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hey a quick heads up the second half of

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this episode contains descriptions of sexual

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harassment and graphic threats of

0:57

violence

0:58

exact time codes will be in the shown us

1:00

one

1:05

of my friends was the first female

1:07

engineer at twitter and point of fact

1:09

and she reached out to me monday and she said hey

1:11

down we're starting to see

1:14

occasional spam on

1:16

twitter and when i think about

1:18

bad things on the internet i think

1:20

about you

1:21

dell harvey was twitters twenty fifth

1:24

employ in two thousand and eight she started

1:26

as the head of twitters newly created spam

1:28

and abuse team she was also the

1:30

only member of that team

1:32

harvey already had plenty of experience

1:34

cleaning up bad stuff on the internet but

1:37

something's on twitter still managed to surprise

1:39

or for example brazilian

1:41

teenage girls

1:44

i'm just gonna tell you they one of the strongest

1:47

forces on the planet

1:50

there are a lot of them on twitter and they became such

1:52

a headache for our me that she gave him an acronym be

1:55

t geez and the reason

1:57

harvey was dealing with them as the btg

1:59

is reusing to after to talk to celebrities

2:02

they were especially interested in one celebrity

2:04

who joined the platform in march two thousand

2:06

nine

2:07

percent dad's justin bieber

2:09

see that a bombing some say

2:11

that cause there's just

2:15

so every day it would wake up and

2:17

they would tweet or justin bieber we love

2:19

the some to present at justin bieber we love

2:21

he thundered present at justin bieber we love

2:23

you can to brazil over and over again we

2:26

love you justin bieber comes to brazil is

2:28

a totally fine think say on twitter remembered

2:31

twitters first use case was i'm going to

2:33

this bar the

2:34

problem was the volume of people talking

2:37

to justin bieber

2:38

they weren't intending to spam

2:40

they just really want to justin bieber to counter brazil

2:43

the problem btc is created for twitter

2:45

as they made twitter look like it was

2:47

mostly a justin bieber fan site if

2:49

you want to twitters list of trending topics

2:52

a rudimentary way to see what people were tweeting

2:54

about on the site it was dominated

2:56

by those btg massenet's but

2:59

twitter obviously want to other people to use

3:01

the platform to so dell harvey

3:03

had to figure out a way to d bieber the whole

3:05

thing

3:09

the first thing we did with like you know what let's

3:11

make it so that it's the tweets

3:14

are exact do put cats will

3:16

count one towards the trend instead

3:18

of all ten cool

3:21

done and dusted

3:22

but it takes more than a rule change to derail

3:25

be disease they responded

3:27

by tweaking each tweet just a bit

3:29

at justin bieber we love each hundred percent

3:31

one at us and before we let he kind of

3:33

brazil to at justin bieber we let me

3:36

come to brazil three

3:37

sat now they're not different kids anymore

3:40

so twitter responded again this

3:42

time it's simply changed with trending met a

3:45

tweet this algorithm to consider the freshness

3:47

of a topic not just the sheer volume of tweets

3:49

about so would a real spike

3:51

in conversation for something to trend and

3:54

sense be disease were always tweeting about

3:56

justin bieber they saw the rankings

3:58

problem solved

4:01

and there was a happy ending for the btg east

4:04

i will say the justin bieber did go to

4:06

brazil and

4:11

then they started tweeting i justin bieber

4:13

we love you please come back to brazil which really

4:15

felt like we were full circle on the whole thing

4:29

deeper sam was not a problem dell

4:31

are expected to discover a twitter but

4:33

it turned out to be the kind of thing she dealt with all the

4:35

time should look at weird stuff people

4:38

did on twitter and had to figure out if

4:40

it was okay you know a lot of what

4:42

my job really was

4:45

and a good twenty

4:46

five percent of that at least in the beginning

4:49

was just staring at what people were killing

4:52

and trying to figure out what they were

4:54

doing and if it was problematic

4:57

and if we should stop them

4:58

for help them for

5:01

to tell them what third doing

5:03

is having a negative consequence

5:05

or leave it alone entirely

5:06

dell harvey and twitter

5:08

and of dealing with much much more complicated

5:11

problems that excited justin bieber fans

5:14

but even as twitter drew it never

5:16

outgrew this core conundrums runs

5:19

this place

5:20

the company towards users

5:25

and

5:27

peter caskets land of

5:29

the giants twitter sants

5:39

twitter is a big and complicated places

5:41

for this episode on one of the help exploring

5:43

at some turn in my power learn good forever

5:47

and just age you out that alerts to the senior writer

5:49

and podcast her at wired

5:51

a large hey peter thing for having me be

5:54

a part of this morning

5:55

but on twitter for ever you

5:57

have tried all the things you'd use all the things

6:00

or your job to use all the things would so unique

6:02

about twitter

6:03

well as a journalist i found twitter

6:05

really valuable for a long time because of

6:07

the way it was a portal

6:09

to what was going on in the world i used to connect

6:11

with sources slide into people's

6:13

the and said sort of thing that's one

6:15

example but that's exactly what's unique

6:17

about twitter is that it could be anything

6:20

for anyone having yes you

6:22

are broadcasting things to the world but

6:24

it could also be in your own little space

6:26

on the internet where you sound community

6:28

over for people who cover tech like as it's particular

6:31

interesting because we're used to the

6:33

story of the touch dude

6:35

in a garage or the stanford dorm

6:37

room making the say

6:39

and with twitter that wasn't necessarily

6:42

the case played a with the people

6:44

who are using at who started to do

6:46

kind of weird things on there and not

6:48

me twitter into what it is

6:50

just the guys who built twitter didn't

6:52

know what they wanted twitter to be in the user

6:55

stepped in and said here's what it's gonna be

6:57

and then they said that one hundred thousand a million

7:00

different times because they created a million different versions

7:02

of twitter right

7:03

and as i think the uniqueness of twitter but

7:05

it's also it's liability

7:07

so

7:08

that's where episode is about say that push

7:10

and pull between platform and people

7:13

and how those people made twitter the

7:16

best and worst place on the internet

7:20

one of the intoxicating things about twitter

7:22

is just how open it is he

7:24

didn't have to be invited to the party to join

7:27

the conversation he could shop to any

7:29

part of

7:30

it sort of was this internet open might

7:32

it was this democratize space

7:35

for you can start as type into the void

7:38

in two thousand and eleven desk help had a

7:40

day job and journalism but

7:42

it turned out what she really liked was typing

7:44

jokes into the twitter void something

7:47

about twitter felt like a literal open

7:49

mike night bus with even lower steaks

7:52

with this sort of like every one dot the same problems

7:54

every day which was like the news

7:56

or the human condition and

7:59

then right into the

7:59

stay with a sentence

8:02

and a half your funny as take what

8:04

kind of funny things for your riding on twitter

8:06

at the beginning

8:07

i remember one that got me disinvited

8:09

from a potluck it was

8:11

so sad and beautiful bad my generation

8:14

well extinguish itself with homemade

8:16

community garden jam populism

8:19

my lovely friend who is still have friends

8:21

made

8:21

a lot of cap at the time missed the purpose

8:23

of it insists she said do it because of your

8:25

tweet please don't come to my potluck

8:27

you know is one of the things are that week i didn't

8:29

get the avatar seven as like att alla

8:34

this was back in twitters early days when users

8:37

were actively trying to figure out just what they

8:39

could do a disservice one of those things

8:41

was follow friday's when users would

8:43

highlight other accounts they thought cooler use

8:45

or whatever it's with the idea that you'd

8:47

want follow them to

8:49

one friday kalb got a boost from an

8:51

actual comedian

8:53

rob delaney

8:54

he wrote super funny person alert

8:56

and then i had my handle and

8:59

then that in since

9:01

my am twitter blew up

9:03

and i went from having one hundred sixty followers

9:05

ted something like eleven

9:07

hundred followers overnight i

9:10

called my mom and she was like

9:12

oh my god how much money does this mean

9:15

and i was a zero zero dollars

9:17

have a good news where it

9:18

is like great you have another two years on our

9:21

healthcare

9:22

normally twitter fame doesn't give you

9:24

anything but more twitter fence but

9:26

in this case it actually did lead to something

9:29

nell scovell a writer for david letterman

9:31

and the simpsons and a million other shows reached

9:34

out on twitter

9:35

see the on the and was like

9:37

hey i just read failure archives

9:40

and you said come to away as sleep

9:42

on my couch and i want to introduce you to some

9:44

people and i wrote back oh

9:47

so flattering thank you so much take care

9:49

all the best but

9:50

scoville was persistent and

9:52

tell flew to l a for about a year

9:54

later she landed a job writing for jimmy

9:57

kimmel she still making tv

9:59

today

10:01

so bechtel made up pretty well on twitter

10:04

at ago for you mind

10:05

well i'm mildly in there as had met that

10:07

i did that is it in follow friday's

10:10

in the early days i'm glad you give that a shout

10:12

out but unfortunately i'm still waiting for

10:14

my tv writing deal from jimmy kimmel but

10:16

that was the whole vibe on twitter back in the

10:18

early twenty pence raid of was fine

10:21

it was chaotic that is also may

10:23

be professionally useful and

10:25

it was so easy to meet interesting strangers

10:28

or better yet to find yourself in

10:30

a twitter corner with strangers who

10:32

were into the same things that you were one

10:34

of my mentors actually the first black woman

10:36

i've ever met who had you know been

10:39

an economist basically encouraged me

10:41

to join something called econ twitter i

10:43

went on twitter specifically to learn

10:45

more about like who

10:47

is concerned economists because

10:49

when i first entered economics i

10:51

go would economics and then

10:53

a bunch of pictures showed up and none

10:56

of those individuals of like me allow them or

10:58

white guys older white guys they are with

11:00

a harvard your friends then as so

11:02

i think for me i was like you know there's this

11:04

community that exists of economists that

11:06

look more at the community that i'm a part of i really

11:09

want to engage with that there was like learning

11:11

from those individuals a real time

11:13

it seems pretty obvious to say now but twitter

11:16

was about conversations

11:18

not comments on facebook he would

11:20

leave a comment on a friend's

11:21

post but

11:22

on twitter ideally you

11:24

were in a back and forth a

11:26

book of argument things that this has changed

11:29

the entire discipline of economics

11:32

twitter has become a little bit like a virtual seminar

11:34

accept everybody can see

11:35

the exchange happening in real time rights

11:38

and anybody can way in before

11:40

twitter everyone knew who paul

11:42

krugman was the most

11:44

economists weren't micro celebrities now

11:47

it was possible to make a name for yourself by sharing

11:49

your ideas on twitter

11:51

econ twitter in my opinion has flat

11:53

in

11:53

economics

11:55

you are people who would never

11:57

engage would somebody because they see

11:59

like there the top department or whatever sliding

12:02

inch others d amps right i this is

12:04

my self insert

12:06

of my favorites of different conversations i

12:08

bought were interesting and i

12:10

didn't expect these people are

12:11

response they did

12:14

i slid into chelsea clinton's the

12:16

ems and now she's my mentor

12:20

so

12:20

here's something crucial

12:21

about twitter it's

12:24

a network of networks all

12:26

running at the same time without and he

12:28

prompting from the people who actually run

12:30

the platform

12:31

but twitter users more just creating their

12:33

own space is the also treated

12:35

actual features they wish twitter had

12:38

you might say twitter had millions of people

12:40

working on the product for free

12:42

i think it's important part of the brand

12:45

histories and goldman twitters

12:46

first actual product boss

12:49

i think that the idea that the product

12:51

was so simple

12:53

and allowed for so much play

12:56

that users were unable to

12:58

a kind of pushed the boundaries of what the platform

13:00

obese becomes a really important part of

13:02

the story where even though the project

13:04

was failing from a technical perspective

13:06

people felt very attached to it and

13:08

without that we would have been a lot

13:10

of trouble which

13:11

is how we get

13:13

to the hashtag

13:14

hey justin was a know much to me has said

13:16

jones subdue him busy

13:18

work in has a rising groin hashtag

13:21

is it friday as as as

13:23

by

13:25

twenty third team has tags are ubiquitous

13:28

enough to get spooked by jimmy fallon and justin

13:30

timberlake on national tv not

13:32

a pretty passes for most people except

13:35

river and tic toc which is weird but early

13:37

and twitters life they were a crucial is confusing

13:40

part of the companies architecture even

13:42

though they weren't created by jason goldman

13:44

and true i almost think that i was a

13:46

latecomer to twitter even though i was so

13:48

one thousand one hundred and sixtieth user chris

13:51

messina work in tech in san francisco

13:53

and he was one of those guys who didn't just work and texts

13:56

he loved tech

13:57

he was a self described product sarah

14:01

he did not fall in love with twitter at

14:03

first sight

14:04

if you think about twitter back then it

14:06

was mostly just a message

14:08

fan out service meaning that you post

14:10

a message to the relay and and it sends a message out

14:12

anyone who's like listening the thought there

14:15

were no trending topics that wasn't my can

14:17

explore tab there they wasn't even search

14:19

i mean twitter so primitive was so basic

14:22

that also met messina felt he had an open

14:24

invitation to make twitter better even

14:27

though he didn't work there we had to

14:29

invent and then you know to

14:31

joel twitter into adopting

14:33

some of these formats and ideas and if they were gonna do what we

14:35

gonna do for ourselves mussina

14:37

bios as he invented the hashtag

14:39

but that's not strictly true some

14:42

forms of the internet people were already using

14:44

a pound sign declassify keywords

14:46

in a string of characters and i'm slicker

14:48

the early photo sharing site people

14:50

use hash tags to help described their photos

14:52

which made the site search hubble and more

14:55

social on twitter you could use

14:57

a hashtag didn't really do anything mussina

15:00

saw the twitter should make hashtag link

15:02

above so we inflict on hashtag

15:04

jimmy fallon to find all the

15:06

the tweets from people talking about to be silent

15:09

back in the beginning of a second internet boom he

15:11

didn't really need an invitation to piss twitter

15:13

on something if he had the audacity

15:15

you could just show up at the offices and

15:17

start talking

15:19

like mussina did in two thousand seven i

15:21

wrote this proposal actually made mock ups

15:24

and then i took the idea basically

15:26

right into twitter headquarters in south park

15:29

i kind of what in the front door to there was no security that

15:31

or was like wide open

15:34

the problem with this approach is that twitters

15:36

leaders did not want what mussina was

15:38

selling

15:39

look i will say i hate has tax

15:42

season

15:42

goldman again

15:43

i think part of our bias against them was

15:46

and this is like web one shed

15:48

however i was also against tweet as

15:51

like are now so i get out may

15:53

my taste is terrible chris

15:55

messina is still maybe a little bit

15:57

stung about being brushed off

15:59

as from him

15:59

for the rejection was just so kind

16:02

of kurt just as a too nerdy the summer

16:04

into work yeah the people who

16:06

made decisions about the future twitter we're not

16:08

interested in what i had offer at that

16:10

time

16:11

but eventually mussina and the users or

16:13

maybe reality one twitter

16:15

realized at some point that one double hash tags

16:18

did break the site easier to navigate

16:20

and also they could sell sponsored

16:23

hash tags as an ad product revenue

16:24

so

16:26

any end twitter dot

16:28

behind bastide but it

16:30

was the users to figure out

16:32

what could really make them special

16:34

when i was on twitter at ten o'clock

16:36

at night at eleven o'clock at night when

16:38

i was seeing was very different than

16:40

the new space conversations that i was having

16:43

during the day meredith

16:44

clark is a professor as

16:46

communication studies at northeastern

16:49

university she was also an early twitter

16:51

user so she saw some of the earliest

16:53

task tax

16:54

a lotta things at that time had

16:57

the hash tag after

16:58

dark on them and

17:01

after dark signals the people that

17:03

you know this is sort of like h b o

17:05

after eight o'clock it's not that a b

17:07

p g thirteen we're gonna get into rated

17:09

r territory we guarantee get into read

17:12

it at spirits or a

17:13

the we here is important in

17:16

theory it could be any on after dark

17:19

and reality clark was connecting with

17:21

a specific set of twitter users

17:23

and that is how black twitter became

17:25

apparent to me

17:26

that there were people who are using this platform

17:29

and completely different ways then i think

17:31

it had been conceived

17:32

even by it's creators

17:34

she

17:34

had tapped into block twitter twitter

17:37

is best known homegrown space

17:40

for me two thousand and nine was the year that

17:42

everything started really coming together for black

17:44

twitter

17:45

jason param black internet culture

17:48

he wrote an oral history of like twitter for wired

17:50

you

17:50

have the death of michael jackson and

17:53

this is the first time we're really seeing black folks

17:55

coming together grieving for this person

17:57

who in some way felt like a family member to them

18:00

a few days later you hit the bg awards

18:02

and then later that year you have the past

18:05

a sort of threads everything together you know you're

18:07

black lan

18:09

ashley letters than is an entrepreneur

18:11

and new york city and two thousand and

18:13

nine she was working with singer and former

18:15

disease sars adrian bile on hudson

18:18

letters than was trying to drum up hashtag

18:20

seven help connect violent hotan to her fans

18:23

was raining and there was a girl walking outside

18:25

and she threw a plastic bag over her head

18:27

and i turned to eight are now as i you know you black

18:30

land girl and

18:32

see started die laughing later

18:35

that day i got on the train and i saw

18:37

another moment that

18:39

just

18:39

dislikes learned my black folks again

18:41

to be a nice guy i got

18:43

off the train and i

18:45

threw the hassada added started going

18:47

crazy

18:48

she likes you know you're black when

18:51

you can pull your plans when it's raining outside

18:54

and with them a few hours

18:57

it is it's volcanic we

18:59

hadn't seen black folks will be corralled

19:01

together on a specific as tag

19:04

you know you're black

19:04

when you get the i this after eating a hearty

19:07

meal you know you're black lab

19:09

you show up during

19:10

puberty and you're on talking about your bee

19:12

stings you have people piling

19:14

on top of the original

19:17

tweet you know you're black when

19:19

you know used to have twenty rooms rams

19:22

people sharing experiences that feel

19:25

powerful to them on

19:27

a platform around the testers

19:29

for me it was another day playing with the hashtag

19:32

what it meant to other black people though across

19:34

twitter was that there is the space of us

19:37

as a threat to laugh at ourselves as they

19:39

stress unite

19:42

people weren't code switching in the space

19:45

we were using words phrases of hash

19:47

tags that had significant cultural

19:49

meaning with in black communities so

19:52

it wasn't is happening in a barber shop

19:54

or in a beauty salon or in

19:56

a traditionally are historically block oh

19:59

what was happening on

19:59

the internet where anyone could see

20:02

what those conversations were light

20:04

meredith

20:04

clark again something

20:06

else that made that frankness possible

20:08

was the platforms anonymity on twitter

20:11

your account didn't have to be connected

20:13

to your real identity you could use whatever

20:15

name you wanted and for some

20:17

people that meant they could be more authentic

20:20

so

20:20

was using it professionally but then i

20:22

also had a burner account so

20:24

that i could have fine without

20:26

you know damage or risks of my

20:28

job have you ever shared that

20:30

burner account name absolutely not have

20:33

a specific

20:35

like twitter could be all kinds of things it

20:38

was also one thing and particular black

20:40

twitter is funny because

20:43

black people particularly in the united sates

20:45

often use humor as a coping mechanism

20:48

for the things that we experience so

20:50

everything from everyday racism

20:53

to really traumatic incidents

20:55

i can even go back to one of the best

20:57

days with embark twitter was

20:59

the day that yahoo news published the story

21:02

the headline was trump once

21:04

a bigger navy but someone

21:06

accidentally hit the n t instead

21:09

of the be t

21:10

and so it's trump once

21:12

and n word navy

21:14

and black twitter took that

21:17

idea

21:17

of you know what a

21:19

black navy would look like

21:21

even is using this pejorative and

21:24

just had an absolute field day

21:26

making

21:26

fun of what that might be

21:28

light and that is a reflection

21:31

of what it's like to use

21:32

humor to cope with the use

21:35

of painful

21:35

epithets even when they are

21:37

accidental with the reality

21:39

of being black in this society

21:42

as think what black twitter does so well

21:44

as his idea of signifying and

21:47

been able to remix an idea and sister

21:49

meeting of it just a little bit jason

21:51

par him again so

21:53

black life for so long have been devalued

21:55

in the media as we've been told that it's

21:57

it's one thing and so twitter

22:00

gave us the chance to ces

22:03

that to radically alter that

22:05

perception and saying hey

22:07

look what's actually happening are look what's happening

22:09

in our communities

22:12

over the years black twitter became

22:15

a force of it's own even

22:17

if you'd never heard of that you bounced

22:19

into it on the platform and in

22:21

real life black twitter created

22:23

culture our power that any

22:25

user could happen to like

22:28

take he james james is

22:30

an avid burger who often found himself

22:32

on bird twitter which as

22:34

you can probably guess was a place for people

22:36

who liked tweeting about birds but

22:39

and twenty twenty the conversation

22:41

seems had online and especially

22:44

on twitter saints

22:45

were

22:46

reflecting on the news

22:48

of george floyd for taylor

22:51

and a mod aubrey

22:52

arbor he was lynched while jogging through a suburb

22:54

in georgia this was close

22:56

to home for james

22:58

a lot of people go birding in the same

23:00

way that he would just go jogging

23:02

in some neighborhood or near a neighborhood

23:05

secret

23:05

of happen to any one of them

23:07

then same saw a video of christian

23:10

cooper a black bird watcher

23:12

in new york being harassed

23:14

and a park the your blew up

23:16

on twitter and and on national tv

23:19

new details this morning other central park

23:21

confrontation gone viral prison

23:24

camp was similar to

23:26

those impulses a white woman

23:28

calling the police after a black man says

23:31

he asked her to lease her dogs

23:33

and central park

23:34

please call sense as a sudden

23:36

there's african american men threatening my list

23:38

please tell them whatever you like this

23:41

african americans and

23:42

myself

23:45

and my voice

23:56

the story of the

23:58

cooper incident

23:59

how

23:59

it was told we realize

24:02

they're so much attention of

24:05

the racial dynamics of this country

24:07

in so many of them are focused on trauma

24:09

it is true the black experience

24:12

has trauma because of what

24:14

this country is

24:15

however the black experience goes beyond

24:18

trauma the black experience includes

24:20

joy pride resistance

24:23

strengthened style and what can we

24:25

do to celebrate that into

24:27

center that in a way that we

24:29

all really need it right now

24:31

has sag like burger sweet

24:35

ass i thought on thousands

24:37

of people started tweeting about their own experiences

24:39

about being black and being outside

24:42

i have a friend of mine gave

24:44

me the data center for black burgers

24:47

week for i think it was the week and a couple days

24:49

after over three hundred

24:51

million impressions point

24:53

that hashtag to show that

24:55

there was that much attention that much appetite

24:57

that much celebration james

24:59

doesn't think that black voters we could have happened

25:02

on any other platform

25:03

twitter was public what

25:05

are the most public forum for

25:08

someone to post a video make

25:10

it's we'd share a hashtag that anybody

25:13

else can just tap clicks

25:15

and then get into said

25:17

twitter users helped turn twitter into

25:20

a powerful place but who

25:22

got to use that's our

25:24

and how to use it as

25:27

after the break

25:35

support for land of the giant

25:37

comes from mint mobile traditional

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phone companies seem to have lost the plot

25:42

when it comes to contracts me this phone

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plan appears simple for but it turns out to be a minefield

25:48

of hidden fees for what can you do

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everyone he meets a phone right so just

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as a navigate the financial hazards the phone company

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throat as we do not mint mobile

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was doing things differently to

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the for the company to ditch retail locations

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which was some paso savings on to you

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to browse by as that reform plan totally

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online easy shopping experience

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for to save you time and money have done it myself

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with my own money at work right

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now mint mobile plan started fifteen dollars

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a month and every plant comes with unlimited

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talk text was high speed

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five to get your new

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unlimited wireless plan for just fifteen bucks

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a month get their plans ship

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to your door for free go to mint

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mobile dot com slash giants

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sets mint mobile dot com

26:35

slash giants such

26:37

a wireless felt assisting bucks a month that mint

26:39

mobile dot com slash giants

26:47

are so

26:52

here's a pattern

26:53

twitter users start doing something

26:55

on their own because it makes sense to them

26:58

then eventually twitters leadership

27:00

turns those behaviors into seizures

27:04

as i was one example there are

27:06

other even more primitive once i

27:08

get first the read sweet with

27:10

a user hat when people wanted to share

27:13

someone else is sweet they would copy

27:15

and paste the original tweet and then they would type

27:17

the letters are t in front of that

27:20

and at the same thing with be i medicine

27:23

at one point if he wanted everyone in your

27:25

twitter timeline to see what you were saying to another person's

27:28

you added that a period in front of the at

27:30

symbol and then the person's handle

27:33

these hats were just that tax

27:36

and only a subset of die hards even

27:38

under said how they worked until

27:40

twitter integrated them both into the platform

27:43

which is cool but new features

27:45

come with new

27:46

problems you know it's the

27:49

starry

27:49

eyed visionaries for a leg

27:51

these guys created something

27:53

that they thought would be fun and

27:55

then it took off they

27:57

were focused on the building and the create

28:00

the and all the cool things that come along

28:02

with that

28:03

dell harvey again

28:04

and it also meant that i at

28:07

that point would usually be entering much

28:09

like debbie downer with the

28:11

law

28:11

law so

28:14

guys here's

28:15

a thing i was thinking about

28:18

harvey

28:18

was the one who had to deal with the unintended

28:20

consequences like three tweets

28:23

retreating was when quote tweet came

28:25

about

28:26

right because then it became the dunked

28:28

on the i let me i'm a hum and every yeah

28:31

and then shoot it out to my

28:33

followers who might be a very different

28:35

audience than the original tweet was intended

28:38

for you can see where things can

28:40

go awry so while it's

28:42

free to listen to your users it's also

28:44

complicated which users

28:46

do you listen to michael

28:49

sippy who was twitter vp of product

28:51

back and twenty third team was grappling

28:53

with this when users started complaining about

28:55

a fundamental part of the sites the

28:58

block function block

29:00

allows you to cut someone off from seeing

29:02

or interacting with your tweets the

29:04

thing is if you blush one they

29:07

could find out

29:08

we were hearing about this from folk

29:10

swiss very large followings

29:12

the rewards hey what's happening is like or try

29:14

to block somebody and other

29:17

people will com and essentially attacked me

29:19

some

29:19

users like celebrities

29:22

one it a more polite way

29:24

to filter certain

29:24

people out of their be it's

29:27

says if he thought

29:28

okay

29:29

why not replaceable aka in with mutes

29:33

here's dell harvey again

29:34

so just mute right lakes

29:38

you're not blogs to conceal follow me and cel

29:40

mai clinton that i don't have to see all

29:42

of your clinton

29:44

you can read my tweets you can respond

29:47

but i will never see anything and

29:49

you will never know which is exactly

29:51

what the people complaining to sit be want it

29:54

so

29:54

we ship that and it was

29:56

a mistake they

29:57

rolled out the launch and

30:00

immediately people

30:01

started absolutely

30:03

losing it

30:05

that's because a whole bunch of other people

30:07

relied on twitter is block function specifically

30:10

they relied on having control over who

30:13

could see what they row maybe for

30:15

instance they were blocking a troll

30:17

and it just felt safer to know that

30:19

troll put it monitor their tweets

30:22

we have a lot of feedback from a community that

30:24

like changing a block into a mute socially removes

30:27

the agency of the person has actually doing the blocking

30:30

and it was very was really upsetting and i and much

30:32

i actually i really regret

30:34

that decision

30:36

new kid only lasted a day

30:38

there was after all a simple solution

30:41

keep both

30:42

you can block or you commute

30:45

but the fact that there's all dot so complicated

30:48

and that i got emotional he then for

30:50

some people is a testament to how

30:52

messy i can be for a platform

30:54

to follow the users lead sometimes

30:57

even the most well meaning users

30:59

will disagree on what they need so

31:02

what happens when twitter is caught

31:04

in a push and pull with users

31:06

who are not so well meaning people

31:08

who don't want to make twitter better people

31:11

who want to make it works

31:13

as a good view of a couple hundred million people on the

31:15

internet and one smokers and it doesn't

31:17

take a lot of people to actually make

31:19

it bad for everybody else

31:23

rail and us a crockett is an artist

31:25

and writer normally their timeline

31:28

was full of tweets about black radical thought

31:30

seven as theory and of course scandal

31:33

have takes but

31:34

when crockett logged on a bus from a twenty four team

31:36

they noticed something off

31:39

i'm saying sweet saying things like oh well

31:42

if he celebrates in your upholding

31:44

the patriarchy because fathers

31:46

are the patriarchy one of them

31:48

have their father's day the sexual assaults so

31:51

is this is ridiculous it's completely

31:53

like it's just bonkers

31:55

this crockett notice the

31:57

hashtag and father's day

32:00

everywhere it was the kind of for phosphorus

32:02

get a load of this idea that people couldn't help

32:05

but share on twitter at migrated

32:07

the way wild stuff on twitter often migrates

32:10

from there to the rest of the world and

32:12

some outlets like fox news

32:15

took the idea at face value

32:18

will start out as itself but the hashtag

32:20

and father's day is picking up steam

32:22

with feminists online with others and

32:24

social media center

32:25

just like interested in ending father said

32:27

interesting and the then that's really what they

32:29

want

32:30

crockett wasn't new to the internet and

32:33

something smell that they knew where to look straight

32:35

to fourteen and the anything goes

32:37

message board beloved by trolls and

32:40

other creeps sure enough crack

32:42

and found them their ginning up a hoax

32:44

they're

32:44

idea was that we're going

32:46

suits macys plausible women

32:49

of color feminists of color and

32:51

we're going to make these avatars is say

32:53

the most unhinged things it's the most ridiculous

32:56

saying you know the idea is to poison

32:58

the water so that these type of women

33:00

would not be taken seriously

33:02

it was pretty easy to unearth a fake

33:04

father's day to here

33:06

is a cell with astro turf because we

33:08

didn't know who these accounts were but

33:10

we never seen before

33:12

patrols didn't use their real names of course but

33:15

you could sniff that out crockett

33:17

and others respondents they would read

33:19

sweet and tag the fakers with their own

33:21

hashtag your slippers showing

33:24

and encourage their followers to block

33:26

the trolls and in the truth responded

33:28

to crockett response

33:30

they regrouped in there was a like rights or

33:32

think we learn from this using far right

33:35

web spaces to organize

33:37

and then amplifying the

33:39

harassment by treating numerous

33:41

accounts to turn up the volume

33:44

and like overwhelmed their targets

33:46

there

33:48

moments where

33:50

certain events give you

33:52

a preview of the future they says

33:55

what's possible

33:57

john donovan is a professor at boston university

34:00

that's why is an online misinformation

34:02

and disinformation when it

34:04

comes to social media we don't really

34:06

know what was

34:08

going to happen especially the difference

34:11

between what happens when one

34:13

person's doing something and what

34:15

happens when thousands

34:17

of people are doing something done

34:19

again says that and father's day was

34:21

a key moments a moment that crystallized

34:24

a certain kind of trolling behavior it

34:27

set up libor make fake accounts

34:29

to use that i target campaign use

34:32

that campaign to capture more attention

34:34

and then repeats later

34:36

that year twenty fourteen the

34:39

troll of the lessons from and father's

34:41

day and supervise

34:42

them i suddenly gotten

34:44

threats on the internet before but

34:47

you've gotta understand this was

34:49

a to use of them beyond

34:52

what any when spring could process

34:55

brianna

34:55

wu is a video game developer she

34:58

got into the industry because she loves

35:00

games and she wanted more

35:01

people to love games

35:03

i'm a child with the hobbies

35:04

and ninety it's i've always

35:07

felt that is in this is really

35:09

true hims kids we always shift

35:11

games when men got to

35:13

be busy rope and women were

35:15

always get the word with the fran

35:18

to have you know just the

35:20

thing you are searching for

35:22

the

35:24

happened was super mario brothers and eighty

35:26

five

35:29

so i really just wave to build

35:32

games where someone else got

35:34

to be the star

35:35

who ran her own game development studio

35:38

she was also an online conversations

35:40

about the game industry chauvinism the

35:42

stuff that happens both on screen and

35:45

behind the scenes and that

35:47

and reached a certain part of the

35:49

internet

35:50

we really a weekend this right

35:52

wing reactionary forces

35:54

on lines that pursued us

35:56

and tried to silence us

35:58

in twenty fourteen

36:00

woo became the target of one of the

36:02

most coordinated and overwhelming

36:05

online harassment campaigns in the history

36:07

of the internet the men who

36:09

came after whoa and other women use

36:12

the hashtag gamer gate just

36:15

like and father's day they wanted

36:17

to undermine the genuine conversation

36:19

women were having about massage any any

36:21

industry or less as boards

36:23

outside of twitter trolls plotted

36:26

how to take down the women speaking up

36:28

they pretended to be upset about quote unquote

36:31

ethics and video game journalism

36:34

but this was basically is bogus as

36:36

and father's day gamer gate

36:38

was so powerful that it became

36:40

shorthand for how a very small

36:42

group can organize and harass people

36:44

are mine was first

36:46

instinct was to ignore it which

36:49

was the standard advice for dealing with all

36:51

my bullies

36:52

don't feed the troll could keep

36:54

your head down don't say the wrong

36:56

thing and don't get drawn into public fights

36:59

rapes i thought about it emerged

37:01

a really ask myself if i

37:04

would be able to live myself five ten

37:06

years down the line if i just sat down

37:08

to nothing so time of women were

37:10

being run the game industry right and

37:12

left

37:13

a and

37:14

i realized i would rather if i didn't

37:17

search him back on womb and the

37:19

said guess what game are gave i'm not going

37:21

anywhere

37:22

who sent out a series of tweets

37:23

mocking that roles the

37:26

tolls escalators

37:27

the success comes back and says guess what

37:29

birch are know where you live your

37:32

dad mutilated corpse as can be on the

37:34

front page just about tonight i'm

37:37

gonna cut off her husband's asian

37:40

teams a summary be with it until you

37:42

bleed is he has a children's are

37:44

going to die to egypt

37:46

something worthwhile with your life

37:48

and a whole bunch of other harm

37:51

in one hundred people they're telling me there but

37:53

come murder of got him

37:55

men in the skull mask holding a group

37:58

of the camera and exclaiming for home it

38:00

could do my thrift on video

38:03

i mean there's no other word for it for traumatizing

38:09

people

38:09

i've been behaving badly on the internet

38:11

since dial up modems but

38:14

twitter is where and how

38:16

brianna wu was harassed the

38:18

trolls used twitter seizures to supercharged

38:21

her campaign has tax

38:23

help them coordinate their efforts three

38:26

tweets daves thousands of people access

38:28

to her private information like her

38:30

home address twitters embrace

38:32

of anonymity let the trolls operate

38:34

without worrying about repercussions

38:38

when we got in touch with twitter dell harvey

38:40

with no longer working on her own

38:42

she now had a team who could help who

38:44

deal with the worst of the attacks

38:47

twitter gave me resources

38:50

on the twitter cluster safety team where

38:52

i could send a death

38:54

threat and have had taken more seriously

38:56

than he knew just someone

38:58

without the compact the twitter

39:01

trust the safety team was trying to counteract

39:03

the next moves of the mob

39:05

that the mob move fast changing

39:08

their

39:08

tactics

39:09

kramer he figured out a way to

39:11

ah right spots that every

39:14

time i would tweet something no

39:16

matter what he would link

39:18

a bunch of like seat for this information

39:21

and right underneath it in an image links

39:23

and it would also spam that anyone

39:26

who replied to me

39:27

twitter tried to catch up with

39:29

was help

39:31

eventually moved him helping

39:33

the dissolve policies around

39:35

how to suspend the killed says said

39:37

multiple death threats it was

39:39

this real almost unpaid engineering

39:42

advisory role the she took her would twitter

39:45

just trying to help them understand

39:47

what was going on and technical level and

39:49

make a better product

39:51

going back to that time period how

39:53

did this whole experience change the way

39:55

you use social media

39:59

i say

39:59

there's a short term answer this

40:02

is really damaged raised in

40:04

a very public way in

40:06

i think there's a later answer

40:09

that a kind of took a certain

40:11

degree of my humanity away from me

40:14

near the reality is that kind of abuse

40:16

you don't come back from it he just he

40:18

tapes and nowadays

40:21

when someone sends me a rape

40:23

threats i will look at him

40:25

and

40:26

he i sit there and ago i know should

40:28

be feeling something i know i should

40:30

be feeling scared angry

40:33

his staff afraid

40:36

i know or should feel something and i

40:38

just

40:39

i feel numb and soft

40:42

and

40:43

a know i'm so much more

40:45

cynical today than i was turned

40:47

gamer tag and i i really regret

40:50

losing those parts of myself

40:52

even that embedded in that quests and

40:54

how did you change the way you use social

40:57

media really puts the onus on you whereas

40:59

the platforms said have changed

41:02

ideally society would have evolved but

41:04

instead it's really still aren't you

41:06

the person who was harassed

41:08

email i really believe see build

41:10

a community and products you

41:13

have a responsibility to make is

41:15

safe for people to use it but

41:17

that's just not the culture we're

41:20

we're gonna whoop grew up loving video games

41:23

and she no longer mix them in

41:25

some ways the trolls one

41:28

who didn't leave the internet entirely

41:31

she still on twitter and

41:33

after an unsuccessful run

41:35

for congress and twenty eighteen she

41:37

turned her attention to helping progressive

41:39

politicians with their online strategies

41:45

gamer gate help solidify

41:47

bad behavior as part of a twitter

41:50

brand so

41:50

much so that and twenty first team twitter

41:53

see ya dick costolo did something other

41:55

social media bosses never did

41:57

he owned up to it

41:59

and a

41:59

pretty wide memo castle or wrote

42:02

we suck at dealing with abuse and we

42:04

sucked at it for years it's no

42:06

secret and the rest of the world

42:08

talks about it every day we lose core

42:10

user after careers are by not

42:12

addressing simple trolling issues they

42:14

face every day remembers

42:17

even when twitter was growing fast it was still

42:19

a time platform compared to face but and

42:22

eventually twitter stop growing fast and

42:24

that man and had to work harder to find and

42:26

keep new users being known

42:28

as a toxic calcite didn't help

42:31

me and we were seeing abuse on the platform

42:34

and i think that me out i can just look

42:36

back and say we didn't best enough as

42:38

michael sippy again who ran product under castilla

42:41

we had a fantastic trust and safety to him

42:44

by they were perennially understaffed

42:46

which again is partly on me

42:48

and partly on the rest of the executive team but

42:51

it's possible twitter could have never spent

42:53

it's way out of this problem jason goldman

42:55

thanks one reason twitter was slow to react

42:57

to some of these issues had to do with who

42:59

was running twitter

43:01

the executive team apo twitter and

43:03

most of the other social media companies is

43:05

predominately white dude and like you just

43:07

experience a different level of

43:09

online interaction then literally

43:11

any other group of people in the world

43:14

by whether you're a woman or you're

43:16

black or your are non english speaker

43:19

and we were just kind of blind to that

43:21

the golden also things to twitter along

43:24

with every other social media company was

43:26

just too slow to realize just

43:28

how much work it would have to do to

43:30

manage the way users used and

43:32

abused the platform that moderation

43:35

isn't an afterthought

43:37

it's the business

43:40

for too long the industry and i put

43:42

myself in this category thought of content moderation

43:44

as like fixing bugs like all like

43:46

people abuse the system and will just like kind of patch

43:48

as we all live pregnant on and else these are bugs

43:51

that you need effect this is like the feature

43:53

this is like what you are actually providing

43:55

to the world is a better experience

43:58

for the type of content that is being

43:59

in

44:00

dell harvey says senior leadership

44:03

wasn't really interested in abuse and

44:05

less it ended up a new stories them

44:07

it asked her how did this happen

44:10

and then you explain and a night owl the

44:12

have a mortgage is some more engineers and

44:14

then the engineers dot com and then you

44:16

have the conversation again the next time

44:19

harvey understands why her team didn't

44:21

get the resources she needed but

44:23

that's different than feeling good about it you

44:26

know the

44:26

starry eyed visionaries wanted

44:28

all of those things that i

44:30

wanted to support and trust and safety

44:33

and and challenge was that when

44:35

you're looking at the short term and your options

44:37

are spenders quarter building a new

44:40

user say saying cool feature

44:42

worse than this quarter building

44:44

internal infrastructure and tooling that

44:46

will make your ability to respond

44:49

to axe tickets

44:50

much more robust

44:52

these are facing feature tends

44:55

to land and not so much the internal

44:57

tools

45:00

those trade honest intentions harvey

45:02

is something about the blind

45:05

spots goldman is talking about

45:07

exists everywhere at every

45:09

internet company

45:11

but there's something else going on

45:12

with twitter

45:14

what is unique about twitters ability

45:16

to amplify ideas

45:19

says it's just made it and it is so different

45:21

from other platforms saw

45:22

the damn journalists

45:24

turned on of then again and note

45:27

taken a journalist

45:29

like me and peter weren't hanging

45:31

out on twitter and telling people about all

45:33

of the outrageous stuff on a say maybe

45:35

there wouldn't be so much outrageous

45:38

so

45:39

i mean it's really the place reason that

45:41

the most attention

45:42

with twitter it was so much easier

45:45

said yet at the people you

45:47

wanted to harass because of the openness

45:49

as a platform

45:51

and also to get attention for harassing

45:53

people by dragging and journalists

45:55

and and using the ems

45:58

and replies to

45:59

make it known

46:01

that this was happening

46:03

the people who build twitter didn't really know what

46:05

they were launching when they launched at but

46:08

they all agreed that it should be a place

46:10

where anyone could say anything now

46:13

we've realized how tricky and maybe

46:15

and possibly turkey that notion

46:17

can be

46:18

we have to take the paradox

46:21

of social media seriously which

46:23

on the one hand it does all of this connect

46:25

is worth that brings us

46:27

closer together with like minded individuals

46:30

but

46:30

it also does all this

46:31

connective work that brings us together with like

46:33

minded individuals

46:35

on the far right and extremists

46:39

so here was the conundrum the

46:41

users may twitter some

46:44

made the site delightful others made

46:46

it miserable and

46:48

for the users who invested time and energy

46:50

to turn the platform into their homes twitter

46:53

wasn't something they could just abandon

46:55

their was so much to the last within

46:58

communities of feminists and women

47:00

and people of color on line

47:03

trains people because

47:05

social media for so long

47:07

before that had been

47:09

a place where they said

47:10

reach out and find says

47:14

they could join

47:14

groups and builds

47:16

resiliency together so

47:18

the idea that you would just walk away from

47:21

a all

47:21

because you're being serially

47:23

harassed or frauds for

47:26

a lot of people

47:27

wasn't an option because it lead to further

47:29

isolation by

47:31

twenty fifteen twitter was

47:33

in such bad shape that even the people running

47:35

it talking about how bad it was the

47:38

users had created this platform and now

47:40

some of them on making it unusable

47:43

and what was about the change that the reality of twitter

47:45

online was shaping how reality offline

47:47

and ways we could never match

47:53

the day of january sex i

47:55

am told to things

47:57

i am supposed to do one is

47:59

too

47:59

you find are reasons and

48:02

away to permanently suspend donald trump and

48:04

to to make the instructions

48:07

and our next episode twitter

48:09

tries to save itself from

48:11

some of it's users

48:19

audio clips from the tonight show jimmy

48:21

fallon today show good morning

48:23

america and fox and friends land

48:26

of a giants the twitter fantasy is a production

48:28

of box and the box media podcast

48:30

networks special thanks to lauren

48:33

good for co hosting this episode and for help

48:35

reporting and producing at

48:37

a lower coming a lot assume he produced this episode

48:40

that fresca his early producer meghan

48:42

to name is or editor charlotte silver

48:44

is our fact checker friend and macfarlane

48:46

compose the show's theme matthew

48:48

billie engineer this episode art

48:51

song as or show runner nice shot kirwan

48:53

as are executive producer computer

48:55

casket you like this episode as

48:57

always please share it and follow

49:00

the show and your podcast app to get the

49:02

next episode

49:09

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49:11

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49:29

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