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Chris Anderson:
What worries you right now?
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You've been very open
about lots of issues on Twitter.
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What would be your top worry
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about where things are right now?
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Jack Dorsey: Right now,
the health of the conversation.
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So our purpose is to serve
the public conversation,
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and we have seen
a number of attacks on it.
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We have seen abuse, we have harassment,
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we've seen manipulation,
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automation, human coordination,
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misinformation.
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So these are all dynamics
that we were not expecting
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13 years ago when we
were starting the company,
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but we do now see them at scale,
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and what worries me most
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is just our ability to address it
in a systemic way that is scalable,
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that has a rigorous understanding
of how we're taking action,
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a transparent understanding
of how we're taking action,
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and a rigorous appeals process
for when we're wrong,
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because we will be wrong.
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Whitney Pennington Rodgers:
And I'm really glad to hear
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that that's something that concerns you,
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because I think there's been
a lot written about people
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who feel they've been abused
and harassed on Twitter,
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and I think no one more so
than women and women of color
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and black women
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and there's been data that's come out,
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Amnesty International put out
a report a few months ago
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where they showed that a subset
of active black female Twitter users
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were receiving on average
one in 10 of their tweets
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were some form of harassment.
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And so when you think about health
for the community on Twitter,
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I'm interested to hear,
health for everyone,
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but specifically how are you looking
to make Twitter a safe space
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for that subset, for women,
for women of color and black women.
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JD: Yeah.
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So it's a pretty terrible situation
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when you're coming to a service
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that ideally you want to learn
something about the world
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and you spend the majority of your time
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reporting abuse, receiving abuse,
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receiving harassment.
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So what we're looking most deeply at
is just the incentives
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that the platform naturally provides
and the service provides.
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Right now the dynamic of the system
makes it super-easy to harass
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and to abuse others through the service,
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and unfortunately the majority
of our system in the past
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worked entirely based on people
reporting harassment and abuse.
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So about midway last year we decided
that we were going to apply
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a lot more machine learning,
a lot more deep learning to the problem
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and try to be a lot more proactive
around where abuse is happening
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so that we can take the burden
off the victim completely.
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And we've made some progress recently.
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About 38 percent of abusive tweets
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are now proactively identified
by machine learning algorithms
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so that people don't actually
have to report them,
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but those that are identified
are still reviewed by humans,
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so we do not take down content or accounts
without a human actually reviewing it.
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But that was from zero percent
just a year ago.
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So that meant, at that zero percent,
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every single person who received abuse
had to actually report it,
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which was a lot of work for them,
a lot of work for us,
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and just ultimately unfair.
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The other thing that we're doing
is making sure that we, as a company,
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have representation of all the
communities that we're trying to serve.
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We can't build a business
that is successful
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unless we have a diversity
of perspective inside of our walls
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that actually feel these issues
every single day,
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and that's not just with the team
that's doing the work,
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it's also within our leadership as well.
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So we need to continue to build empathy
for what people are experiencing
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and give them better tools to act on it
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and also give our customers
a much better and easier approach
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to handle some of the things
that they're seeing.
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So a lot of what we're doing
is around technology,
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but we're also looking at
the incentives on the service.
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What does Twitter incentivize you to do
when you first open it up?
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And in the past, it's incentivized
a lot of mob behavior,
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it's incentivized a lot
of group harassment,
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and we have to look a lot deeper
at some of the fundamentals
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of what the service is doing
to make the bigger shifts.
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We can make a bunch of small shifts
around technology, as I just described,
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but ultimately we have to look deeply
at the dynamics in the network itself,
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and that's what we're doing right now.
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CA: And what's your sense?
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What is the kind of thing
that you might be able to change
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that would actually
fundamentally shift behavior?
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JD: Well, one of the things,
we started the service
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with this concept of following an account,
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as an example,
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and I don't believe that's why
people actually come to Twitter.
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I believe Twitter is best
as an interest-based network.
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People come with a particular interest.
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They have to do a ton of work to find
and follow the related accounts
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around those interests.
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What we could do instead
is allow you to follow an interest,
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follow a hashtag, follow a trend,
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follow a community,
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which gives us the opportunity
to show all of the accounts,
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all the topics, all the moments,
all the hashtags
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that are associated with that
particular topic and interest,
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which really opens up
the perspective that you see.
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But that is a huge fundamental shift
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to bias the entire network
away from just an account bias
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towards a topics and interest bias.
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CA: Because isn't it the case
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that one reason why you have
so much content on there
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is a result of putting millions
of people around the world
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in this kind of gladiatorial
contest with each other
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for followers, for attention?
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Like, from the point of view
of people who just read Twitter,
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that's not an issue, but for
the people who actually create it,
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everyone's out there saying,
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"You know, I wish I had
a few more likes, followers, retweets."
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And so they're constantly experiment,
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trying to find the path to do that,
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and what we've all discovered
is that the number one path to do that
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is to be some form of provocative,
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obnoxious, eloquently obnoxious,
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like eloquent insults
are a dream on Twitter,
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where you rapidly pile up,
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and it becomes this self-fueling
process of driving outrage.
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How do you defuse that?
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JD: Yeah, I mean, I think you're spot on,
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but that goes back to the incentives.
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Like, one of the choices
we made in the early days
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was we had this number
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that showed how many people follow you.
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We decided that number
should be big and bold
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and anything that's on the page
that's big and bold has importance,
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and those are the things
that you want to drive.
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Was that the right decision at the time?
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Probably not.
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If I had to start the service again,
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I would not emphasize
the follower account as much.
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I would not emphasize
the like count as much.
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I don't think I would even
create like in the first place,
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because it doesn't actually push
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what we believe now
to be the most important thing,
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which is health contribution
back to the network,
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and conversation to the network,
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participation within conversation,
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learning something from the conversation.
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Those are not things
that we thought of 13 years ago
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and we believe are extremely
important right now.
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So we have to look at
how we display the follower account,
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how we display retweet count,
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how we display likes,
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and just ask the deep question:
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is this really the number
that we want people to drive up?
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Is this the thing that,
when you open Twitter,
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you see, "That's the thing
I need to increase?"
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And I don't believe
that's the case right now.
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(Applause)
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WPR: I think look at some of the tweets
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that are coming in
from the audience as well.
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CA: Let's see what you guys are asking.
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I mean, this is generally one of
the amazing things about Twitter
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is how you can use it for crowd wisdom.
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You know,
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that more knowledge, more questions,
more points of view than you can imagine,
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and sometimes many of them really healthy.
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WPR: And I think one that I saw
that passed already quick down here,
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"What's Twitter's plan to combat
foreign meddling in the 2020 US election?"
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And I think that's something
that's an issue we're seeing
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on the internet in general,
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that we have a lot of malicious
automated activity happening.
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And on Twitter, for example,
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we have in fact some work
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that's come from our friends
at Zignal Labs, rather,
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and maybe we can even see that
to give us an example
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of what exactly I'm talking about,
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where you have these bots, if you will,
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or coordinated automated
malicious account activity,
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that is being used to influence
things like elections.
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And in this example we have
from Zignal which they've shared with us
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using the data that
they have from Twitter,
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you actually see that in this case,
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white represents the humans,
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human accounts,
each dot is an account.
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The pinker it is,
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the more automated the activity is,
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and you can see how you have
a few humans interacting with bots,
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and in this case it's related
to the election in Israel,
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and spreading misinformation
about Benny Gantz,
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and as we know in the end,
that was an election
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that Netanyahu won by a slim margin,
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and that may have been
in some case influenced by this,
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and when you think about
that happening on Twitter,
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what are the things that you
are doing specifically to ensure
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that you don't have misinformation
like this spreading in this way,
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influencing people in ways
that could affect democracy?
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JD: Just to back up a bit,
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we asked ourselves a question:
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can we actually measure
the health of a conversation,
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and what does that mean?
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And in the same way
that you have indicators
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and we have indicators as humans
in terms of are we healthy or not
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such as temperature,
the flushness of your face,
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we believe that we could find
the indicators of conversational health,
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and we worked with a lab
called Cortico at MIT
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to propose four starter indicators
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that we believe that we could ultimately
measure on the system.
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And the first one is
what we're calling shared attention.
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It's a measure of how much
of the conversation is attentive
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on the same topic versus disparate.
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The second one is called shared reality,
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and this is what percentage
of the conversation
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shares the same facts,
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not whether those facts
are truthful or not
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but are we sharing
the same facts as we converse.
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The third is receptivity.
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How much of the conversation
is receptive or civil
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or the inverse, toxic?
-
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And then the fourth
is variety of perspective.
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So are we seeing filter bubbles
or echo chambers
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or are we actually getting
a variety of opinions
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within the conversation?
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And implicit in all four of these
is the understand that as they increase,
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the conversation gets
healthier and healthier.
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So our first step is to see
if we can measure these online,
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which we believe we can.
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We have the most momentum
around receptivity.
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We have a toxicity score,
a toxicity model,
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on our system that can actually measure
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whether you are likely to walk away
from a conversation
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that you're having on Twitter
because you feel it's toxic
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with some pretty high degree.
-
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We're working to measure the rest,
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and the next step is,
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as we build up solutions,
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to watch how these measurements
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trend over time
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and continue to experiment.
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And our goal is to make sure
that these are balanced,
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because if you increase one,
you might decrease another.
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If you increase variety of perspective,
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you might actually decrease
shared reality.
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CA: Just picking up on some of
the questions flooding in here.
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A lot of people are puzzled why,
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how hard is it to get rid
of Nazis from Twitter?
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JD: So we have policies
around violent extremist groups,
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and the majority of our work
and our terms of service
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works on conduct, not content,
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so we're actually looking for conduct,
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so conduct being
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using the service to repeatedly
or episodically harass someone,
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using hateful imagery
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that might be associated with the KKK
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or the American Nazi Party.
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Those are all things that we did,
that we act on immediately.
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We're in a situation right now
where that term is used fairly loosely,
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and we just cannot take
any one mention of that word
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accusing someone else
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as a factual indication that they
should be removed from the platform.
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So a lot of our models are based around,
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number one, is this account associated
with a violent extremist group,
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and if so we can take action,
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and we have done so on the KKK
and the American Nazi Party and others,
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and number two, are they using imagery
or conduct that would associated them
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as such as well.
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CA: How many people do you have
working on content moderation
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to look at this?
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JD: It varies.
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We want to be flexible on this,
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because we want to make sure
that we're, number one,
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building algorithms instead of just
hiring massive amounts of people,
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because we need to make sure
that this is scalable,
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and there are no amount of people
that can actually scale this.
-
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So this is why we've done so much work
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around proactive detection of abuse
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that humans can then review.
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So we want to have a situation
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where algorithms are constantly
scouring every single tweet
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and bringing the most
interesting ones to the top
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so that humans can bring their judgment
to whether we should take action or not
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based on our terms of service.
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WPR: But there's not an amount
of people that are scalable,
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but how many people do you
currently have monitoring these accounts
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and how do you figure out what's enough?
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JD: They're completely flexible.
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Sometimes we associate folks with spam.
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Sometimes we associate folks
with abuse and harassment.
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We're going to make sure that
we have flexibility in our people
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so that we can direct them
at what is most needed.
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Sometimes, the elections,
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so we've had a string of elections
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in Mexico,
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one coming up in India,
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obviously the election last year,
the midterm election,
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so we just want to be flexible
with our resources.
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So when people, just as an example,
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if you go to our current terms of service
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and you bring the page up
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and you're wondering about
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abuse and harassment
that you just received
-
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and whether it was against
our terms of service to report it,
-
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the first thing you see
when you open that page
-
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is around intellectual
property protection.
-
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You scroll down and you get to
abuse, harassment,
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and everything else
that you might be experiencing.
-
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So I don't know how that happened
over the company's history,
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but we put that above
the thing that people want
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the most information on
and to actually act on.
-
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And just our ordering, like, shows
the world what we believed was important.
-
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So we're changing all that.
-
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We're ordering it the right way,
but we're also simplifying the rules
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so that they are human readable
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so that people can actually
understand themselves
-
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when something is against our terms
and when something is not,
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and then we're making, again,
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like, our big focus is on removing
the burden of work from the victims.
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So that means push more towards technology
-
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rather than humans doing the work.
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That means the humans receiving the abuse
-
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and also the humans
having to review that work.
-
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So we want to make sure
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that we're not just encouraging more work
-
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around something
that's super, super-negative
-
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and we want to have a good balance
between the technology
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and where humans can actually be creative,
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which is the judgment of the rules
-
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and not just all the mechanical stuff
of finding them and reporting them.
-
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So that's how we think about it.
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CA: I'm curious to dig in
more about what you said.
-
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I mean, I loved that you said
you are looking for ways
-
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to re-tweak the fundamental
design of the system
-
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to discourage some of
the reactive behavior,
-
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and perhaps,
-
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to use Tristan Harris-type language,
-
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engage people's more reflective thinking.
-
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How far advanced is that?
-
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What would alternatives
to that "like" button be?
-
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JD: Well, first and foremost,
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my personal goal with the service
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is that I believe fundamentally
that public conversation is critical.
-
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There are existential problems
facing the world
-
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that are facing the entire world,
not any one particular nation-state,
-
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that global public conversation benefits,
-
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and that is one of the unique
dynamics of Twitter
-
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is it is completely open,
-
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it is completely public,
-
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it is completely fluid,
-
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and anyone can see any other conversation
and participate in it.
-
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So there are conversation
like climate change.
-
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There are conversations
like the displacement in the work
-
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through artificial intelligence.
-
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There are conversations
like economic disparity.
-
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No matter what any one nation-state does,
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they will not be able to solve
the problem alone.
-
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It takes coordination around the world,
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and that's where I think
Twitter can play a part.
-
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The second thing is that
-
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Twitter right now, when you go to it,
-
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you don't necessarily walk away
feeling like you learned something.
-
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Some people do.
-
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Some people have
a very, very rich network,
-
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a very rich community
that they learn from every single day.
-
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But it takes a lot of work
and a lot of time to build up to that.
-
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So we want to get people
to those topics and those interests
-
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much, much faster
-
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and make sure that
they're finding something that,
-
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no matter how much time
they spend on Twitter,
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and I don't want to maximize
the time on Twitter,
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I want to maximize
-
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what they actually take away from
and what they learn from it --
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CA: Well, do you, though,
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because that's the core question
that a lot of people want to know,
-
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is surely, Jack, you're constrained
to a huge extent by the fact
-
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that you're a public company,
you've got investors pressing on you,
-
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the number one way you make your money
-
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is from advertising.
-
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That depends on user engagement.
-
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Are you willing to sacrifice
user time if need be
-
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to go for a more reflective conversation?
-
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JD: Yeah. More relevance
means less time on the service,
-
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and that's perfectly fine,
-
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because we want to make sure
that, like, you're coming to Twitter
-
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and you see something immediately
that you learn from and that you push.
-
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We can still serve an ad against that.
-
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That doesn't mean you need to spend
any more time to see more.
-
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The second thing that we're looking at --
-
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CA: But just, on that goal,
-
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daily active usage,
-
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if you're measuring that,
that doesn't necessarily mean things
-
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that people value every day.
-
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It may well mean things that people
-
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are drawn to like a moth
to the flame every day.
-
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We are addicted because we see
something that pisses us off,
-
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so we go in and add fuel to the fire,
-
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and the daily active usage goes up,
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and there's more ad revenue there,
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but we all get angrier with each other.
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How do you define -- ?
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Daily active usage seems like a really
dangerous term to be optimizing.
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(Applause)
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JD: Taken alone, it is,
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but let me finish the other metric,
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which is, we're watching for conversations
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and conversation chains.
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So we want to incentivize
health contribution back to the network,
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and what we believe that is
is actually participating in conversation
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that is healthy,
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as defined by those four indicators
I articulated earlier.
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So you can't just optimize
around one metric.
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You have to balance and look constantly
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at what is actually going to create
a healthy contribution to the network
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and a healthy experience for people.
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Ultimately, we want to get to a metric
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where people can tell us that,
hey, I learned something from Twitter
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and I'm walking away
with something valuable.
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That is our goal ultimately over time,
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but that's going to take some time.
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CA: