[Air-L] Similar settings debate on Twitter

[Michael Zimmer]

Also apropos the air-l debate over settings & community, a similar  
debate is occurring on Twitter, who recently made a "small settings  
update" where users no longer see public replies sent by friends to  
people they themselves are not following. (Fragmented conversations,  
they are called.)

In the words on one commenter:

"The new policy isn't something you have to opt-in to. It's not  
something you can opt-out of. It's true for people who use 3rd party  
Twitter clients to read their Tweets. It's more fundamentally closed  
than Facebook is; on that site I may not be able to view the profiles  
of strangers talking to my friends, but I can see that the  
conversations are happening and I can read the comments. This new  
Twitter policy breaks one of the fundamental rules of social activity  
streams: that I can discover new people by seeing who is conversing  
with the people I already know."

Details here: <http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_puts_a_muzzle_on_your_friends_goodbye_peop.php 
 >

And you can follow the #fixreplies tweets here: <http://search.twitter.com/search?q=fixreplies 
 >

-mz

-- 
Michael Zimmer, PhD
Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies
Associate, Center for Information Policy Research
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
e: zimmerm at uwm.edu
w: www.michaelzimmer.org