Alex Hern‘s coverage of Twitter’s fail-to-sell story, Did trolls cost Twitter $3.5bn and its sale?, is a typical short on facts story about abuse on Twitter.
When I say short on facts, I don’t deny any of the anecdotal accounts of abuse on Twitter and other social media.
Here’s the data problem with abuse at Twitter:
As of May of 2016, Twitter had 310 million active monthly users over 1.3 billion accounts.
Number of Twitter users who are abusive (trolls): unknown
Number of Twitter users who are victims: unknown
Number of abusive tweets, daily/weekly/monthly: unknown
Type/frequency of abusive tweets, language, images, disclosure: unknown
Costs to effectively control trolls: unknown
Trolls and abuse should be opposed both at Twitter and elsewhere, but without supporting data, creating corporate priorities and revenues to effectively block (not end, block) abuse isn’t possible.
Since troll hunting at present is a drain on the bottom line with no return for Twitter, what if Twitter were to monetize its trolls?
That is create a mechanism whereby trolls became the drivers of a revenue stream from Twitter.
One such approach would be to throw off all the filtering that Twitter does as part of its basic service. If you have Twitter basic service, you will see posts from everyone from committed jihadists to the Federal Reserve. Not blocked accounts, no deleted accounts, etc.
Twitter removes material under direct court order only. Put the burden and expense on going to court for every tweet on both individuals and governments. No exceptions.
Next, Twitter creates the Twitter+ account, where for an annual fee, users can access advanced filtering that includes blocking people, language, image analysis of images posted to them, etc.
Price point experiments should set the fees for Twitter+ accounts. Filtering will be a decision based on real revenue numbers. Not flights of fancy by the Guardian or Sales Force.
BTW, the open Twitter I suggest creates more eyes for ads, which should also improve the bottom line at Twitter.
An “open” Twitter will attract more trolls and drive more users to Twitter+ accounts.
Twitter trolls generate the revenue to fight them.
I rather like that.
You?