Twitter now ranks your conversations based on who replies

Threaded conversations are some of the best interactions you can have on Twitter — with dozens of users chattering away 140 characters at a time. Unless you’re already in a conversation, however, it can be hard to tell if a tweet is getting a lot of social interaction. Now, it’s a little easier: Twitter has added a reply counter and a ‘conversation ranking’ designed to push the most relevant discussions to the top of a tweet thread.

Neither feature will likely change how you use Twitter, but if your wondering why you’re not seeing replies in chronological order, these new tweaks are to blame. Conversation ranking favors threads that the original poster replied to or that includes a reply from a Twitter user that you follow — the feature also tries to group replies into different sub-conversations that make sense within their own context.

The new direct reply counter is exactly what it sounds like: the reply button under any given tweet will now show how many users have replied to that tweet. This number only corresponds to direct replies to the original tweet, however — not the total number of tweets contained within a long conversation. Are these changes better, or worse? Would you rather see replies in pure chronological order, or through Twitter’s new curated lens? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Source: Twitter (1), (2)

Twitter will host a live Q&A with ‘Rogue One’ director and cast

We’re just a few weeks out from Rogue One, the first in what will probably be a never-ending string of “stand-alone” Star Wars films. After last year’s successful revival of the franchise, fans are chomping at the bit for more on Rogue One, and they’ll get it this Friday. Twitter will be hosting a live Q&A and broadcast some unseen footage from the upcoming film.

It’s just the latest example of Twitter’s interest in live video — the company has already started hosting live NBA shows and it also broadcast all three presidential debates as they happened, just to name a few of its recent initiatives. Friday’s livestream will feature a Q&A session with director Gareth Edwards, producer Kathleen Kennedy and cast members Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudykand and Riz Ahmed. Naturally, you’ll need to tweet your questions using the hashtag #AskRogueOne.

It’s coming.

A Q&A with the cast of @starwars #RogueOne streaming LIVE on Twitter this Friday at 1pm ET. pic.twitter.com/Cp1O7zyemu

— Twitter (@twitter) November 29, 2016

The stream will kick off at 10AM PT with new, unspecified “content” from Rogue One before the Q&A gets underway; Twitter says the livestream will take place at a “surprise location” — perhaps the set of Episode VIII? If you’ve fled Twitter for greener pastures but still want to follow along, fear not: Twitter specifically says that the stream will be available for anyone checking it out at rogueone.twitter.com. But if you want to ask a question, you’ll need to have account.

Source: Twitter

Twitter cracks down on developers making surveillance tools

If it wasn’t already clear that Twitter wants to keep police and spies out of your tweets, it is now. Twitter is warning developers that it won’t let them use public programming kits or Gnip data for surveillance reasons, whether the clients are law enforcement or anyone else. Just because many tweets are public doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to harvest them, Twitter says. To that end, it’s promising “expanded” efforts to crack down on developers who use the data for surveillance reasons. Get caught and you’ll either have limited access or lose it entirely.

To Twitter, the reasoning is simple: the company is devoted to “social justice,” and that’s not possible when officials are using these public data sets to track protesters, scoop up people’s names and otherwise curb freedom of expression.

The policy and resulting crackdown isn’t going to stop authorities from collecting information through other means, whether it’s old-fashioned searching or formal requests. However, it’ll at least make the process harder. Agencies will have to really want that information to get it, and can’t just gather it en masse with a simple program.

Via: Daily Dot

Source: Twitter Blog

Twitter suspends Tila Tequila following pro-Nazi posts

Twitter’s quest to clamp down on hatemongers, trolls and similar provocateurs isn’t slowing down any time soon. The social network has suspended Tila Tequila’s account after the reality show star (shown at left) posted a string of pro-Nazi tweets, including one showing her giving a Nazi salute at a white nationalist conference in Washington. While she has previously sworn that she isn’t racist (she’s of Vietnamese heritage), she hasn’t exactly hidden her shift toward the extreme right. She once posted a photo of herself wearing a Nazi armband in front of Auschwitz, and in her Twitter bio described herself as an “alt-reich queen” and “literally Hitler.”

Twitter doesn’t normally discuss the circumstances surrounding a suspension, but we’ve reached out regardless and will let you know if it has something to say. However, this follows shortly after Twitter expanded its abuse reporting to let you flag hateful tweets targeting people based on race, ethnic groups and other demographics, whether or not they’re targeted at you. Tequila may not have been singling people out, but her posts weren’t exactly promoting cultural acceptance and compassion.

It won’t be surprising if bans like this continue. Twitter’s reluctance to combat trolls may have cost it an acquisition bid from Disney, among other suitors. The last thing it needs is a verified user whose very presence on the service makes Jewish and non-white people feel unwelcome. While the ban won’t allay questions about Twitter’s support for freedom of expression, it’s important to remember that this a private business. It has no obligation to host speech it doesn’t like, especially if that speech intimidates other users and ultimately hurts its bottom line.

Source: Huffington Post

Twitter bots were rampant during the US election

If you believe one study, it’s not just fake news that polluted the internet during the US election… it’s bogus accounts, too. Researchers at the international Project on Computational Propaganda report that the use of politically minded Twitter bots reached an “all-time high” during the 2016 presidential campaign. Out of 18.9 million studied tweets using political hashtags, 17.9 percent of them came from “highly automated” accounts that post 50 or more tweets per day. That ratio only grew higher during the debates, peaking at over 27 percent during the final Clinton/Trump showdown — and it conveniently tanked after the election was over.

The findings suggest a strong slant to the automatic tweeting. For every automated pro-Clinton tweet recorded, there were four or more pro-Trump tweets, the researchers say. Also, most of those Trump tweets (up to 81.9 percent) were mixed with pro-Clinton or neutral hashtags. In short: while the Trump campaign had very few official Twitter accounts, its commanding social network presence wasn’t limited to Facebook.

With that said, the team is quick to acknowledge that its data collection method is inherently limited. Not all of those prolific Twitter users are guaranteed to be bots, for one. Also, this doesn’t include the legions of tweets that didn’t include the hashtags or mention candidates by name. And there’s the very nature of a large-scale study like this to consider. Although there’s a good chance that many of the tweets are exactly as described, it could sometimes be hard to make the distinction between someone discussion a candidate’s views and actively endorsing them. Most are likely endorsements, but it’s hard to say that’s the case for each and every one. The one certainty is that these surges in robotic social networking are unlikely to go away any time soon.

Source: Political Bots

Spammers compromised Twitter accounts for @PlayStation and others

If you noticed something odd on Twitter tonight, you weren’t alone. Around 1AM ET, accounts like @PlayStation, @Viacom, @XboxSupport, @NTSB, @TheNewYorker, @TheNextWeb, the Red Cross (@ICRC) and @Money started aggressively pushing ways to help you obtain more followers for free. Most of the tweets have been scrubbed, however, a look at Tweetdeck revealed they were all posted via Twitter Counter (@thecounter).

It’s unclear exactly what happened, however, reached by email, Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten said the company is looking into the situation. According to its website, Twitter Counter “provides statistics of Twitter usage and tracks over 14 million users…and sells featured spots on its website to people who want to gain more followers.” If it was hacked, the problem only appears to have hit accounts linked to the tool, so your account is probably safe. Still, as always, now is a good time to reset your password, and double check any apps or services linked to your social media accounts — if they get compromised, you do too.

Source: PlayStation (Twitter)

Twitter CEO apologizes for white supremacist promoted tweets

Earlier this week, Twitter rolled out new tools to help users combat abuse. That seemed to stir up a hornets’ nest of white supremacists, as some Twitter users started noticing promoted tweets for those hate groups on their timelines. The company initially denied the veracity of those reports, but now CEO Jack Dorsey is offering up an apology and laying the blame on Twitter’s automated approval systems.

We made a mistake here and we apologize. Our automated system allowed an ad promoting hate. Against our policy. We did a retro and fixed! https://t.co/7gvycmzpsm

— 🚶🏽jack (@jack) November 17, 2016

Dorsey’s response also follows Twitter’s biggest moves yet against hate groups. The company banned several “alt-right” accounts yesterday, following their displeasure around the new troll blocking tools. Supporters of that movement also started a campaign to create “fake black people” accounts on the service to — what else? — cause a stir. Trolls gotta troll, after all.

.@twitter I can’t believe anything still surprises me, but why the fuck am I seeing nazi ads on this website pic.twitter.com/jtKKnn8XR5

— Ariana Lenarsky (@aardvarsk) November 16, 2016

Source: Jack Dorsey