


Twitter Announces New Blocking and Filtering Features (wired.co.uk) 119
Twitter just began rolling out "new ways to control your experience," promising the two new features "will give you more control over what you see and who you interact with on Twitter." An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from Wired UK:
First up, notification settings will allow those using Twitter on the web or on desktop to limit the notifications they receive for @ mentions, RTs, and other interactions to just be from people they follow. The feature can be turned on through the notifications tab. Twitter is also expanding its quality filter -- also accessible through notifications. "When turned on, the filter can improve the quality of Tweets you see by using a variety of signals, such as account origin and behavior," the company's product manager Emil Leong said in a blog post.
In December 2015, the company changed its rules to explicitly ban "hateful conduct" for the first time, while back in February last year, Twitter's then-CEO Dick Costolo admitted the network needed to improve how it handled trolls and abuse. In a leaked memo he said: "I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. There's no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It's nobody else's fault but mine, and it's embarrassing."
Meanwhile, the Twitter account of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales was hacked on Saturday.
In December 2015, the company changed its rules to explicitly ban "hateful conduct" for the first time, while back in February last year, Twitter's then-CEO Dick Costolo admitted the network needed to improve how it handled trolls and abuse. In a leaked memo he said: "I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. There's no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It's nobody else's fault but mine, and it's embarrassing."
Meanwhile, the Twitter account of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales was hacked on Saturday.
better late than never (Score:2)
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You mean they're not already?
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I've your considered the "dump site" of social media, web media, the dump paper or television channel or whatever you've got to have done at-least one thing right.
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Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
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Haha... banning of the "Violent" like those conservative gay black rooster loving 2nd amendment toting Trump supporters with small followings? Too little too late for Twitter. The awesome techies responsible for the initial success (imo) wisely left long ago. Twitters lunch has already been stolen, ate, and pooped back out again for them to scrub the toilet remnants of. A yawn, a stretch & a few keystrokes of code from Google and Twitters recent late-to-the-party "LIVE" run will gather dust.
Bannings an
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They state that the filter removes duplicates and bots from your timeline. It's a clever move because the harassers rely on retweets and repeats to crapflood their victims.
Note that the filter doesn't ban anything, it just makes certain tweets not appear in your personal timeline.
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What legal jurisdiction do you live in? I'm sure i can google the relevant harassment/threat laws.
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Regardless what the law says, it's not possible for mean words on the internet to be 'violent' by any rational definition.
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Just as a matter of fact, words, videos and other stuff on the internet can be described as violent. From the OED:
Violent:
2. (Especially of an emotion or a destructive natural force) very strong or powerful:
violent dislike
the violent eruption killed 1,700 people
2.1(Of a colour) vivid:
violent fiery colours
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That is not how the word is used when discussing 'online violence.' It is equated with real-life physical violence.
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You misunderstood what people were saying. Any examples where the meaning is clearly physical?
Re: better late than never (Score:1)
Nice, what do you charge for moving basketball hoops?
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Replace violence with physical violence only and we've got something.
Threat of violence haven't become violence yet either, though people may of course fear it and it may still have an effect so I'll accept that (but it's still not actual violence.)
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If anything being labeled as a "threat" by them triggers their threatening towards you.
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How can someone be violent on a website?
Re:"hateful conduct" (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who disagrees with cultural Marxism.
Going to be interesting (Score:3)
Seeing as they are shifting from a decentralized communication/discussion system to centralized advertising/propaganda delivery system, you have to wonder will the rubes using it keep using it ? Or even notice.
Great, so when will they ban the SJWs? (Score:3, Informative)
Nyberg is not only a vicious troll but also a self-admitted child predator who's openly been given pictures of people's children for sexual gratification, and Quinn along with most of the others spend their entire time on twitter spewing racist and sexist hate at people inbetween rounds of doxings.
Or is this actually about policing opinions and politics and not trolling and hate speech.
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Gonna need some proof for that very serious allegation against Quinn.
The Free Speech Warriors are out in force over this one. How dare people ignore them!
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Ami we've been through this. I and others have repeatedly given you documentation of everything from her doxing and worse of "rival" feminists The Fine Young Capitalists as well as her involvement in attempting to swap Mike Cernovich, and then there's the matter of public record now of her toxic use of the legal system to continue her long history of domestic abuse against her ex.
But because she has a vagina, calls herself a feminist, and cried victim first you and other SJWs rally around her like the secon
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You have given us a bunch of shitty blog posts, all referring to each other. Show some archived tweets or something. Where are the responses from Twitter or whatever to the reports made over those posts?
Just repeating the same lie a thousand times doesn't make it true.
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You have given us a bunch of shitty blog posts, all referring to each other. Show some archived tweets or something. Where are the responses from Twitter or whatever to the reports made over those posts?
Just repeating the same lie a thousand times doesn't make it true.
So I went and looked this up and found evidence of quin participating in a doxing
It took me less than 5 minutes to find
The problem is that the archive of it reveals the victims name, and so I'm not going to link it
Given that it took so little effort to find, it leaves me with a question... Are you just running damage control knowing that the evidence is out there and that people will be reluctant to link to it, or are you honestly ignorant of it?
Please tell me you're just acting in ignorance, I'm not sure m
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Are you sure AmiMoJo is male? I have no evidence either way.
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Well played, it's easy to find but you won't link to it because of your ethics, which GamerGate trolls are so well known for. And of course, no one else can prove a negative so no way to demonstrate beyond doubt that you are wrong.
You can't link to it, it doesn't exist. Just like the review of her game by that journalist doesn't exist.
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You expect us to believe the shitty sob stories from her and her supporters, don't you? You know, the whole 'listen and believe' routine?
Just repeating the same lie a thousand times doesn't make it true.
Take your own advice.
Re:Great, so when will they ban the SJWs (Score:1)
I'm not asking you to believe anything. I'm asking you to prove the extraordinary claims you are making.
Surely you don't expect people to take then on faith do you? Maybe you do, GamerGate has turned into a kind of religion.
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Great, but we must hold you to the same standard, yes? Since the social justice crowd initiated this, they can go first. If they're going to accuse whole groups of mass oppression in various communities, they should bring forth some evidence beyond "outcome is not equal, therefore bigotry = true".
Religion? I would say gamergate has nothing on third wave feminism and black lives matter. They are the progressive counterparts to Ken Hovind and his banana. Unlike Hovind, though, their broken arguments and hypo
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I'm not making any claims here. I'm certainly not alleging mass oppression. I'm just asking you to support your position.
Stop avoiding the question. Support your position with evidence or abandon it, or just admit it's a religion and all done on faith.
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No, you're defending the positions of those who are, however, and they have not provided facts or reasoned arguments for their positions. Since you defend them, it should be easy for you.
What do you want evidence of? shitty blog/video posts with bad argumentation and hypocritical statements? Try feminist frequency's videos for starters. Of course I am sure you are already aware of the content..
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No no, it happened, it just wouldn't be ethical to provide evidence of accusations.
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It doesn't matter how often AmiMoJo is shown the evidence, s/he dismisses the source as it isn't a SJW media source (which of course would not publish about the issue). The evidence is incredibly easy to find, and claiming it doesn't exist because you don't like the source is what the poster above is pointing out.
Why do you refuse to believe fact from non-SJW's (Score:1)
Traditionally unreliable sources (like blogs and social media) are treated like gospel when it comes from leftists. Same sources, same material, same conversation, wrong person == unreliable in the SOCJUS world, even if it is fact.
It's been played the same time over and over. Perhaps it's you that should reconsider repeating your lies a thousand times.
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I never, ever use blog posts as evidence. I only link to them when they lay out an argument in greater detail than a comment allows, or when they have multiple reliable references.
Provide some evidence, or at least show where I have used blogs and social media as evidence in the way you suggest.
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The evidence I have provided previously was of the exact type you just spoke of, yet you dismissed it. You don't want evidence of the bad behavior, you just want to stick your head in the sand and at like it doesn't exist. I have provided all the evidence needed, yet you continue to act like it doesn't exist.
The SOCJUS in you can't get facts straight (Score:2)
Doesn't work that way. Oh, and get your facts straight, since Nyberg is a different person.
Re:Great, so when will they ban the SJWs? (Score:5, Informative)
Nyberg is not only a vicious troll but also a self-admitted child predator who's openly been given pictures of people's children for sexual gratification,
Yep, and this has been documented repeatedly. If I'm not mistaken, she's even admitted to most of it.
Nyberg, Quinn, Sarkesian, Shives...they're the new fascists.
Don't agree with them? Then you're automatically a racist/sexist/homophobe/transphobe etc etc etc. Look at what they tried to do to Dr. Phil Mason and tell me that's "fair play".
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Don't forget blaming people for what their followers do!
Err, unless they like the person's politics, then it's just fine, carry on. Who'd bother to enforce the rules against anyone you agree with?
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If you bother to check, it's all been debunked repeatedly. In fact, you can debunk it yourself right now. Just ask the people making these claims for some proof. They will refuse, or claim it's "easy to google", and then mod you -1 Troll for asking.
Speaking of oppression, their claims remind of of the kind of thing North Korea says about people it doesn't like.
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If you bother to check, it's all been debunked repeatedly.
Thanks, but I know enough about Quinn, Shives, and Sarkesian to make an informed judgement. I've watched enough of their videos to know everything I need to know about them. Far from "debunking" the claims, I found them to be mostly accurate and well supported.
Steve Shives, for example, will block you on Twitter just for messaging him and saying you liked his video but disagree with one of his points. That's all it takes. (Ask me how I know.) What a champion of free speech and discourse, eh? He won't debate
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I've watched enough of their videos to know everything I need to know about them.
Quinn does videos now? Where?
What a champion of free speech and discourse, eh?
Free speech doesn't require other people to listen to you. If he doesn't want to personally answer yet another random guy messaging him the same points and the same arguments about 1000 others already did, well too bad.
Sarkesian is a con artist who rakes in money and produces almost none of what she promises to make.
She has delivered all her Kickstarter material and a number of bonus videos, the most recent of which was published a few weeks ago. All the videos are on the Feminist Frequency YouTube channel [youtube.com]. She has delivered all the base goals and all the stretch goals. This
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Free speech doesn't require other people to listen to you. If he doesn't want to personally answer yet another random guy messaging him the same points and the same arguments about 1000 others already did, well too bad.
Ahhh, this is always the refrain of the authoritarian who is terrified of opposing views. Shives doesn't even allow commenting on most of his videos and he turns down every invitation to debate anyone who doesn't already share his whackadoodle views. He has openly stated that he would shut down other people's channels if he could, just because he doesn't like them. Not becuase they violate any rule or guideline, but just because he doesn't like what they say. Again, what a champion of free speech and discou
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Go to the Kickstarter page. Count the number of videos promised. Look at the proposed content. Compare to the YouTube channel.
The facts are undeniable. She more than delivered.
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You just said Quinn doesn't do videos, then literally a paragraph later, you link to videos Quinn has made.
To be fair, I think what he linked to was a video by Anita Sarkesian.
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AmiMoji please stop using slashdot. You truly are a piece of shit.
I strenuously disagree with him on this topic but he has the right to offer his opinion, no matter how misguided it is.
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Yep, and this has been documented repeatedly. If I'm not mistaken, she's even admitted to most of it.
I just googled "nyberg" and then "sarah hyberg" on a whim. The first two links are posts on Breitbart by Milo. I can't be arsed to read those, because he's proven himself to be entirely happy to engage in libel. And the rest are a scattering of blog posts.
I'm not going to delve into that obvious shit fest any further.
It wouldn't be too much to ask for some actual evidence from a reasonably convincing source
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I also like how a bunch of completely unsourced accusations gets +5 informative but a demand for proof gets modded down. Particularly ironic since the gater crowd goes on about free speech so much. I guess free speech should only be allowed for libel of someone they don't like. Demands of evidence must be suppressed!
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Um, no one on Slashdot has been censored, being marked down is not censorship and does not suppress your comment in any way. There is no conflict in downmodding AmiMoJo for yet again asking for the same evidence that has been given many times and poo pooed as just blog posts, even though there are plenty of citations for everything talked about.
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What has Sarkeesian ever done to Phil Mason?
What has Phil Mason ever done to Sarkeesian, except call her out for her dishonesty?
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You said this:
Nyberg, Quinn, Sarkesian, Shives...they're the new fascists.
Don't agree with them? Then you're automatically racist/sexist/homophobe/transphobe etc etc etc. Look at what they tried to do to Dr. Phil Mason and tell me that's "fair play".
That's literally a quote. You said precisely that.
Now stop ducking and weaving, and awnser the question honestly. What have they (as you clealry claimed in that quote) done to Phil Mason. You told me to look at it.
Look at what?
Give me some evidence more convinci
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WHAT the government does and enforce may have changed but it's still around and way to large and influential.
Disappointed (Score:2)
These tools are NOT meant to let me block Twitter.
I'm disappointed
it work surprisingly well. (Score:1)
"When turned on, the filter can improve the quality of Tweets you see..."
This works better than you might guess. I tried it out by sending a bunch of tweets from Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton through the filter. Out the other side came tweets from Neil deGrass Tyson and Stephen Hawking.
I'm sold.
I've Never Had A Problem (Score:2)
blocking Twitter.
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Then what are you doing on twitter if you don't want to communicate? The whole point of twitter is to communicate to large numbers of people, not to build a one way pulpit and echochamber. All of this filtering negates the point of the site and will eventually kill it.
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Why don't you publish your phone number? Surely the point of owning a phone is to communicate. Why don't you want random people screaming abuse at you down the phone? Are you trying to create an echo chamber made up only of people you know and like?
Free Speech Warriors think everyone should be forced to listen to them, and not listening is censorship.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Informative)
Phone numbers are typically public information.
Is it 'screaming abuse' or simply criticism of stupid arguments from a lot of people all at once because they're hot on the topic? The long stream of responses is how twitter works. The point of twitter is to have a one-to-many interaction. These people are using the wrong medium if they don't like that. If they want the communication to remain one way, they should stick to blogs and turn the comments off.
No, free speech adherents think everyone has a right to speak their mind and support systems that allow this free exchange. The progressive censorship crowd thinks that society (or in this case, twitter/social media sites) should be responsible for shielding them from criticism while they remain free to lambast and police everyone else. Unfortunately, twitter has chosen the latter path with their 'trust and safety' council.
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They want a conversation, but that's hard when all you get is people tweeting photos of apes at you, then doxing you for good measure.
Real life debates have moderators for a reason.
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Moderators in real life can be argued with and generally have to adhere to strict rules.
Twitter moderators would be like having an debate where the moderators are hidden snipers in the audience with sleeping darts, and that are allowed to "moderate" whatever they define as hate speech.
The filter idea is not that bad, but it should be under the control of the user itself, rather than being something defined by "the invisible hand".
Basically you define the words that indicate that its not an subject you don't
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The filter doesn't use words. It filters re-tweets, duplicates and bot accounts. Since most of the harassment relies on mobbing by re-tweet and duplicate posts, it's actually quite effective.
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Well, it ifs a weapon against automation like that, then i see no issue whatsoever.
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Is this some sort of cathartic release for you? Do you feel better about having no argument and no leg to stand on after you yell out lazy threats on the internet?
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Phone numbers are typically public information.
There is no public information linking epyT-R with a phone number. Unless you happen to really like echo chambers and censorship, post your number here.
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The problem is that you're letting a third party control for you what you get to read.
It's their definition of "hate speech" being applied here, which could be something along the lines of "every mention to a product rival to the one on our payroll", or "mention to an event your local government want covered".
Welcome to Whack-A-Mole (Score:2)
Welcome to Whack-A-Mole, where you get to try to keep the entire internet from saying things that other people find objectionable.
I understand their goal (and I even agree with it), but I suspect it's going to be a losing battle.
The real problem is that there are a million billion trolls and they have nothing better to do than find ways to get around twitter bans and the algorithms that try to detect unwanted behavior.
The tragedy of the commons, in other words.
well there's the rub... (Score:2)
...when "hateful" is defined by a people with a certain set of beliefs.
The DOJ should crush Twitter as tacitly accepting responsibility for their content.
Wrong Solution (Score:1)
Twitter can fix itself with a few lines of code (Score:2)
https://jesterscourt.cc/2016/08/15/twitter-can-fix-twitter-just-lines-code/ [jesterscourt.cc]
tl;dr:
If you block someone that should also prevent them from @mentioning your user name
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Yeah, because forbidding certian words (names) in free speech is a good thing, because ... err wait ... i will come up with a reason soon!
Selective Harassment Defense, nothing more (Score:2)
Twitter has gone from openness to protection of the leftist message with these updates.
If you're a minority, a certain leftist bent, or even a terrorist, they will let you harass to your heart's content. If you're anyone else, you get called on it.
140 chrctrs (Score:2)
misdiagnosing their problem (Score:2)
Twitter is losing users. The company thinks it's because people say nasty things to feminists. I think they are misdiagnosing the problem. The real problem with Twitter is that its primary function these days is social signaling [wikipedia.org] because that's really all you can do in 140 characters. That, and it also functions as a status symbol among minor celebrities, who like to increase their notoriety and number of followers through fake controversies and trolling. For both of those functions, it is actually essential