Marvel writer chased off Twitter by pathetic misogynists

A year ago Marvel announced that the character Mockingbird would be getting her first solo series helmed by author Chelsea Cain. The book ran from March until it was cancelled this month, with the final cover prominently displaying the message “Ask Me About My Feminist Agenda.” Predictably, this provoked the vile side of Twitter, and after the trolls amped up their harassment, Cain deactivated her account this morning. Once again, the social platform’s failure to combat harassment allowed a vocal minority to drive away a creative voice.

In a blog post, Cain explains that she didn’t leave Twitter because of horrific threats. She left because of the daily abuse, the “base level of casual crassness and sexism” that Twitter allows to persist. It didn’t take rape threats or users doxxing her address to make the social platform’s environment intolerable, Cain said: “The tweets that bothered me were never the ones concerned with content; they were the ones that questioned my right to write comics at all, and were disgusted by the idea of a female hero having her own series.”

Other users quickly rose to Cain’s defense, including many in the comics community, like Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso and lauded editor and Ms. Marvel co-creator Sana Amanat:

Having creators like Chelsea Cain write comics makes our industry stronger & stories better. Support them & their work!#StandWithChelseaCain

— sana amanat (@MiniB622) October 27, 2016

The comic industry suffers from its own sexist toxicity, both at a professional level and within its fanbase. In a 2011 essay, former Dark Horse editor and co-host of the comics history podcast Jay & Miles X-Plain The X-Men Jay Edidin summarized how the industry got here: More men held more control over fewer comics publishers and created content for their envisioned male demographic. This formed a chicken-and-egg causation whirlpool that alienated many girls and women, keeping them from joining the fanbase and entering the comics industry.

Some persisted over the decades, enduring the boys club exclusivity and harassment to lay the foundation for more women to create comics. There’s certainly a higher population in the professional echelon today and publishers are paying more attention to their female fans, but parts of comics fan culture remains from the days when Marvel and DC catered almost exclusively to men. These are the vocal and entitled lot that lash out on social media against female creators. Resisting that abuse often takes drastic measures, as comics writer and artist Kate Leth explained:

I forget about it most days because it’s taken 5 years to get to a point where I can’t see someone telling me to kill myself every day

— Leth Merenghi 💀📚🕯 (@kateleth) October 26, 2016

Cain left on rather moderate terms compared to the extensive racist harassment that bullied actress Leslie Jones off Twitter back in July. But at the end of the day, both fled rather than deal with a toxic minority of the social network’s userbase. Even if much of the blame for Cain’s exit lies with the hostile comics fans that refuse to embrace (or even tolerate) female voices in the medium, Twitter’s inaction allows the bullying to continue. Its persistent failure to combat abuse already may have prevented a deal to get bought. Then again, Disney’s back to sniffing around for a possible acquisition, so maybe Twitter doesn’t have to fix its harassment problem before money saves the day. For them.

Source: The Daily Dot

Twitter Shutting Down Vine

Twitter today announced plans to shut down Vine, the video sharing service it acquired in 2012. Twitter plans to discontinue the mobile app “in the coming months,” but did not give a specific timeline.

Introduced in early 2013, Vine allows users to capture and share looping video clips that are six seconds in length, sharing them on various social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you. Thank you. To all the creators out there – thank you for taking a chance on this app back in the day. To the many team members over the years who made this what it was – thank you for your contributions. And of course, thank you to all of those who came to watch and laugh every day.

Twitter plans to leave the Vine website intact, so Vines will continue to be available to watch and download. Twitter promises to notify users well in advance of any changes to the app or website.

The shuttering of Vine comes amid massive layoffs at Twitter. Twitter is letting go of approximately nine percent of its staff, or 350 people, as it works on cutting down on costs and restructures its priorities.

Tags: Twitter, Vine
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Twitter promises ‘meaningful’ safety updates next month

Twitter is a real time platform for news and conversation, but sometimes that conversation can get quite nasty. The company’s laissez faire attitude toward freedom of expression has seen it develop a reputation for toxicity that’s scared off several potential buyers, including Disney. That’s why, Twitter is now pledging to deal with its cultural problems by making “meaningful” changes to its “safety policy, product, and enforcement strategy.”

The prevalence of Twitter trolls is often blamed for the site’s slow user growth and difficulty with advertisers. It’s hoped that this new strategy will give people “more control over their Twitter experience” and offer the “most important safety features” to users. That may not be enough, however, given that how easy it is to find accounts spreading racism, targeted harassment of women and minorities or threats of violence.

The company has attempted to fix this problem several times over, with former CEO Dick Costolo famously admitting that the site “suck(s) at dealing with trolls” and “sucked at it for years.” At the start of 2016 the service launched a safety council that included representatives from organizations like the Samaritans and GLAAD.

Unfortunately, the move didn’t seem to affect any meaningful change, and Twitter was often in the headlines for negative reasons. SNL’s Leslie Jones received a barrage of abuse in the run up to the launch of Ghostbusters that temporarily forced her off the site. The site subsequently banned the leader of that mob, but that hasn’t done much to make everyone behave more politely.

Source: Twitter (.PDF)

Twitter will fire around 350 employees in hunt for profits

Twitter’s not had a great time of it lately, with several would-be suitors deciding that they didn’t want to buy the burgeoning social network anyway. Now, the company has announced its latest financial results and a restructuring plan in the hope of making itself profitable by 2017. The headline initiative will be to hack back nine percent of the company’s workforce — around 350 employees. It mirrors a similar move Dorsey made in October 2015 when he fired 336 people from the company in order to cut costs. Twitter expects that the sackings will cost between $10 and $20 million to cover severance fees.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however, since the company could post some kinda-sorta positive things on the money side. For instance, revenue from advertising and data licensing both increased, and the number of users that “engage” with Twitter’s adverts increased by 91 percent. The service also managed to keep its monthly active user numbers almost flat, dispelling the narrative that people were ditching the platform in their droves.

Money-wise Twitter pulled in $616 million, which was an eight percent bump over the cash it made in the same quarter last year. Unfortunately, the firm lost $103 million overall, and CFO (and, according to Bloomberg, de-facto leader) Anthony Noto says that the firm is becoming “more disciplined” about how it spends its money. It’s hoped that fewer employees, a simplified business and “de-prioritizing certain initiatives” will help Twitter become profitable. Although Noto didn’t explain which initiatives will be cut, it’s going to be interesting to see what Twitter discards in an attempt to save cash.

Source: Twitter (.PDF)

The NBA’s live Twitter shows debut this week

As promised, the NBA and Turner have launched their two original shows on Twitter… and they might scratch your itch if you can’t get enough basketball in your life. The first, The Starters, streams live every Tuesday at 11AM Eastern and delivers passionate commentary from the crew that hosts NBA TV and official podcasts. The Warmup, meanwhile, is a more interactive affair: the half-hour show from Ben Lyons and Ro Parrish integrates Twitter chats into each episode (Thursdays at 7:30PM Eastern), and it merges b-ball with “lifestyle, music and pop culture.” It’s more of an entertainment show that just happens to have basketball as a hook, then.

You can visit either show on the web, and the NBA’s Twitter account will also host shows as they air. Twitter is also marking the occasion with hashtag-triggered flags for all 30 league teams: tweet hashtags like #DubNation (Warriors) or #WeTheNorth (Raptors) and you’ll show your pride.

The shows aren’t the same as watching honest-to-goodness games, but they help fill out Twitter’s strategy of offering live programming for virtually every major sport in the US and beyond. The jury’s still out on how well this sports-centric strategy works, though. Twitter has only been offering its live sports coverage since July, and it remains to be seen how many will tune in online versus tweeting while they watch games on TV.

Source: Twitter Blog, The Starters, The Warmup

Bloomberg: Twitter plans to lay off several hundred employees

Last year when Jack Dorsey returned as CEO of Twitter, the company let go of more than 300 people, and a Bloomberg report indicates history will repeat itself this year. Citing anonymous sources, the outlet reports that while planning is fluid, a similarly-sized cut of about eight percent of the workforce is in the works and could occur before the company reports earnings Thursday.

As usual, Twitter’s corporate future feels uncertain, especially after rumored opportunities for its acquisition by companies like Google, Disney or Salesforce came and went. Now, it has moved its quarterly earning report release from Thursday afternoon, after the markets close, to Thursday morning. Does that mean anything special? Until we see the numbers, who knows.

Source: Bloomberg