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> 99.9% of people that complain about being harassed would be well-served by just not using Twitter. This is a cop-out. You may not need Twitter for your work,

by ksenzee 10y ago

> 99.9% of people that complain about being harassed would be well-served by just not using Twitter. This is a cop-out. You may not need Twitter for your work, but a lot of us do. If I can't use Twitter, I lose an important way to connect to others in my profession (specifically in open source). And I'm an unimportant software developer. What about women in journalism? What about women in entertainment? They need Twitter, and they need it connected to their real-world identity. You might as well tell them "quit walking on the street, or wear a burka, and you won't get harassed or assaulted." It would be the same cop-out. We have police to keep the streets safe. We need Twitter to be safe too.

5thaccount 10y ago
> We need Twitter to be safe too. In theory agree keeping things safe seems great, but I struggle with the idea that we can define "safe" in a way that is reasonable and makes sense, and where the punishment is effective and reasonable. The vast majority of times I have seen claims of harassment, the usual process is that someone makes a controversial statement, then realises the group that objects was larger than they imagined as they receive hundreds and thousands objections, some of which are almost certainly awful. I understand how that can feel like harassment when 10,000 people tweet at you, and in 10,000 tweets half a dozen are guaranteed to sound batshit insane and downright scary, but it isn't harassment to be disagreed with, nor to have ideas that you promote subject to scrutiny. SM amplifies what that scrutiny looks like massively, but pure numbers don't constitute harassment. Nor does people watching everything you say and commenting on it. And this is where it gets tough, nor does having people say mean things about you, because mean is just so subjective. Any definition of harassment is really tricky, and a definition of "safe" is even more difficult, and we haven't even got to the punishment part yet. Ultimately, the idea we can stop people disagreeing, and disagreeing passionately enough to border on troubling, is impossible, and what is needed is a something proactive an individual can do to protect themselves. And I have no idea what that is!
milesrout 10y ago
No it is not the same, it's not the same at all. There's a massive, massive difference between someone on the other side of the world sending a nasty message on Twitter and being harassed in the real world by someone on a dark street at night. These are so completely different that I can't believe that you are so tied up in your views that you forget that. Anyone that would suggest they are the same has clearly not been the recipient of the latter. People have a right to be safe in the real world. Harassing someone physically or verbally as they're walking down the street for wearing religious clothing or a short skirt is completely unacceptable and makes people not feel safe in their own neighbourhood. It's not possible to anonymise yourself in real life. That's completely different from having someone send you a nasty message on the internet. Completely different. Twitter is safe. Nobody can harm you through Twitter. It's simply impossible to harm you through Twitter. What people can do is send you nasty messages through Twitter. You have two solutions: 1. Stop using Twitter, an utterly worthless dis-service that has never produced anything of value, or 2. Get over yourself and grow a thicker skin. >You may not need Twitter for your work, but a lot of us do. No, you don't. You think you do, but you don't. The only people that 'need Twitter' are 'social media' people and quite frankly they're the worst part of Twitter. >If I can't use Twitter, I lose an important way to connect to others in my profession (specifically in open source). No you don't. Twitter is not a good way to connect to anyone. Nobody can have any sort of technical discussion through Twitter without completely subverting Twitter's model through hacks like multi-tweet messages, self-replying, twitlonger, etc. Twitter has never been, is not and never will be a good platform for discussing anything. Use email, like the adult you claim to be. >What about women in journalism? What about women in entertainment? They need Twitter, and they need it connected to their real-world identity. Don't use Twitter. Female journalists have existed for a very long time, much (much) longer than Twitter, and the vast majority of them don't use Twitter. Twitter is a shitty, toxic platform. It's not some sort of official place. It's not a public service. It's not part of our culture. It's a shitty social media site that you should stay away from. Twitter is not useful to journalists. Twitter is not useful to entertainers (and you'd be a fool to think that hate mail to celebrities didn't exist before twitter. They employed people to filter and reply to their fan/hate mail before, they can employ people to filter and reply to their fan/hate tweets now).
- nullc 10y ago
  > Nobody can harm you through Twitter. Milesrout (real name X, location Y) is molesting children and sapping our precious bodily fluids! He has corrupted the police so they won't stop him. Unless someone takes action we're doomed. I agree with your general arguments, but it is incorrect to say that harassing people on the internet cannot endanger your life.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Your example is arguably a bug in human society. But there's no doubt that the Internet increases the risk, given the massive scale, relative anonymity, cultural differences, and so on. Hannu Rajaniemi imagines an intriguing solution in the Quantum Thief. In Martian society, aka the Oubliette, individuals cryptographically regulate who knows, and who can remember, what about each other. So everyone is fundamentally anonymous to everyone else, except for whatever they choose to share with another, or a group. I can imagine something like Facebook or Twitter doing that, even using GnuPG.
- gizmo 10y ago
  > It's simply impossible to harm you through Twitter. That's really ignorant. When somebody with epilepsy receives a strobing image that can cause real harm. When somebody who's recovering from PTSD receives some gruesome message that makes them relive whatever awful experience they had, that causes real harm too. Online bullying can push people to suicide. It's no joke. It's absurd to claim that it's impossible to harm people through Twitter (or any other online conduit) when victims claim they are harmed and there is clear evidence of harm. > Twitter is not useful to journalists. Journalists say the opposite: they couldn't have gotten their foot in the door without twitter. > It's not part of our culture. Okay, this is just too silly. Twitter is everywhere in our culture. In advertisements. On TV. Songs are written about it. Books. All politicians use it. Businesses use it. Twitter is huge for sports. Activists use it to organize. If Twitter isn't part of our culture, then neither are cars or t-shirts.

by ksenzee 10y ago

5thaccount 10y ago

> We need Twitter to be safe too. In theory agree keeping things safe seems great, but I struggle with the idea that we can define "safe" in a way that is reasonable and makes sense, and where the punishment is effective and reasonable. The vast majority of times I have seen claims of harassment, the usual process is that someone makes a controversial statement, then realises the group that objects was larger than they imagined as they receive hundreds and thousands objections, some of which are almost certainly awful. I understand how that can feel like harassment when 10,000 people tweet at you, and in 10,000 tweets half a dozen are guaranteed to sound batshit insane and downright scary, but it isn't harassment to be disagreed with, nor to have ideas that you promote subject to scrutiny. SM amplifies what that scrutiny looks like massively, but pure numbers don't constitute harassment. Nor does people watching everything you say and commenting on it. And this is where it gets tough, nor does having people say mean things about you, because mean is just so subjective. Any definition of harassment is really tricky, and a definition of "safe" is even more difficult, and we haven't even got to the punishment part yet. Ultimately, the idea we can stop people disagreeing, and disagreeing passionately enough to border on troubling, is impossible, and what is needed is a something proactive an individual can do to protect themselves. And I have no idea what that is!

milesrout 10y ago

No it is not the same, it's not the same at all. There's a massive, massive difference between someone on the other side of the world sending a nasty message on Twitter and being harassed in the real world by someone on a dark street at night. These are so completely different that I can't believe that you are so tied up in your views that you forget that. Anyone that would suggest they are the same has clearly not been the recipient of the latter. People have a right to be safe in the real world. Harassing someone physically or verbally as they're walking down the street for wearing religious clothing or a short skirt is completely unacceptable and makes people not feel safe in their own neighbourhood. It's not possible to anonymise yourself in real life. That's completely different from having someone send you a nasty message on the internet. Completely different. Twitter is safe. Nobody can harm you through Twitter. It's simply impossible to harm you through Twitter. What people can do is send you nasty messages through Twitter. You have two solutions: 1. Stop using Twitter, an utterly worthless dis-service that has never produced anything of value, or 2. Get over yourself and grow a thicker skin. >You may not need Twitter for your work, but a lot of us do. No, you don't. You think you do, but you don't. The only people that 'need Twitter' are 'social media' people and quite frankly they're the worst part of Twitter. >If I can't use Twitter, I lose an important way to connect to others in my profession (specifically in open source). No you don't. Twitter is not a good way to connect to anyone. Nobody can have any sort of technical discussion through Twitter without completely subverting Twitter's model through hacks like multi-tweet messages, self-replying, twitlonger, etc. Twitter has never been, is not and never will be a good platform for discussing anything. Use email, like the adult you claim to be. >What about women in journalism? What about women in entertainment? They need Twitter, and they need it connected to their real-world identity. Don't use Twitter. Female journalists have existed for a very long time, much (much) longer than Twitter, and the vast majority of them don't use Twitter. Twitter is a shitty, toxic platform. It's not some sort of official place. It's not a public service. It's not part of our culture. It's a shitty social media site that you should stay away from. Twitter is not useful to journalists. Twitter is not useful to entertainers (and you'd be a fool to think that hate mail to celebrities didn't exist before twitter. They employed people to filter and reply to their fan/hate mail before, they can employ people to filter and reply to their fan/hate tweets now).

nullc 10y ago
> Nobody can harm you through Twitter. Milesrout (real name X, location Y) is molesting children and sapping our precious bodily fluids! He has corrupted the police so they won't stop him. Unless someone takes action we're doomed. I agree with your general arguments, but it is incorrect to say that harassing people on the internet cannot endanger your life.
- mirimir 10y ago
  Your example is arguably a bug in human society. But there's no doubt that the Internet increases the risk, given the massive scale, relative anonymity, cultural differences, and so on. Hannu Rajaniemi imagines an intriguing solution in the Quantum Thief. In Martian society, aka the Oubliette, individuals cryptographically regulate who knows, and who can remember, what about each other. So everyone is fundamentally anonymous to everyone else, except for whatever they choose to share with another, or a group. I can imagine something like Facebook or Twitter doing that, even using GnuPG.
gizmo 10y ago
> It's simply impossible to harm you through Twitter. That's really ignorant. When somebody with epilepsy receives a strobing image that can cause real harm. When somebody who's recovering from PTSD receives some gruesome message that makes them relive whatever awful experience they had, that causes real harm too. Online bullying can push people to suicide. It's no joke. It's absurd to claim that it's impossible to harm people through Twitter (or any other online conduit) when victims claim they are harmed and there is clear evidence of harm. > Twitter is not useful to journalists. Journalists say the opposite: they couldn't have gotten their foot in the door without twitter. > It's not part of our culture. Okay, this is just too silly. Twitter is everywhere in our culture. In advertisements. On TV. Songs are written about it. Books. All politicians use it. Businesses use it. Twitter is huge for sports. Activists use it to organize. If Twitter isn't part of our culture, then neither are cars or t-shirts.