Unfair Twitter, Inc backlash

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 by Dave Winer.

I feel the need to make so many disclaimers here.  

1. Yes I have been critical of Twitter. 

2. I am not on the Suggested User List. 

3. I think they're making really big mistakes in managing the community. (That they are even managing the community at all is a bad sign. They should be trying actively to stay out of managing it.) 

4. And about a million other things. 

But... 

I think some of the criticism of Twitter-the-Company has been over the top in the last few days. They've clearly been fighting some huge fires and the order in which they are 1. Acting and 2. Communicating makes sense to me, because I've been on their side of difficult situations, on a much much smaller scale, and my experience is that users don't treat the server guys fairly, no matter how you try to explain that you're doing the best that you can humanly possibly do. I've seen users do some horrible things while the fires are burning, and I see some of that now.  

In the last week they've been fighting security issues, hacking, and a huge influx of new users. Any one of these things would be pretty taxing, but all at the same time -- well, it's gotta be hell on their side of the interface. 

I've been watching the communication, and I think they're doing a really good job of explaining and their intentions are good.  

That doesn't mean I don't think they brought on the stress themselves or that I support other things they're doing. I don't expect to be on the SUL, and I don't want to be. I'm not saying this to kiss up to them. Let's all try to be fair. That's my point.