Slashdot Mirror
Twitter Clampdown Could Impede Anonymous Tweets
judgecorp writes "Twitter is going to clamp down on abuse and 'trolling' according to its CEO Dick Costolo. Actions could include hiding replies from users who do not have any followers or biographical information. The difficulty is that moves to stop trolling could also curtail the anonymous Tweets which have been useful for protest in repressive regimes."
Adding censorship tools could aid censorship? I would guess that what's considered trolling if it's done to a comgressperson's feed is considered noble dissent it's done to a dictator who has suddenly lost popularity in the west. Will Twitter have an emal address to which one can apply for the "noble dissent" waiver?
aka "useful when the west sees the chance of insurrection and wants to ramp up the propaganda so it can install a new reactionary and cooperative government".
Revolutions don't happen on Twitter, no matter how much the lazy want to think they're suddenly enfranchised. Revolutions only happen in the corridors of power and, more rarely, on the street.
I don't know how serious this threat is about "curtailing the anonymous Tweets which have been useful for protest in repressive regimes" But what twitter does need to block is the high amount of spam that is all so predictable...I can't believe twitter has not yet fixed it as the algorithm seems to be so simple to get rid of vast majority of it: 1) A person I do not follow "mentions me" i.e. Free iPhone here @chentiangemalc 2) This person has 0 followers, and usually also does not follow anyone else 3) They tweet this same message to 100s of people If a person wants to make "anonymous Tweets" or spam messages to themselves without mentions, then no problem for me. I can't believe though twitter has yet failed to block this kind of spam message.
The example given is ridiculous on its face. Biographical information can easily be faked-- a lot of the bots I've encountered swipe photos from Facebook and personals sites. Requiring a certain number of people to follow you, before you can... what? The only people this really hurts are newbies to the service. If you can automate creating an account, you can automate getting accounts to follow one another.
This has already been done. It's called 4chan. It's a good place to have anonymous discussions.
Posting as anonymous, because slashdot hates that website.
Because the idea that world has been built for you personally so as to never give you an uncomfortable moment is a bit silly.
Since we didn't like what some individuals were saying in our "web 2.0" model we are now turning it into solely a broadcast medium for celebrities to promote their projects and plug their endorsements, and the "popular" to spew their random 140 character thought fragments that nobody with a brain cares about in the first place.
What could go wrong?
But people do have the right to voice their displeasure and hope for (or start) a new service that does not have these flaws.
Twitter is a private enterprise, not a public service. They have every right to decide what they will publish.
While legally there is some truth here, this is quite possibly the most pointless thing ever said about Twitter.
In case you were new to this whole Twitter thing and how it works, "Ain't Nobody's Business" is in the business of making every damn thing everyone's business, via a public service that is free to use by anyone.
One can argue the legalities of private vs. public all damn day long, but there is no denying what Twitter is, or more importantly, what people have come to expect from Twitter, and censorship isn't one of them.
I don't predict a good outcome from this. This policy may stop trolling alright, but Twitter dying a horrible death due to censorship probably wasn't the troll solution they were going for.
Thats cause its full of 12 year olds swapping porn and not much else
I just wish they'd block tweets that are directed straight at me, with a shortened link in them, from people I've never interacted with before.
Actually, porn is restricted to the "Adult" boards, which are only a subsection of the site.
Dilbert RSS feed
If the owners of a private technology like Twitter decide they should do something about the 'abuse' of their system, so be it. Hopefully they aren't hobbling its usefulness. I'm sure they're aware of the problem.
Perhaps it's better to allow users the ability to set their own levels of counter-community communications, and let the trolls continue to inhabit the dark spaces under the bridge. We all know they're there, and they need a place to lurk, otherwise they'll be tempted to come out into the light where they will surely shrivel under the scrutiny.
Maybe that's a better way to ensure civil behavior, if that's what you really want, start a 'troll tracker' and see what you can do to out the bastids!
Just remember, when you try to build a more fool-proof system, you are asking for nature to counter your efforts with a better fool.
Personally, I'd much rather be free of commercial solicitations than worry about the occasional troll.
This has already been done. It's called 4chan. It's a good place to have anonymous discussions.
Posting as anonymous, because slashdot hates that website.
That's like going to Hooters for their menu.
I'm posting anonymous because I fear the revenge of the nerds.
Some time ago some sensible folks pointed out that there is no such thing as "cyber crime" just "crime". For the very same reasons, there really is no such thing as "your rights online", just "your rights" and I'd like to remind everyone that the concept of "rights" is not the same everywhere.
From the summary, it sounds like Twitter's efforts--purportedly to clamp down on abuse--can be easily bypassed by setting up two accounts instead of one, and entering a few fake fields.
So basically, it sounds like a way to artificially bump the number of accounts. So they may be looking to sell the company, or someone may be looking to artificially pad their resume.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
its over 50% of the site and by if you mean clicking an ok box its restricted I have a box of magic beans to sell you
Rights are granted by the society you live in. Sometimes they are made into laws by the representatives of that society.
"Natural" rights are a ridiculous concept used as propaganda by certain politically active philosophers and revolutionaries. They don't stand up to logical examination.
but you disproved your point deeply by saying that
among a certain set, it is attractive to privatize everything
of course, in industries with a network effect (electricity, cable, telephone) and huge startup costs (power plants, car manufacturing) the effect is that a few large players dominate, an oligarchy. this is true of google and twitter and facebook as well
an oligarchy is not the same thing as a free market where consumers can easily and freely switch providers
this being true, there is no easy and obvious alternative. if i dislike the sandwich my deli made me, i can walk down a block to another deli. but there is no other twitter. well, there is, but, the network effect being what it is, it's like saying i'm going to drop verizon and take up cardboard cups on strings
so, in response to your comment, i say this: for fields dominated by a few large players, the government has the right, in your name, to regulate those players as if they were part of your government, and that it is not at all illogical to say that rights you hold your government to, such as free speech, be imposed on the private enterprise, because it is, after all, basically serving a public interest with no real competitors
you can't have it both ways: either the situation is truly like a free market, or it is like a government service. you can't point at an oligarchy and a monopoly and say the rules of walking down the street to another deli applies. there are no other choices, it's not really a free market
just because you privatized a service to a few huge players is not the same thing as a free market. you're just playing silly games because you believe capitalism is some sort of religion that answers all things, when it clearly doesn't
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
its over 50% of the site
There's 57 boards in total, of which only 17 are for +18.
It's not hard math.
by if you mean clicking an ok box its restricted I have a box of magic beans to sell you
I meant what I wrote: porn is restricted to the Adult boards.
Dilbert RSS feed
marking them as adult boards is just so that it's easier for teens to find what they're looking for.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
"Thats cause its full of 12 year olds swapping porn and not much else"
They should swap a few apostrophes and periods.
DO NOT start asking 4channers to 'swap periods'. It could get very icky very fast.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.