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> threatens violence or is intended to foment violence against a person or people I see no reason why having a clear, public record of such communications is w

> threatens violence or is intended to foment violence against a person or people I see no reason why having a clear, public record of such communications is worse than forcing those involved to use a different messaging system. It's just words. The simple answer is press the "unfollow" button, or follow it, read it, and act in your best interests based on it.

eropple 10y ago
Nnnnnno, it's not "just words". It's threatening to kill and rape people, directly attacking their safety and their right to a peaceable life. It's giving a platform to people who are putting the idea in others' heads that they should hurt and kill people. I don't have to follow the "race realist" assholes among us to have the fact that they are given a platform by a company under no obligation to do so--and that they use that platform to gather followers under the direct purpose of separating the white race from the blacks or the Jews or whoever the hate-object-of-the-week is. Their followers do. They are strengthened by being given their platform with which to attract more soft-headed followers. Words have consequences that cannot be waved away so cavalierly. Those consequences may not impact you, but they impact a whole lot of people and they can't be dismissed. The government should, for reasons that make a lot of sense, be reticent (but not wholly unwilling, because the real world doesn't work in absolutes) to intercede here, because freedom of speech with regard to the state is a different thing from respecting and accepting speech by society--but Twitter isn't the government.
- grandalf 10y ago
  > they use that platform to gather followers under the direct purpose of separating the white race from the blacks or the Jews or whoever the hate-object-of-the-week is I find the sort of speech you describe highly unsavory, but I also disapprove of many other messages. Many people would advise Twitter to suppress the speech of gay people or immigrants, all the groups they hate. The point of speech being speech is that it doesn't harm anyone. If some unsavory group manages to get 5K followers then I'd like to be aware of it and see what they are talking about. Also, for the purpose of law enforcement, public Twitter activity could constitute signals intelligence to help stop crimes. The idea that words have consequences (as you describe) is one of the most anti-liberty ideas in our modern culture right now. It's behind everything from unconstitutional "material support of terrorism" charges based on speech, to prosecuting journalists who report on classified information under the espionage act, to trigger warnings on works of classic literature, etc. By censoring politically charged accounts Twitter likely benefits those groups by allowing them to skate by with coded speech in public but then keep their private rallying cries away from public scrutiny. Keep in mind also that as a company, Twitter will be under pressure from interest groups and governments worldwide to suppress speech. Should we be allowed to criticize China on Twitter? Well, not if the China market becomes important enough to Twitter's revenue. By failing to adopt a firm stance against censorship, Twitter has greatly damaged its credibility as a platform and opened the door to all sorts of censorship requests. There are enough moralistic gatekeepers in the world, why should Twitter be another?
  - lostphilosopher 10y ago
    I'm not sure why Tweets and free speech are so closely intertwined in this sort of discussion. Twitter is a for-profit business that isn't profitable. The OP asks what would you do to turn it around (which I'm taking as "make it profitable"). Some suggest better prevention of perceived harassment. My Uber driver has the free speech right to tell me 'my father smells of elderberries,' but if they do it's reasonable to assume I will no longer be riding in Ubers. Consequently, Uber sees it in their interest to try to prevent this sort of occurrence. Nobody tells me 'my father smells of elderberries' on Twitter, but if they did on more than a one-off basis I could see myself no longer enjoying the product, and consequently no longer using it, engaging with it, or promoting it. Twitter would be acting rationally to try to prevent this. So really the question becomes, is the damage to their brand and their user base from perceived harassment greater than the damage to their brand and their user base that would be induced by blocking this perceived harassment. Since one harasser can harass many users I suspect that the benefits would weigh in favor of protecting users from perceived harassment. I use "perceived" repeatedly here because I don't think it matters to the business of Twitter whether it's real or over-sensitivity, the customer is always right.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      Broadly censoring accounts based on a subset of the content those accounts have posted is like Uber deciding not to do pickups / dropoffs near mosques. Twitter has a profit incentive not just to censor content, but to make as much of the content as possible paid ads. My suggestion to Twitter was to focus on what I think is the core value prop of twitter -- its infrastructure as a broadcast platform. I realize many people prefer the approach Facebook takes where everyone is required to enter their real name and accounts are linked to credit scores and social security numbers, and login is required to view the content so that an ad can be served. But I think the most promising social media infrastructure is something more like an unfettered Twitter. Simply a medium for exchanging ideas and broadcasting to the world without big media budgets or high production costs. Yes, this gives some prejudiced jackass (or presidential candidate or ISIS) the same facility as highly credible organizations, but I think it's for the best. Twitter's strength is an addressing scheme and non-reciprocal follow graph which allows a lot of expression to happen that would not likely occur otherwise. The challenge for Twitter is to think of itself as an infrastructure company but not think of its product as ads.
genericpseudo 10y ago
There is no such thing as "just words". That's a position only sustainable from privilege.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  See grandalf's reply to eropple. In addition: No, it's not a position only sustainable from privilege. I'm fairly privileged - white, male, upper middle class, good job, good neighborhood. If someone threatened to kill me, that's just words - it's not the same as them showing up at my door with a gun in their hand. But I'd still have to think seriously about whether they were going to show up at my door, and what to do about it. It's just words, and also it's not. My "privilege" doesn't insulate me from the "and also it's not" part.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Very true. My comment was not meant to suggest that I think Twitter should promote already illegal forms of speech like threats, etc. To conflate speech with privilege is absurd. We are all equally empowered and equally vulnerable in a free speech society. A non-privileged person is free to draw a cartoon of Trump that looks like Muhammed. In a totalitarian society nobody is free to draw cartoons of certain subjects. To assume that a person of lower social status is more likely to be emotionally wounded from words is akin to claiming him/her to be less rational (and thus less human) than others. Speech is dangerous because it can incite passionate behavior while also being nonviolent. That is why we must preserve our right to this freedom. It is far better than the many coercive alternatives. Information is powerful, and it can empower and inspire people to act. But the idea that certain ideas are dangerous and must be suppressed reminds me of the embarrassing attempts during the 1980s by social conservatives to cast heavy metal lyrics as satanic and deserving of censorship.
    - eropple 10y ago
      > To conflate speech with privilege is absurd. We are all equally empowered and equally vulnerable in a free speech society. No, we're not. As a straight white guy, I can say "video games suck because X, Y, and Z" and people might call it stupid or call me a "cuck", but that's about it. A woman who say "video games are generally cool but have some problematic tendencies like X, Y, and Z" gets death and rape threats and have people post her personal information online. I know this happens because a friend did this, had it happen, and ended up crashing on my couch for a few days while she found a new apartment and moved because she feared for her safety, something which literally-literally does not happen to straight white men (though does happen, in varying but generally lesser quantities, to queer and minority men, and happens a lot more to trans people in general) who express similar opinions in that space. Almost as if the numbers I drew in the genetic lottery has led to the privileged position of being able to speak in ways that others cannot without being literally endangered. How very strange.
pjc50 10y ago
It's not coming from the people that users follow, it's coming from strangers who either @ them directly (e.g. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/lily-allen-stillbirth-twitter-trolls-abuse-online-bullying-a7600416.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/lily-allen-stillbir... ), or use twitter to forment violence against persons or people who aren't even on twitter. Milo was banned not because of anything he said directly against Leslie Jones, but because he drove a hate mob against her. Twitter really needs to give people the anti-abuse tools they demand.
- grandalf 10y ago
  > Twitter really needs to give people the anti-abuse tools they demand. I strongly agree with this. It's a far better solution than censorship.
  - eropple 10y ago
    The people who actually harass (and are the ones who primarily bleat about "censorship" on private services) have been bleating about tools like BlockTogether and similar being "censorship"--how are "better anti-abuse tools" out of Twitter themselves any different? When--not if--these tools auto-block poisonous harassing protofascists from the default because they are poisonous harassing protofascists, how is that any different?
    - grandalf 10y ago
      > how is that any different? It's different because then users who don't like content to be censored can turn it off. I turn off Google Safesearch and have not regretted it in the least.
  - deong 10y ago
    What would those tools look like exactly? If you tell your 50,000 followers where I live and that what I really need is a bullet in the head, what does the tool do? Hide it from my feed? Super. When the armed militia appears on my lawn, at least I will have been spared the stress of reading about it first, I guess. That's a serious question. What anti-abuse tools do you think they should deploy that don't actually prevent people from posting or seeing the abuse?

eropple 10y ago

Nnnnnno, it's not "just words". It's threatening to kill and rape people, directly attacking their safety and their right to a peaceable life. It's giving a platform to people who are putting the idea in others' heads that they should hurt and kill people. I don't have to follow the "race realist" assholes among us to have the fact that they are given a platform by a company under no obligation to do so--and that they use that platform to gather followers under the direct purpose of separating the white race from the blacks or the Jews or whoever the hate-object-of-the-week is. Their followers do. They are strengthened by being given their platform with which to attract more soft-headed followers. Words have consequences that cannot be waved away so cavalierly. Those consequences may not impact you, but they impact a whole lot of people and they can't be dismissed. The government should, for reasons that make a lot of sense, be reticent (but not wholly unwilling, because the real world doesn't work in absolutes) to intercede here, because freedom of speech with regard to the state is a different thing from respecting and accepting speech by society--but Twitter isn't the government.

grandalf 10y ago
> they use that platform to gather followers under the direct purpose of separating the white race from the blacks or the Jews or whoever the hate-object-of-the-week is I find the sort of speech you describe highly unsavory, but I also disapprove of many other messages. Many people would advise Twitter to suppress the speech of gay people or immigrants, all the groups they hate. The point of speech being speech is that it doesn't harm anyone. If some unsavory group manages to get 5K followers then I'd like to be aware of it and see what they are talking about. Also, for the purpose of law enforcement, public Twitter activity could constitute signals intelligence to help stop crimes. The idea that words have consequences (as you describe) is one of the most anti-liberty ideas in our modern culture right now. It's behind everything from unconstitutional "material support of terrorism" charges based on speech, to prosecuting journalists who report on classified information under the espionage act, to trigger warnings on works of classic literature, etc. By censoring politically charged accounts Twitter likely benefits those groups by allowing them to skate by with coded speech in public but then keep their private rallying cries away from public scrutiny. Keep in mind also that as a company, Twitter will be under pressure from interest groups and governments worldwide to suppress speech. Should we be allowed to criticize China on Twitter? Well, not if the China market becomes important enough to Twitter's revenue. By failing to adopt a firm stance against censorship, Twitter has greatly damaged its credibility as a platform and opened the door to all sorts of censorship requests. There are enough moralistic gatekeepers in the world, why should Twitter be another?
- lostphilosopher 10y ago
  I'm not sure why Tweets and free speech are so closely intertwined in this sort of discussion. Twitter is a for-profit business that isn't profitable. The OP asks what would you do to turn it around (which I'm taking as "make it profitable"). Some suggest better prevention of perceived harassment. My Uber driver has the free speech right to tell me 'my father smells of elderberries,' but if they do it's reasonable to assume I will no longer be riding in Ubers. Consequently, Uber sees it in their interest to try to prevent this sort of occurrence. Nobody tells me 'my father smells of elderberries' on Twitter, but if they did on more than a one-off basis I could see myself no longer enjoying the product, and consequently no longer using it, engaging with it, or promoting it. Twitter would be acting rationally to try to prevent this. So really the question becomes, is the damage to their brand and their user base from perceived harassment greater than the damage to their brand and their user base that would be induced by blocking this perceived harassment. Since one harasser can harass many users I suspect that the benefits would weigh in favor of protecting users from perceived harassment. I use "perceived" repeatedly here because I don't think it matters to the business of Twitter whether it's real or over-sensitivity, the customer is always right.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Broadly censoring accounts based on a subset of the content those accounts have posted is like Uber deciding not to do pickups / dropoffs near mosques. Twitter has a profit incentive not just to censor content, but to make as much of the content as possible paid ads. My suggestion to Twitter was to focus on what I think is the core value prop of twitter -- its infrastructure as a broadcast platform. I realize many people prefer the approach Facebook takes where everyone is required to enter their real name and accounts are linked to credit scores and social security numbers, and login is required to view the content so that an ad can be served. But I think the most promising social media infrastructure is something more like an unfettered Twitter. Simply a medium for exchanging ideas and broadcasting to the world without big media budgets or high production costs. Yes, this gives some prejudiced jackass (or presidential candidate or ISIS) the same facility as highly credible organizations, but I think it's for the best. Twitter's strength is an addressing scheme and non-reciprocal follow graph which allows a lot of expression to happen that would not likely occur otherwise. The challenge for Twitter is to think of itself as an infrastructure company but not think of its product as ads.

genericpseudo 10y ago

There is no such thing as "just words". That's a position only sustainable from privilege.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
See grandalf's reply to eropple. In addition: No, it's not a position only sustainable from privilege. I'm fairly privileged - white, male, upper middle class, good job, good neighborhood. If someone threatened to kill me, that's just words - it's not the same as them showing up at my door with a gun in their hand. But I'd still have to think seriously about whether they were going to show up at my door, and what to do about it. It's just words, and also it's not. My "privilege" doesn't insulate me from the "and also it's not" part.
- grandalf 10y ago
  Very true. My comment was not meant to suggest that I think Twitter should promote already illegal forms of speech like threats, etc. To conflate speech with privilege is absurd. We are all equally empowered and equally vulnerable in a free speech society. A non-privileged person is free to draw a cartoon of Trump that looks like Muhammed. In a totalitarian society nobody is free to draw cartoons of certain subjects. To assume that a person of lower social status is more likely to be emotionally wounded from words is akin to claiming him/her to be less rational (and thus less human) than others. Speech is dangerous because it can incite passionate behavior while also being nonviolent. That is why we must preserve our right to this freedom. It is far better than the many coercive alternatives. Information is powerful, and it can empower and inspire people to act. But the idea that certain ideas are dangerous and must be suppressed reminds me of the embarrassing attempts during the 1980s by social conservatives to cast heavy metal lyrics as satanic and deserving of censorship.
  - eropple 10y ago
    > To conflate speech with privilege is absurd. We are all equally empowered and equally vulnerable in a free speech society. No, we're not. As a straight white guy, I can say "video games suck because X, Y, and Z" and people might call it stupid or call me a "cuck", but that's about it. A woman who say "video games are generally cool but have some problematic tendencies like X, Y, and Z" gets death and rape threats and have people post her personal information online. I know this happens because a friend did this, had it happen, and ended up crashing on my couch for a few days while she found a new apartment and moved because she feared for her safety, something which literally-literally does not happen to straight white men (though does happen, in varying but generally lesser quantities, to queer and minority men, and happens a lot more to trans people in general) who express similar opinions in that space. Almost as if the numbers I drew in the genetic lottery has led to the privileged position of being able to speak in ways that others cannot without being literally endangered. How very strange.

pjc50 10y ago

It's not coming from the people that users follow, it's coming from strangers who either @ them directly (e.g. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/lily-allen-stillbirth-twitter-trolls-abuse-online-bullying-a7600416.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/lily-allen-stillbir... ), or use twitter to forment violence against persons or people who aren't even on twitter. Milo was banned not because of anything he said directly against Leslie Jones, but because he drove a hate mob against her. Twitter really needs to give people the anti-abuse tools they demand.

grandalf 10y ago
> Twitter really needs to give people the anti-abuse tools they demand. I strongly agree with this. It's a far better solution than censorship.
- eropple 10y ago
  The people who actually harass (and are the ones who primarily bleat about "censorship" on private services) have been bleating about tools like BlockTogether and similar being "censorship"--how are "better anti-abuse tools" out of Twitter themselves any different? When--not if--these tools auto-block poisonous harassing protofascists from the default because they are poisonous harassing protofascists, how is that any different?
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > how is that any different? It's different because then users who don't like content to be censored can turn it off. I turn off Google Safesearch and have not regretted it in the least.
- deong 10y ago
  What would those tools look like exactly? If you tell your 50,000 followers where I live and that what I really need is a bullet in the head, what does the tool do? Hide it from my feed? Super. When the armed militia appears on my lawn, at least I will have been spared the stress of reading about it first, I guess. That's a serious question. What anti-abuse tools do you think they should deploy that don't actually prevent people from posting or seeing the abuse?