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Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Secretly Censored Abusive Responses To President Obama, Says Report (buzzfeed.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the free-speech dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed: In 2015, then-Twitter CEO Dick Costolo secretly ordered employees to filter out abusive and hateful replies to President Barack Obama during a question and answer session, sources tell BuzzFeed News. According to a former senior Twitter employee, Costolo ordered employees to deploy an algorithm (which was built in-house by feeding it thousands of examples of abuse and harassing tweets) that would filter out abusive language directed at Obama. Another source said the media partnerships team also manually censored tweets, noting that Twitter's public quality-filtering algorithms were inconsistent. Two sources told BuzzFeed News that this decision was kept from senior company employees for fear they would object to the decision. According to sources, the decision upset some senior employees inside the company who strictly followed Twitter's long-standing commitment to unfettered free speech. A different source alleges that Twitter did the same thing during a question and answer with Caitlyn Jenner.

5 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. Does this surprise anyone??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    ... A different source alleges that Twitter did the same thing during a question and answer with Caitlyn Jenner

    I would have loved to see what was filtered out...

  2. Who Cares? by amiga3D · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As an avid anti-Obama person I can't say that I really care. As much as I think he's been a poor excuse for a president, almost as bad as his predecessor, he's still the President of the United States. I think the office deserves respect even if the person holding it doesn't. If people can't express their displeasure without nasty, obscene and abusive language then I feel Twitter should censor them. If they want to practice their first amendment rights it is not incumbent upon Twitter to allow them a platform for it.

    1. Re:Who Cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Abuse to Obama, what a joke, that guy got nothing but softball love fests for 6 years. George W Bush, on the other hand, got ripped a new one on a daily basis for all of 7 years or so. Its like you were born yesterday, that or you just liked the ripping on Bush and dislike absolutely anything that could be construed as critical to Obama. Just saying.

    2. Re:Who Cares? by Aighearach · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, very not news. IMO if you're doing a sponsored Q&A with a VIP and you don't moderate it, you're just trolling for trolls. And what VIP is going to say yes to you? Of course you better moderate.

      I'm not a VIP, and I wouldn't agree to something like that as a published event if they didn't even have ushers. Even a waiter in a restaurant is going to kick people out if they're hurtling abuse at other diners.

      Like at a baseball game; you can shout whatever you want at the umpire. If you're sitting near the front in an identifiable spot and you shout clearly offensive stuff at the VIPs during intermission events, you might very well get kicked out of the stadium. This is to be expected.

      And no, when you're providing a service you don't really need to warn people that if they're abusive or hateful to other participants, they might get kicked out. That is really basic and obvious.

  3. Quora does something similar by 31415926535897 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I used to think Quora was cool, but there was a day that they started censoring replies to Hillary Clinton's answers to question (well, probably her staff's answers).

    I read through her answers and found one of them to be particularly deceitful...beyond normal political spin. So I replied with a stern but thoughtful and truthful post. I did not engage in ad hominem or say anything derogatory. I was clearly not trolling and the follow-up discussion under my thread was outstanding.

    After about an hour, the post disappeared without a trace. No communication to say that the post was flagged or in violation of their terms of service. I've seen very edgy and far more provocative pieces stand in comparison to what I wrote.

    It's become clear that they were only interested in being a mouthpiece for Clinton and her platform. Quora was unwilling to communicate about the censorship despite my repeated attempts to contact them, even to employees who had previously reached out to me. It was utter silence. Since then, I've seen extended invitation to the liberal side of the political aisle to promote their "answers" (read: agenda) into the feeds of their readers. They're supposed to be interest and preference driven, but oddly enough I get all of Clinton's rhetoric despite having signed up for math and science subjects.

    Anyway, I know that Quora isn't Twitter, but it is alarming how hard these social media companies feel compelled to censor the dissent against their prospective. What are they afraid of? I also find it disgusting that they act so anti first amendment in the country and culture that allowed them to thrive. Flaming hypocrites, all of them.