Flicker Fusion

This morning, we filed suit in federal court in San Francisco against five of the most aggressive tool providers and spammers. With this suit, we’re going straight to the source. By shutting down tool providers, we will prevent other spammers from having these services at their disposal. Further, we hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter.

While this is an important step, our efforts to combat spam don’t stop here. Our engineering team continues to implement robust technical solutions that help us proactively reduce spam. For example, earlier this week, our engineers launched new anti-spam measures within Twitter to more aggressively suspend a new type of @ mention spam. Additionally, we now use our link shortener (t.co) to analyze whether a tweeted link leads to malware or malicious content. This helps us prevent users from visiting malicious links and helps us shut down hundreds of thousands of abusive accounts. You can help out, too, by reporting and blocking spammers you encounter on Twitter.

This morning, we filed suit in federal court in San Francisco against five of the most aggressive tool providers and spammers. With this suit, we’re going straight to the source. By shutting down tool providers, we will prevent other spammers from having these services at their disposal. Further, we hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter.

While this is an important step, our efforts to combat spam don’t stop here. Our engineering team continues to implement robust technical solutions that help us proactively reduce spam. For example, earlier this week, our engineers launched new anti-spam measures within Twitter to more aggressively suspend a new type of @ mention spam. Additionally, we now use our link shortener (t.co) to analyze whether a tweeted link leads to malware or malicious content. This helps us prevent users from visiting malicious links and helps us shut down hundreds of thousands of abusive accounts. You can help out, too, by reporting and blocking spammers you encounter on Twitter.

—This is excellent news. Right on, Twitter.

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Friends don’t let friends use pink balls.”

– Rick Santorum, to a young man while bowling with college Republicans in Wisconsin. (via officialssay)

Here’s a long bet I’d put (a little bit of) money on: by 2020, Rick Santorum will have revealed himself to be a Banksy-like performance artist who spent three decades trolling the Republican party.

The scientific community … has been concerned about this growing distrust in the public with science. And what I found in the study is basically that’s really not the problem. The growing distrust of science is entirely focused in two groups—conservatives and people who frequently attend church.

The scientific community … has been concerned about this growing distrust in the public with science. And what I found in the study is basically that’s really not the problem. The growing distrust of science is entirely focused in two groups—conservatives and people who frequently attend church.

—

Gordon Gauchat, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina, says conservatives, even those with college degrees, distrust science now more than ever.

It’s interesting to me that Gauchat uses the term “distrust” in regard to the 40-year attack on science. It’s accurate, in a sense, but I hear the word “belief” used far more often, as in “I don’t believe that global warming is caused by humans” or “I don’t believe in the theory of evolution”. Which is so incredibly telling because science, unlike the pseudo-intellectual pillar of conservatism that is religion, doesn’t need to be believed to be true.

If science is a process for understanding how the world around us works and politics is an attempt to solve the problems pluralistic societies face in that world, this is troubling. That one half of the political spectrum is simply going to ignore established fact leaves little hope for consensus. Even as conservative ideology and policies make less and less sense in the face of broad scientific consensus, having one side simply dig in won’t lead to much meaningful progress.

And then I wondered: why was I even trying to compromise? Zynga has an Austin studio, where several good friends of mine work. Yet I had never applied to Zynga. Why? Because the company’s values are completely opposed to my own values, professionally and creatively. Because I believe that developers are at the front lines of game development and deserve to be treated well, and I didn’t trust Zynga to do so. All this was still true – except that their complete unwillingness to negotiate with me only confirmed my concerns. Why on earth was I even considering joining?

It’s not easy to pass up a lucrative salary and solid benefits, of course. But I realized that ultimately I was letting myself be guided by simple inertia. I was part of a herd, and that herd was all going in one direction (and doing so with great urgency). I would really only be doing it for the sake of going with the flow, and responding to pressure to either conform to corporate expectations, or be left behind.

These are not good reasons to join a company whose values are the opposite of your own, or to compromise your ideals, or to give up control of something you rightfully own.

And then I wondered: why was I even trying to compromise? Zynga has an Austin studio, where several good friends of mine work. Yet I had never applied to Zynga. Why? Because the company’s values are completely opposed to my own values, professionally and creatively. Because I believe that developers are at the front lines of game development and deserve to be treated well, and I didn’t trust Zynga to do so. All this was still true – except that their complete unwillingness to negotiate with me only confirmed my concerns. Why on earth was I even considering joining?

It’s not easy to pass up a lucrative salary and solid benefits, of course. But I realized that ultimately I was letting myself be guided by simple inertia. I was part of a herd, and that herd was all going in one direction (and doing so with great urgency). I would really only be doing it for the sake of going with the flow, and responding to pressure to either conform to corporate expectations, or be left behind.

These are not good reasons to join a company whose values are the opposite of your own, or to compromise your ideals, or to give up control of something you rightfully own.

—

Game designer and programmer Shay Pierce turned down a job from Zynga when they acquired Draw Something maker Omgpop.

I really admire that kind of courage, to do what you really feel is the right thing.

You might consider spending a buck on his game, Connectrode. It looks awesome.