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Er yes, there is a distinction between the two. Scenario One: I, a real, active user that discusses a variety of topics, says something someone doesn't like an
by krisroadruck 8y ago
Er yes, there is a distinction between the two.
Scenario One: I, a real, active user that discusses a variety of topics, says something someone doesn't like and twitter decides to ban/shadow ban me.*
Scenario Two: I set up a network of fake accounts to automatically tweet, dm or @mention people pushing the same thing over and over to thousands of users.
Twitter has a block/ignore function. That is all that is needed to deal with scenario one in the vast majority of cases. When companies start introducing their politics and speech preferences into a global communications platform in the form of censorship and banning, the utility of that platform drops immediately. Consider if anyone ever said something in an email or sms that someone else disagreed with, we took away their ability to use email or sms. I know it's not apples to apples since those are primarily one-to-one platforms but you can see what I mean.
Meanwhile, combating scenario two almost always has a positive effect, but apparently is too hard of a problem for Twitter and its $2b/year budget to tackle as evidenced by the complete and utter lack of progress on that front since, from what I can tell, the platforms humble beginning in 2006.
*Note this is a hypothetical, my account is and has been in good standing since I signed up but I've seen many accounts go away or be silenced in this fashion.
Edit: Had wrong date for twitters inception. Fixed.
- pjc50 8y ago> Consider if anyone ever said something in an email or sms that someone else disagreed with, we took away their ability to use email or sms. Harassing people through SMS is a criminal offence in the UK and a number of other countries.
- krisroadruck 8y agoTo be clear, I wasn't defending peoples "rights" to harass others. I was talking about topic censorship. If you use the platform to harass people then yeah, you should probably be cordoned off at a minimum.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Rjevski 8y agoHowever SMS/email is not comparable to Twitter. One is push, ie you don't have to do anything to receive the unwanted messages. The other is pull, where you explicitly have to search the user's profile or follow them to see the unwanted tweets.
- Retric 8y agoYou can see messages from twitter users without subscribing to their feed.
- polski-g 8y agoTwitter is a United States corporation, with assets hosted in the United States. Not a UK corporation. Their laws are irrelevant.
- ggggtez 8y agoThat's not really true, as you can see from GDPR.
- manigandham 8y agoSee what exactly? GDPR has no prosecution precedent yet and it remains to be seen just what jurisdiction and reach it will really, if ever, provide. It's well intentioned but international enforcement just isn't that simple.
- estebank 8y agoTwitter has offices in UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Belgium. They are very much under the reach of European legislation, such as GDPR. (Also responding to the GP.)
- fwn 8y agoBut parent said that laws from non-home countries are irrelevant, which is factually wrong and not the same as some expected enforcement difficulties.
- manigandham 8y agoUnenforceable laws are effectively useless.
- manigandham 8y agoThere is a difference between harassment and a statement you disagree with, regardless of communication method.
- tw04 8y ago*sometimes "I think waffles are better than pancakes" is a pretty easy distinction. "I think slavery should still be legal" - not so much. Is that just a really shitty and ridiculous opinion, or harassment?
- manigandham 8y agoIt's a shitty opinion. Law has been around for a very long time and harassment vs speed has been successfully understood and prosecuted for a very long time. If it's a passing comment on a social network then no matter how dispicable it is, it's just a comment. Ignore and block it, and move on with your life.
- tw04 8y agoRight, because only us law applies to companies doing business internationally...
- dbspin 8y agoThis cannot be emphasised enough. Twitter repeatedly conflates organised spam / abuse / brigading, with sincere criticism and disagreement. They've shown a shocking disregard for differences of opinion, while refusing to develop tools to allow users with large followings to quickly cut off a mob attack. This has put them in a position where they're both overly censorious - removing satire accounts, shadow banning without notice and using 'verified' status as a form of punishment; and simultaneously failing to engage with real abuse of the platform. Presumably because to deal with real abuse and spam would be difficult and costly. Look how long it took them to remove fake / bot users who were being used to target political campaigns.
- josefresco 8y agoI, a real, active user that discusses a variety of topics, says something someone doesn't like and twitter decides to ban/shadow ban me. Citation needed. Has this actually happened to someone in real life? Also, if you use Gmail to threaten someone, yes you should be blocked from using the service. Twitter is not email, Twitter is Gmail.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- stuckinarut 8y agoOr you're Milo and you sick your fans on Leslie Jones because of Ghostbusters.