Interesting article. However, what the author fails to realize is that Twitter shouldn't be banning users in the first place-- that's not their job. Their job is to provide a service that people can use to communicate; policing content on the site should not be a technology company's job. If you dislike what someone says, simply unfollow them, and they will disappear from your sight. It's as simple as that-- out of the billions of people in the world, there are definitely going to be millions of people that hate you simply because of your race, beliefs, or country. Simply do not follow these people if you don't want to see "abuse".
Just because people are offended by what conservatives may say does not mean that freedom of speech should be limited. "I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" and all that. We, as programmers and computer scientists (and some web developers) need to stop deciding or worrying about what people are and aren't allowed to say-- and that goes for Twitter, too.
>Simply do not follow these people if you don't want to see "abuse".
I don't think that's the solution of abuse, or even the source - trolls on Twitters keep on making new accounts to @mention their "targets" with vitriol/threats of violence/etc. The attacked can keep on blocking these new accounts, but that's it. By default the Notifications tab has everyone mentioning you - you can set that to "People you follow", but then you can't interact with your audience, which is the major feature of Twitter.
If I do, let's say, science communication on Twitter, I want to be able to interact with every "stranger".
need ai or Bayesian filter to detect such attacks and block them from most users. But leave the user and feed alone, just make sure the target of the attack and the general public never see the messages. Much like a shadow ban.
I'm skeptical of any form of filtering or censorship. How can you know which rules the algorithm abides by? If it's some deep-learning-based AI, how would even Twitter know exactly which rules the AI abides by?
A more transparent solution could be a prominent warning mark on tweets from people who have more people blocking them than following them.
Just because people are offended by what conservatives may say
And from reports I've read, you can claim a tweet is harassing you simply because of a difference of opinion. Although it occured to me that would make a great trap to weed out bogus complaints.
It's Twitter's platform; they can do whatever the fuck they want. The First Amendment does not apply. If they wish to ban hate speech and apply strict disciplinary action to users who post such speech, more power to them. Let the conservative hatemongers form their own microblogging echo chamber. I'm sure it will take off and be read by hundreds of millions like Conservapedia did. Oh wait...
I agree that a private company should be free to choose to not deal with some people because of their political positions. But I also think a private company should be free to choose to not deal with some people for their sexual choices. So a bakery can do whatever the fuck they want if a gay couple ask for a wedding cacke.
Personally, I would never do business with a company that is racist, sexist or discriminatory in any way, but I defend the right to be racist, sexist, discriminatory or a general asshole in your private endeavours. I value freedom over feelings.
To quote David "Iowahawk" Burge, "Twitter is a private firm & perfectly free to ban/shadowban me or anyone else. It's not like I'm asking them to bake me a gay wedding cake." (https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/701077040238194688). (Oops, just noticed I'm echoing bprieto who made this point an hour earlier.)
I'd add their platform is every bit their own as that of a Mississippi lunch counter owners'. The ship you claim is protecting them sailed decades ago.
Further, it isn't their's after they IPOed, it's their shareholders, who might want a word with them about driving away half their user base....
> It's Twitter's platform; they can do whatever the fuck they want.
What if the same company controlled Twitter, Facebook, and Google? And what if that company decided to subtly give more prominence to political views they liked and less to ones they disliked? They could probably decide an election by doing that.
> If they wish to ban hate speech and apply strict disciplinary action to users who post such speech, more power to them.
And if they choose to give less prominence to politicians who think big internet corporations should pay more tax, do you still think "more power to them"? Are you sure you want them to have that much power?
Powrer corrupts. The more power an entity has, the more they will be corrupted by it, and abuse their power. That's why it is unwise to concentrate power in a few hands.
Right, which is exactly why the same company shouldn't control Twitter, Facebook, and Google, whether or not any of the individual companies are enacting deliberate political censorship.
As it is, though, there are many social media networks, and users are free to choose the one that fits their needs. If a user finds Twitter too aggressive in weeding out misogynistic and racist hate speech, they can easily switch to Reddit, which takes a more hands-off approach.
This is a Bloomberg article by Megan McArdle. I was expecting it to be vocal in it support of harrasment, but in fact it makes the reasonable point that any kind of "line" is a judgement call and a slippery slope. Once you start banning people for death threats, you'll be asked to start banning people for anti-Erdogan material etc, etc.
However, a lot of what people have been asking twitter to do is not actually dependent on ideological content but about blocking, block evasion by new accounts ("eggs"), and the like. See https://medium.com/art-marketing/putting-out-the-twitter-tra... (speaking of censorship, putting that title into google returns one derogatory reference to the article but not the article itself, whereas on Bing and therefore DDG it's the top search result!)
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 33.9 ms ] threadJust because people are offended by what conservatives may say does not mean that freedom of speech should be limited. "I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" and all that. We, as programmers and computer scientists (and some web developers) need to stop deciding or worrying about what people are and aren't allowed to say-- and that goes for Twitter, too.
I don't think that's the solution of abuse, or even the source - trolls on Twitters keep on making new accounts to @mention their "targets" with vitriol/threats of violence/etc. The attacked can keep on blocking these new accounts, but that's it. By default the Notifications tab has everyone mentioning you - you can set that to "People you follow", but then you can't interact with your audience, which is the major feature of Twitter.
If I do, let's say, science communication on Twitter, I want to be able to interact with every "stranger".
A more transparent solution could be a prominent warning mark on tweets from people who have more people blocking them than following them.
And from reports I've read, you can claim a tweet is harassing you simply because of a difference of opinion. Although it occured to me that would make a great trap to weed out bogus complaints.
Personally, I would never do business with a company that is racist, sexist or discriminatory in any way, but I defend the right to be racist, sexist, discriminatory or a general asshole in your private endeavours. I value freedom over feelings.
I'd add their platform is every bit their own as that of a Mississippi lunch counter owners'. The ship you claim is protecting them sailed decades ago.
Further, it isn't their's after they IPOed, it's their shareholders, who might want a word with them about driving away half their user base....
What if the same company controlled Twitter, Facebook, and Google? And what if that company decided to subtly give more prominence to political views they liked and less to ones they disliked? They could probably decide an election by doing that.
> If they wish to ban hate speech and apply strict disciplinary action to users who post such speech, more power to them.
And if they choose to give less prominence to politicians who think big internet corporations should pay more tax, do you still think "more power to them"? Are you sure you want them to have that much power?
Powrer corrupts. The more power an entity has, the more they will be corrupted by it, and abuse their power. That's why it is unwise to concentrate power in a few hands.
As it is, though, there are many social media networks, and users are free to choose the one that fits their needs. If a user finds Twitter too aggressive in weeding out misogynistic and racist hate speech, they can easily switch to Reddit, which takes a more hands-off approach.
However, a lot of what people have been asking twitter to do is not actually dependent on ideological content but about blocking, block evasion by new accounts ("eggs"), and the like. See https://medium.com/art-marketing/putting-out-the-twitter-tra... (speaking of censorship, putting that title into google returns one derogatory reference to the article but not the article itself, whereas on Bing and therefore DDG it's the top search result!)