Track-Block: A Threat to Free Democratic Discourse on Twitter

A serious threat to Twitter is being engendered by a call by some users to the coders of Twitter to introduce a "block track" function that would enable users to track their own user name with the "track" function, but within that track, indicate other user names they would like to block. This enables them to have their vanity-feed cake, but eat it without anything that disrupts their vanity : )

While being billed as a mere spam management technique, or an inbox management device to eliminate destructive stalkers and hackers, there are social and political ramifications of this move that affect the entire project of Twitter as an open-ended inclusive and free platform for *public* discussion. A summary of the issues coming out of the Panopticons thread, and a listing of the larger conceptual ramifications of use of track-block in the Twitter system:

1. A system where block-within-track as a behaviour pattern and individual user decision replicates and spreads, creating many small circles that won't ever see content they subjectively and arbitrarily judge "too critical" or "repetitive".

2. Snap decisions about some people's intents when they are merely retweeting or following and talking back due to genuine interest, not some sort of "trolling" or "stalking"; this involves a crippling of an important social expansion and viral feature of Twitter

3. Rapid distribution of hitlists of the track-blocked by both a) parochial and thin-skinned provincials angered that any "stranger" even comments back to them after seeing them in the public timeline, and b) by the sophisticated and influential A-listers in the belief this is a "public service" to "warn everybody about trolls and spammers"

4. For those top Twitter stream influencers running shows like NewsGang, reliant on being able to capture the Twitter zeitgeist and follow the feedback of the public on controversial issues of the day (Yahoo/Microsoft, U.S. elections, world food crisis, etc.), their ability to instantly and permanently block out from their own view and analysis any dissent or critical talk-back

5. Spread of hitlists to other services like FriendFeed

6. As hysterical and paranoid and unjustified track-block behaviour spreads, a growing irrelevancy of Twitter as a platform, and public urge to go elsewhere, where A-listers and individual thin-skinned types are not able to so control discourse

7. An end to Get Satisfaction's Twitter account and to the jobs of its mods.