Twitter under fire for failing to deal with horrific trolls

by
in internet on (#3VP)
Maybe humans are just intrinsically jerks. Or some of them. Or maybe jerks are attracted to the Internet to do their dirty work. Who knows. What's indisputable is that a lot of unpleasant people have wound up on Twitter and Twitter has roundly failed to effectively control them. This has made headlines again in the shadow of actor Robin Williams' suicide, as his daughter Zelda has announced she is leaving Twitter due to the extraordinary abuse she endured there.

The Atlantic has posted a good piece on the subject, declaring "As it considers revising its rules on abuse, the company must decide which users it really values." And quick, too. Twitter's market value is stagnant and the platform's founders are struggling to figure out ways to make Twitter a newly dynamic, vital site to which advertisers will flock. Letting the world think participating on its site exposes you to this kind of unchecked abuse isn't going to help. From the Atlantic:
Twitter, though, has structured its architecture for reporting abuse particularly poorly: It effectively rewards abusers while discouraging support, solidarity, and intervention for their victims. ... Every platform has values and regulation built into its very structure, built by human designers who make choices about which values to promote and which to inhibit. ... Mass abuse happens fast, and targeted users can drown in a sea of abuse within minutes: The journalist Caroline Criado-Perez received one rape threat per minute after daring to suggest that a woman be featured on British currency.
Your move, Twitter.
Reply 9 comments

Zelda? (Score: 2, Interesting)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-08-15 04:54 (#3VT)

Lol, I never knew he actually named his daughter after Princess Zelda. Still making us laugh posthumously...

British currency? (Score: 1)

by unitron@pipedot.org on 2014-08-15 09:26 (#3VV)

I thought they were accustomed to having females on there already.

Re: British currency? (Score: 2, Informative)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-15 10:45 (#3VY)

Yeah, I was wondering that too. Here's her profile at the Guardian. Seems to be an outspoken feminist: http://www.theguardian.com/profile/caroline-criado-perez

Seems the bank has proposed a set of new notes in which the Queen would not be present, and CCP opposed the idea. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2013/jul/04/women-bank-notes-bank-england

Whatever the reason, and whatever her beliefs, she certainly seems to have been attacked pretty viciously.

Re: British currency? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-18 20:05 (#3Z0)

None, however, mentioned the announcement made in April that, come 2016, all historical figures on our banknotes, barring the Queen, would be men.
The queen would still be on the notes. That's just not good enough for the CCP.

Re: British currency? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-18 23:53 (#3Z5)

Just put Sir Elton John on the other side. That way they could have two Queens.

Seriously? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-15 10:40 (#3VX)

People are or can be assholes. If you enter a public forum you will find them and vice versa.

Twitter's under no obligation to police its users or protect the sensibilities of people who choose to broadcast themselves to the world on a two way medium. Too freaking bad.

I do appreciate good forum moderation. But I don't believe it's possible at Twitter's size.

Twitter's not a celebrity worship service, as much of its participants seem to act. It's a relatively open broadcast medium with an equally open feedback loop. That's one reason I'm not foolish enough to use it or any other "social media" besides small forums....

(I was as hard hit by her father's death as anyone, and am sorry for her apparent e-naivete.)

Re: Seriously? (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-15 10:48 (#3VZ)

I spend a lot of time on Usenet, so I'm as aware as anyone how many jackasses there are on line. But I disagree that Twitter has no responsibility. Code choices affect a site's feel and determine what you can or can't do with it. And that affects how people behave.

There may be no law requiring Twitter to intervene, but good business sense indicates it's in their best interest to keep it a service people like and want to use. No one uses Yahoo messenger anymore, because Yahoo let random spammers contact you and spam you, and people decided to find another way to chat, which - if I recall - Google chat soon provided.

Re: Seriously? (Score: 1)

by nightsky30@pipedot.org on 2014-08-15 11:52 (#3W2)

I'm not familiar enough with twitter to know if you are forced to see all responses or tweets directed @ you. Do they offer tweet filtering, can you filter out foul language, or is it left up to the individuals to block or filter certain accounts? I'm not saying everyone is this way, and I'm not directing this towards Zelda in any way, but it seems a lot of people who might be drawn to twitter and other social media are really self absorbed, and thus more likely to be assholes. These assholes then get to broadcast towards others whether those other users deserve it or not.

Re: Seriously? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-16 12:59 (#3WQ)

I think you're missing my point. Code and related technology changes are easy; that's what Google does well. But real forum moderation takes HUMANS, and there's no way a huge free platform like Twitta can pay enough good moderators to use actual good judgment to intelligently and selectively moderate the thousands of messages per second that pass through it in real time. It's a MUCH larger problem than gradually updated Usenet.

Even Google has famously failed (or refused) for over a decade to intelligently moderate the cesspool that us YouTube.

Unpaid volunteer moderators are one way to go, but that brings its own set of cliquey power mad issues a la Wikipedia...