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."

Comments

Seems Obvious

[Beardydog]

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?

Re:Seems Obvious

[sco08y]

Considering from the moderators here that "troll" means "any post I don't agree with", you need to understand why this is such a bad idea. What is a troll, exactly? Concrete, objective definition please.

I remember back in the day on some smaller boards when trolling had a pretty specific meaning: it meant someone who was probably mentally disturbed who would routinely hurl invective at people on a board, try to set up arguments between people, and such.

Years ago on /., trolls were a specific group of people who just liked to fuck with people. They'd cook up certain irrelevant posts that would get a lot of angry comments, or they'd do stuff to wreck the layout of the page, or just post bizarre stories or whatever.

But now, trolling has lost its meaning because it's become ubiquitous... it's gotten to the point where someone says something stupid, you point it out, and they claim that they were trolling you. /. just needs to update its mod labels to reflect the way the terms have changed in meaning. But whether it's through "troll" or "flamebait", I know that people across the ideological divide from me are promoting people they agree with, and suppressing people who agree with me, so I'm forced to do the same to balance it out.

Re:Ain't Nobody's Business

[ThatsMyNick]

But people do have the right to voice their displeasure and hope for (or start) a new service that does not have these flaws.

Actually, so is twitter...

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

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.

Re:Meanwhile, in the sensible part of the Internet

[icebraining]

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.