Episode Highlights:

• Twitter is growing again, adding 6 million users over the last quarter. They have now been profitable for 2 quarters–the first time they have been profitable in the company’s history.
• During the first quarter of the year, Twitter says it removed 142,000 apps using its API that violated developer rules and were responsible for 130 million “low-quality” tweets in that three-month period.
• Twitter also started enforcing its new terms of service on Friday, March 23, 2018, which prohibits cross-posting the same tweet across multiple accounts, “with an intent to subvert or manipulate the topic, or to artificially inflate the prominence of a hashtag or topic.”
  • Service providers have changed how they work to comply with these rules.
  • Duplicate tweets on a single account repeatedly using the same hashtag or text in a spammy manner isn’t allowed.
  • Using multiple accounts to artificially inflate a specific tweet or hashtag will not be allowed.

• Major changes to the API are coming which has left developers and third-party app developers worried about how the changes will affect streaming and push notifications. Twitter has stated that they will provide a 90 day notice.
• Auto DM’s are out. Third party tools that offered this had to deactivate it effective October 12, 2017.
• It’s rumored that Twitter is opening up to verification of all users to combat the bot problem. Verification will be indicated by a blue check mark.

Account users that don’t log in and accept Twitter’s new terms may be deactivated. If you’re using a lot of third-party apps and don’t often go into your native Twitter account, look for a notice from Twitter in the next few months.

Are the Twitter changes a good idea?

• Twitter has needed some changes to combat the bots and other spammy issues like auto DM’s.
• Too much auto DM spam leads to missed opportunities. You can look forward to spending less time cleaning filtering through those messages.
• There’s a good opportunity to have better communication on Twitter if automation is more limited and it makes you think more about what you’re sending out.
• One concern  is that the shelf life of a tweet is very short and the percentage of followers that will see any given tweet is low, leading people to want to send out multiple duplicate tweets several times per day to hit all of the time zones and reach more people. This approach will need to be rethought, perhaps Twitter will give tweets with more interaction a longer life in the feed?

How will Twitter work to eliminate spam and bots?

• Twitter uses an algorithm where if you’re reported as a spammer or you trip one of their machine learning algorithms, you may not show up in the feed.
• The amount of time that must exist between identical tweets isn’t clear, from 24 hours to a week. No one really knows and Twitter has been silent about it. Either they don’t want anyone to know or they can’t police it.
• They’re trying to avoid Twitter farms where people use multiple accounts to reinforce other accounts or mount an activist campaign.
• When Twitter turned off auto DM’s there was an obvious change, but other changes haven’t seemed as noticeable.

How does duplicate tweeting impact Twitter chats?

Well, we aren’t sure yet, but…

• There aren’t many duplicate tweets in Twitter chats outside of the generic duplicate, reminder type tweets from the host.
• Twitter chats with trending hashtags and retweets may become a gray area which will present questions.
• And perhaps new machine learning will cut down on hashtag spam in chats.

Tools, links, and resources mentioned:

• Twitter Makes Changes to Combat Spam: Here’s What You Need to Know
• The Twitter Rules
• Automation and the use of multiple accounts
• Twitter changes may bring major issues for third-party apps 
• Twitter’s user numbers are growing again
• Twitter Wants to Verify All Users as a Way to Prove Identity
• Twitter can’t decide if it wants to kill third-party apps
• API changes will break Tweetbot and Twitteriffic alerts and streaming, Twitter not yet sharing new solution
• Madalyn’s FB Live with Emeric Ernoult, CEO of Agorapulse
• Important Update On Statusbrew For Twitter
• Twitter takes new measures to quiet trolls, spammy content
• Twitter’s new rules could result in a major purge of alt-right accounts
• Twitter’s Conversational Health Award program