Slashdot Mirror
Twitter CEO: "We Suck" At Dealing With Trolls, Vows To Kick Them Out
AmiMoJo writes "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform, and we've sucked at it for years," wrote Twitter CEO Dick Costolo in a leaked internal post. "We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day." Gamergate is only the latest and loudest example of harassment. Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda Williams, left the service last August because of the disturbing images and attacks she received after her father's suicide. Advocates have offered numerous suggestions for fixing the problem, including improving responsiveness to reports and better blocking tools.
I suppose they should copy the slashdot moderation system. =)
They should allow downvotes. :)
6000 downvotes might not make you happy, but it's better than personal threats.
That would allow people to vent their emotions. Or show that they are the only person who has a certain opinion.
It's not a silver bullet, but would make me personally very happy
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
Crybaby celebs leaving in a huffy when (social) media wasn't able to protect them from the truth is the best Twitter news I've heard in years. I almost feel sorry Twitter got stuck in the middle of it, but if people stopped sleeping around for jobs, pretending the internet can "forget" what happened, and manipulating the media then there would certainly be fewer scandals getting blown wide open.
Trolls may make some shit posts, but shit people are what attract them.
I consulted for a company that had permission from twitter to create accounts in mass to blast out advertising. Hell, Twitter had a department for it at the time. They didn't care how many fake followers there were, the just wanted numbers to report to the press. They've known for a long, long time that their users were mostly fake and that the vast majority of truly active users were spammers or advertisers--all blessed with their permission.
I went to trolltalk.com just now and was disappointed.
I actually very much like the idea of the internet being a place, or, at least having places, where there is no authority, no oversight, and no rule makers. Where if you say something that upsets people, you are mercilessly attacked -- with speech.
I think of my very early days on IRC - and all of the new ideas I was exposed to.. all of the people who said extremely offensive things... and there was nobody to do anything about it (except perhaps encourage it)... I had to learn to adapt, and I had to learn that other people's words were just that - words -- and that there wasn't any fairy angel to come and save me from not having to hear things I didn't like.
Society needs places like that.
You are correct that what twitter does is twitter's choice. I don't use or care about twitter, because very few people have the talent to say anything at all, much less say it well in 100 characters.
It seems that people are endeavouring to make the internet like the "real world" - where speech codes exist, where stupid people flourish, and where idiots expect others to put up with their idiocy.
I was hoping that the real world would become a bit more like the internet - where there are no rulers, no more identity than one wishes to have, and people come and where they please as they please.
I prefer the online company of intelligent people who are purposefully offensive much more than I prefer idiots who are purposefully offended.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
My problem with block are the users who keep making new accounts to get around blocks (or in response to being kicked off).
I, and a bunch of other people, were harassed by this individual on Twitter who thought herself a prophetess of god. She claimed that god told her that we were criminals and so she was determined to report us - or at the very least make our lives as hellish as possible. Arguing that she was wrong was pointless. Her source was god and you can't argue with that logic. (Seriously, there's no way to argue against someone who sincerely believes "God told me so." You're just wasting effort if you try.)
She would get reported for harassing behavior, get banned, and then re-appear under a new username. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes several times a day. Of course, when she came back under a new username, our previous blocks were useless and we needed to block her new account. Twitter seemed either powerless to stop her or not interested in stopping her.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Some might call it 'millenial cognitive dissonance' because they don't seem to understand that you own your public identity, for better or worse.
Every time you put your opinions out into the world, some people are going to disagree with you. Like me posting this.
Some people are going to strongly disagree with you. The bigger or more controversial your opinion, the bigger the reaction. Hell, I get hatemail because I dare to dispute all sorts of conventional wisdoms.
And a certain percentage of the populace are crazy assholes.
Now, if you're a narcissist, and YOU complete the circle by putting your real identity out there, don't you bear some of the blame if a shitstorm falls on you? It's the old public-figure libel issue: if you are a public figure, the CONSEQUENCE of that is that you are voluntarily giving up some protections to which private citizens are otherwise entitled.
That used to be why we used avatars. But I truly believe for the current generation, that doesn't provide the attention and adulation that putting their real selves out there does.
I'm not exonerating her harassers, btw. Being a public-figure doesn't give people a blank check to threaten you. But at a certain point, we have to live in the world as it IS, not as we wish it was.
-Styopa