I'm not optimistic. If our Republican Congress don't grow the backbones so many of them have lacked for so long and crack down hard on the Party of Censorship, it's hard to see grounds for optimism about anything in cyberspace. A censored web site is a dead web site; a censored Internet will be a dead Internet. While fretting about the lack of moderators to pull down content thought to contain "animal cruelty," Twitter's new CEO continued to allow an algorithm to delay a "Please help this shelter dog" message until after the dog was scheduled to be killed.
I do think it's possible for a good thing to come out of the World Economic Forum--screaming, tearing its hair, running frantically for the place as far as that convention of cartoon villains as it's possible to get.
Does this look like a good thing to you?
Not as much, perhaps, as little Greta Thunberg in that video where she was surrounded on the street and badgered by a gaggle of much bigger, older reporters, but Yaccarino has had more practice. She does look frazzled.
I have a dream in which that hair makes her feel desperate enough to listen to an older woman who can tell her: "When I was eighteen my hair looked like that. When I was thirty I discovered a way that even my hair could look good, for the first time in my life. Together, you and I can guide the world back to a condition in which even your and my hair can look good again."
I had a dream in which my husband's ex was not lying through her teeth about being in contact with their adoptive son, and we could become a blended family before my husband died, too, eighteen years ago.
But there is a way Yaccarino can save Twitter, in the short term, and actually make it pay...not as much as the stockholders may want, but it can pay...if she's serious about taking it back to first principles.
The relevant first principle would be: Twitter reached the size it reached because it provided instant communication for private individuals, before the corporate advertisers got there. The world did not need another commercial medium, would not have supported one, and won't support one. The world did need a social medium that would flash messages like "Please help! This dog is scheduled to be killed tomorrow morning," around the world, from anybody to any number of other bodies wherever people were interested in dogs.
People will expect Yaccarino to make Twitter work just like NBC. It won't. There is neither a need nor a desire nor a space in this world for any more of NBC. Yaccarino needs to sell her friends at NBC the first principle that TWITTER IS RADICALLY DIFFERENT FROM NBC.
That does not mean that Twitter can't serve them. It merely means that Twitter will fail to serve them if Yaccarino indulges them with another moment of thinking that Twitter can be made into more of NBC. She must help them understand that, in order to be profitable, Twitter needs to remain very, very different from NBC...while serving (some of) the same sponsors.
The key difference, and I say this as a disenchanted former Twitter Insider who's been watching the site and helping it grow for many years--the key difference is the difference between television and social media.
Television is a medium where corporate sponsors, and the bloat in government that functions as a de facto corporate sponsor, incessantly blare their message to passive viewers who are seldom paying full attention to the broadcasted message.
People don't interact with the TV set, unless they're pathetic dead-end kids like the TV cartoon characters Beavis and Butthead. Actually, my favorite people don't even turn on the TV set very often, if they even have one. When people I know do turn on the TV set, there are a few shows they actually sit down to watch--weather forecasts, "Jeopardy," and an occasional live broadcast of some special event. Even then, they talk, move around, and step out of the room during the ever-increasing commercial breaks. Most TV programs function as background noise in front of which people can avoid actual conversation while eating, snogging, or falling asleep. The sponsors can say anything they want in the part of the TV broadcast that matters to them, because nobody engages with it, nobody even consciously listens to it or looks at it, and so all they have to do is pound the name of their brand into people's ears.
Does it work? Maybe. Maybe not. The companies that invest heavily in advertising products on television also invest heavily in getting those products well placed in the right stores. Awareness that brands exist may influence people to be a little more willing to buy those brands, but it does not actually hypnotize people into buying anything. As mentioned before at this web site, as a child I memorized the commercial jingles that were broadcast during the child-friendly shows I watched on family road trips, but although I can still sing some of those jingles today I've never bought the products they advertised.
What TV broadcasts do undeniably do is add stress to people's lives, mild or even benign stress for some people, toxic stress for others. For those who want to watch the ball game or talent show, the effect of the stress is limited to keeping them from sleeping, meditating, or exercising; only when this becomes a long-term pattern does it do any harm. For the family member who hates those ball games or talent shows and hears each one as a fresh display of ingratitude and ill will, every minute the TV blares is another brick in the wall. When couples want to be reconciled, or parents want children to focus and calm down and do well in school, their chances of success are better if they unplug the TV.
For those who want TV broadcasts, there are already plenty of TV broadcasts out there. Nobody is going to pay for an Internet connection that delivers the same experience as a TV broadcast.
In order for a web site to interest anyone but the advertisers, the web site needs to deliver an experience that's very different from a TV broadcast. So Yaccarino might start by writing down a complete list of everything the sponsors want a TV program to be, then writing a list of what would be the opposite of that, throwing away the first list, and putting the second list on every wall.
Or I could just tell her what attracted so many people who don't watch TV, if we can avoid it, to Twitter as Jack Dorsey built it--something new, something useful, something that has only two things in common with television: (1) it appears on a screen, and (2) it can be used to display images and advertisements for products.
Here are the most obvious salient features Twitter absolutely must keep in order to stay different from television, to attract Real Twits, and to exist. These descriptions aren't necessarily true of Twitter today, but they are true of the original, viable Twitter. They must be true of "Twitter 2.0" if Twitter 2.0 isn't going to go the way of My Space, Google +, or Niume.
1. Twitter is silent unless a site visitor clicks on a button to play an audio clip.
2. Twitter contains more words than pictures. This is no longer always obvious, but it used to be. Just accept it: People who choose the Internet over television prefer words to pictures. You never, never want to allow a picture to fill up the screen, as the pictures do on some social media sites like Gettr, unless someone deliberately clicks on a button to enlarge it. You want each picture to take up less of the screen than the words that introduce it. You don't ever want a picture to "move," or "pop," or "flash," unless someone deliberately clicks on a button to allow that.
3. Twitter is rich in the content site visitors are actually looking for. Original Twitter ran about fifty tweets from accounts the individual visitors had chosen to follow in between every one "promoted tweet" from an advertiser. That was, of course, because Twitter had to achieve viability on its own before it had a lot of advertisers. However, it's also a feature that made it possible for Twitter to achieve viability, while other social media sites crashed and burned. I personally feel that it wouldn't hurt the Twitter experience to allow a steady stream of advertising messages to occupy the right side of the screen--provided that the ads are clearly subordinated to the tweets. The center column should remain wider than the sidebars. Paid ads should contain text and thumbnail pictures only until Twits click on a button to expand them. Twits know that Twitter needs sponsors, but sponsors need to have it firmly in mind, at all times, that the different benefits people get from Twitter come from keeping the individual tweets dominant over the paid ads, at all times, in all ways.
(Yes, this can be of benefit directly to the sponsors, but they're going to have to think outside the box to accept the potential benefit. They might need to take a break or do some deep breathing to cope with the cognitive dissonance.)
4. Twitter's safety is maintained by site visitors' control of their own experience. Nobody wants to watch a video that starts with someone saying "Today we're going to beat up a younger kid" or "Today I'm going to slash my wrists," right? Yes, people did things like that on Facebook, and while other people sat there horrified, unable to believe what they were watching, these deranged Facebookers actually committed suicide and real crimes, in real time, live on social media. What have we learned from this? No, NOT to try to filter out bad content so that people don't see it. That's what will NOT help, so don't ever even think about it again. What helps is to watch for the bad content and take it seriously. Somebody posts, "Today we're going to beat up a younger kid." Leave that message where it is! Police should have someone watching. In case they don't, the social media site should have a prominently displayed "hot button" that notifies a site monitor to call the police. Police can trace the signal, find the source of the bad content, and probably stop the crime before it happens, while the malicious user is still bragging about what he's going to do.
You need to trust individual users, now that people realize that these things are possible, to call the police and then click on to something more pleasant to watch. Which they will do. People love letting other people take care of problems. One of Junior's little friends just threatened suicide, notify the authorities, now back to the chat with the person whose screen image is a woman in a low-cut blouse.
5. Twitter's content is spontaneous and uncensored. People exchange PERFECTLY FRANK opinions of the sponsors' products. You know how that works. People do not actually say, like the character in the Totally Amateurish Radio Drama put together by the characters in an old radio serial that was re-broadcast when I was a kid, "I can find it because I have my new Brand X flashlight. It runs on two 'D' batteries and cost 79 cents at Store Y." Fifty-one weeks in a year they go to Wal-Mart, buy a few dozen staples they use every day, come home, and never think about posting anything as basic and boring as that they have this weekly ritual of buying things they enjoy using at this store. Then the week something goes wrong, they get on social media and flame that Wal-Mart where they expect they should be able to enjoy, in a bland boring way, buying the things they use every day. They never type a word about why they like that Wal-Mart better than the Target, or vice versa. Nor do they type about all the groceries and toiletries they like to use every day. Only when something goes wrong do they flame the everlovin' daylights out of the store and/or the product that disappointed them.
Yes, we all understand the TV sponsors hate this. Yes, we all understand it's the one thing TV sponsors want to censor out of existence in TV Land. But that's what makes live, uncensored, unfiltered social media fun...and what can make them useful to sponsors. They just have to accept this: The Twits who made Twitter great do not live in TV Land, nor do many of them even visit TV Land. Sposnors have to venture into our neighborhood. To do that safely, as when they visit the neighborhoods of the Black friends they all claim to have or at least want, they need to show respect.
What do sponsors do when somebody...like me, because in this respect I am, if anything, a harder sell than the typical Twit, yet it is possible to sell me things...somebody who never thinks of tweeting "We just went to Wal-Mart and bought our favorite brands of groceries and toiletries: Brand X, Y, Z... What fun!" as person might easily do fifty times in a year, does, unfortunately, think of tweeting "Wal-Mart was out of the Brand X soap, the Brand Y printer paper, AND the Brand Z rice I always buy there, AND THE CLERK WAS RUDE!!!"?
First, it's OK to pound a fist on the table or mutter the rude words that come to the sponsors' minds. Everyone can understand that.
Now, having acknowledged and released those emotions, the sponsors should be ready to think creatively about how to spin these moments in the direction of profits.
Some people are Difficult Customers and proud of it. We are both made and born this way. Some people voted for Jimmy Carter because they've always gone through life thinking "Why not the best?", but they've been made to feel ashamed of it. Others have embraced it. I was brought up by a well-known Difficult Customer. I preferred spending time with milder-mannered adults rather than my Drill Sergeant Dad, and didn't think I wanted to grow up like him, so I didn't always complain about things as a young woman. I even went to one of those churches where the False Gospel of Nicely-Nice Verbal Abuse had crept in and some people may actually have been able to believe that it was nice not to tell people what they needed to improve...for a short time. Then I got out into the grown-up world of work and realized that well-known Difficult Customers were my best customers. They didn't have to sound like total old-school drill sergeants. Dad was one and sounded like one, but more successful Difficult Customers were fractionally more tactful than that. Fractionally. And I even had the pleasure of voting for one of them for President. I really like a Difficult Customer who is tough, but fair, and I decided before it was too late that I did want to grow up and be one. So now I am.
What makes people choose to be Difficult Customers is that we know that indulging people in undesirable behavior, such as imagining that the seller is ever "on equal terms" with a Customer, is not doing those people any favors. That's it, and that's all. We can be pleased--and we actually enjoy rewarding people when we are pleased. But you do have to earn the rating you want. You have to please us.
That's where social media come in as the way to market your products to us. We can be pleased. We want to be pleased. And, because you are not wired to be able to understand how to please us, on social media we'll tell you exactly what you need to know.
You just have to think outside the TV advertising box. You cannot go on social media to pound your words into our minds; that's killed other social media sites already, and it can kill both Facebook and Twitter, too. You can go on social media and regain our good will by doing what it takes to please us.
Not by looking for any rewards before you've earned them. I've been known to give zero stars if the "rate the service you received" screen pops up before I say it's time for it to pop up.
Not by just trying to smooth over the "feelings" while ignoring the facts. Emotional feelings come and go. They last approximately ninety seconds, then fade quickly if they're not aggravated by feeding them more attention than they deserve. So if, let us say, you represent a shoe store where somebody tried on a pair of shoes, told the clerk they'd take that pair, accepted a wrapped box, took it home, opened the box, and discovered a completely different pair of shoes that didn't even match inside the box, you do not need to waste time with "I can tell you're upset."
(Number one: if you believe you're a psychotherapist, what are you doing in customer service? Number two: you don't know which people use "upset" to mean a milder form of "angry" and which use it to mean a milder form of "nauseated," but you don't want the conversation to be about either of those things. Number three: the customer may be a woman, in which case, if you've CUTESIPATED her by ignoring a statement of FACT and babbling about her supposed "feelings," you have just outed yourself as a hater and made it her goal to get you fired. From your next ten jobs after this one, likely.)
You need to own your feelings, approximately as frankly as the customer has just expressed per own feelings, as in "I'm very sorry that happened! It makes me feel like an idiot! Please let me send you the pair of shoes you intended to buy. If you could be so kind as to bring back the box, just in case we have another pair that look just like them somewhere and can donate both pairs to a secondhand store, I'd be grateful."
Now you're making your store look good. Window dressing is all very well, but you're displaying honesty and a commitment to good service. Now the customer is motivated to reward you. Don't push; let it come naturally. You may have to grovel to a customer who you think is making unreasonable, unrealistic demands, repeatedly, depending on how deeply the customer is set in that dissatisfaction groove, but eventually you'll get free advertising from this customer. And if other people agree with you that this customer is unusually hard to please,per recommendations rate. People automatically discredit everything you say about your products or your honesty or your commitment to customer service, but if you get full marks from that customer, you are obviously doing something right--they'll try a box of whatever you're selling, too.
Before social media, it might have taken months or years for the Difficult Customer to feel confident enough to give you a positive recommendation. Maybe in real life he's never had a conversation about shoes with anyone outside the store. Maybe in real life she has no friends and her grandchildren avoid talking to her long enough to hear her opinions. But on social media, all of the Difficult Customer's followers can see your conversation. Maybe they agree that the customer expects too much; maybe they agree that you're doing a good job. Either way, you've just demonstrated to them, without either paying for an advertisement or automatically self-discrediting by advertising, that your store is a place to look for honest, courteous service. They have not only noticed your brand; they've laid down a foundation of agreement with your message. That kind of advertisement is like motherly love: there's no price tag on it, because it's beyond price.
Of course, some complaints are harder to turn into super-value publicity than others are. Everyone understands that Wal-Mart is so big that some complaints are inevitable. The person who posted the complaint about not finding X, Y, and Z at Wal-Mart will probably be back in the store next week, as will the people who read the complaint. What about "I used your product, as directed, and the doctor reckons that's why I now have cancer"? What about "Taking the guns away from patients only makes Prozac Dementia homicide-suicides deadlier--we have to monitor use of the DRUGS!"?
This is where Yaccarino has the opportunity to be of real, lasting service to humankind. She needs to stand firm on those first principles.No censorship, ever.
In fact she should consider making it part of Twitter's Terms of Service: "If a sponsor tries in any way to suppress complaints about a product, that will be taken as an admission that the product is harmful and the sponsor is not trying to repair the damage, so the sponsor will be permanently banned." And stick to that, however big and rich the corporaiton is and however much they offer. Make that an advertising point for Twitter. "Bayer tried to suppress the Glyphosate Awareness movement? Bayer's gone. Lilly failed to encourage the newspapers to print the results of an analysis of a homicide-suicide's blood tests? Lilly will never be seen on Twitter. Merck had the gall to say rude things to and about people whose children were harmed by vaccines? Die, Merck, die."
If people have, inadvertently and in good faith, made a product that turned out to be more harmful than they thought it would be, then the way for them to demonstrate that good faith is to take everything the indignant customers throw at them. Humbly. Gratefully. With sincere penitence. "Yes, Sir, it's possible that our product hastened the progress of your cancer. Please accept our deepest apologies and know that your widow and orphans will never be poor," s all Bayer should have had to say--over and over, with different specifics and pronouns--since the total global ban onglyphosate that should have gone into effect in 2018.
It's been said that, if you look out the window and see a little old lady being beaten until blood drips on the pavement, and you don't feel a reaction, you are what they call a psychopath. Well, I happen to be a little old lady, and I've been battered by repeated glyphosate poisoning--of the air, of food, of water--many times. So far I've not gushed blood onto pavement--only a bathroom floor, once, and you may be sure I scrubbed that floor. But there've been enough days in the past two years when I've stayed home, because I was likely to gush blood onto pavement, that I now classify myself as disabled. I do not want a pension. I want to go back to work. I want that glyphosate ban. And if you don't feel a reaction, you might want to talk to a psychiatrist about that.
Feel that reaction, Yaccarino, and reconnect the global Glyphosate Awareness network Twitter helped me build, before the coward-boy Agrawal let Bayer interfere with our telling the truth. We've all heard and heard and heard about the coronavirus panic and the fear that people might not be saved by the vaccines that turned out to make them more vulnerable to the way the virus had mutated by the time the vaccine was available...oh well, anyway, it seemed to be so terribly necessary to censor anti-vaccine tweets so that...BOSH, I say. Everyone in Glyphosate Awareness knows the corporate censorship started with us, after political censorship had found a way to exploit the system during the 2016 elections. (Lilly had been leaning on newspapers not to print the most important fact in every homicide-suicide story since 2001, and Merck may have been gaslighting and insulting people with vaccine injury claims before that.)
Twitter needs to take a firm stand on its first principles. Sponsors with genuine good intentions need to support that firm stand. Nothing must be offered to those who want to censor the unpleasant truth about their products except endless, boundless contempt.
If a corporation has any right to continue to exist, its executives and stockholders need to accept that market forces are what nature intended to impose morality on the corporation. Censorship must not be allowed to protect the corporation's profits. Rather,, any attempt to suppress the facts about a product must cut so deeply into the corporation's profits that nobody would dare to suggest such an immoral, unethical, stupid idea.
And if that means the Democratic Party has a lot of apologizing to do for having hidden behind the filthy coattails of the corporate censors, during even one election--and if that little venture into censorship costs all Democrats any chance at State or federal office for another decade!--even that would serve the Ds right. They didn't start apologizing and purging their ranks soon enough. They need to be doing that, nonstop, from now until November.
