Twitter has long had a problem---and everyone knows it. Twitter is loud. It's noisy. Even when you try to keep your follows under control, it's difficult to find the tweets you want to see---or the people you don't even know you should be following. The endless stream of undifferentiated tweets confuses new users---and can frustrate even the most experienced power user.
At long last, the company finally appears to be listening to our cries.
Twitter announced today that it will be launching live event-based feeds curated by human editors, as first reported by BuzzFeed San Francisco bureau chief (and former WIRED staffer) Mat Honan. Twitter declined to comment to WIRED on when the new product would launch, but it will likely come later this year, BuzzFeed says.
The curated feeds will be separate from your Twitter timeline, accessed via a new button in its mobile app. The new screen will feature a list of seven to ten events taking place on any given day---ranging from scheduled events to breaking news to popular memes---featuring tweets, photos, and videos related to the event. You could imagine standalone curated feeds on anything from the Game of Thrones season finale to protests in Ferguson to the NBA finals.
“It’s around anything that’s interesting,” product head Kevin Weil tells BuzzFeed.
Unlike the way Twitter is arranged now, the curated feeds will allow users to follow an event as it's happening, rather than specific people. You'll also be able to check in after the event has started to see the tweets, photos, and videos you’ve missed. When users get to the moment in the feed that is “live,” it will be marked by a lightning bolt icon, presumably the source of the until-now secret product's code name, “Project Lightning.” Users will also be able to “follow” a feed to have tweets from that event blended into their timeline for the duration of the event.
Most importantly, perhaps, the event-based collections will be curated by real, live human editors, not algorithms or hashtags. BuzzFeed reports that Twitter is building teams of editors around the world that will determine the “best and most relevant tweets” before adding them to the curated feeds.
This marks a dramatic shift for Twitter, which has historically left it up to users to determine what they see based on who they follow. But Twitter’s dependence on users to curate their own feeds has made it difficult for new users to understand how the platform works, meaning a smaller active userbase compared to, say, Facebook. Even for power users, it can be difficult to find the most interesting or relevant tweets or tweeters. Twitter plans to fix that. But its fix means making the kind of judgment calls more traditionally associated with ink-stained newsroom editors and harried TV news producers. Twitter will now tell you what should matter to you.
Twitter's decision to move into live curated feeds is not all that surprising. In a recent blog post, early Twitter investor and venture capitalist Chris Sacca encouraged the company to hire human editors. “Done right, live Twitter will have sports scores and TV listings front and center and will be the place everyone visits first to see how the game is going or when the show starts,” Sacca wrote in his blog post.
The company is also not alone. In recent weeks, several tech giants have indicated that they're hiring human editors to curate news and content. LinkedIn released a news app yesterday that depends on human editors to surface interesting and surprising posts. Snapchat has posted a job opening for a "content analyst" to help curate news and politics stories on its app. And Apple News is reportedly hiring real people to help curate the content on its upcoming news reader to "recognize original, compelling stories unlikely to be identified by algorithms."
In other words, while algorithms have dominated the ways tech companies like Facebook and Google have determined what content to show users, the recognition is growing that humans might add something extra---something that's needed to attract users and keep them coming back.
But adding a human element will create a new set of challenges for tech companies. In the past, Twitter has exerted minimal control over what pops up in users' feeds. Users themselves decide what they see based on who they follow. When Twitter itself begins to curate tweets---determining what's important and what millions of people should see---Twitter becomes not just a neutral platform but a publisher making value judgments about what it believes is important.
And value judgments by their very nature court controversy. Would Twitter include tweets on gun control, pro or con, in a feed devoted to last night's attack in Charleston? Would it feature spoilers in a curated feed about Game of Thrones? Would it allow Warriors fans to heckle Cavs fans in its feed? And how will Twitter chose what tweets to include for its inevitable election coverage? The company tells BuzzFeed that it is developing an editorial policy to help determine what will be included. But as anyone who works in a traditional newsroom knows, such policies don't exactly shield you from criticism.
Figuring out how to manage its cacophony will be crucial, because part of the magic of Twitter isn't just seeing the news as it happens, but hearing the voices. Twitter is a hodgepodge of differing opinions, snark, jokes, and stories---and occasionally, even facts. Sometimes you may see things you don't want to see. Sometimes you may see things you don't agree with. Sometimes you may learn something you didn't want to know. But without all the different voices, Twitter isn't quite the same---it's more like, well, everything else.
So, the ultimate tension becomes---how does Twitter choose? If the choices it makes are too boring or basic, the curated feeds won't attract an audience. Who wants to just see bland pics of Warriors and Cavs players without hearing the trash talk?
But if Twitter does include opinion alongside fact, it risks favoring one side over another, or the opposite scourge of false balance. Will it verify facts before tweeting them? How will it decide what constitutes a reputable source? In setting out to determine what matters, Twitter puts itself in the same position as any editor in a newsroom, with all the power and ethical obligations that entails. Twitter is already one of the key ways the world gets its news. But Twitter is taking on a whole new level of responsibility when it sets itself the task of deciding what's news.
