researchers.
users: hey twitter maybe less death threats
twitter: more characters in tweets, you say? here you go!
users: hey twitter could you ban nazis
twitter: we hear you want hearts instead of stars!
users: hey twitter disinformation campaigns are--
twitter: OK FINE WE GOT RID OF HEARTS
And to be clear, (a) I heart twitter as you can tell from how active I am; (b) I am really glad they're helping fuel research on healthy conversations (see link); and (c) they ARE trying to hire a social science director. So I think they can do better. :) blog.twitter.com/official/en_us…
P.S. If you're interested in actual research - around harassment and moderation and mechanisms on Twitter - that could support design decisions, have a look at this new work from @shagunjhaver @suchetaghoshal @eegilbert @asbruckman #cscw2018 medium.com/acm-cscw/onlin…
And even more research about harassment that could help actually inform design decisions around health conversations on Twitter, one of my favorite papers from last year, from @linguangst @clifflampe @syardi & Tianying Chen lindsayblackwell.net/wp-content/upl…
The above tweets represent just two of the approximately one million research studies I've seen about Twitter and harassment and/or conversation health, and I'm like 99.9% sure that none of them had "get rid of hearts" as a design implication.
Follow-up thought: I wonder if this (^^^ thread above) is a symptom of an academic "bubble." Why are we doing all this research around things like online harassment if it's not actually being used to inform real platforms? What can we do to help our work have more impact?
IRONICALLY this tweet currently has 216 likes. And the conversation seems healthy enough to me. ;)
Dear journalists, I will be really disappointed if this hot take about Twitter likes doesn't appear in one of the articles that's probably coming up about public reactions to it. (P.S. I want to talk about this, ask me.)
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More from @cfiesler see all

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[Thread] Tumblr is banning adult content beginning in a couple of weeks, and though in some ways this could indeed lead to a "better, more positive Tumblr," based on evidence from my research, it will also most likely destroy fandom Tumblr. staff.tumblr.com/post/180758987…
We recently conducted a study of fandom platform migration over time, and found that the absolute most striking example of a mass exodus was from LiveJournal, after they did... well, this exact same thing. cfiesler.tumblr.com/post/171831912…
When fanfiction.net created policies against adult content in the early 2000s there was a similar exodus, though (see the chart in my previous tweet) there was not as much of a lasting impact - in part because the demographics on fanfiction.net skew younger.
Read 18 tweets
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Encouraging creative speculation could be an important part of teaching ethical thinking. Here are some exercises that I use in a tech ethics and policy class, based on #BlackMirror, with some other science fiction suggestions as well! #ethicalCS medium.com/@cfiesler/the-…
And if you’re not a fan of Black Mirror specifically, I recommend short fiction - @doctorow has a wealth of options! Novels, too. Snow Crash is a favorite of mine. (I’m also halfway through @Annaleen’s Autonomous & want to talk patent speculation. ;) )
One big picture takeaway: If you can think speculatively about the ethical implications of the technology that someone else might create in fifty years, you can think speculatively about the ethical implications of the technology that you might create next week.
Read 5 tweets
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TL;DR Dropbox collaborated w/ university researchers to study scientists' collaboration patterns using "project-folder-related data." Potential interesting case study re: research ethics for industry/academic partnerships. [Thread] (h/t/ @shionguha!) hbr.org/2018/07/a-stud…
Similar to the Facebook emotional contagion study, the authors are a Dropbox employee as well as university researchers. They have a fairly clear statement about the type of data that was used, stating that no one had access to personally identifiable information.
This statement does give me pause: "Dropbox gave us access to project-folder-related data, which WE aggregated and anonymized..." (emphasis added). Does this suggest it wasn't anonymized when the data (e.g., folder names) was provided to third-party researchers?
Read 10 tweets

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#Twitter: what is it good for? How do you get good at it? And what will we do when it's gone? Today in pulp I share a few insights I've gleaned from almost five years of running this account.

Its about to get all meta...
Most people's tweets are a stream of consciousness, and Twitter itself is a daily flow of 500 million of these across the surface of your phone. You are currently looking at the collective unconscious of the planet...
And like any examination of the unconscious you will see things on Twitter that fascinate you and things that disgust you. This is part of its attraction: the filters of discourse become permeable, allowing the unsayable to leak across.
Read 19 tweets
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#Censorship White Helmets Exposed has once again been shadowbanned. We noticed very few people seemed to be seeing our posts and ran a check. Here is what we found out. Please share this post so that others may see the level of censorship now taking place. shadowban.eu/whitehelmetsexp
#Censorship Regarding the shadowbanning of our account (which is focused on exposing western, Israeli and Gulf State supported terrorists in Syria), additional images highlight how Twitters hidden search and shadowban system works. #ThoughtPolice #Orwellian #Twitter
Twitters admins have determined that White Helmets Exposed, a group that is exposing murderous terrorists who kill women, children and families in Syria using chemical weapons false flags and other techniques, is simply not a healthy conversation partner. blog.twitter.com/official/en_us…
Read 4 tweets
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Here is a @verified media account tweeting an intentionally misleading headline to create outrage, hatred and divisiveness when their own story debunks the claim.

So @jack and @Twitter, does that count as 'misinformation?'

Does this facilitate 'healthy conversation?'
At this point the *narrative* has spread too far to control. The Hill is one of dozens...

@jack's efforts to curb the spread of 'misinformation' will require honest evaluation of all media and that just will not happen.
Read 3 tweets
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After 70 years of imperial/neoliberal indoctrination the web of lies is so obviously absurde (9/11, Skripal, WH = ISIS, etc.), that it is dissoluting. The empathetic humanity connects, closes ranks and sends their eternal psychopathic rulers and their lackeys into nowhere land.
The "evil empire" is a lifelong three year old child. I certainly loved my children at that age too, however only because they created not only a surreal mess, but also made steady progress.

A great documentary about psychopathy and society:
The elite invented "democracy" to protect them from the empathetic people. The media are their means for misleading the people sedated by "democracy". This is definitely a bad thing since the people have become educated and the elite almost totally insane.
Read 209 tweets
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Before I lose the idea. R76 and wax museum challenge.
I'm thinking Jack as a journalist, challenged to do the "one night in a wax museum" thing. (Since he lost a bet in his journalist company).

His boss wants a segment of his experience or something so Jack takes a vid camera, sleeping bag, notebooks and some necessities
His bet requires him to set up in the 'murderers' section for maximum fear factor and what not. Jack admits he's a little scared cause everything looks so real.

One of the statues is a guy called Gabriel Reyes. The story was that he murdered people around the city.
Read 268 tweets
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#Fact 1 - The Wage Gap is real. People who says it's not haven't read the data.

However, in places like the USA, the wage gap is *not* mostly due to sexism like many #femnist #WomenInScience are claiming it is today. Disparate outcomes doesn't imply disparate treatment.
Women typically choose fields that are lower paying; even in the #STEM fields. To attribute that to sexism only or even mostly is a very dishonest way of deriving an answer for this complex disparity.

Sources:

cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/upl…

npr.org/sections/money…
When the US Department of Labor Statistics took into consideration personal choices, non-wage benefits, hours worked, experience, education, and other variables that contributes to the wage gap the percentage of earnings decreases to approximately 3%.

shrm.org/hr-today/publi…
Read 12 tweets

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