Twitter Rolls Out New Anti-Abuse Tools 255
An anonymous reader writes: After facing criticism that it gives trolls and hatemongers a platform to intimidate people, Twitter has now rolled out a new set of tools and policies to handle abusive tweets. Previously, they only prohibited threats of violence that were "direct" and "specific," but now that's been expanded to all threats of violence or tweets promoting violence. They said, "Our previous policy was unduly narrow and limited our ability to act on certain kinds of threatening behavior." Twitter has also added non-permanent bans, as well as this: "[W]e have begun to test a product feature to help us identify suspected abusive Tweets and limit their reach. This feature takes into account a wide range of signals and context that frequently correlates with abuse including the age of the account itself, and the similarity of a Tweet to other content that our safety team has in the past independently determined to be abusive." Twitter's general counsel recently said, "Freedom of expression means little as our underlying philosophy if we continue to allow voices to be silenced because they are afraid to speak up. We need to do a better job combating abuse without chilling or silencing speech."
Wonderful. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wonderful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Spend any amount of time on Twitter and it is clear that "abuse" in forms other than malicious is rampant. For example, the guy with 17k followers who follows 18k people. His whole Twitter ring is a meaningless bunch of follows/followers/retweets designed to make people look (or feel) popular. In the end, it is just noise.
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Or "anti-abuse" trolls.
Re:Wonderful. (Score:4, Insightful)
This will be abused by SJWs so fast.
Yeah, it's utterly unacceptable that people complain about rape and death threats. I have a good idea: we should spam their twitter feeds with MORE rape and death threats until they see the error of their ways.
That will teach those SJWs a really good lesson!
BTW: at this point SJW doesn't actually mean anything. It's just used as a "shit I hate on the internet" invective. There is no consistency in its use and people use it as a means of either rabble rousing or ad-homenim by trying to shut down a debate by flinging poo rather than actually engaging in a rational discussion.
Like your post for example.
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Yeah because it's not like SJWs are the very people committing the overwhelming majority of abuse, screaming racial slurs at people, and have a history of real world crime and violence to back it up. It's not like they don't have a proven history of doxing so widespread and severe that sending a rape victim's information to a rapist isn't even surprising for them. It's not like their use of hate speech is so common, and so vitriolic, that they've invented new slurs to go with their threats of death and viol
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You can't just state that as a bald fact, because the whole of the media is reporting the exact opposite. All you need to do is to cite some examples.
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If the "whole of media" lied about surviving having jumped off a cliff would you simply believe them?
The truth is plainly obivous. The whole of media is lying about online harassment. Here's one such hit-piece where they spread their lies. [go.com] In this one they selected an example post of what will not be tolerated -- violent hateful language -- the poster having been banned for it, and then the media said that this is the normal comment, even encouraged failing to mention that it will actually get you banned
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No, thanks to gamergate, three women have chosen to treat the criticism they got for making stupid, shaming, hypocritical arguments at male gamers as threats. Those law enforcement officers are either hired guards, which is not quite the same thing as anyone can hire guards for whatever reason, or are there because the police submitted to the 'rapist around every corner' hysteria. Like usual, the morons running governments take the internet too seriously, probably because they don't understand it or because
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Are you really suggesting that the three women who have mostly been targeted by gamergate actually made up the threats against them?
Your "argument from authority" point means nothing, as I have no skin in the game. I'm simply pointing out that there is no benefit to someone screeching here that '"SJWs" are the worst people in the world', when gamergate and similar groups have comprehensively failed to have their case accepted anywhere. That's an argument from reality.
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No, probably not, because anyone who says stupid shit to a large enough audience will probably also piss off a few crackpots in the mix. However, they did choose to hype their 'oppression' as much as possible. Hiring security guards to escort them everywhere over internet drama they themselves caused is a prime example. It's hard to sympathize with people who broadcast badly framed arguments meant to shame a whole population (in this case, male gamers) and then bitch when their bullshit gets thrown back i
Re:Wonderful. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've seen most of Sarkeesian's output. She doesn't "shame" male gamers, or claim oppression. Her arguments, even if you disagree with them, are unquestionably well constructed and complex.
On the other hand, we have your rant, full of unsubstantiated claims and a bit of victim blaming. Why not try addressing some of her points directly?
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You asked for a direct quote supporting a summary of her total position, which is unreasonable. She never comes out and says that there isn't any female character which could fit her standards; she merely has a whole set of objections which cover the universe of conceivable female characters.
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Right, just like generalizing and stereotyping games and gamers as a "Choose your own patriarchal adventure" doesn't deserve all the criticism and derision it got.. Oh wait, yes it did.
I guess I could generalize all women gamers with something like: "Women gamers must be a horde of ugly, fat, losers who can't get a boyfriend in real life, so they play online games to harass guys looking to unwind after work" because of statements made by a few women like anita and zoe quinn, but that would stoop to your lev
Re:Idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess I could generalize all women gamers with something like: "Women gamers must be a horde of ugly, fat, losers who can't get a boyfriend in real life, so they play online games to harass guys looking to unwind after work" because of statements made by a few women like anita and zoe quinn, but that would stoop to your level of fallacious argument and be just as untrue.
What on earth are you talking about?
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Are you just making this shit up?
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Sarkeesian was completely unknown and had zero impact on games or gaming until GamerGate started shitting on the floor in fury that someone would dare think critically of games. Screaming and threatening and smearing shit all over the walls, Now she's famous, is taking in foundation money and her ideas are widely discussed among people who are in
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Are you just making this shit up?
In essence, yes.
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No. That's from one of anita's videos.
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Why not Google it and find out? That's what I did - took 10 seconds. That is a quote from Anita Sarkeesian, in this video [youtu.be] where she says (apparently without irony) that "Women are being institutionally oppressed all the time, in nearly every facet of our lives" followed by the quote about porno fantasy, which is apparently about the game Bayonetta.
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Taking quotes out of context like that is just appalling. Normal people do not do that. The video you linked to is from one of the more vociferous gamergate leaders. Why not find the same quote of femfreq?
However, to answer your point:
"Women are being institutionally oppressed all the time, in nearly every facet of our lives" - this statement is hardly even remarkable. It's a standard feminist idea, which is discussed seriously all over the world. I can't imagine why you think the statement is odd or unusua
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How is it out of context? Would you care to provide the missing context that makes her comments seem more reasonable? I picked that site because it was one of the first hits on Google for the phrase you claimed was "made up shit" - I have no idea who the person who made the video is. It just happens to contain her saying it.
It Remains a Journalism Scandal. Deal With It. (Score:5, Informative)
Nice try. "Thanks to gamergate", three women have been forced from their homes from threats that law enforcement officers found credible enough to suggest that. Trying to pretend that gamergate has done anything but abuse people defines you as - at best - an imbecile.
It causes you physical pain that few here buy into the "mysogyny and harrassment" narrative, doesn't it?
The cover-up didn't work.
The week-long gaming press news blackout and ongoing user comment/forum censorship (in former free-speech strongholds such as 4chan and Reddit, no less) didn't work.
The coordinated, ongoing smear campaign that began with the "Gamers are Over" articles hasn't worked.
The endless train of embarrassingly desperate counter-hashtags [minus.com] hasn't worked.
The Wikipedia and Nightline hit pieces only damage those outlets' credibility for short-term effect.
The SVU episode . . . hahaahhahaha WOW, where do I even begin . . . it is progapanda that couldn't be more precisely crafted to the corrupt press's specifications (i.e. "narrative"), and broadcast to a national non-gamer audience, much of which likely accepted it as reality. It was a wake-up call to quite a few previously unaware or neutral parties, especially game devs*.
Eurogamer is the latest games journalism site to update its ethics policy in the wake of Gamergate [blogjob.com], joining PC Gamer [techraptor.net], IGN [blogjob.com], the Escapist [escapistmagazine.com], and of course Kotaku/Gawker [blogjob.com] (though in Gawker's case, they put up more of a fight and the Gamergate pressure to be ethical had to be routed through the FTC [reddit.com]).
Gamergate also got Brad Wardell (CEO of Stardock) some long-overdue apologies for hit pieces run against him:
https://twitter.com/iamDavidWi... [twitter.com]
http://www.gamepolitics.com/20... [gamepolitics.com]
http://www.zenofdesign.com/in-... [zenofdesign.com]
Ask yourself how much of this you've seen reported in the corrupt media (which at this point, sadly, clearly includes Slashdot). Of course none of it ever had a chance of appearing in the Wikipedia article. Nothing enrages anti-Gamergaters more than someone covering both sides of the story [youtube.com], and that should tell you something.
Their side thrives only in an environment of propaganda and censorship, and evaporates when faced with integrity and transparency. They prove the need for Gamergate every time they write an article based on the assumption that terrorism and child porn^W^W^W^W misogyny and harassment have become the root passwords to the Constitution^W^W journalistic ethics.
* like Mark Kern and Ken Levine, who had nothing to do with Gamergate, but were so disgusted by the SVU episode that they publically called on the gaming press to stop slandering gamers. Both were instantly swarmed by anti-GG on twitter, and VG24/7 ran a hit piece on Kern without even getting his side of the story, and refused even after he specifically asked them. I think Eurogamer saw exactly what happened to Kern, and it's no accident that tha
Can someone explain to me why this is a thing? (Score:3)
So, I mean, are there any stakes at all here for the anti-SJW camp? Are there laws being debated in
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Links? Claims like that need proof, not least so that it can be handed over to the FBI. You know they have an active investigation into GamerGate and particularly the harassment of women like Quinn and Sarkeesian, right? If what you say is true I'm sure they would be very interested in this information, backed up by proper evidence of course.
Re:Wonderful. (Score:4, Insightful)
I read your post, it's actually ironic how astoundingly self-unaware it is. Or maybe it isn't and you're just being disingenuous on purpose. The usage of SJW has been incredibly consistent from day one, it's even right in the name. The way you SJWs use YOUR slurs on the other hand is a reflection of how you view the world: Everyone not with you is part of a borg-like collective malevolent Other. You all use everything from "MRA" to "Fuckboy", "Neckbeard", and "Pissbaby" fungibly.
And now you do the same with Gamergate, which gets gamedropped pretty much everywhere and blamed for everything. Trip in the shower? Gamergate did it. Random trolls somewhere online? Must be Gamergate. Out of milk? Gamergate drank it.
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I read your post, it's actually ironic how astoundingly self-unaware it is. Or maybe it isn't and you're just being disingenuous on purpose. The usage of SJW has been incredibly consistent from day one
No it hasn't.
The usage of SJW has been incredibly consistent from day one, it's even right in the name
That's crap. Social Justice Warrior == someone who fights for social justice. Was Dr Martin Luther King Jr an SJW? Because if we go with your "it's defined by the words" definition, then yes.
. The way you SJW
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A "social justice warrior" would fight for the stairs to be removed as well, in order to not offend the physically handicapped.
[citation needed]
IOW you're making random shit up.
Social justice warriors also readily equate themselves to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, etc, disgustingly.
I was going on the anti-SJW grandparent's definition. If you don't like it then apparently you disagree with his definition. That pretty much supports my point.
They are SOCIOPATHIC IDEOLOGUES, CHARLATAN
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Rape and death threats were already banned (and are, in fact, illegal). This sounds way broader than that.
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This will be abused by SJWs so fast.
Yeah, it's utterly unacceptable that people complain about rape and death threats. I have a good idea: we should spam their twitter feeds with MORE rape and death threats until they see the error of their ways.
That will teach those SJWs a really good lesson!
BTW: at this point SJW doesn't actually mean anything. It's just used as a "shit I hate on the internet" invective. There is no consistency in its use and people use it as a means of either rabble rousing or ad-homenim by trying to shut down a debate by flinging poo rather than actually engaging in a rational discussion.
Like your post for example.
SJW is a non-starter, as you say. However, when I was young I'd say some seriously nasty things to my best friend and he'd do the same to me - it was a running inside joke. Anyone looking in from the outside would think we were the most racist, sexist, awful human beings when in reality it was the absurdity of what we were saying that we thought was funny. The problem is with public tools like this that people can't tell the difference between something like that and something genuinely hurtful. I certa
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The way you talk to your best friend is not the same as the way you talk to strangers on the internet. Nobody cares what you say to your friends, apart from you and them. Twitter feels that it needs to take a specific and direct interest in the invective directed at some of its users. This is a different thing altogether.
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Well, looks like you're right: I've already got a troll mod!
It seems that anyone with a dissenting opinion on "SJW" that's not "EVIL BURN THE WITCH" is modded down as troll.
Re:Wonderful. (Score:4, Interesting)
Twitter's hypocrisy was eyeroll worthy before, but it's just outright silly now. They're trying to pander to the very group of people with a history of doxing, threats, and hate speech so vitriolic and pathological that they've had to invent new slurs to keep up with the sheer level of hate they're trying to convey.
It's going to be interesting to see what mindbending excuses Twitter comes up with to continue allowing people like Randi Harper to stay unbanned despite publicly admitting to doxing and threatening to dox others, or Zoe Quinn after also doxing people, or Geordie Tait after his epic multi thousand word racist rant, or...
Re:Wonderful. (Score:5, Interesting)
Twitter's hypocrisy was eyeroll worthy before, but it's just outright silly now.
I could be wrong, but I took your "SJW" comment to be a reference to those who abuse the "report for abuse" button.
This is a real phenomenon. Twitter has a history of suspending people for reported abuse, when in fact the "offending" party hadn't abused anyone or anything at all. For some people, like modding "troll" rather than "disagree", it has become synonymous for "I don't like this person, so I'm going to do something nasty".
To compound the problem further, Twitter doesn't tell the "offending" party what they did wrong. Occasionally -- not always by any means -- they will let people know what the "offending" Tweet was, but not specifically what was wrong with it or why anyone objected.
Twitter could easily do that without revealing the name or names of the complainants. But insisting that people stop "abuse" when they don't even know WHAT people complained about, is completely unreasonable in an atmosphere of "report abuse because I don't agree".
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That's exactly who I'm talking about. People who use twitter's report function as a weapon against anyone they dislike while openly committing outright doxing and screaming racial slurs and death threats themselves.
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No doubt you can link us to these people. I'm sure many people here would be interested to see some examples.
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Oh yes, you seem to be one of the crowd that accuse Zoe Quinn of everything that was actually done to her to presumably destract from everything that WAS done to her.
What on earth do you have against her? And did you base that on things 4channers posted to the internet? Are your standards for evidence always so low?
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Can you point to this incident on twitter?
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"Never provide evidence"... It's amazing how often you, poperatzo, serviscope, and whatever hangers on show up make that claim despite the fact that you are constantly inundated with proof. I know I've personally posted at least a good 20 direct links to primary sources before talking with you about this subject.
The entire point is that despite reporting people like Randi Harper doxing [twimg.com], or running hate campaigns that actually DO literally drive women off the internet, they keep getting away with it. Hell a [imgur.com]
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This will be abused by SJWs so fast. I cannot wait to see the fireworks.
Oh man. You're going to have to find some other method of harassing those annoying SJWs that is still violent-threat-friendly. It's like the internet is over now!!!!
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This argument holds no water when gamergaters are so desperate to get the gg autoblocker banned.
This sounds very noble, but a huge number of these threats are threats to rape people. That doesn't sound like something that someone with their back against the wall would threaten.
The best fix is to be able to conduct discourse only with people who don't threaten to rape or murder other people. I use the gg autoblocker, but I can understand why
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The back-against-the-wall statement baffles me. Whose back is against the wall?
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I think that person's argument is that gamers are being oppressed by Anita Sarkeesian's well-written and argued videos.
Or some such drivel.
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What makes you say that? Can you give examples or some reason for you to hold this view?
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No doubt you can give examples of this behaviour? Just saying it doesn't make it true.
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That'd be nice, but so far I haven't seen any evidence of SJW's getting banned en masse despite the provocative hate and vitriol that spews from them.
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Both sides can fuck off. Shut the hell up and go elsewhere.
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For values of "elsewhere" that start and end with "anywhere other than Twitter, like the pits of Hell."
If you have something to say that can be said in 140 characters, you have nothing to say.
ISIS (Score:3)
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What do terrorist have to do with the 16 year old that logs into Twitter and write "YOUR A TARD" in someone else's twitter feed?
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They made a change to their "violent threats policy" but they are also dealing with abuse in general as stated in the article: "This is to deal with all abusive tweets."
Many twitter users have been threatened by "non terrorist" individuals just because they don't like what they do or have done. Sure, social media can be used by terrorists but they aren't the bulk of the concerns. The KKK aren't a terrorist group (although that's debatable in Canada based on new legislature that was released last year) yet t
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Twitter's business model (Score:5, Interesting)
Is handing out torches to angry villagers. Going to be interesting to see how they square this.
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I'm curious to know if you have any evidence of this. I don't meant blog posts by people protesting their innocence and claiming to have know idea why Twitter suspended their accounts, I mean actual evidence of people abusing the report button and Twitter acting without first reviewing the tweets in question.
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Is handing out torches to angry villagers. Going to be interesting to see how they square this.
Shouldn't that be everybody's business model, supplying a need for the largest market? Do you think there are more angry villagers, or more victims being lynched?
Eye of the beholder (Score:2)
What a bizarre statement (Score:5, Insightful)
"Freedom of expression means little as our underlying philosophy if we continue to allow voices to be silenced because they are afraid to speak up."
So to protect against silencing, you're going to silence?
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There is nothing bizarre about it. Not all voices are equally desirable. To give an example, there are a number of women working in the games space who are targeted every time they express any sort of view. Some of these threats are simply extraordinarily disgusting. It is surely no surprise that Twitter wants to target ("silence" if you will) people who threaten other users?
Re:What a bizarre statement (Score:4, Insightful)
Can I be the one who decides who is undesirable and gets silenced?
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I've been downvoted to oblivion on Ars for saying this very thing. Everyone love this stuff until the censor starts filtering their own posts.
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Your comment is idiotic. If people are threatening to rape and murder other users of twitter, it is entirely rational for twitter to attempt to put a stop to that. That is not "censorship". You can still say whatever you want. Twitter does not have to host what you want to say.
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I doubt if anyone will get banned and be surprised about it. It's clear they have the "rape and murder" crowd in mind.
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You should spend some time reading the comments section of the Guardian before being so sure about this. The Guardian has a policy that you cannot post comments that insult or offend the journalists. Because, you know, that'd result in a hostile and threatening environment, or whatever.
The result is that comments which point out bias, or even factually inaccurate statements, have a habit of being rapidly deleted. Because implying that a journalist has an agenda or might not have done proper journalism could
Re:What a bizarre statement (Score:4, Insightful)
I live in the UK and I regularly read the Guardian. I'm not sure what that has to do with twitter, save that they are both private organisations and can impose their own rules on their own space. Why do you care? If you have a blog, you can do this yourself. Or not. It's up to whoever owns the space isn't it?
I don't see the relevance of the UK police's behaviour. This story is about twitter and how they are trying to control their own space. They are allowed to do that, regardless of what you think. Why you think the UK police are connected to twitter is a mystery to me.
This is an obvious straw man.
This gets to the heart of the matter. Of course people who are threatened could just go away. But I think that the overwhelming majority of people want the people doing the threatening to go away. I guess Twitter, a commercial organisation, has made a calculation that they would prefer the people who threaten others to leave. It's their site and it's entirely up to them how they manage it, what sort of behaviour they want to allow and what they should do about people who won't behave.
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I was responding to your post that read:
and I argued that people will be surprised because the policies will inevitably be arbitrary and rather biased. The surprising way the UK police enforce very very similar rules on Twitter users as Twitter now wants to enforce itself is highly relevant to that point.
You seem to think I said Twitter shouldn't be allowed to do this, or some other argument about ownership of private spaces. I didn't mention it, th
Re:What a bizarre statement (Score:4, Informative)
Can I be the one who decides who is undesirable and gets silenced?
Absolutely. Create and popularize the NotDrWhoNet communications platform, and you can make those decisions. For your platform.
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Can I be the one who decides who is undesirable and gets silenced?
No, that's Anakin Skywalker's job.
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"Targeted"? What exactly do you mean by that?
If you mean that people disagree loudly and vigorously when they speak, well, welcome to being an adult.
If you mean that people threaten them, an actual, credible threat is a crime. And in such instance Twitter should be forwarding info to help the police to catch the
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If you didn't like what a political candidate was saying would you send them death threats, or perhaps start to scream abuse at them whenever they appear in public? Would you expect to be allowed to do that, for others to accept it and allow you to carry on because hay, it's freedom of speech and you mustn't be silenced?
There is never absolute freedom of speech. At some point threats become a criminal matter. Even just abuse has to be dealt with to allow there to be a debate. Away from the mainstream there
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If you didn't like what a political candidate was saying would you send them death threats
No, because that would be illegal.
or perhaps start to scream abuse at them whenever they appear in public?
Their definition of "abuse" or mine?
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Their definition of "abuse" or mine?
Since it's their venue, their's.
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So to protect against silencing, you're going to silence?
Well let's put it this way. Say a nation has no laws against kidnapping and forced imprisonment. Then they decide it's time to ban such things and announce a new law, kidnapping and forced imprisonment are now criminal offences carrying a three-to-ten year prison sentence if convicted.
So of course people come out with "What? That's your solution? Protect against imprisoning people by imprisoning people?". Yes, sometime in order to protect the freedom of some people we must restrict the freedom of other peop
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So to protect against silencing, you're going to silence?
Well, if one bully can silence 100 shrinking violets, by removing the bully, twitter will get less silence as the shrinking violets have conversations about how important everyones feelings are on whatever subject matter is worth tweeting about.
If your goal was to get as many eyeballs looking at ads on your platform, wouldn't you trade one bully for 100 shrinking violets?
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Hope it's even-handed (Score:2)
There's no question that better Twitter abuse controls are needed...
But I really hope they are careful to be even-handed about what they consider abuse, as it's REALLY easy to consider everything one side of an issue says is "abuse" and silence them permanently.
I also wonder how this will square with some people on Twitter who aren't necessarily abusive, but really like swearing. Could they be at greater risk of being banned?
Free Speech (Score:3)
"We need to find a way quash free speech on our network while maintaining the illusion to our users that we are not quashing free speech."
Just like 'old Zuck said, most of their users are dumb fucks [gawker.com], too.
I had to Google ... (Score:2)
... SJW. My feet stink and I don't love Jesus.
Indirect threats of violence? (Score:3)
Let's see if they start using the banhammer for #killallmen and the like. I wouldn't be holding my breath.
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if we continue to allow voices to be silenced because they are afraid to speak up
If you can't make a point without using hate speech then remain quiet. Calling someone names has rarely resolved anything and if anything usually derails off the main topic. If you want to push the Nazi agenda nobody is preventing you from doing so on any media, you just have to do it without using hate speech.
If you think freedom of speech should be used to protect the rights for morons to write things like: "GO KILL YOURSELF FAGGOT" or "UR AN FN TARD" then I obviously won't get my point through to you.
wit
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If you can't make a point without using hate speech then remain quiet.
Who get's to define "hate speech"? Is it *me*? Oh, pleeaaasse let it be me!
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I'd say 99% of people I've met in my life can tell what hate speech is when they read it. They can tell by using the moral compass they've developed over years of being part of a society. Maybe your the 1% I haven't met.
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I'd say 99% of people I've met in my life can tell what hate speech is when they read it.
And 99% of Muslims believe that showing a depiction of Mohammad is hate speech.
And 99% of Christians believe that openly mocking or attacking Jesus is hate speech.
So may I presume that both of those will be banned as clear cases of hate speech?
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99.99999% of all stats on the internet are fake, especially if I disagree with them - Benjamin Franklin
Let us make it easy, here is the definition for hate speech:
Hate speech is a communication that carries no meaning other than the expression of hatred for some group, especially in circumstances in which the communication is likely to provoke violence. It is an incitement to hatred primarily against a group of persons defined in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientatio
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Hate speech can be any form of expression regarded as offensive to racial, ethnic and religious groups
So depictions of Mohammad and bad-mouthing Jesus are indeed defined as hate speech then.
Okay, just checking.
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Welcome to the joy of definitions. Have fun. Do we need common sense, yes. However, we also need civility. Meh...
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So depictions of Mohammad and bad-mouthing Jesus are indeed defined as hate speech then.
They did it knowing how much anger it would cause. Regardless they didn't deserve to die and neither does anybody else for publishing hate messages. This is why these policy changes are excellent. If people aren't happy with their speech being censored they will quit using Twitter. Otherwise they'll continue using it and the haters can go hate somewhere else.
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Have you seen what gets modded flamebait here ?
More or less hate speech is anything someone disagrees with, The stronger the argument and the more facts to support it, the more hateful they will think it is.
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Been here for a while... yeah... We have this interesting neo-liberal-socialistic-libertarian-psychopathic political bent prevailing on /.
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99.99999% of all stats on the internet are fake, especially if I disagree with them - Benjamin Franklin
My point was I don't know anybody that couldn't tell you when they read hate speech.
And thank you for posting the definition. As you mentioned in your later post, common sense needs to be used.
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This is the "appeal to the reasonable man" approach. It's quite common in law. Basically punts the decision to a randomly selected judge who is just trusted to be reasonable.
The problem is that the people deciding what reasonable means are of course never a perfect cross section of society at large. In the UK there have been cases where e.g. someone posted to Facebook that he hated British soldiers and he hoped they wo [firstlook.org]
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Surely it's their site and their policy? At the moment they are drawing a comparison between gamergate-style intimidation and normal social discourse out in the real world. Some interactions on Twitter do not feel like the real world to me and I guess Twitter wants that to change. But its up to them.
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Society as a whole defines that. Everyone knows what is and is not hate speech, and at the margins there are very passionate debates. It doesn't take a single person - everyone in society already agrees about where the line is.
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Everyone knows what is and is not hate speech
Who is this "Everyone"? Don't think I've ever met that bloke. But I do remember an "Everyone" in the middle east who said that eating pork was bad. I guess he speaks for all of us, then.
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Don't be so stupid. Really, if you don't like twitter's policies, find another site to use. If you're right about this being a slippery slope, their business will collapse as millions of users drift away because they believe they are being oppressed. I don't think that's going to happen but maybe it will.
In the mean time, the rest of us will be able to guess with a high degree of accuracy what Twitter will and won't tolerate. If you're unable to do that, that's fine too. You can get banned or suspended or n
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In Twitter case there isn't "someone else has to do it for you", they are 'common carrier' for speech and nothing more. Starting now and moving forward online communication is more prevalent than in-person speech. It isn't inconceivable to imagine dysto
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Now imagine that almost everyone communicates only via printed pamphlets, but pamphlet-printing business controlled by one censorious individual eager to push his agenda to the detriment of others. Could freedom of speech exists in such hypothetical society?
Your scenario isn't that hard to imagine. Back when most people did disseminate information using printed pamphlets, only a few people owned the printing presses that could manufacturing such pamphlets en masse. We survived as a species, even though those pamphlets were often inaccurate and inflammatory.
It isn't inconceivable to imagine dystopian future where everyone communicates using only 'social' media, and few corporations determine what is acceptable. In such future nobody has freedom of speech, and we get there with unwise individuals pushing for "Right to not get offended".
You are upset about a possible future regarding "communication", but communication requires two parties - one speaking, one listening - and optionally includes a third party - one to convey the information
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How is Twitter not a public digital space?
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What are you talking about? Are you suggesting that your ability to express your views depends on twitter allowing you to do so? If twitter won't let you, try facebook. If they're not keen, just set up your own webpage and put what you like there. If you can't do that, take an ad in the paper or stand on a street corner shouting whatever you like. That's free speech.