I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but I’m going to talk about the lack of an edit button on Twitter. I’m not going to defend wanting one — Casey Newton has ably written the definitive piece about that and I agree with everything in it. But in the wake of the news that Twitter may fundamentally change how retweets and mentions work, I think I want to explain why I always make the “Tweets, but editable” joke on Twitter.
Yes, I’m going to explain the joke, thereby ruining it. The good news is it was never a very funny joke — just a sort of illuminating one about the state of Twitter. Or it was, once. Anyway — I’ll explain that along with some egregiously unnecessary Shakespeare references after the links.
- Dieter
Carriers and regulators
+ FCC Democrat says T-Mobile–Sprint merger ‘will end a golden age in wireless’
Will T-Mobile CEO John Legere keep up the cool rebel personal he adopted in order to gain customers? Or will he revert to his baseline? I invite you to watch his testimony to Congress in 2002 (at the 2 hour, 28 minute mark) and ask yourself if that Gordon Gekko-esque telecommunications executive is the same Legere you think you know today.
I am not saying he’s not sincere when he wears pink t-shirts and livestreams his grill, but I am asking: which John Legere is going to be in charge of this new merged company?
+ AT&T fined $60 million for throttling ‘unlimited’ data plans
The FCC wants the FTC to be the regulator paying attention to internet providers and also has ended net neutrality. If all that sticks, well, this tiny fine that took five years to implement isn’t just going to be par for the course, it might actually be the best we can hope for.
+ The Senate’s secret algorithms bill doesn’t actually fight secret algorithms
Adi Robertson:
On a larger scale, though, these terms are so misleading that even the bill’s sponsors can’t keep things straight. The FBTA doesn’t make platforms explain exactly how their algorithms work. It doesn’t prevent them from using arcane and manipulative rules, as long as those rules aren’t built around certain kinds of personal data. And removing or disclosing a few factors in an algorithm doesn’t make the overall algorithm transparent. This bill isn’t aimed at systems like the “black box” algorithms used in criminal sentencing, for example, where transparency is a key issue.
Dispatches from inside The Verge
+ The Verge Holiday Gift Guide 2019
There’s a lot of good stuff in here! Conveniently sortable by price or category or both.
+ How a few flaky elevator buttons are tearing our office apart
This is about our elevators but truly it’s about all elevators and actually all buttons. Sometimes they don’t work and it’s infuriating, but finding out why provides just a little solace.
Two cool car things and one confusing car thing
+ This. Is. Genius: A 14-year-old found a potential way to fix those car pillar blind spots
+ Ford made an electric Mustang with a manual transmission
This is the part where I am supposed to repeat the long-running joke that I think Mustangs are bad but the truth is I never actually thought that. And although this is just a one-off, it looks great. The idea of a proper gearbox on an electric vehicle is hilarious and unnecessary and perfect and I love it.
+ Android Auto standalone app now available for Android 10 users
This standalone app is a placeholder for when the Google Assistant will take over and run everything you do in your car. Or you could just use Google Maps, which has Spotify and Assistant integration. Or maybe Google will balk and not kill this placeholder app because it turns out people just want simple interfaces with big buttons in the car. At least Google’s automotive strategy isn’t as confusing as its messaging strategy, right? ...Right?
More from The Verge
+ Firefox is taking steps to stop browser notification spam from next year
Every browser should adopt this feature immediately. Like right now. Please.
Starting with Firefox version 72, due for release in January, requests to display desktop notifications will come in the form of a small icon in Firefox’s URL bar, and users will need to click this to actually see the notification request. Currently, just visiting many sites is enough to cause them to show a relatively large notification prompt
+ The original Google Pixel will get one final update in December
Good on Google, but I have to say it: iPhones have a much longer shelf life than even the best-supported Android phones.
+ Vaping is still on the rise in high schools
Somewhere in the back of my mind I have always thought the whole “the teens are vaping!” thing was a typical moral panic about The Teens. But one in four is a lot — and a huge regression from the progress we’d made with cigarettes.
+ Xiaomi’s Mi Watch is an Apple Watch lookalike that costs just $185
I am a dork but the most interesting thing about this isn’t that it looks like an Apple Watch, it’s that Xioami is heavily skinning Wear OS. Nobody else is doing that, probably due to contractual reasons but also probably because it would slow down Wear OS too much. I’d be interested to see how this works!
The big differential (apart from the price) is Xiaomi’s custom software skin for Wear OS: MIUI For Watch. This looks like it gives Google’s OS a vaguely Apple-ish visual overhaul. Xiaomi has created its own apps for the device, including lightweight versions of its Tasks, Recorder, and Notes apps, and MIUI For Watch will also have its own app store.
+ Xiaomi’s first 108-megapixel cameraphone is here
The 108-megapixel sensor in question is the same Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX that the company designed together with Xiaomi, which was announced earlier this year. The 1/1.33-inch sensor is unusually large (for a phone, at least). By default, it’ll shoot 27-megapixel shots that combine four pixels together, as is fairly standard on ultra-high megapixel-count smartphones. There is an option to shoot in the full 108-megapixel resolution should you want to.
+ Tile’s $59 multipacks come with a free Google Nest Mini or Amazon Echo Dot at Best Buy
Tile is doing everything it can to get attached to your stuff before Apple comes out with its thing. And you know what? Bravo.
Why “Tweets but editable” is a thing that I tweet
It’s not because I think that editable tweets should be the highest priority for Twitter. Many of the ideas that Dantley Davis, Twitter’s vice president of design and research, have proposed seem much more important in terms of improving conversations and limiting harassment.
I’m especially looking forward to “Remove me from this conversation.” I often get looped into some argument or tangentially tagged in an epic thread and I have to basically give up on Twitter for the afternoon. Similarly, “Remove this @mention from this conversation” would allow me to mention somebody once in a thread but not include them on every following tweet.
The others, “Don’t allow RT of this tweet,” “Don’t allow people to @mention me without my permission,” and “Tweet this only to: hashtag, interest, or these friends” are a really interesting set of ways for users to limit the spread of their tweets or names. It could lead to a way to have a more intimate conversation without feeling like the platform is fracturing.
Or not — Twitter has to actually do this stuff. But I’m weirdly hopeful that it will. It’s a weird hope because I’m not used to trusting that Twitter would do ...anything at all. It’s nice that Twitter is thinking about these features, at least.
But all that thinking, though! How many times have we heard that Jack Dorsey or some other executive is “thinking” about doing something? So many times. For years, Twitter’s public-facing staff seemed to spend more time navel gazing about what the service could be instead of turning it into that thing.
Dorsey, especially, was the epitome of thinking over action in a situation where action was desperately called for. It was Hamlet-esque — and I said so, of course, in a tweet:
Hamlet: Jack Dorsey
King Hamlet: A good moderation policy
Claudius: Nazis
Gertrude: Verification badges
Polonius: Editing Tweets
Horatio: Hashtags
Ophelia: Third party Apps
Fortinbras: Instagram
Osric: Congress
Rosencrantz: Mastodon
Gildenstern: Ello
I can make a strong case for every casting choice here! But the truth is that the joke about Dorsey and the company he runs being paralyzed with indecision doesn’t quite ring true anymore. The company is making improvements its apps, making decisions about political ads, and actively working to improve conversations and reduce harassment. Twitter is not where it ought to be, but it’s getting better.
For the first time in a long time, it seems like the product is evolving. That has taken a little bit of air out of the joke about editable tweets. I’d like them, but really the idea of “tweets, but editable” was always a proxy for “Twitter, but the company actually works on the product.” It was a good proxy! It seems like such an obvious feature and one that could be implemented without causing disinformation (do not @ me — read Casey’s piece) and Twitter’s inability to implement it was a stand in for its inability to implement anything.
I am an inveterate typoist, especially on Twitter, and so I’d like the company to help me deal with my own shortcomings on its platform. But that’s less important than protecting users, supporting moderators, improving the product, and making sure it doesn’t screw up the next election. Twitter needs to do much more of all of that, and if it means tweets won’t be editable for awhile (or ever), I’m fine with that.
I’ll keep joking that I want editable tweets, but it’s only a joke. Don’t tell me why they would be bad. I know. It’s just that, like Polonius, the idea of editable tweets is hilarious in its pomposity and self-dealing, though underneath it just wants what’s best. Also: brutally murdered by Hamlet by accident. (Spoilers!)
Disclosure: my wife works for Oculus, a division of Facebook, which competes with Twitter.
