Stopping Trolls Is 'Now Life and Death For Twitter', Argues Backchannel (backchannel.com)

"This is the year that Twitter's future will be determined," argues Backchannel's editorial director, noting that Twitter's revenue growth is slowing, and "None of the features that cofounder Jack Dorsey has introduced since he returned to the company as CEO last year have succeeded in attracting new users." But Backchannel suggests it's because the trolls "are winning," discouraging new sign-ups and driving existing customers to leave. "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform, and we've sucked at it for years," Twitter's CEO wrote in an internal memo in 2015. Backchannel argues bluntly that Twitter "has a hate problem." New submitter mirandakatz writes: It's been exactly three years since Twitter first promised to solve its harassment problem. In those three years, the company has made countless such promises, introducing dozens of new "fixes" and even going so far as to ban notorious troll Milo Yiannopoulos last month. But still, abuse on Twitter continues, and stopping it is now critical to the platform's future success...
"Twitter did an excellent job of inventing a digital platform for realtime idea exchange, but it has yet to create the feature that allows the community itself to ferret out the abusers..." writes Backchannel. "And if it cannot figure out how to eradicate the harassers, Twitter's other challenges will remain intractable."

Comments

Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another "SJWs are the good guys, conservatives are the bad guys" story.

Re:Oh no

[Fragnet]

He's a professional provocateur who's "act" is designed to smoke out arseholes like you. Seems to be working.

Re: Oh no

[Opportunist]

That has nothing to do with homophobia, that's the same rubbish as "you must hate Ghostbusters or you're misiogynist". Shit is shit.

Yiannopoulos is mostly someone who has noticed quickly how it works today. Be loud, be obnoxious and most of all be controversial. And what could possibly be more controversial than a flaming homosexual who is also a conservative? All you really have to do today to become famous is to create a shitstorm and get people worked up about yourself. Content or an actual message are so overrated. For reference, see Sarkeesian.

All you have to do is get people worked up about what you say.

Re:Oh no

[AK Marc]

Nope. It's a story about the conflicting freedoms of speech and privacy. If I want to be left alone on my property, I can setup "no trespassing" borders, and allow in only what I want. That's the level of control people are used to. The "social media" is inclusive. If you join, you lose filters. There is no mechanism in YouTube to block a specific channel or person from showing up on your "recommended" list. In Facebook, it used to be that to block someone, you had to friend them first, then block them, or "trick" them into posting something that showed up on your own wall. If it was shared by a friend, it was un-blockable and un-filterable. It's still almost impossible to filter what's shared by friends. The only way to avoid the political posts by the one crazy aunt you don't want to cut off completely, is to cut her off completely, and try to remember to unblock her when the election cycle is over.

There is no mechanism in *any* of the social media to link to a person, but filter their content. And that's the problem nobody has solved.

Your right to speak doesn't mean You have the right to force me to listen. Sometimes people want social media to follow the activities of friends and family, and not get bombarded with everything any of them have ever liked. Social media is going to die if nobody can solve the signal to noise problem.

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think people should be free to be bigoted? Should a small council of self-designated "experts" get to censor whatever they want by labeling it "bigotry", or "trolling", or "triggering", or whatever else they've decided to be intolerant of? Please let us know so we can tell whether you're an authoritarian censor or not. Thanks.

Re:Oh no

[hairyfeet]

Informative, really mods? I can go to ANY right wing site RIGHT now and say "GOP is the rich old white people party" and I will NOT be banned...compare this to how many left wing sites will ban your ass immediately if you talk about how Hillary is a crook that deserves PMITA prison.

I should know because I have said this very thing on many right wing websites...never banned, never silenced. Been called all kinds of names, told I'm a communist, never banned. Been banned from HuffyPo, Daily Kos, Young Turks, pretty much the only "right" you have WRT free speech with the progressives is the right to be a dittohead, anything else won't be tolerated.

But hey if you can show me a link to a conservative asking for "safe spaces", issuing "trigger warnings" for differing opposing views, setting off fire alarms to keep someone from speaking, or demanding a college girl be sent to "diversity training" for daring to say something liberal, like the girl who DARED to say "all lives matter"? I'll be happy to read it, otherwise I'm sorry......trigger warning..., but you are full of shit,

Re: Oh no

[lgw]

Bah, I rather suspect you hate him because he's an outspoken conservative. Everything else is confirmation bias.

The schools have trained a generation now that "conservative == evil", and let confirmation bias do the rest. People are sure that the National Socialist party must have been right-wing, not from any study of history (where it gets into semantics, but there were lots of progressive laws early on), but because "duh, evil == conservative, any moron can therefore see the Nazis were conservative".

People actually believe that "liberals are usually right, conservatives usually wrong", in the face of the otherwise clear notion that almost all new ideas are wrong. You might make faster progress by being more accepting of new ideas, but you're necessarily going to be wrong more. But who cares about that logic stuff (logic is a tool of the patriarchy), obviously conservatives must be wrong about almost everything because "conservative == evil", and, duh, evil is wrong.

It's really remarkable what 16 years of political propaganda targeted at children and young adults can achieve. [As an aside, how many of you believe that teachers are underpaid because you learned that from a teacher growing up, and never really re-examined the idea as an adult? Maybe it's true, maybe not, but did you carry that belief into adulthood without ever realizing the conflict of interest?]

Re: Oh no

[Pseudonym]

Say what you want, he's good at this game. He knows how to play people.

He is damn good at it, but I wonder how long he can keep it up before the schtick gets old.

Still, every time he uses the term "professional victim" to refer to someone else, I chuckle to myself. They're all amateurs compared to him.

Re: Oh no

[ljw1004]

I'll bite. I believe teachers in the public sector are underpaid. I've never once had a teacher of mine mention anything about pay. I don't think my teacher friends mention it either. The fact that they routinely buy pens, books, supplies out of their own budget indeed suggests they're not underpaid.

But I see how so many people teaching are there because they passionately believe in it, and they'd get higher salaries elsewhere for their skillsets, and the reaching sector doesn't attract regular people who chose jobs that pay competitively. None of it is commensurate with how I think learning and teaching should be valued in our society. I'm glad I'll (just barely) be able to afford to send my three kids to a school that does pay enough salary.

Re: Oh no

[serviscope_minor]

Bah, I rather suspect you hate him because he's an outspoken conservative.

He's no conservative. He says whatever he thinks will get a rise out of people. He's a colossal narcissist interested in pushing himself and doing whatever it takes to achieve that. He does not appear to have any political philosophy beyond that. So I claim he's no conservative, to he will use conservative angles when he believes it will suit his agenda.

As an aside, how many of you believe that teachers are underpaid because you learned that from a teacher growing up, and never really re-examined the idea as an adult? Maybe it's true, maybe not, but did you carry that belief into adulthood without ever realizing the conflict of interest?

I can't say I ever thought much about career salaries until I was at least a mid teenager and so approaching the point where I could actually earn limited money. I certainly never had a teacher complain to me about his or her low salary throughout my entire time in school. Now I'm an adult and I can see what teachers are paid and have some idea of the value of various jobs? Hell yeah they're underpaid.

Re: Oh no

[serviscope_minor]

Ah yes Anita Sarkeesian. She bullied so many people by daring to talk about her opinions of videogames on youtube. Even worse she harassed the hell out of gamers by viciously having her kickstarter campaign get massively overfunded.

What an awful person, she should definitely be banned from twitter!

Since it's you, I eagerly await the evidence you post in the form of easily forged twitter screenshots on loopy blogs. Would you mind waiting until I have a nice bucket of popcorn before starting?

Re: Oh no

[No Longer an AC]

I've heard of him, but only a couple of times. I think your comment: " You can't throw a dead cat over your shoulder without hitting a video on how he was treated unfairly by Twitter." was a bit hyperbolic.

I guess it has to do with what one seeks out on the internet. I don't mean that to sound judgmental but if you keep seeing videos of this Milo guy and I've only heard of him a couple of times and that other poster has never heard of him at all then it's clear our internet habits are somewhat different. My content consumption is not necessarily better than yours. They're just different. We're both on slashdot so there is some common ground.

Twitter isn't interest in stopping trolls unless

[SensitiveMale]

those "trolls" disagree with Jack.

If a troll or harasser happens to have the same political views as Jack, he doesn't care.

Milo a Troll ?

[Crashmarik]

Troll ?
You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it does.

Let's face it, Twitter doesn't want people using the service. They would be best served if the incoming feed of people were AI generated and replies, tweets, and retweets never were allowed to go anywhere. That way all the brittle special snowflakes they want using their service would never have to face the chance reality contradicts them.

Re:Milo a Troll ?

[Fragnet]

What, like Christina Hoff Sommers? She's never made any counterarguments has she.

Re:Milo a Troll ?

[serviscope_minor]

I see how that works. The reasoning goes:

1. Once incident when some "SJW" did something bad.
2. You disagree with me therefore you are an SJW.
3. Because you're an SJW you're as bad as 1 even though I have no evidence of you doing anything bad beyond disageeing with me.
4. I can now ignore everything you say because SJW.

And that is why many, many people think that those spouting off about SJW are idiots.

Re:Milo a Troll ?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

And you just demonstrated that you're no different by stating "that is why many, many people think that those spouting off about SJW are idiots."

Thanks for serving as a self-referential example.

Can't say I agree

[Derekloffin]

While trolls suck, they always had them. What they haven't had is inconsistent and overreaching policies for fighting these 'trolls'. We've seen in again and again, certain groups get free passes to say whatever they want, other groups say stuff even slightly, through a distorted lens, might look kinda trollish, banned. Get your current policies straight and consistent!

Re:Can't say I agree

[MightyMartian]

There's never been a good way to deal with actively disruptive individuals (whether you call them trolls, flamebaiters, or whatever). I remember back in the old Usenet days a few of the more "serious" newsgroups either becoming moderated or creating moderated subgroups simply to try to deal with spammers and trolls. Not a job I would have wanted.

The problem is bigger now because the Internet is bigger now, and it's every bit as hard to find a good solution to.

My attitude is that Twitter can do what it likes. It doesn't owe the likes of Milo Yiannopoulos a platform. Of course it risks going the way that so many moderated newsgroup did a quarter century ago, abandoned by users who couldn't stand the restrictive policies and uneven enforcement.

Re:Can't say I agree

[MightyMartian]

There's a reason Milo has so many fans around here. A lot of people want a version of free speech where no one can ever judge them for being fucking assholes, where there are no consequences for any kind of speech. These are the kinds of people who think a CEO of a company, that is its chief manager, can openly say homophobic things, even when many of the people working for him may be LGBTQ, because, "RIGHTS!"

All that freedom of speech guarantees is the State can't come and lock you up for saying unpopular, including bigoted things. It doesn't guarantee that your neighbors won't despise you, that your boss won't sack you, that your kids won't think your awful, and that you'll feel the narrow eyes of your fellow human beings on the back of your neck when you're buying some Corn Flakes at the store. The Founding Fathers knew very well that the best way to control nasty-mouthed people was via society's powerful levers of shame and shunning, and the State itself should never pick the winners.

My attitude is this. If Twitter won't let you say the kinds of things you want, go to a forum that does. But of course that's not what trolls like Milo want. They have no interest in echo chambers, because they fancy themselves provocateurs. They need to attach themselves to a wider audience that they can shock and irritate, and that way when they get called out, they can do their own version of "SJW", which is to whine like babies that they're being oppressed.

What type of trolls?

[guruevi]

You basically have two types of trolls these days, there is the spammers and people spewing all sorts of predictable BS (like here on Slashdot you have the GNAA and Goatse). They are easy to block with Bayesian filtering or even plain blacklists. Then there are the more modern 3rd wave feminist trolls, they behave like they have a valid point and may even get a following of people agreeing with them, yet they make a community toxic by designating pretty much all dissent as "personal attacks". I've seen it happen recently in an otherwise healthy 20yo community, in less than 3 years it was destroyed by leadership trying to make the organization a "safe place" and more than half the membership left mostly voluntarily after key members were forced out.

I think Twitter has more of the second problem: trying to make a platform available that is "safe" for everyone meaning it will only ever be good for a single person because any dissent will be viewed as unacceptable speech.

Re:Twitter isn't interest in stopping trolls unles

[elrous0]

Haven't you heard? It's impossible for an SJW to be a troll or harasser, since "troll" and "harasser" implies a power relationship, it's impossible for an SJW to be one (since they don't have any power on the social media platforms they now completely control). So the powerless SJW's who now have all the power on all social media CAN'T harass or troll. Only the powerful conservatives and liberal dissenters who have no power on any social media platforms have the power on social media to be trolls/racists/sexists/abusers.

Also, it's very important that we protect LGBT rights and the rights of Muslims who support killing LGBT's.

Re:Wake me up when they ban RealDonaldTrump

[epyT-R]

The real reason for the flack twitter gets is lack of honesty. If they only want progressive views expressed, they need to make it a policy/part of the TOS. Then everyone will know where they stand. No more passive-aggressive moderation of users who express contrarian political views. They'll be banned outright for TOS violation.

raging asshole, maybe, but he is right you know.

[Anonymous Coward]

He is a raging asshole for a long time now. But he was removed due to politics.

Re:trolls are good

[Boronx]

There are two problems with your idea. First, trolling and disagreement aren't the same thing. The only reality trolls reveal is that there are a lot of horrible people online who don't care about any standards of civilized behavior.

Also, the trolled can just leave twitter. Eventually it will just be trolls trolling trolls.

Re:They don't have a product

[Fragnet]

Oh sure, all those "blacklivesmatter" tweets are really civilised.

Re:trolling for clicks

[Crashmarik]

Besides, what the hell is Twitter good for anyway?

I've found that Twitter is good for answering the following sorts of questions:

Did I just feel an earthquake?

Did anyone else hear that explosion?

Is Netflix really down, or is it just me?

Etc.

RSS is even better for that, and on the plus side stupid people don't even realize it exists.

Re:raging asshole, maybe, but he is right you know

[Anonymous Coward]

He was removed because Twitter could only choose between pissing off the SJW crowd or the crowd following him. There was no middle ground for them Twitter could not win in this.

It's simply not true and you are on a site which proves it. The middle ground is to moderate them both down. Basically, any troll posts should be allowed, but should be very hard for people to find. Twitter is failing to do something which Slashdot has succeeded in doing for years. This is a clear sign of failure.

Re:raging asshole, maybe, but he is right you know

[hsthompson69]

Mod parent up. Regardless if you're an SJW, or a homosexual conservative, twitter has obviously created a double standard, and the problem isn't with what direction they've chosen (mobs from SJWs okay, mobs of conservatives not okay), but the fact that they chose a direction at all. The arbitrary nature of their actions should be a wakeup call to *anyone*, because tomorrow, it could be you.

What they should do is create "twitterleft.com" and "twitterright.com", and capture both audiences in their own spaces. Instead, they've at the very least disenchanted the people they censor plus a fair number of those who they don't censor but still care about censorship.

Re:Wake me up when they ban RealDonaldTrump

[epyT-R]

Every instance I've ever seen has been harassment of some kind.

Yeah because you conveniently choose to interpret it as such.

Simple outright racism or other bigotry never gets a ban.

Sure it does... whether it is or not, as long as the user is a white/male criticizing someone who's not.

https://i.sli.mg/fNAcRy.jpg
Of course when someone like Jones makes racist statements about whites, it's ignored. She was part of a movie that was deliberately designed to be sexist towards men as part of its comedic artistry (sexism is apparently ok as long as the targets are men). The movie turned out to be shit on multiple fronts, and when she played victim for the flack she got for it online, she got more of it. No shock there.

If twitter wants to take sides and become the social media DailyKos that's up to them. They should just make it clear in their TOS. I would prefer they stayed neutral, but if not, at least be up front and honest about their expectations.

Re:trolling for clicks

[hairyfeet]

Its also SJW shit, they banned Milo for saying Leslie Jones looked like one of his ex boyfriends while they ignored Leslie Jones saying things like "is that (famous black entertainer) sitting with a white woman? I'll fuck that bitch up" "sick of white people shit" along with stupid white bitch this and dumb white muthafucka that. She hasn't even bothered to delete all her racist shit because she knows its SJW heaven, you can go on her Twitter right now and look that shit up.

They lost a LOT of users over the Milo mess because the one they took up for was not only so obviously horribly racist but even fucked up and accidentally sent a private tweet publicly showing she was trolling her own channel when she tweeted "I can stay on for awhile,loved the racist posts @PaulFieg" trying to drum up drama for her new ghostbusters shitshow. It would be one thing if they actually applied their policies fairly, but the Milo mess provided proof you can be as racist and scummy as you wanna be on Twitter...as long as you are the right skin color and the left side of the political aisle.

The real answer

[s.petry]

Give people the ability to filter. One of the main purposes of Free Speech is to promote thought. Listening to other opinions is how we hone and change our own. Forcing everyone to live in a bubble results in what we have now in the College Snowflake (AKA SJW) class of people. Not only does this class of people live in an echo chamber, but they lash out at anyone telling them something not in their chamber. Ben Shapiro being banned from speaking at a campus instead of banning the people who don't want to hear him is insanity, not College.

Any time I hear speech I dislike I can walk away. Don't blame trolls for sites that make you see them, Slashdot for example allows browsing while ignoring them for the most part.

As for Twitter, they should have died long ago. Any company that bans and censors things they dislike while allowing death threats to the same people they claim are bad shows the hypocrisy their leadership. As an easy example, Milo receives death threats from all kinds of people who don't get banned from Twitter, yet he gets banned for mostly being obnoxious while defending his review of a movie. That was the last, not only, time he was punished by Twitter for having an opinion they didn't like. (Don't listen to the fabricated narrative, do the research and read his posts.)

Re:trolling for clicks

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Twitter sign up rates have slowed down for the same reason Facebook has - there's only a limited number of people interested in that shit on a day to day basis

Yep, once you've signed up virtually everyone on the planet who wants to play the Twitter game, that's when the growth suddenly stops (oh noes!), and membership and participation inevitably start to decline. (And Twitter is a game, just not one in the conventional sense.)

Twitter: The Confetti of The Internet

Re:trolling for clicks

[spire3661]

"Did I just feel an earthquake?"

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...

Why would i ask other users when i can immediately see what actual geologists and scientific instruments have to say?