Blogger Incites Outcry Over Twitter Harassment

CNet is reporting that one blogger has started an outcry about harassment as it applies to Twitter. While their written stance appears to support the safeguarding of abuse, Twitter appears to be waffling on the issue when it comes to the hard line of enforcement. "The final response to Waldman's complaint from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone asserted that "Twitter is a communication utility, not a mediator of content," and that "Twitter recognizes that it is not skilled at judging content disputes between individuals. Determining the line between update and insult is not something that Twitter, nor a crowd, would do well. Stone added that Twitter's team would continue talking about which situations were appropriate for account banning."

Comments

Sock puppets?

[TheRaven64]

Oh, the other Twitter.

Re:Sock puppets?

[erikina]

He will, if you keep giving him so much attention. He's a troll (and a damn successful one). Stop feeding him.

Re:Sock puppets?

[cyphercell]

Hi twitter! ~ Anonymous Coward is a well known twitter sock puppet.

Wow

[Threni]

People really take this shit seriously. Why can't they just say `we don't care. If you think you're being harassed, go to the police. We make no changes to our code, or messages sent over it, without a court order. If you don't like it - stop using our service.`.

Re:Wow

[hansoloaf]

me thinks the "blogger" is just trying to maintain or increase traffic to her site - thinking she's somewhat important.

One interesting tidbit is that she works for Pownce. I do know that this harassment started before she worked for Pownce. Yet I do see that the conflict of interest is in there now if she continues to press her case. She is free to close her twitter account and utilize pownce fully.

Re:Wow

[me at werk]

They'd love to, but when the community manager of Pownce (a twitter clone with a few more features) wants to sully the name of Twitter as Pownce is failing, you've gotta be a loud damsel in distress, don't you?

Important part of TOS

[conlaw]

As stated in TFA, Twitter's TOS includes the following:

[Twitter] may, but have no obligation to, remove content and accounts containing content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, or otherwise objectionable or violates any party's intellectual property, or these terms of use.

In other words, they've left themselves an out for claims such as these.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone?

[jayhawk88]

What, was Max Power already taken?

The comments that show she's lying.

[me at werk]

There's a good comment there pointing out that this is all a bit of an attention whoring scheme (where's the full disclosure that the blogger crying out works for Pownce, a twitter competitor?), right here.

#

I have a list of 13 tweets that Ariel sent us as examples of the abuse from the account she wanted banned. According to our records, this is everything she sent us, except for those from the âoeconfessionsâ account, which Ariel says was not the main problem. (I couldnâ(TM)t look those up, because the posts themselves were deleted before we could look at them.)

I would *love* to post the whole file of these examples. I think it would clear a lot of things up. Unfortunately, since this content is the source of all this strife, and itâ(TM)s now off the Internet, that seemsâ¦well, not quite right.

What I will tell you is this:

Out of these posts, exactly one mentions Ariel by name. It calls her âoeexperienced.â The others do not personally identify Ariel.

One of them uses the word âoecuntâ (with a quote, presumably from Ariel). None contain either âoecrackâ or âoewhore.â None contain threats, physical or otherwise. Most are insults about physical or personality attributes without referring to anyone specifically. If you were following both Ariel and the account of this woman when these posts were made, it may have been clear who she was referring to. Out of that context, you would probably have no clue. But even if they would have mentioned Ariel by name, most of them are not actionable, because we donâ(TM)t have a rule against insulting people or hurting their feelings.

Caveat: Many of the examples she sent us were from Flickr. I didnâ(TM)t look at all of these, becauseâ¦well, we donâ(TM)t run Flickr.

Our stance is this: We stand by our TOS. We have deleted accounts for abuse of various kinds. We had to make a judgement call here, as one does in all such cases. This didnâ(TM)t meet the bar for being banned, in our opinion.

You can disagree with our judgment call. And thatâ(TM)s fine. But youâ(TM)re choosing to do that without seeing the content, and someone has very carefully painted a picture that has misled many people. (One might ask why Ariel didnâ(TM)t post the full tweets in order to strengthen her case.)

Even if you do disagree with our judgment call, this is not an argument about whether or not weâ(TM)re enforcing our TOS; this is an argument about how we define âoeharassmentâ or âoeabuse.â

THAT IS ALL.
# Evan Williams said on May 23rd, 2008 at 6:45 pm:

One more thing:

@Russ: âoeâ¦a lawsuit, seems to be a concern of yours correct?â

No, not correct. That is a total red herring that was probably constructed to make us look like a cowardly corporation (clever!).

Not that we canâ(TM)t be sued â" sure, we can. But that has not motivated our actions here.

Now the content of the "Ariel says" comment:

# Ariel Waldman Says:
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:52 pm

@ericabiz youâ(TM)re right and I have worked with kosso and thanked him in the past and I very much appreciated his objective understanding of the issue.

I chose not to mention him because the majority of the harassment I reference was created by a different account than the one he had created and I didnâ(TM)t want to drag him through this.

All preserved so that when they try to cover it up, slashdot has a backup.

Self absorbed gobshites 2.0

[Cathoderoytube]

When you're dealing with the level of stupid that feels the need to post updates of whatever mundane crap they're doing at every moment of the day you're going to have to expect to attract a large number of other stupids. I'll say that MAYBE twitter really isn't an integral part of the internet, or blogosphere or whatever so much as it is an exercise in self absorbed gobshittery. I guess that's what 'web 2.0' is supposed to be though.

Considering the individual in this case is a 'popular blogger' she should expect some bloody hate mail. I'm sure she gets plenty of lovey dovey crap from her followers as well, and they're all doing their very best to send her emails with smiley faces so she'll feel all good about having a blog and a twitter account.

I for one welcome hatred! That's why I'm not posting this anonymously :)

Re:Self absorbed gobshites 2.0

[hyades1]

I understand they're planning a somewhat less "me-centric" version of Twitter for people who still have room in their heads for at least one thought per day that isn't strictly related to themselves.

I believe they're going to call it "Wanker".

Re:Self absorbed gobshites 2.0

[The Good Reverend]

Who pissed in your corn flakes?

Why do you care so much if other people use a web service, update their friends/family/strangers with important or unimportant facts, and generally have a presence on the web? Does it REALLY affect you so much that you have to rant about it online? Do you have to resort to personal attacks on someone whom you've never met, never read, and don't care about?

I'll never understand the hate some people have about other people using the internet.

The problem is...

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

She's pissed that someone called her a crack-whore looking cunt.

Here's how I see it: She looks like a crack whore, and all this bitching about being called a name makes her a cunt. Meaning: She's a crack whore looking cunt.

She's an 'internet celebrity' (I guess) and decided to use her real information in her accounts. Next, she made her Flickr account known to all, and also posted skanky pictures in it. And when someone called her out on it, she cried.

She could easily stop using it, since it's just ego masturbation anyway. "Look at all the people who care that I'm brushing my teeth!"

Inciting outrage?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

One blogger whining about 'harassment' gets a few supporting comments on her post, and she's 'inciting outrage'?

Must be a web 2.0 thing.

Re:Nothing massive here.

[causality]

I know because I have been playing the dreadfully easy, multiple account game.

It's about time you 'fessed up to that.

The bottom line is that you are worse than ineffective, you are counter productive. You are on the losing side the free software battle and making things worse for yourself. Insult and disruption are empty.

I have used Linux for nearly eleven years. Not once have I felt that there is a "battle" between Microsoft and Free Software. I agree that Microsoft makes shitty products; that's why I don't use them. It's such a simple thing: I don't like their products and I don't like their business practices so I contribute to neither. If someone does like their products and does use them, I will tell them that I think there are better alternatives if they are interested. If they are not, I wish them well and I celebrate their right (and obligation) to make their own choices and live with the consequences. If this results in their having a worse computing experience than me, it is unfortunate but it is also not my problem.

A big reason why I have so thoroughly enjoyed Linux is because I am not afraid of learning something new. I am always glad to expand my knowledge, especially when something interests me, because I greatly prefer this over ignorance. To me, there are many wonderous things in the world and there is an element of adventure in overcoming something I did not previously understand. So, when I encountered Linux in mid-1997, I read books, man pages, Internet forums, HOWTOs, and pretty much anything I could get my hands on. It absolutely fascinated me, both the elegant design of the system and the philosophy of freedom that was behind it. At the time I kept a Windows 98 partition to play a couple of Windows games; when I noticed that a year went by without me once booting up Windows, I formatted it with an ext2 filesystem and never looked back. I love the design, reliability, and feeling of control that Linux gives me. It does not get in my way. It does not assume that I'm an idiot. If something breaks, it broke for a good reason, it will stay broken until I fix it and when I fix it, it will stay fixed. Linux is easily one of the best things that ever could have happened to my computing experience and my general interest in technology.

However, I do not believe that the average person is going to appreciate these attributes. There is unfortunately a strong anti-intellectual, anti-learning culture, at least in the USA. There exists the idea that the path of least resistance is the secret to a good and happy life, and by extension there is the idea that learning something new is painful and too much work and should be avoided whenever possible. The fact that I believe this to be a lie is not relevant, no matter how much I wish it were. The average person is not going to enjoy the design of Linux or the love of freedom that is behind it. What I am talking about has very little to do with computing, despite the specific application about which I am speaking, but is a general attitude towards life. However much I may disagree with what I consider to be a dehumanizing form of laziness, I must respect that people need to live their own lives the way they see fit. A corporation like Microsoft that promises "it will just work with little to no effort -- now easier to use than EVER!" is always going to appeal to this culture. People who do not wish to expand their knowledge and enjoy the tools they use every day are going to buy into it. To them, it is "the way things are"; to me, they are making their choice and living with the consequences.

If you really think that what you are doing is battling a corporation because you dislike their products and their business practices, it is because you fail to consider and understand the foundation upon which it is built. Microsoft is not the cause of much of anything. In a manner of speaking, the things