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

Posted by EditorDavid on from the 140-characters dept.

"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."

39 of 637 comments (clear)

  1. Oh no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Oh no by Fragnet · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    2. Re:Oh no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Thanks for using the "SJW" moniker. People know and understand what SJWs are and they know and understand why they don't want every discussion to devolve into a social justice war around which topics should get censored.

      (This message was posted to preempt the latest SJW tactic of "concern trolling" about the use of the term "SJW". They don't want themselves described that way because it highlights their bad behavior. You are supposed to be on the defensive, not them.)

    3. Re: Oh no by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Oh no by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    5. Re:Oh no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re: Oh no by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And by banning him all they accomplished is giving him a platform. You can't throw a dead cat over your shoulder without hitting a video on how he was treated unfairly by Twitter. I actually remember a video about him declaring that was about the best thing that could happen to him.

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

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:Oh no by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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,

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    8. Re: Oh no by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?]

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    9. Re: Oh no by Pseudonym · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    10. Re: Oh no by Pseudonym · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

      I am not the person you responded to, but I hate him because he is emblematic of what conservatism has become, to many people. Before you ask: No, it's not just conservatism. Jill Stein has been pissing me off all month in a completely different way.

      I remember when every Slashdot commenter knew that "liberal" and "libertarian" were both kinds of "progressive". We were all united in the cause of human progress, and we all agreed on what the underlying problems were, even if we had ideas about how to fix them.

      Post-Cold War, post-9/11, the polarised political machine has convinced us all that the enemy is the people living right next to us. Whether it's the new misogynist on the right or the anti-science hippie on the left, an intense hatred of progress has gripped large parts of the English-speaking world, and Milo represents this self-loathing in its most insanely stupid form. He's far from alone in this, but he is the one we're discussing in this thread.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    11. Re:Oh no by kuzb · · Score: 3, Funny

      Milo is one of the few people that's trying to have an honest conversation about some major problems that are being caused by SJWs. Frankly I applaud his tenacity and willingness to try to take it on. It's near impossible to even begin the conversation with these people unless you bring in someone who fits the profile of one of their minority groups. Which he does. That should be saying something to you.

      --
      BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    12. Re: Oh no by ljw1004 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    13. Re: Oh no by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      No one said feminists were smart. But considering that she's doxed people, yes indeed she should.

      Would you mind waiting until I have a nice bucket of popcorn before starting?

      Would you like to eat your crow now or later?

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    14. Re: Oh no by No+Longer+an+AC · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  2. Twitter isn't interest in stopping trolls unless by SensitiveMale · · Score: 5, Insightful

    those "trolls" disagree with Jack.

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

  3. Can't say I agree by Derekloffin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:Can't say I agree by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Can't say I agree by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  4. What type of trolls? by guruevi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  5. Re:Twitter isn't interest in stopping trolls unles by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  6. Re:Wake me up when they ban RealDonaldTrump by epyT-R · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:trolls are good by Boronx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Play Command HQ online
  8. Re:They don't have a product by Fragnet · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  9. Re:trolling for clicks by Crashmarik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  10. Re:Milo a Troll ? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Informative

    Odd that you never heard about SJWs doxing and harrassing people, and I know of one case where they even tried to get someone fired for making counter arguments to their bullshit.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  11. Re:raging asshole, maybe, but he is right you know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  12. Re:raging asshole, maybe, but he is right you know by hsthompson69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:raging asshole, maybe, but he is right you know by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Leslie Jones got called a gorilla and left Twitter. I think she handled that pretty well. Twitter's problem was, should they let this guy keep driving users away from their platform? Believe me, they would have much preferred that Jones stuck around to send the hate back-and-forth for as long as possible.

    Twitter doesn't care about hate, they care about their bottom line, and losing users like Jones hurts their bottom line.

  14. Re:trolling for clicks by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  15. The real answer by s.petry · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.)

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  16. Re:raging asshole, maybe, but he is right you know by DaHat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You forgot about her whole punching down campaign in response, including trying to get her followers to harass some of her harassers (still a violation of Twitter rules, something Milo did not do): http://www.breitbart.com/big-h...

    There are assholes online, and if you are a celeb you are probably going to get more than your fair share of them. It sucks, and after she stomped off after her own bullying, she returned.

    --
    Help Brendan pay off his student loans
  17. Re:trolling for clicks by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  18. Re:trolling for clicks by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    RSS? I've never heard of- hey, wait a minute!!

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  19. Re:Milo a Troll ? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  20. Re:raging asshole, maybe, but he is right you know by Pseudonym · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    Not really, most of the Slashdot old guard has abandoned moderation and the trolls have taken over duties.

    The best way to view Slashdot today would be to make invisible anything which has an equal number of +1 and -1 votes. If one troll faction hates it and the other troll faction loves it, it's probably not worth reading.

    --
    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  21. Re:raging asshole, maybe, but he is right you know by Mandrel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The best way to view Slashdot today would be to make invisible anything which has an equal number of +1 and -1 votes. If one troll faction hates it and the other troll faction loves it, it's probably not worth reading.

    That touches on the problem of thumb-up/thumb-down moderation often turning into agree/disagree. Slashdot tried to avoid this by naming the different downmods. But this may becoming less effective as newer users moderate as thumbs.

  22. Re:trolling for clicks by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

    No. Let's be absolutely clear since there seems to be a lot of confusion about this. Twitter banned him for harassment. Mere racism is not enough to get someone banned, as countless prior tweets by Milo himself prove.

    They banned him when he started faking screenshots of his victim's tweets in order to encourage his mob of followers to harass her. Twitter can obviously see how messages are re-tweeted and then followed up by abuse. It's that coordination that got him banned, not all the many many offensive things he has said over the years. Twitter gives people like him a huge amount of leeway.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  23. Re:raging asshole, maybe, but he is right you know by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Informative

    If twitter isn't willing to take assertive action to win these battles, they will lose their current exalted position. If you let haters drive people off, those people have left, and the haters are still there to rinse and repeat.

    Same in other forums. You either have a system that can counteract it, or you completely lose majority demographics.