Twitter got seedy

Twitter’s fundamental problem is that it has got seedy

Julieanne Smolinski:

Twitter is like a beloved public park that used to be nice, but now has a rusty jungle gym, dozens of of really persistent masturbators, and a nighttime bat problem. Eventually the Parks Department might rip up the jungle gym, and make some noise about fixing the other problems, because that’s what invisible administrators like Twitter staff and municipal recreation departments tend to do. But if the perverts and the bats got to be bad enough with no recourse, you’d probably just eventually stop going.

Yes. That’s exactly it. And the problem is that the very presence of these people changes the behaviours of others. They become more uptight, vigilant and careful. It makes debate stilted and uncomfortable. And you live in quite dread of being sealioned.

And this is insightful, too:

(Additionally frustrating is that everybody is complaining about the safety issues at the park, and instead of addressing them, the city installs a crazy new slide. What? Nobody was calling for that. What about the perverts? What about the bats?)

It does feel like Twitter is putting a lot of time and effort into making its service more appealing and easy to use for newcomers – while ignoring the major challenge for existing users.