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"Echoes in Twitter Spaces" (B I R D H 0 U S E) #79

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extratone opened this issue Mar 11, 2021 · 42 comments
Open

"Echoes in Twitter Spaces" (B I R D H 0 U S E) #79

extratone opened this issue Mar 11, 2021 · 42 comments
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audio Audio, the medium! End User and other stuff. documentation Improvements or additions to documentation i On iOS & iPhone. (Subject) social The Social Web (Subject)

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samspace

@extratone extratone added the time-sensitive Content which must be published by a certain time. label Mar 11, 2021
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Last night's insane fucking Harry Styles fandom space? https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1369814599055343618

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Periscope Death4
Periscope

Periscope Death
Periscope Death

Periscope Death
Periscope Death

@extratone extratone reopened this Mar 12, 2021
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PNG image

@fuckczennie's Space

#wayvspace

https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1YpKkzmWBqjxj

https://youtu.be/rxuGnvWVbYQ
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rxuGnvWVbYQ?controls=0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxuGnvWVbYQ

The Fuckin CPop Album

Song.Link/Odesli

Small Embed

<iframe width="100%" height="52" src="https://embed.song.link/?url=https%3A%2F%2Falbum.link%2Fi%2F1556595473&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-presentation allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe>

Medium embed

<iframe width="100%" height="150" src="https://embed.song.link/?url=https%3A%2F%2Falbum.link%2Fi%2F1556595473&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-presentation allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe>

Large embed

<div style="max-width:100%;"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:calc(56.25% + 52px);height: 0;"><iframe style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;" width="100%" height="100%" src="https://embed.song.link/?url=https%3A%2F%2Falbum.link%2Fi%2F1556595473&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-presentation allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></div></div>

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Kayvon Beykpour Interview

<iframe allow="autoplay *; encrypted-media *; fullscreen *" frameborder="0" height="175" style="width:100%;max-width:660px;overflow:hidden;background:transparent;" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-twitter-is-building-its-future-with-kayvon-beykpour/id1011668648?i=1000512229112"></iframe>

(Listen notes embed)

<iframe src="https://www.listennotes.com/embedded/e/0bcb7943a0c14921bcb46470395d9f53/" height="300px" width="100%" style="width: 1px; min-width: 100%;" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" loading="lazy"></iframe>

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Apparently, Spaces is supposed to roll out to everyone in April. (According to Apple Insider.)

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image

Twitter, Public Servant

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What is Periscope and why Twitter bought it | Business Insider
Kayvon Beykpour was a Periscope cofounder… Now Head of Consumer Product at Twitter.

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Voice Note

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Twitter Spaces Exclusion

[image:0497AA10-7DB5-4A27-92F0-A0CDB71A0625-4056-00000157CFD0C194/Photo Mar 12, 2021 at 001247.jpg]

Periscope’s successor is explicitly built to silence those who are unable to or uncomfortable with using their voice.

Today, I came to a few revelations that led me to feel obligated to write about Twitter’s “new” live audio broadcasting feature, Spaces. Considering how much I read on a daily basis on media and the web, it’s quite pitiful that I would end up discovering their existence as the majority of eventual users will, I suspect: the app relaunching lands on the Home tab, which now features the Instagram Stories-derived Fleets gallery as the top header. I’m not sure what this looks like for the average user, but for me, it is always stocked with blue-embossed circular profile pictures - all people I followed in the decade+ before I hit my limit., but often cannot recall when or why. Suffice it to say, it’s unlikely I would easily run out of Fleets to watch if I ever find myself in a stage of obsessive Fleet consumption. Spaces only came to my attention when I happened to spot a purple cluster of rounded profile pictures in this menu. Naturally, I tapped immediately, and found myself in a Space run by Matt Daniels and including Mike Elgan as speaker. You might notice, now, following those hyperlinks, that both have the Purple Circle emoji 🟣 in front of their display names on their Profiles. They explained that it’s become a trend among those who’ve been granted Spaces access to indicate that they are testing and discussing Spaces.

I was lucky to happen upon this particular Space - Matt was a fairly-prolific Periscope broadcaster, and that dearest app came up in the conversation just as I was approved as a speaker to mention it. I noted that I’d heard Spaces was built atop the technology Twitter acquired from Periscope in its acquisition and cited my recent observations of my own experiences on that late service, asking whether or not Spaces would eventually meet a similar fate. I’d been suggesting that Periscope was the only entirely-positive social network experience I’d ever encountered, noting that I still wasn’t instinctively compelled to open the app nearly as much as I should have been, however. Matt’s response was quite profound: as a regular and popular Periscope broadcaster, his perspective was that its fundamental problem lied in insufficient filtering of its text chat. He said that Spaces’ exclusion of that feature was an important component of its potential, along with the fundamental implications behind new guests being muted by default. I hadn’t yet figured out a method of recording Spaces (more on that in a bit,) so I would qualify my account of this conversation in a big way, but I vaguely recall Mike chiming in to relay a sentiment he’d heard from Twitter employees in another recent Space: they understood and explicitly intended to continue in the text chat-less direction because of feedback from Periscope creators like Matt.

For myself, the general praise of Spaces (and Clubhouse, adjacently) as a democratizing new social feature definitely resonates. In just that first experience, I was given the opportunity to speak directly to Matt and Mike - the later of whom I have been reading and listening to for my whole adult life. He even followed me after the Space ended. Yesterday, I happened upon a Space hosted by Ben Popper - formerly one of my favorites on The Verge’s masthead - in which he was broadcasting his impressively-disciplined turkey calls from “a shed in the woods.” He approved me as speaker immediately and was incredibly accommodating of my questions about his former colleagues and recent life events. (He’s now living “rurally” and working as Director of Content at Stack Overflow - neither of which I would have ever expected.)

[February 17th Sam Scheffer Space Embed]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZH-SHzE8XQ

Yet another former Verge staffer, Sam Scheffer, has been the most active Spaces user on my Timeline. Notably, he is one of the only Twitter Tech Media folks I know who has continued to be honest with himself and the world about his feelings about the service. Among a crop of people who once exclaimed shit like “I love Twitter” and “I live on Twitter,” his singular continued use of such terms reflects something significant, I think. Understandably given Tump Hell, it is now very popular to lament Twitter whenever possible, even among those who’s volume of use has not changed in any measurable way. I don’t think it’s reaching to say that Sam and I are alike in our desire to try out whatever we’re tossed the keys to in as extreme a degree as possible. I’ve stopped by a handful of his Spaces - which are often also about Spaces, itself. Most recently however, he approved me to speak in a Space including a host of Silicon Valley folk and at least one Microsoft employee, talking about the future of AR and VR, vaguely in response to Microsoft’s Ignite event, which legitimately disturbed me.

[Scary Ignite Thing Embed]
https://twitter.com/neoyokel/status/1366804088629919744

I probably waited too long to speak up, until he was trying to wrap up the Space - but I did chime in about the way the Ignite keynote made me feel and attempted to convey the contrast between the goals of the tech industry and the general attitudes toward AR and VR present in the Midwesterners around me. Essentially, I was granted yet another unique opportunity to ask a question that’s been bothering me for years, now: what the fuck are you doing and why??? It was the Microsoft Man (I can’t find his account, now, sorry) who responded very promptly, considering, with an explanation that actually made a lot of sense. The gist of it was we are contending with the idea that we may never work in an office again, and these technologies offer a difficult-to-explain amends. He specifically used the term “fatigue” in describing his own experiences trying to collaborate remotely and reflected on the benefits of virtual context on the most elemental, sensory components of interaction throughout a workday. From that ~45 second response, I feel as though I gained more understanding than I have from years of reading on my own, which further reinforces his observations, in retrospect.

[Kali Tweet Embed] (Kali’s account is private right now.)

Already, it would seem Twitter Spaces might have a lot to offer David Blue, going forward. Though I signed up for Clubhouse’s waiting list last year (twice, in fact, but please don’t tell on me,) I have yet to hear back from them. If I was a bitter person, I would be up in arms about this, citing the fact that I would probably contribute more to the wellbeing of the project, technically, than 90% of those who’ve been invited. (I am the physical manifestation of the Stress Test, and I spend an absurd amount of time on beta feedback, even on software I’m fucking paying for.) From what I originally heard, though, Clubhouse was showing real promise as a space where creators of color felt in control of their experience. I hope this has continued to be true and - if it has - I say never invite me.

[Buhby Periscope Embed]
https://youtube.com/watch?v=DajJqoufzAg

The Social and The Socialites

Crucially, though, enabling my tech bro ass to engage with famous tech bros about tech bro shit is never going to justifiably occupy anyone’s list of priorities in my lifetime (including my own.) The original promise of the internet did not include amplification of voices already/otherwise at max volume. Instead, it was using technology to deliver new, varying, and universally-empowering tools of expression to those who’d been minimized for all of human history. It didn’t have to be philanthropic - in fact, it was and shall always remain in the best interest of the loudest folks to hear from the other side of the spectrum. The possibilities of this dynamic should be thrilling to all involved, and it used to be for Twitter, Inc. Or so it seemed, anyway. As the company has honed its various loglines over the years, their actions have reflected their truth less and less.

[Kayvon Beykpour Interview Embed]

Coincidentally, the most visible co-founder of Periscope, Kayvon Beykpour, is now Twitter’s Head of Consumer product, and he spent this past week doing interviews about Twitter’s late feature frenzy. I want to share two very different podcast episodes with two very different interviewers. Nilay Patel’s Decoder interview should probably be first priority as the more comprehensive and digestible of the two.

We started it from the standpoint of “why are people not tweeting?” It turns out that some of the reasons they’re not tweeting is they don’t feel safe. They don’t feel safe because what they tweet is subject to public scrutiny. Tweets are on the public record, which is terrifying. Anyone can respond to them, and they’re such a popularity contest of likes and retweets and impressions and all of the social mechanics that we’ve built in the product that actually work quite well for a certain purpose, but can work against you if you’re just trying to have a conversation and feel intimidated by that.

“Why are people not tweeting” justifies us taking a moment to indulge some hilarity: imagine Jack and his hellbeard wandering around the abandoned Twitter office screaming that question at the walls, over and over again. Bekypour’s decision to identify one’s “on the public record” Tweets as “terrifying” could easily be tossed back at the company in the center of a dense globule of shit, but one imagines it’d hardly be constructive. I’m going to take my furthest leap here and suggest that we examine who exactly Kayvon was considering - those who find on Twitter a “popularity context of likes and retweets and impressions,” and feel “intimidated” by it. Those I’ve known on Twitter who’ve had negative experiences or have otherwise felt the need to take greater control of a given moment’s interactions generally make use of the “Protect My Tweets” selection in their account’s privacy settings. (This is called “private Twitter,” in case you’re unfamiliar.) This was clearly on the minds of whoever crafted the official Twitter Support page on Spaces:

Accounts with protected Tweets are not able to create Spaces. They are able to join and speak in other people’s Spaces, and their presence will be visible to other participants.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this and come to the conclusion that Kayvon was speaking of a relative minority of Twitter users in his explanation, consciously or not. It’s telling that I was unable to find the statistics of an average Twitter account’s number of daily interactions, but it also means I have to make yet another supposition: even most regular Twitter users rarely experience an overwhelming amount of what I’ll call account-specific notifications (mentions, replies, likes, and retweets, as distinct from algorithmically-sourced content recommendations.) I could be wrong, but I would argue that only the most popular Twitter users - those most visible by way of all sorts of celebredom - are under pressure to consider “the public record.” When Kayvon explains Twitter’s interest in making Spaces ephemeral, he is speaking for the “clients” who make Twitter a (debatably) viable business. This should not be surprising or damning, necessarily, but only so long as it is emphasized.

[Voice Note Embed]

Early in the interview, Nilay “reframes” the pillars of Twitter’s current development as described by Bekypour. “Health,” he observes, “is basically just the overwhelming content moderation problem that every social platform faces.” A large, most uncomfortable component of this “problem,” is just another manifestation of the age-old dynamic between celebrities and everyone else. The tools Twitter is building along this line are designed to enable the social upper class (if you will) to better manage their interactions with the masses. Abstractly, Twitter sounds like an inherently democratizing space as described to an unfamiliar party. The personal experiences with Spaces I outlined were undoubtedly democratizing for me, but the essence of this new direction Twitter has taken - led by the co-mastermind of what I would call the most democratized social platform of our time - is an explicit, clearer-than-ever commitment to amplify the already/otherwise amplified voices which belt the song of popular relevancy.

The Bed in which Twitter Shall Lie

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"Why Twitter Should Start Charging" - A fairly relevant column from Sam Lessin in 2017.

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Twitter Spaces (Bear Notes)

yes. it’s built on top of Periscope. having spent the past week or so popping into spaces with Twitter devs… it seems Twitter believed Periscope’s “problem” was the text chat. ho
engage?

because I know A LOT. and they represent the communities that originally adopted Twitter back in the day…

but I have the luxury of having given up expecting anything positive from Twitter, Inc a long time ago.

Twitter is taking on Clubhouse, Substack and Patreon with new products - The Verge

Twitter is shutting down its Periscope apps - The Verge

the Periscope app is in an unsustainable maintenance-mode state, and has been for a while

Technically

  • Live captions are better than you’d think! So there’s a point for accessibility.
  • Emoji reactions are okay, but I see no reason why you wouldn’t expand the possible choices to include the whole of the current emoji library, right? I will consider myself silenced until I am able to react with the Moyai emoji.

Loss of Discovery

[image:1FD8ACE0-94EA-464B-B6A4-7C861CA8B67F-1623-00000087277D7BD7/Photo Mar 15, 2021 at 013427.jpg]
Twitter is heading toward a near future in which it serves the “ public conversation” no more than one of the top-3 television conglomerates.

The Bed in which Twitter Shall Lie

  • We have got to stop talking about Twitter as a place for most of us. It should be clear that it is going to continue developing upon a path that optimizes the network for its most visible minority. Spaces and Live - as replacements for Periscope - are significant touchpoints in this timeline.

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Alex Kantrowitz's Kayvon Bekypour Interview

The Story Behind Twitter’s Revival: A Conversation With Twitter Product Head Kayvon Beykpour | by Alex Kantrowitz | Mar, 2021 | OneZero

<iframe src="https://www.listennotes.com/embedded/e/49646110ea334604a65684d4aed3d103/" height="170px" width="100%" style="width: 1px; min-width: 100%;" loading="lazy" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

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A Good Place: Periscope Magic

The Magic of Periscope

One livestreaming app has always been a fascinating, generally positive, and all around beautiful place.

In April, The Outline - one of my favorite Web Sites ever - closed its virtual doors. I should be more sad about this, but since before they even launched, they never responded to a single one of my emails. I sent them words of encouragement, admiration, spelling and pronoun corrections, and even a few pitches. Some of them were pretty good ideas, but I never once heard back. I pitched this piece, in fact, for their series called "A Good Place," which began with the tag "the internet is too much, but this place is just right." In general, it sought the more wholesome, "positive" bits of The Web and detailed the histories of - and some pseudotheraputic uses for - its often-quaint subjects. In my experience, I have not encountered anything more appropriate and yet mainstream for this supposition than Periscope, the live streaming app which Twitter bought before its independent launch that's quietly taken a place which could only be its very own.

periscope, you are beautiful. pic.twitter.com/AzXTeVbqDP

— David Blue (@NeoYokel) December 2, 2018
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Through this service, I have watched - and watched with - people from all over the world and met apparently lifelong friends. I've spoken to users in their first 3 weeks trying to learn English and laughed with many more who couldn't understand each other whatsoever. I've streamed out hundreds of hours of live improv piano and had conversations with folks lasting late into the night on just about everything. I have observed Martin Shkreli be a dick and popped into live interviews with celebrities at the beautiful, surreal Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Periscope is embedded more deeply in society than one would think, considering how little it's mentioned in media.

<iframe width="auto" height="auto" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0_0MynsbpOo?controls=0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

In February 2014, Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein founded Periscope with a seed round from angel investors "including Adobe executive Scott Belsky." A year later, Twitter bought it for some $50-100 million (not even Business Insider knows for sure.) The app was briefly in direct competition with Meerkat - the since-extinct arguably originating service in the space.

By building a dead-simple broadcasting interface that piggybacks on Twitter‘s interest graph for identity, communication, and distribution, Meerkat made the first mobile livestreaming app that “just works."

Meerkat was an important rung in the ladder, but it ultimately died at the hands of Periscope due to its lack of a stream archive. "The surprise emergence of Meerkat as a social phenomenon this year has been accompanied by a frequent complaint: the links are usually dead by the time you click them," reported Casey Newton for The Verge.

For everything it got right, Meerkat still looks like an app built in eight weeks — which it was. Periscope has been in development for more than a year, and the app arrives showing nice attention to detail.

Periscope, by contrast, maintains an archive of past broadcasts for a significant period and allows users to save broadcasts locally on their phones. We have to remember how much has changed in the past five years in mobile terms. Dan Frommer in Quartz:

What has changed? Almost everything. Mobile phones are faster and more powerful, with large screens capable of displaying beautiful, high-definition video. Mobile networks—where LTE service is available, at least—can now easily handle high-quality streams in both directions. Data service is frequently affordable.

<iframe width="auto" height="auto" align="center" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s_1YEnJKjdw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

In 2015-2016, I worked afternoons (3-11PM) at a grocery store gas station in a moderately-sized shopping center on the South side of Columbia, Missouri. After work, I'd sit in my old Jaguar parked in front of the laundromat (for the WiFi) chainsmoking cigarettes on Periscope, talking about anything. I found my only real following, ever there. Friends like Juanita and Nicole were made. Ashers bought me a pack of cigarettes once (thank you!)


"Meet people, explore the world"

Turns out, Periscope does have a data export tool and it's actually quite advanced.

History

You may have heard some news: It involves a blue bird. #YouCanGuessTheRest #WeJoinedTheFlockInJanuary #AreWeUsingThisRight #IsThisThingOn

— Periscope (@PeriscopeCo) March 13, 2015
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Profiles

Current State of Periscope

Competition

My Scopes

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Alt: Echoes in Twitter Spaces

@extratone extratone reopened this Mar 16, 2021
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"[Periscope] has made me a better person and a better scientist."

Tweet

A bunch of Periscope-related stuff incoming, but I just happen to catch this quote and thought it particularly important to save.

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image

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extratone commented May 16, 2021

(@0kbps):

tried joining a twitter space for the first time ever. this shits pretty cool enjoying it a Lot pic.twitter.com/GbJIN8XPc0

image

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How to start a verification request on Twitter for iOS

Upload.from.GitHub.for.iOS.MOV

@extratone extratone added audio Audio, the medium! End User and other stuff. i On iOS & iPhone. (Subject) social The Social Web (Subject) and removed time-sensitive Content which must be published by a certain time. labels May 27, 2021
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"Clubhouse and its clones have an accessibility problem" | The Verge

10-06-2021 01:14

A look at social audio accessibility features.
Clubhouse took off last year and spurred competitors to add their own voice chat rooms that can host hundreds if not thousands of people. But the hit app has had a serious problem from the beginning, consistently pointed out by accessibility advocates: it excludes disabled people, with the most obvious issue being that the audio-based app doesn’t have built-in captions. This makes it unusable for deaf people and difficult to use for people who are hard of hearing or struggle with audio processing.

Companies will often mention that their products are still in development or beta testing when discussing accessibility options, but the ideal development process involves working with disabled people from the earliest design stages. Tech accessibility has improved in major ways over the years, but it’s still frequently tacked on well after products are launched. The reality is that disabled people often have to use products and services that don’t have even the bare minimum of features that suit their needs.

Clubhouse “excludes millions of people around the world who are Deaf and hard of hearing,” says Adam Pottle, a Deaf author. “We cannot access these conversations, and it’s especially dispiriting because many of the conversations taking place on this platform are fascinating and cultural and timely, yet we can’t take part in them.” Pottle notes that a January Clubhouse blog was titled “Welcoming More Voices,” but made no mention of transcription, sign language interpretation, or captioning.

Now, with a number of competitors working on social audio functions that are similar to Clubhouse, it’s a prime chance to step back and look at how each one approaches accessibility. Some companies, like Twitter’s Spaces, have more detailed accessibility strategies than others. But others, like Discord, already have voice or video functions that are at least partially inaccessible and didn’t have many details to share. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of current and upcoming Clubhouse competitors and how they stack up.

Clubhouse

Availability: Available on iOS and Android, invite-only

Background: Besides the lack of captioning, Clubhouse also doesn’t support text resizing, which is essential for many people with low vision. Though it was exclusive to iOS until last month, it didn’t support VoiceOver, Apple’s screen reading software, until February.

Accessibility details: “Our goal has always been to build Clubhouse for everyone,” says a Clubhouse spokesperson. Clubhouse says it is “grateful” for the feedback from disability-related clubs that have formed within the app, and says it has been working closely with The 15%, a club for disabled people and allies. Clubhouse says it plans to introduce closed captioning “in the near future.”

Twitter Spaces

Availability: Accounts with over 600 followers can host, anyone can listen

Background: Twitter faced criticism last year after introducing voice tweets without captions, which spurred the company to create accessibility teams and be more transparent about its accessibility efforts.

Accessibility details: Spaces has an option to turn on automatic captions, though they’re not consistently accurate or easy to read. Buttons within Spaces are labeled so that screen readers can identify the function of each one. Twitter says it’s working on improvements, including making captions more accurate, enabling scrollback and pausing, making the color and size of captions customizable, and possibly adding a text input option in addition to speech.

Discord Stage Channels

Availability: Only in Community servers

Background: Discord already had voice channels, which don’t have built-in captioning. An accessibility section with options for reduced motion, autoplay, and text-to-speech was added to the user settings menu in late April. It already supports screen readers, keyboard navigation, and third-party captioning and transcription.

Accessibility details: Like voice channels, Stage Channels currently don’t have a built-in option for captions. A spokesperson said Discord is working on more ways to make Stage Channels accessible.

Reddit Talk

Availability: Currently in initial testing with subreddit moderators, tentative plans for larger launch in coming months

Background: Some blind people favor Reddit over other social platforms because so much of it is text-based. But images still don’t have alt text, which has led to an entire subreddit of volunteer transcribers who write image descriptions and video captions for as many posts as they can. Reddit has had livestreams since 2019 but so far hasn’t had built-in captions.

Accessibility details: The version that’s in testing doesn’t have captioning. Reddit says accessibility, possibly including caption support, is a priority for the official launch but didn’t provide any additional details.

Facebook Live Audio Rooms

Availability: Expected across Facebook, including Messenger, this summer

Background: Facebook enabled caption support for Facebook Live in 2017 and added auto-captions last year. It also made improvements to its screen reader support, added scalable font sizes last year, and updated its automatic alt text in January.

Accessibility details: A Facebook blog post says captions will be offered for Live Audio Rooms and other upcoming audio features. Facebook didn’t respond to a request for further information about plans for accessibility.

Slack audio meetings

Availability: Currently in testing

Background: Slack’s accessibility settings include screen reader support, keyboard navigation, adjustable zoom levels, and toggles for emoji movement.

Accessibility details: Slack confirmed its audio feature will have captioning, livestream transcription, and screen reader support.

Other platforms

There are even more platforms with Clubhouse-like audio rooms in the works. LinkedIn didn’t share any details about its audio plans, but it did add automatic captioning to LinkedIn Live earlier this year. Fireside, a combination podcast and live audio app planned for launch this year, says in a statement that providing accessibility options is “hugely important,” and that it will have multiple features including audio transcription. Spotify didn’t respond to a request for information about accessibility plans for its upcoming live audio conversations.

So far, none of these platforms make for perfect templates of accessibility, and it’s hard to find popular sites that meet every single web accessibility standard. There are always many elements to factor in because disabilities are so diverse. Screen reader compatibility doesn’t mean sites and apps are easy to use without needing to see the screen. Automatic captions are never completely accurate, especially for speakers with accents and speech differences. There are other considerations like color contrast, notification sounds, and overall layout. A mobile app might be accessible in ways that a desktop app or web version isn’t, and vice versa.

Disabled people have said over and over that accessibility needs to be considered from multiple angles at every step of development. A real commitment to accessibility looks like hiring disabled people, continually seeking feedback, and being transparent about what works and what doesn’t. It’s easy for companies to release vague statements saying they value accessibility, but they have to prove it by actually putting in the work to make their products usable for everyone.


==7461== Words

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filter:spaces

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http://twitter.com/a/status/1391198231359463424

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"Is Clubhouse Creating An Equitable Environment For All Its Users?" Aug 3, 2021 at 21:39


Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

I help create strategies for more diversity, equity, and inclusion.

uncaptioned

Though Clubhouse has a lot of potential and could [+]

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The hottest new platform on the block is the voice-based application Clubhouse. Weeks ago, it was announced that the invite-only app was estimated to have a $1 billion valuation. Clubhouse, which is currently only available for iOS users, is unique in that it allows users to have direct access to influencers, public figures, celebrities and even billionaires in a way that is unlike any other social media platform currently out. The app launched in March, which was an ideal time with so many people home due to the pandemic. With the excitement that has accompanied the new app, some worry that Clubhouse, which is still technically in beta mode, may be stifling voices that need to be heard. “I started noticing that people were getting censored,” shares MarQuis Trill, who is an entrepreneur, investor and business consultant who has amassed nearly 30,000 followers on the app. Trill has over 12 million followers across all his social media accounts and has collaborated with tech behemoths like Facebook and Google. Trill sat down with Forbes to share his experiences on Clubhouse and offers suggestions for how the app can create a more equitable and enjoyable environment for all users. “So…you have the original early adopters. You have the people that are young, they just utilizing the app for fun…then you have the multi-millionaires, the people that made millions of dollars from doing e-funnels, and websites and selling .coms…then you’re going to have the celebrities that are going to come. They haven’t even really got here yet. You have Tiffany Haddish, Kevin Hart, but they make small appearances…from my experiences, there’s a lot of conversations between everyone trying to fight for the audience. And [there’s] not enough audience on the app, because Clubhouse curates everything. And what I mean by curate is that they put you in a category of what you’re speaking about and your titles, and who follows you, and what’s your network.”

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MarQuis Trill

Entertainment 258 Agency

Clubhouse users are encouraged to follow individuals that speak on topics that resonate with them. At any given time during the day, there are rooms on a range of topics from marriage and relationship advice and entrepreneurship, to race relations, holistic health and everything in between. Many users found the app refreshing because of the ability to speak freely about different subjects, especially those deemed more controversial, but the question still remains whether users are actually able to speak freely on the app. “They’re monitoring what people are saying and how they’re saying things. I know a few people that got their accounts suspended,” Trill explains. A constant struggle that the app has faced is ensuring that all users feel safe on the platform. Some have complained about the app’s moderation tools, which may not allow for fully controlling large conversations. Claims that the app allows anti-Semitism and racism have found their way into the public conversation. What’s noteworthy about Clubhouse is that amidst claims of racism, Black users have curated a distinct culture on the app. “Majority of the people that use the app are Black,” Trill indicates. “I think there’s about 60%-65% of the users [that] are Black.”

Though the app has a lot of potential and could be the next big thing, more must be done to ensure the safety of its users, especially those from marginalized communities. There must also be safeguards to make sure that users can speak freely about and moderate contentious topics. The app makes it too easy to weaponize the block button and use it en masse against any individual that a person doesn’t like. “Well, there’s definitely censorship, and they’re a brand-new app,” says Trill. “They haven’t been around long. They grew too fast. I’m sure they didn’t have more than 15 employees. You know? I got my account deleted…we were curating a room to teach people how to moderate…so, I was the example, but since you have an audience of new people coming in and out of the room, they didn’t know that I was the actual creator of the club that they were in and they were watching. So, they reported me…and then within two, three hours, my account was banned… I sent out numerous emails to the support team…never got anything back, even to this day. I’m back on the app due to my large Twitter following and [my followers] tweeting [the founders] over a thousand times…I got my account back that same day. But to the smaller users and the people that haven’t got an answer back, that had been waiting for weeks…that is a problem because…we don’t know what we can and what we can’t say on the application.”

When reflecting on the success of the app thus far, Trill goes on to say “Clubhouse was built [by] Black people at the end of the day. When the tech Silicon Valley people were on it, it was not popular. When Oprah was on it, and Gary Vee or whoever, Mark Zuckerberg, whoever was on it, it wasn’t popular. Didn’t get popular until the music industry jumped on board, didn’t get popular until the Black community got on the app. Once we got on the app, Black Twitter got ahold of it, and then it just went viral from there…so the Clubhouse app is built on the backs of Black people. We deserve some seat at the table, at the end of the day. And I can’t speak too much on what they’re doing, because they might be working with some Black people behind the scenes, but we just don’t know…but it’s like, they’re not working with the right ones because we would know…it would impact the culture and someone could speak about it. Somebody would be on stage in the town halls—we would know. And you need to make that known…it doesn’t need to be a secret. You need to let the community know…let the culture know that you’re working with people like us so we can feel safe on the platform. We can feel like we’re not getting used, or we can feel like somebody is in there that speaks our language. They need to curate the culture while they have it…they need to provide some type of security and some safeness so we can be able to use the app, and be comfortable using the app.”

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

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I am the author of the best-selling books Dirty Diversity and The Pink Elephant. I founded an award-winning consultancy, BWG Business Solutions, which was created to

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-"Is Clubhouse Creating An Equitable Environment For All Its Users?"

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"Twitter Spaces may soon offer voice manipulation effects | Engadget"


UKRAINE - 2021/03/12: In this photo illustration the Twitter Spaces page is seen on a smartphone screen  with a Twitter logo in the background. Twitter Spaces, the rival of the social Clubhouse network, is working towards a public launch in April, as the company announced on Twitter, reportedly by media. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)SOPA Images via Getty Images

Twitter scrapped Fleets, but it hasn't given up on audio. A new voice manipulation update is reportedly in the works for Spaces, the Clubhouse-style talk rooms introduced in December. The so-called "Voice Transformer" was first outed by social media researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who tweeted that it would let you change your pitch or add echo to your audio. Soon after, software miner Steve Moser — who recently leapt to fame by unearthing new details about Netflix's gaming feature — revealed several different effects. The list includes Bee, Cartoon, Helium, Incognito, Karaoke, Microphone, Phone, Spatial, Stadium and Stage.

If getting people to tweet was a slog, convincing them to talk is probably even harder. In that sense, the voice-warping feature may push reluctant users, or those self-conscious about their voice, to give Spaces a try. The goofy nature of some of the effects could even help to create a less serious, and hopefully, more inviting environment.

It's also a feature that many people will be familiar with having encountered voice filters on Snapchat. Word of the Twitter Spaces update arrives just as Clubhouse has gone wide and shortly after Spotify's own expansion into voice chat with its Greenroom app. Not to mention, Facebook's launch of a Clubhouse clone. All four platforms will have to keep things fresh if they want to win the audio chat battle.

-"Twitter Spaces may soon offer voice manipulation effects | Engadget"

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The Voice Transformer

Upload.from.GitHub.for.iOS.MOV

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The First Natively Supported Method of Recording Twitter Spaces .... https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/spaces

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This is... Not the future I imagined for Spaces lol. Better than crypto tho.

extratone added a commit that referenced this issue May 4, 2022
@extratone extratone moved this to Mulling in The Psalms Jun 17, 2022
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Is Twitter Spaces literally still using the Periscope domain name???

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