We believe that users must feel safe on Twitter in order to fully express themselves. As our General Counsel Vijaya Gadde explained last week in an opinion piece for the Washington Post, we need to ensure that voices are not silenced because people are afraid to speak up. To that end, we are today announcing our latest product and policy updates that will help us in continuing to develop a platform on which users can safely engage with the world at large.
They’re trying, and that’s commendable. This must be an incredible engineering problem.
Like with spambots, I think this is a hard problem to solve. You ban one account and they go and create 3 more.
They added the phone requirement. If this involves receiving an SMS code and type it back in as part of the reg-process, it has proven to be extremely efficient.
It’s some extra infrastructure on Twitter’s behalf, and a bit annoying for first-time users, but it’s very very efficient in avoiding fake accounts.
This will help.
Trouble with the phone approach is that it’s so easy to get quick forwarding numbers. It works for now but it won’t be effective for long. There is the anonymity bit or lack there of it, but to hell with that. I mean what I say, and put my name to it. A little personal responsibility won’t kill them.
Your real name is darknexus ?
So now people will be afraid to speak up because twitter (should be renamed shrike or buzzard) will have a bot that bans you based on some biased algorithm
Death to Gamers! – pass, and featured
Death to SJWs! – permanent ban
Erm… No.
Simple solution – stop harassing people. That’s all one need do to be safe.
I really do not understand why some people have so much of a problem with that.
Edit: Re-phrased second paragraph (you => one), just to be extra explicit here.
Edited 2015-04-22 05:20 UTC
You mean, being civilized ? It’s been thousands of years people proved not being able to be civilized without some guidance and rules, like religions and/or laws. It’s not like we’re living in the dark ages anymore, so that’s not the reason. Do + the = math !
That would be simple if you could define harassment. It means too many different things to too many people. Is it the wording? Is it the scale? Different cultures have different sensitivities in different contexts. How do you make everyone feel “safe” from some words? (And why should you want that?)
Furthermore, some people tend to send provoking messages to the world, but when the world responds in a similar way, then it’s suddenly harassment.
It’s only harassment when it happens to me.
Yes, this is the big problem with “harassment” and “safe space” policies.
Even the most polite and reasonable disagreement gets labelled harassment and abuse by some people. Simply stating an opinion that challenges another’s beliefs can end up conflated with actual threats.
See the recent kerfuffle at Calgary Comic Expo for example: http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/18/female-group-ejected-from-comic-e…
The kind of people celebrating that as necessary to “protect” the Expo goers would love to see similar views expelled from social media as “hate speech”.
People have a right not to be abused and threatened, but some people think they have a right not to ever be offended.
Yes, it’s all a conspiracy against “gamers”. Fo’ shizzle.
There is a place on the internet, somewhere, for unfettered unrestricted ANYTHING goes ranting, abuse, opinions, whatever.
Or there should be. People need to fully vent sometimes. People also have a dark side. Indulging this isn’t out and out bad. But the key thing in this case is that SUCH free-rein HAS to be done with anonymous logins, avatars and whatever. And if needs be, behind a sign-in community wall with a disclaimer that all opinion inside is fictional fantasy. As some countries, UK certainly have a whole variety of libel, hatred (race, religion, disability and other) and equality laws one can easily and very rightly fall foul of on the open web. Twitter isn’t the forum for full freedom; it’s TOO widespread, TOO many members are not anonymous on there and so on and so on..
But again – words are just that, words, and I don’t want the thought police thank you very much. As long as ANY opinion isn’t directed at individual and real people I think it’s OK given the above caveats. I’m not a bigot in any way, but part of me thinks even bigots should be allowed have their discussions. but perhaps away from prying eyes of minors, and the weak and feeble.
Off topic, but it’s a bit like the porn argument, but not really – it’s OK and should be free(speech wise) for adults; but even though I don’t like governmental firewalls etc – maaaybe kicking it all to an .xxx domain would be a happy compromise ??
Twitter is very much the open web, and more so, it has an entirely in-built, indeed focus upon the human herd mentality. So full free for cannot be the way forward for twitter.
Think Twitter are treading the right line with this.
Edited 2015-04-22 13:18 UTC
…yes, if only there were a network we could use for that. Some sort of “Usenet,” if you will.
Well, to use a less stupid example. Twitter can be a free for all with death threats, terrorist recruiting, and everything else … or it can be filtered and maintained like a nice garden throwing out any weeds.
Naturally one man’s weed is another man’s vegetable, and there will be a healthy amount of debate over that threshold and the morality that goes into it.
Its just amazing to me, that they’ve solved the scaling issue to the point where this even becomes something they can address.
“we need to ensure that voices are not silenced because people are afraid to speak up” and then they go in detail on how to remove or block content posted by users, AKA censorship. it defeats the purpose: silence people in order not to silence people.
It’s also called the chilling effect. By threatening to ban them for unwanted speech, people become afraid to speak up.
I see twitter as a public soapbox: if you stand on it and open your mouth to preach to the world, then expect the world to respond. If you don’t want to deal with that, then use more private means of communicating.
Personally I think that whole platform is a communication disaster, 140 characters are nowhere near enough to have a decent conversation and it’s too easy to get quoted out of context. I don’t use it and never intend to.
Which has a chilling effect on communication, making them afraid to speak up.
The fact that you are unable to see your own hypocrisy is telling.
Huh, what kind of backwards logic are you using? So you want the right to preach to the world but do not want others to have the right to do the same?
That is what I call hypocrisy.
If you don’t want the world to respond, then don’t preach to the world, preach to your personal circle instead. If you’re going to call me a hypocrite, expect me to respond. If you don’t want my response, either simply don’t call me a hypocrite for me to see, or deal with it.
Also, there’s a block button on twitter.
Edited 2015-04-22 08:50 UTC
It was from this sentence :
“By threatening to ban them for unwanted speech, people become afraid to speak up.”
Hence people knows that what they were going to ‘speak up’ was unwanted, thus they censor themselves.
Is it too damning difficult to say tangible and reasonable things, think before they speak, or don’t they cope with criticism ?
No, it’s because people won’t know what isn’t unwanted because the concepts used in the policies do not have a set definition. If I say, for example, that religion is a cancer of the mind and we should move beyond it as a species, is that wanted? To some yes, to others no, and to the extremely sensitive it could be construed as “hate speech”. It’s simply too vague, and thus people will opt not to bother and that leads to disaster. Free speech is inconvenient to some. Deal with it, because what you say to me might, just might, be enough to silence you before I even know about it. Not only is it no longer my decision what I wish to read, but it’s now not my decision on what to say because some machine will decide for me. Honestly, this gives me a serious case of the creeps.
What about the netiquette ? You known something basically known as common sense ?
If you just posted that, it might be fairly inflammatory, but it would be fine.
Twitter’s rules are pretty clear.
https://twitter.com/rules
You aren’t threatening any person or any group, nor promoting violence towards any group. You aren’t disclosing personal information about other people. It’s not revenge porn. You aren’t harassing people, or doing anything listed under spamming or technical abuse. You aren’t using sockpuppet accounts to spam people with it.
You’re fine. Tactless, but fine. As are any opinions, no matter how controversial.
You likely haven’t seen the kind of crap that some people have to put up with. Many people receive a torrent of violent threats, abuse, coordinated campaigns of harassment, obscenities, people leaking personal information about them (real name, address, phone number, that kind of thing), specific, credible death threats, rape threats, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, encouraging suicidal people to commit suicide, forcibly outing gay and trans people, stalking women and posting covert photos from outside their homes accompanied by death and rape threats…
If you did this kind of crap in real life, there would be severe consequences, ranging from social ostracism up through jail time. On Twitter, it’s apparently fine, because “freedom of speech” or some such garbage.
When the “preaching” involves threats of rape and death, it’s a pretty clear line who is in the wrong. There is no hypocrisy.
I totally agree with that, but that was already (rightfully) banned.
The problem is the grey territory. At what point is something offensive enough to ban someone for it?
Like I said in my other post, people with different backgrounds have different contexts and are sensitive to different issues and it all depends from what point of view you’re interpreting something.
No, just say nice and constructive things. If you are to differ with the given view, highlight and source your point of view. Bold and void statements are not going to help anyone. Like “I think…” or “One knows that…”
You’re already thinking from your own cultural background.
I’ll simply drop this here: http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr06/2013/7/1/9/enhanc…
Now try to get your point across in 140 characters.
Edited 2015-04-22 16:16 UTC
4 words will be enough :
1- DO
2- NOT
3- BE
4- EVIL
Simple as pie, sum up pretty everything.
So what’s evil? Cultural background issues again. “Evil” is a subjective word with no meaning outside a cultural definition. This is the point you seem to refuse to understand: your values are not necessarily everyone elses’ values. This is why I have a problem with words like “evil” or concepts like “hate speech” because they, in and of themselves, are meaningless words open to whomever is interpreting them.
It’s all well and good to say “do not make threats against a person’s life” because that is a specific concept that, no matter someone’s value system, they are capable of comprehending. It has meaning on its own without any presuppositions of a person’s background or culture or subjective morals. Vague concepts like being evil mean nothing on their own.
Don’t turn in into a mind game.
Evil is a common conception.
Respect too.
While people might have different view and definition, they share the same space : the Internet.
If they cannot avoid being dicks, either in real life or on the Internet, there is rules and laws for that.
And you can disagree with me as much as you want.
I don’t think that’s specifically British. Its more of an education version of English. Or quite possibly, it is specifically British, which explains my ACT English score.
Unfortunately that rarely works on Twitter.
When someone says something stupid or controversial and you respond to it, however nice, your reply will be one of a hundred. And yes it will be taken as part of a harassement campaign, provided the OP is enough of a drama queen.
On Twitter, the only winning move is not to play.
You can stand on a public soapbox because there is the police to protect you. As is stands, twitter is like a public space where people can threaten to rape/knife you and your family for saying anything a little annoying.
Last time I checked, twitter is still anonymous and words don’t kill people. And in the rare cases that they drive someone into self-harm, I’d say that person has deeper issues and a weak resistance to words is a symptom rather than a cause.
But the point is moot, direct threats were already banned on twitter (and I don’t have a problem with that at all). The policy change is about harassment and abusive behaviour, and threats to “others” (unspecific).
So abuse doesn’t happen unless the abuser physically assaults the other person?
Anonymity has nothing to do with this. There are still people behind the accounts.
Words hurt. They hurt more then stick and stones. People can armor up against sticks and stones, but they can’t do that with words. Words get in people’s heads and worm their way around creating all sorts of damage in the process. Damage that can be fixed with a band-aid or some stitches.
If you truly believe words don’t hurt, you need to educate yourself.
No, I never said that. I said they don’t kill you. Compare that to an actual person with a gun or a knife. Get some perspective.
Edited 2015-04-22 16:30 UTC
Even though I agree with many of your points, we should not forget that there are outside people that are really delicate, in the sense that almost any critics directed to their particular behavior on some situations, choices or opinions are viewed as a personal offense, and among them, a small group may even go to extreme acts. It is unfortunate that it is this way but it is also very expected, some people will never grow a thick skin. It is specially true to teenagers, as many of them fail, or not even try, to see the world from someone else perspective. I had two classroom acquaintances that take their life when I was a teenager, I still think whether there was anything I could do to prevent such tragic events.
Because of this, I see no better solution than have some stringent rules on place.
For us all, we should really try to be as a polite as possible, be clear about what we see as wrong on opinions or else (and highlight what is about i.e. try to be specific), teach our kids about to be respectful to others and try to see the world with other eyes.
Actually I agree with you. As long as it does not limit the exchange of ideas that might appear offensive to some, and some people are really easily offended.
We should not only teach our kids to be respectful and be open to other ideas and facts even when they might seem offensive, we should also teach them how to deal with the real world which is far from a rose garden.
Edited 2015-04-22 18:29 UTC
You know what else has a chilling effect?
The vile hate and abuse that springs eternal from the cesspool that is Twitter.
It’s not Twitter’s fault. Most people are just shitty human beings, and they will gladly persecute minority to gain favor with the majority. We are social animals after all, and being included is still a powerful incentive.
Some people can stand up int he crowd and take the abuse, but most just want to be left alone and live their life. Study any of the Rights movements to get an understanding of what I’m talking about.
We take the cosmopolitan nature of our current society for granted, but there was a long road taken to get here. It’s because we, as a whole, have made creating a safe and inclusive environment a priority so that people of minority groups feel safe expressing themselves and participating in discussions. The side effect is that all people feel safe to express themselves, and it makes the world a richer place.
While I get your point and completely agree that a lot of people are shitty human beings, I think twitter greatly encourages and escalates such behaviour by design.
Twitter gives you an audience of millions of people and that audience can immediately respond and escalate in public for everyone to see. That audience also comes from extremely different backgrounds all of the world. And when having to limit your nuances to 140 characters, conflict is bound to happen.
When a small group of people have a conflict, there can still be some sort of debate, and if not it’ll blow over after a while. But when the whole world can join in and wants to have their say, the conflict will just keep growing. The sheer volume will make it feel as abuse and harassment and cause harsher messages, even though your opponents probably do nothing different than you.
Twitter is a shouting platform by design. I don’t like shouting, so I’ll use a platform that is better suited for debating and reading interesting articles. I don’t feel silenced nor scared away, I’ll still communicate my opinion simply by using a better tool.
I think our current society is not that cosmopolitan at all. What is the largest audience you’ll ever reach offline in a way that your audience can directly respond to you? And how much variety of opinion is there in that audience?
Anyway, end of my Twitter rant. “Don’t like it? Don’t use it!” I’ll stick with that
Edited 2015-04-22 16:20 UTC
Ah, the old doublespeak. So old yet so effective on so many who will blindly believe the doublespeakers who are, in this case of course, Twitter.
And? Who says private censorship is always a bad thing?
I can’t post my cat video to cnn.com’s homepage, is that censorship? Yes. Yes it is.
Is it good censorship? Yes, yes it is. Otherwise, the reverse would be true. Cnn could come and tell you what to put on your website.
So twitter, the owner of the twitter service gets to decide what they want on twitter. Ok, sounds legit to me.
Twitter may have the right to remove whatever content they want, after all each user had to agree with their Terms Of Service. Still, we all have the right to call them on that, express our opinion if that is a goood or bad thing. I think what they are hypocrites (remove free speech in order to preserve free speech) and what they do is inefficient.
Regarding cat videos on CNN, how about that? http://edition.cnn.com/videos/bestoftv/2014/10/10/erin-pkg-moos-cat…
But to call it censorship, evokes governmental censorship which would ordinarily be illegal in the United States. Its expecting some kind of moral outrage. Its like I’m calling an apple an apple and expecting people to be horrified (OMG Its an APPLE!). Censorship is its name. Nothing illegal and nothing wrong is happening. You’re free to use a competing service for distributing your message. You are not entitled to use Twitters for messages they don’t want to distribute.
Yeah, but its not *my* cat. Who is a beautiful thing to behold in her bedazzled gold lamé jumpsuit.
Edited 2015-04-23 14:01 UTC
I see this a lot, Americans claiming it’s censorship only if done by the government. according to the dictionary, it is not correct.
While not illegal (even more, covered by its TOS), censorship applied by Twitter is still wrong from a moral point of view.
Keeping things on topic is not censorship. However, banning an opinion because you disagree with its content (and not its relevance) *is* censorship.
Humans are an engineering nightmare…
Where will the trolls go if they don’t have Twitter?
There will be five people left on Twitter once they get done banning the trolls.
Well of course they would encourage us to share what would otherwise be private thoughts. We are doing their homework for them on this military tool.
I find this faith in corporations troubling!
Real free speech would mean not free speech on the internet, but putting the television and radio waves into the hands of the people rather than the hands of a few corporations with the same general goals in mind…
…extend their power, influence, wealth, and control, all while making us more and more dependent upon them, and devoting more time out of our life to them and their products.