WASHINGTON, MILLAT+(APP): Adding an edit button for users
to fix spelling and grammar errors was the most-requested feature
of the responses to Twitter as to what’s the most important thing
users want to see from the social-media service, according to a
report by the Wall Street Journal.
The CEO of the Twitter Inc, Jack Dorsey, spent more than six
hours on Thursday tweeting to millions of users for ideas about
what they hope to see from the social-media service. Users responded
to it in thousands.
Users came back with thousands of replies. Mr. Dorsey responded
to some of the concerns expressed, sharing company’s plans and promised
to may a more active role in engineering and design decisions at
Twitter. The social-media service, among other things, is studying
ways to improve search and organize a user’s timeline of tweets by
topic.
The year 2016 has been a disappointment for the social-media
service which saw several of its top executives leaving amid a
scuttled potential acquisition and growing concern over its
policies. Twitter’s stocks were down 29 percent this year.
Failure to make radical product changes has apparently frustrated
users and limited its appeal.
But despite all the problems it faced, Twitter’s relevance
has gained currency, thanks to President-elect Donald Trump who
has been a frequent user of the service, venting out his thoughts
on issues ranging from foreign policy to entertainment. According
to the report, Dorsey didn’t reply to concerns about Trump’s
presence on the platform.
“Users expressed worries that an edit tool would allow powerful
people like Mr. Trump to alter the public record. Some users called
for imposing a short time limit to edit simple mistakes,”the report
said.
Twitter’s CEO has acknowledged these worries, saying anything
beyond a fix would ‘need to show revision history’, a practice
being followed by Facebook Inc. Users of the Facebook can edit
posts but all previous posts are preserves though not displayed.
Users also expressed their displeasure over how Twitter
handles issues of harassment, saying that policies are applied
in varying degree as a result of which many apparently abusive
posts continue to be displayed in violation of service’s content
rules.
The Twitter CEO promised to be more ‘consistent and
transparent’ saying that the social-media service is working
to be transparent and real-time about its methods. He plans
to continue with his Q&A approach to know people’s responses.