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Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Secretly Censored Abusive Responses To President Obama, Says Report (buzzfeed.com)
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.
The following account has been suspended for violating our terms of service of not agreeing with us politically.
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.
This way they can always point to the comments and say look how many people agree. It's part of a no-negativity culture. Helps hide the truth. Imagine finding out that your post with 1000 likes actually was hated by 100,000 people?
They don't do this for donald trump or any other figures who don't fit he agenda.
Q: Do you filter out certain Tweets before they appear on Twitter? A: No
Our users now send a billion Tweets every four days—filtering is neither desirable nor realistic. With this new feature, we are going to be reactive only: that is, we will withhold specific content only when required to do so in response to what we believe to be a valid and applicable legal request.https://blog.twitter.com/2012/tweets-still-must-flow
I fail to see how silencing the GNAA trolls during a Q&A session is cause for great hand wringing. It didn't say they filtered "conservative viewpoints" or "reasoned criticisms"... they said "abusive responses." And it's Twitter's 1st amendment right to allow abuse (within the confines of the law) or not on their platform.
Nothing posted to
They don't protect from abuse or harassment, they just protect the leftist narrative. Anything that challenges it, no matter how trivial, is deemed "abuse" or "harassment" for emotional appeal.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I believe the word the linked poster was searching for was "edited", not "censored". When a private organization chooses what to print and what not to print on its platform that is editing.
sPh
The problem is Twitter is selectively defining what is hate speech and abuse based on what side of the political spectrum it falls on. Which is far worse than any hate speech or abuse that could be said.
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.
Actually, it seems reasonable to me to filter out abusive and hateful replies, since it's unlikely they'll add much to the discussion.
Are people spouting racial epithets or hurling insults going to encourage any thoughtful responses or materially improve the Q&A session? No, probably not.
I also think that general interaction with the president of your country should be conducted with some decorum by default, but maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm just out of touch.
Even the presidents and politicians whom I can't stand would get some basic civility and respect from me, in some cases the bare fucking minimum. In terms of the president, whether or not I like whoever it is, if we ever meet he/she will get some respect and civility from me.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
If you abuse a right, you risk having it taken away from you
No, you don't. Rights aren't privileges. The right to free speech is inalienable.