Twitter Rolls Out New Anti-Abuse Tools

An anonymous reader writes: After facing criticism that it gives trolls and hatemongers a platform to intimidate people, Twitter has now rolled out a new set of tools and policies to handle abusive tweets. Previously, they only prohibited threats of violence that were "direct" and "specific," but now that's been expanded to all threats of violence or tweets promoting violence. They said, "Our previous policy was unduly narrow and limited our ability to act on certain kinds of threatening behavior." Twitter has also added non-permanent bans, as well as this: "[W]e have begun to test a product feature to help us identify suspected abusive Tweets and limit their reach. This feature takes into account a wide range of signals and context that frequently correlates with abuse including the age of the account itself, and the similarity of a Tweet to other content that our safety team has in the past independently determined to be abusive." Twitter's general counsel recently said, "Freedom of expression means little as our underlying philosophy if we continue to allow voices to be silenced because they are afraid to speak up. We need to do a better job combating abuse without chilling or silencing speech."

Comments

Wonderful.

[B33rNinj4]

This will be abused by SJWs so fast. I cannot wait to see the fireworks.

Re:Wonderful.

[thedonger]

Spend any amount of time on Twitter and it is clear that "abuse" in forms other than malicious is rampant. For example, the guy with 17k followers who follows 18k people. His whole Twitter ring is a meaningless bunch of follows/followers/retweets designed to make people look (or feel) popular. In the end, it is just noise.

Re:Wonderful.

[serviscope_minor]

This will be abused by SJWs so fast.

Yeah, it's utterly unacceptable that people complain about rape and death threats. I have a good idea: we should spam their twitter feeds with MORE rape and death threats until they see the error of their ways.

That will teach those SJWs a really good lesson!

BTW: at this point SJW doesn't actually mean anything. It's just used as a "shit I hate on the internet" invective. There is no consistency in its use and people use it as a means of either rabble rousing or ad-homenim by trying to shut down a debate by flinging poo rather than actually engaging in a rational discussion.

Like your post for example.

Re:Wonderful.

[ctid]

You can't just state that as a bald fact, because the whole of the media is reporting the exact opposite. All you need to do is to cite some examples.

Re:Wonderful.

[dugancent]

Both sides can fuck off. Shut the hell up and go elsewhere.

Re:Wonderful.

[epyT-R]

No, thanks to gamergate, three women have chosen to treat the criticism they got for making stupid, shaming, hypocritical arguments at male gamers as threats. Those law enforcement officers are either hired guards, which is not quite the same thing as anyone can hire guards for whatever reason, or are there because the police submitted to the 'rapist around every corner' hysteria. Like usual, the morons running governments take the internet too seriously, probably because they don't understand it or because they look for any excuse to clamp down on discourse they don't like, just like SJWs. In fact, many of them probably are SJWs as well.

Basically your entire post is argument from authority when it's the irrationality of its policies that's part of the problem. Also, try making an argument that doesn't involve calling people names. After all, you consider that abuse, right? Or is it only abuse when it's directed at a woman?

Re:Wonderful.

[Shadow of Eternity]

I read your post, it's actually ironic how astoundingly self-unaware it is. Or maybe it isn't and you're just being disingenuous on purpose. The usage of SJW has been incredibly consistent from day one, it's even right in the name. The way you SJWs use YOUR slurs on the other hand is a reflection of how you view the world: Everyone not with you is part of a borg-like collective malevolent Other. You all use everything from "MRA" to "Fuckboy", "Neckbeard", and "Pissbaby" fungibly.

And now you do the same with Gamergate, which gets gamedropped pretty much everywhere and blamed for everything. Trip in the shower? Gamergate did it. Random trolls somewhere online? Must be Gamergate. Out of milk? Gamergate drank it.

Re:Wonderful.

[epyT-R]

No, probably not, because anyone who says stupid shit to a large enough audience will probably also piss off a few crackpots in the mix. However, they did choose to hype their 'oppression' as much as possible. Hiring security guards to escort them everywhere over internet drama they themselves caused is a prime example. It's hard to sympathize with people who broadcast badly framed arguments meant to shame a whole population (in this case, male gamers) and then bitch when their bullshit gets thrown back in their faces.

IIRC, women's suffrage (real suffrage, not this SJW bs) also encountered similar issues with non-acceptance by established authorities. Did that make their case invalid? No. Arguments from authority are fallacious. It's no better than saying "Those people are the boss, so therefore they're right."

Re:Wonderful.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a male gamer and I didn't feel shamed.

But maybe that's because I can fucking comprehend complex concepts that aren't just black and white, rather than freak out at tl;dr headlines.

The only thing I feel shame about is the protracted temper tantrum that is GamerGate.

Re:Wonderful.

[AmiMoJo]

I've seen most of Sarkeesian's output. She doesn't "shame" male gamers, or claim oppression. Her arguments, even if you disagree with them, are unquestionably well constructed and complex.

On the other hand, we have your rant, full of unsubstantiated claims and a bit of victim blaming. Why not try addressing some of her points directly?

Re:Wonderful.

[serviscope_minor]

You asked for a direct quote supporting a summary of her total position, which is unreasonable. She never comes out and says that there isn't any female character which could fit her standards; she merely has a whole set of objections which cover the universe of conceivable female characters.

So, in other words there's absoloutely no evidence but you're going to keep making the same claims regardless. And you lot wonder why the press doesn't take gamergaters seriously...

Must be a conspiracy!

What a bizarre statement

[NotDrWho]

"Freedom of expression means little as our underlying philosophy if we continue to allow voices to be silenced because they are afraid to speak up."

So to protect against silencing, you're going to silence?

Re:What a bizarre statement

[NotDrWho]

Can I be the one who decides who is undesirable and gets silenced?

Re:What a bizarre statement

[IamTheRealMike]

You should spend some time reading the comments section of the Guardian before being so sure about this. The Guardian has a policy that you cannot post comments that insult or offend the journalists. Because, you know, that'd result in a hostile and threatening environment, or whatever.

The result is that comments which point out bias, or even factually inaccurate statements, have a habit of being rapidly deleted. Because implying that a journalist has an agenda or might not have done proper journalism could be offensive, you see! I've observed multiple times comments that would be +5 Insightful here on Slashdot being erased within minutes, thanks to their unbelievably vague and broad set of "community standards".

Or take a look at the totalitarian way the UK police are attempting to make Facebook and Twitter non-offensive. Someone posted on Facebook that they thought soldiers might (gasp) have personal moral culpability for signing up to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq and killing people. The mother of a soldier saw the post, was offended, reported it to the police and the guy ended up being sentenced to community service. Only because he repented his heresy of course. If he hadn't he'd have been tossed in jail. Now is the idea that soldiers are responsible for their actions really so offensive? Of course not! That was the core legal basis of the Nuremburg trials: "I was just following orders" is not a defence.

If Twitter decides that any threatening or harmful tweet is to be erased, half of Twitter could end up being thrown out. It's too bad their new CEO is on the warpath about this. People who received threatening tweets or whatever, could always just log off and stop seeing them.

Re:What a bizarre statement

[ctid]

I live in the UK and I regularly read the Guardian. I'm not sure what that has to do with twitter, save that they are both private organisations and can impose their own rules on their own space. Why do you care? If you have a blog, you can do this yourself. Or not. It's up to whoever owns the space isn't it?

I don't see the relevance of the UK police's behaviour. This story is about twitter and how they are trying to control their own space. They are allowed to do that, regardless of what you think. Why you think the UK police are connected to twitter is a mystery to me.

If Twitter decides that any threatening or harmful tweet is to be erased, half of Twitter could end up being thrown out. It's too bad their new CEO is on the warpath about this.

This is an obvious straw man.

People who received threatening tweets or whatever, could always just log off and stop seeing them.

This gets to the heart of the matter. Of course people who are threatened could just go away. But I think that the overwhelming majority of people want the people doing the threatening to go away. I guess Twitter, a commercial organisation, has made a calculation that they would prefer the people who threaten others to leave. It's their site and it's entirely up to them how they manage it, what sort of behaviour they want to allow and what they should do about people who won't behave.

Re:Idiots

[serviscope_minor]

I guess I could generalize all women gamers with something like: "Women gamers must be a horde of ugly, fat, losers who can't get a boyfriend in real life, so they play online games to harass guys looking to unwind after work" because of statements made by a few women like anita and zoe quinn, but that would stoop to your level of fallacious argument and be just as untrue.

What on earth are you talking about?

Re:Idiots

[ctid]

Right, just like generalizing and stereotyping games and gamers as a "Choose your own patriarchal adventure"

Are you just making this shit up?

Re:Idiots

[PopeRatzo]

Right, just like generalizing and stereotyping games and gamers as a "Choose your own patriarchal adventure" doesn't deserve all the criticism and derision it got.

Sarkeesian was completely unknown and had zero impact on games or gaming until GamerGate started shitting on the floor in fury that someone would dare think critically of games. Screaming and threatening and smearing shit all over the walls, Now she's famous, is taking in foundation money and her ideas are widely discussed among people who are in a position to affect games and gaming.

I hope you're proud you goddamn morons. You've set gaming back by a generation because you have poor impulse control (most likely the result of a poor experience during potty training). Every goddamn body hates you. From the e-celeb drama, it appears you even hate each other. You have become a punchline to a bad joke. Every single "op" or "happening" has either fizzled or has further embarrassed you.

Once you're lumped in with MRAs, child porn, swatting people, white supremacy, online harassment and stalking, you've kind of painted yourself into a corner. A very smelly, unpleasant corner that people try to ignore, like when a passed out drunk craps himself on the subway.

Re:Idiots

[PopeRatzo]

Except you just said, again, that people are talking about Anita's ideas. Are you saying Anita is one of them radical feminists, that she is part of the problem?

I don't agree with this Anita Sarkeesian, but at least she's not smearing the walls with shit and telling people with capital to invest that gaming is just too toxic to invest in.

She said, "Games have ridiculous and oppressive portrayals of women." Well, no shit, Sherlock. Who didn't know that? Except of course, the 200 or so creepy fucks who then decided to get back at her for talking bad about their binkies and became GamerGate.

I've got no time for Anita Sarkeesian, but she wasn't pissing in the swimming pool. GamerGate is so toxic that online companies are working on ways to keep you from spoiling their little dream worlds, and it's going to be a hassle for the rest of us. And then, you dare to try to portray people who are disgusted by you as "antis". Motherfucker, everyone besides you is disgusted by you.

So, as I said, GamerGate is fucking up the Internet for everyone. And just when we'd gotten to the point that games and gaming were starting to become mainstream.

They're the ones you should be mad about, not GamerGate or radical feminists or "me".

When GamerGate decided that shitting on the street was a political statement, then of course fuckwits in Congress and corporate boardrooms were going to figure out how to stop you. Because you don't know how to act.

This is your fault. You were so disgusting that 4chan asked you to leave. Fucking Comic Cons are asking you to leave, and they let any skeevy fucker in those things. For chrissake, the only people in the media who will defend you are disgraced Breitbart losers like Milo who have fucked anyone they've ever worked with. And now, because you fucking don't know how to behave the whole class is going to have to stay after and deal with stuff like this Twitter "abuse" policy.

Fuckers. GamerGate. Honest to god. Get jobs and get the fuck out of the house.