Wetherell was not involved with launching retweet, and didn't implement much (maybe any?) of the code in that Nov 2009 launch. He probably did write a version of the frontend for retweet at some point, and had done some backend code, but all of that was largely rewritten by launch day.<p>To be fair, he probably didn't claim that, but making his involvement out to be more than it was probably did well for the article.
Reading through some of the comments here, it occurs to me that there's a moral trilemma at play here: you can have <i>power</i>, you can have <i>righteousness</i>, or you can have <i>impartiality</i>, but you must pick 2 out of 3. If you bring something new into the world that gives new voice or new capabilities to previously disenfranchised groups, then you have a choice between explicitly selecting <i>who</i> you bestow this power on (in which case you can preserve your righteousness, but sacrifice impartiality), or giving this gift away free to everyone who can make use of it (in which case you remain impartial, but will inevitably end up empowering people you find morally abhorrent). Or you can choose to do nothing and never bring anything useful into the world, which is also valid, but means you're eclipsed by people who <i>do</i>.<p>Silicon Valley (and science/tech in general) has traditionally selected power & impartiality, while nation-states and religions have traditionally selected power & righteousness. Many of the commenters here would seemingly select righteousness & impartiality, which perhaps speaks to why we're discussing this on a message board rather than bringing startups into the world.
One <i>major</i> problem with this: It's not like he "invented" the retweet. The userbase invented the "RT" prefixed message. Twitter the company simply took what the user base had done and weaponized it and empowered it. But at the same time they made it easier to track a single specific message being RT'd. So blessing and a curse.
I found this to be a rather refreshing take on the traditional "tech people didn't consider the consequences" - it doesn't place blame on the tech person, and reflects thought and awareness before and after. (It's easy in hindsight to say "people suck, so this is a terrible idea", but far harder to do in advance).<p>Left unanswered is what do about it - the implied "require some effort" isn't likely to be successful, as the incentives to make things easier is there, and the incentive to promote long term civility is...not.
For a long time, I've made the argument that the First and Second Amendments of the US Constitution are indistinguishable from each other.<p>Previously, when the government was attacking encryption, I made the argument that this was gun control for software. "What you have is too powerful. No one needs 'military grade' encryption. Some people are misusing it, and we need the government to control it. No one's coming for your encryption, we just want key escrow." Of course, encryption is not only a protection for banking, it's a protection for free speech.<p>I agree that words can be a "weapon"--but in the same way that a scalpel can be a weapon. It depends how you use it. It's frightening that people are now starting to apply the "gun control" thought process to "retweets".<p>Before anyone jumps down my throat with "but Twitter isn't bound by the constitution", no duh. But regardless whether it's a company or a government, hearing someone with a lot of power advocate for suppressing freedom of expression isn't a great thing.<p>Whatever happened to the "Free Speech Wing" of the "Free Speech Party"?
So tired of these "OMG What Did I Create?" stories from social media devs. How about you grow a conscience _before_ you build these things? I have told managers to go f themselves for: <i>Content that would demean people </i>Lying to or misleading customers *Hosing over my fellow engineers ... among other things<p>I don't think it's that special of a thing to do but reading these things makes it seem like it is.
I think the real problem is Twitter refuses to make sophisticated filtering available to users. Simple mute, block, and keyword filtering are inadequate.
There seem to be a growing idea in Silicon Valley minds that we (IT crowd, devs, techies, managers) are in fact great! Way smarter then those stupid peons around us which use our products. So logically we have a mission to bring those unwashed morons to the bright side, and we must manipulate them for their own good.<p>While it's certainly pleasant illusion for us, there are two glowing problems:<p>1. We are not necessary better (neither morally, nor intellectually) then other people, it's just a current importance of IT economy which makes us a bit more successful, and and sometimes gives us some sort of influence.<p>2. There's an empirical evidence of activist journalism which suggests the only achievable result on this way is loss of respect, and growing animosity.
Retweets function to spread messages, but the quote tweet (combined with the retweet) is the ultimate hate/shame tool. I rarely see it use outside of "hey universe look what this idiot once said".
Been saying for years that the Share button is what ruined Facebook. I went there to see what was up with people I know, not to get news or Memes.<p>The problem now is that FB makes a lot of money via sharing paid content so they won't get rid of it.
Twitter was not made for serious, challenging conversation from the beginning.
Every feature it has is designed for short, sarcastic tweets or replies. It's almost hardcoded to the product. Possibly that's why politicians love it.
There is a much larger problem here than RTs, and that is lack of journalistic integrity.<p>You can spread pretty much any sort of information without research or even a logical basis. Weirdly, we tend to default to accepting it as valid rather than questioning it.<p>The only realistic cure for this, outside of draconian authority, is to teach people how to be more skeptical and educate them on logical fallacies.<p>These are things that should be taught from elementary school and onwards IMHO.
Retweet is like gossip but easier. There are people who are wired to enjoy gossiping. They can have this stupidity.<p>On the other hand I prefer to avoid Twitter all together and get my news from actual journalism.
Similar - <a href="https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/man-created-facebook-like-button-now-warns-mind-can-hijacked-social-media/" rel="nofollow">https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/man-created-facebook-like-bu...</a>
Hyperbole. Social media is not broken. The retweet is not why. And this guy didn't invent the idea of republishing content. Other microblog services had that, and I'm pretty sure Twitter users were doing it on their own.