(2023-08-13) Messina The Problem With The Problems With Hashtags

Chris Messina: The problem with the problems with hashtags. 16 years after their invention, is it time for a change?

I published my thoughts on Bluesky’s proposals for how the decentralized network might tackle hashtags about a month ago. Days later, Threads launched (notably without hashtags.

Gradually I discovered that people on Threads tended to be skeptical-to-hostile towards hashtags, likely due to hashtag abuse on Instagram.

As I’ve come to understand it, here’s how hashtags went awry:

Since algorithms are just math, marketers (and spammers) figured out how to make their content look more appealing to the algos. Spamming hashtags proved one reliable method, since algos couldn’t easily discern appropriate from parasitic hashtags.

The hashtag turns 16 in two weeks

Eugen Rochko, Mastodon’s founder and lead developer, just pushed out a big change to how hashtags work on Mastodon that — as the upstream software provider in a growing network of decentralized social hubs, may have significant downstream impact on the humble hashtag

With this change, hashtags that appear at the end of a post will be slurped out and spat into a dedicated “hashtag bar” below the post. Seven hashtags will be visible by default, with any overflow hidden behind a tap or click

The second problem flows from the first: because people want to avoid the appearance of spamminess, they avoid using hashtags

Should form triumph over function

Hashtags were designed to pass the “drunk test” — that is, if the creator (me) has had a few drinks (say, at an event like SXSW) they’ll still (hopefully) remember to add #sxsw to their posts—so they can be routed appropriately or searched for (and deleted) later.

My hashtag design intentionally cared less for the audience, prioritizing creator experience because people, by and large, are lazy, calorie-preserving creatures

Rochko’s proposed design does one thing right by creators: they don’t need change what they do.

Rochko’s design will interfere with creators’ intentions — at least some of the time. And in those cases, his approach is regressive.

But as the software maker, Rochko is free to change to make this change

Fixing the problem with the problem with hashtags

The problem with the problem with hashtags is that solving any of the hashtag’s problems invariably results in other problems.

But if we’re going to attempt to fix the problem with the problem with hashtags, then we 1) should not make things worse and 2) should not fix what isn’t broken. That leaves us with 3) support creators in adding relevant hashtags [and other metadata] more easily and 4) rewarding those who do.

Move slow and make things… better?

in this case—surprise! — I don’t think Rochko’s changes go far enough!

If Threads is going to adopt ActivityPub and federate in 2024, then now is a chance for the decentralized social web community to set some intentional directions — when it comes to capturing and expressing helpful metadata that improves content routing and accessibility.

Six birthday wishes for the hashtag’s 16th year

1. Make automatic processing opt-on

hashtags act as both content and metadata, and that if you only assume the latter, then you actually change the meaning of a post.

Author’s note: Eugen Rochko responded to clarify that only hashtags preceded by a new line will be moved to the hashtag bar.

2. Lean into reputation and verification to thwart abuse

Were a reputation system established for the fediverse (akin to Technorati Authority?), certain features could be gated at the instance level by verification or reputation.

3. Optimize hashtags for local instances

Let’s Jane Jacobs this situation and reinvigorate smaller, more resilient hubs of digital sociality.

4. Elevate metadata creation with first class user experiences

Make it effortless to add hashtags (with pronunciation hints for speech readers), ALT text, location information, and other tagging data to posts — and preserve its portability in any API or exported data formats.

5. Crowdsourced accessibility

it need not only be original content creators who add accessibility hints

6. In the fediverse, err on the side of creators

Generally, software defaults should support maximal generativity with a sufficiently graduated learning curve.

To make this more concrete, I would point to Day One’s approach — which indexes the hashtags you use inline while also offering a tagging interface that allows keeping tags out of the content completely:

But I see no reason to make this change unilaterally on Mastodon, or anywhere.