Trust as a Service (TaaS): A Vision for Twitter

In the past, trust was purely social (think the caveman days). Then it switched to trusted institutions (banks, governments, companies) which was a step up, but we still had to rely on the other parties goodwill, or their incentive to behave in the right way.
The problem today is that institutions have become the sole gatekeepers of trust. We are st

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We are living through an epidemic of mistrust, particularly here in the United States. Trust in social media and traditional media is at an all-time low. Trust in the U.S. federal government to handle problems is at a near-record low. Trust in the U.S.’s major institutions is within 2 percentage points of the all-time low. The consequences are prof... See more

How can people trust apps and interactions they don’t quite understand? Trust is not the value implied here, but faith. And our faith in the organisations owning and managing these technologies dips a little bit every time we hear of the next cyber hack or when datasets are exploited, with little accountability and integrity in action.

So let’s review: there is both little evidence that Twitter can monetize via direct response marketing, and reason to believe that the problem is not simply mismanagement. At the same time, Twitter is absolutely essential to a core group of users who are not simply unconcerned with the problems inherent to Twitter’s public broadcast model (includin... See more

For without trust in a technology or platform, how can we be expected to commit? When the stewards of our systems don’t feel fully invested, how can we be expected to fully back them?

But if Twitter can understand its place in the media ecosystem—as a wayfinder of sorts for a sea of Internet content—and if it can pivot to a business model that better serves its most valuable users, it can better align cultural value and financial value. It can begin to capitalize on its potential.

 Twitter is a political and sociological problem—a problem rooted in conflicts over values—not an engineering problem. It requires a different set of skills.