Play nice

[Bloomberg]( Hi, it’s Kurt in San Francisco. Twitter is trying to help users play nicely, but first… Today’s top tech news: - Amazon is [shopping for used cargo planes]( - Microsoft agreed to a [human rights review]( - Tesla must [justify why it didn’t recall]( its cars Twitter’s ‘speed bumps’ When Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Officer [Jack Dorsey](bbg://people/profile/16186109) spoke at the [TED Conference]( in Vancouver a few years ago, he did something that CEOs rarely do: He admitted that the product he created fosters some pretty ugly human behavior. Harassment. Manipulation. Misinformation. Dorsey ticked off the issues, pointing out that Twitter—and other social networks like it—encourage a lot of this behavior by the way they were built. Public “like” counts and follower statistics, for example, motivate people to increase those numbers, he added. That typically means saying outrageous or controversial things. “What does Twitter incentivize you to do when you first open it up?” Dorsey asked. “In the past, it's incented a lot of outrage, it's incented a lot of mob behavior, it's incented a lot of group harassment.” This is the company that brought us all the dunk tweet, after all. I wrote a [Businessweek story]( this week that asks the question: Can Twitter make us nice? It might sound like a silly question given the admission Dorsey made at TED, but his company is in the middle of an unusual experiment. For years we’ve watched social networks write more rules and guidelines to keep people in line, but Twitter is moving beyond that and changing the actual product in hopes it can persuade us to behave ourselves. The changes are subtle. If you are about to berate someone in a tweet reply, the company may show you a pop-up asking you to [reconsider your language](. If you are about to retweet an article you haven’t read, it’ll nudge you to [open it first](. A separate pop-up alerts you if you’re about to retweet known misinformation. These are small tweaks meant to slow us down. Head of product [Kayvon Beykpour](bbg://people/profile/19439885) calls them “speed bumps.” But it’s still a pretty radical change given how much social media was built to speed everything up. “It is a bit counter-intuitive for designers because we generally want to design for engagement,” explained Anita Patwardhan Butler, Twitter’s design director in charge of the company’s “health” efforts. These types of subtle product tweaks feel particularly relevant right now. Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen has [reminded us]( over the past month just how many different ways these social networks can cause harm, often unintentionally, simply with their design. If Twitter can convince a fast-paced internet mob to slow down and think twice, then it feels as though Facebook and Instagram and YouTube could do the same. It’s a big “if.” While Twitter is often seemingly well-intentioned, the company is notoriously slow. And even though Dorsey thinks like and follower counts are unhealthy, the company still uses them. I don’t know if user incentives will change if the metrics that drive us all to post don’t change with them. But Twitter is trying something new. So for now I’ll hold my judgement – and my dunks—until we see if it works. —[Kurt Wagner](mailto:kwagner71@bloomberg.net) If you read one thing Cisco wants to regain its former glory days the way Microsoft did. The CEO says [cloud computing could be the key]( after it just missed an opportunity to capitalize on video conferencing demand during the pandemic. What else you need to know Mindbody acquired Classpass in a bet people will [return to the gym](. The companies didn’t disclose terms of the deal. Poshmark bought an AI startup in its first-ever acquisition. Investors [received the news warmly]( after largely shunning the stock since it went public in January. Amazon created knockoffs and rigged search results to promote its own brands, according to Reuters, citing [internal corporate documents](. Apple is studying the potential of selling AirPods as a health device, the Wall Street Journal [reported](. The earbuds could act as hearing aids, thermometers or monitors for posture. Due to an editing error, a link in the Oct. 8 newsletter [misidentified]( the amount of missing money behind the Tether cryptocurrency. It is $69 billion. Follow Us More from Bloomberg Dig gadgets or video games? [Sign up for Power On]( to get Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more in your inbox on Sundays. [Sign up for Game On]( to go deep inside the video game business, delivered on Fridays. 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