Slashdot Mirror
Former Twitter Employees: 'Abuse Problem' Comes From Their Culture Of Free Speech (buzzfeed.com)
Twitter complained of "inaccuracies in the details and unfair portrayals" in an article which described their service as "a honeypot for assholes." Buzzfeed interviewed 10 "high-level" former employees who detailed a company "Fenced in by an abiding commitment to free speech above all else and a unique product that makes moderation difficult and trolling almost effortless". An anonymous Slashdot reader summarizes their report:
Twitter's commitment to free speech can be traced to employees at Google's Blogger platform who all went on to work at Twitter. They'd successfully fought for a company policy that "We don't get involved in adjudicating whether something is libel or slander... We'll do it if we believe we are required to by law." One former Twitter employee says "The Blogger brain trust's thinking was set in stone by the time they became Twitter Inc."
Twitter was praised for providing an uncensored voice during 2009 elections in Iran and the Arab Spring, and fought the secrecy of a government subpoena for information on their WikiLeaks account. The former of head of news at Twitter says "The whole 'free speech wing of the free speech party' thing -- that's not a slogan. That's deeply, deeply embedded in the DNA of the company... [Twitter executives] understand that this toxicity can kill them, but how do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line? I would actually challenge anyone to identify a perfect solution. But it feels to a certain extent that it's led to paralysis.
While Twitter now says they are working on the problem, Buzzfeed argues this "maximalist approach to free speech was integral to Twitter's rise, but quickly created the conditions for abuse... Twitter has made an ideology out of protecting its most objectionable users. That ethos also made it a beacon for the internet's most vitriolic personalities, who take particular delight in abusing those who use Twitter for their jobs."
Twitter was praised for providing an uncensored voice during 2009 elections in Iran and the Arab Spring, and fought the secrecy of a government subpoena for information on their WikiLeaks account. The former of head of news at Twitter says "The whole 'free speech wing of the free speech party' thing -- that's not a slogan. That's deeply, deeply embedded in the DNA of the company... [Twitter executives] understand that this toxicity can kill them, but how do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line? I would actually challenge anyone to identify a perfect solution. But it feels to a certain extent that it's led to paralysis.
While Twitter now says they are working on the problem, Buzzfeed argues this "maximalist approach to free speech was integral to Twitter's rise, but quickly created the conditions for abuse... Twitter has made an ideology out of protecting its most objectionable users. That ethos also made it a beacon for the internet's most vitriolic personalities, who take particular delight in abusing those who use Twitter for their jobs."
Slashdot has the best system I've seen so far. Reddit's just leads to bandwagoning. Slashdot is capped at -2:5.
Additionally if I only have 5 points I'll usually not waste them on 0, I normally just browse at +2. Back in the day you would have entire threads of +5s. I'll save them for someone that needs modded up, not waste it on someone that doesn't need to be heard.
I'm shocked that anyone would think free speech is a good idea! All speech should be moderated by a team of SJWs to suppress any opposing opinions! All adult material must be censored because "think of the children"! This free speech nonsense must end!
Twitter should look to the UK, where we have a genuine Thought Police backed by an army of volunteer SJWs:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3739348/Scotland-Yard-ploughs-2million-new-thought-police-unit-snoop-web-users-hunt-trolls.html
I was also going to link a liberal source for this, but the Guardian didn't appear to cover the news and the Independent seems to have removed their rather critical article after realising the liked the idea of a leftist Thought Police:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/scotland-yard-thought-police-online-hate-crime-social-media-trolling-abuse-racism-post-brexit-racism-a7189971.html
Can I ask the people on the left, when did the left start to view free speech as being a bad thing? Do people on the left agree with the current moves towards oppressive censorship or is this simply the ruling class acting on their own?
But publishing standards should not.
What anyone posts on Twitter is, by every definition of the word, publishing. So, if People Magazine makes a statement like, "Pollux is a child molester," they are making an untrue public statement that may easily be subject to a libel suit. Trolls everyday on Twitter say the same, so why don't we hold Twitter to the same standard? They are the medium and should be held as equally responsible as any paper printing of the same libelous statement.
"We'll do it if we believe we are required to by law." No, you aren't.
Agreed. Slashdot has easily the single best method of moderating out of every major website
Kind of adorable that you think slashdot is still a "major website". 10-15 years ago slashdot kind of mattered. Someone posted a link and it would generate so much traffic it could crash the server (slashdotting). Not so much anymore. Comment volume has dropped substantially, a lot of the "celebrities" (for lack of a better word) that used to read and comment have long since moved on. Many of us (myself included) still find it amusing and fun but slashdot isn't the force in the geek community that it once was.
I think it is time to rethink how we classify, view, and regulate social media platforms. The fact is that these platforms have moved beyond the age where they existed simply to swap selfies and funny cat videos. Over a very short period of time, these platforms have transformed into essential networks where most of the free exchange of ideas take place. Couple this with the fact that many people might be unwilling or unlikely to seek out other platforms in which they can engage others in political discussion with others, and you will reach a frightening realization. Not only are people self-limiting themselves to getting much of their information from these networks, but the social media network owners are absolutely free to manipulate what data is presented to the users of said network. In effect, this gives these companies what might be considered a loose "monopoly" on what ideas people are "allowed" to view and interact with.
Now, naturally, people are absolutely free to seek out other sources of information, use other social media platforms, or avoid the internet entirely. However, the questions that I think we should engage with here are these.... Are they going to other sources? How viable are these other sources? How well traveled are these other sources? How well networked are they?
If people are not making use of these sources, or worse, are actively being encouraged to avoid them by the very same social media companies which keep people voluntarily "locked" into their networks (insofar as the fact that no one is going to use a social media platform that has no one on it, meaning that people really are "locked" into using the ones that have high rates of use), then one cannot consider these to be viable alternatives. Even more imporantly, if there are no viable alternatives to these major social networks, I would argue that a new form of monopoly has developed. This new monopoly, even if one can voluntarily disengage in it, is engaged in a widespread campaign of censorship, media, and information manipulation designed entirely to alter the political discourse of our societies. This places the majority of political discussion in the hands of a very select group of people who can now essentially control everything you are allowed to see, hear, read, watch, and discuss.
This is too much power for anyone, even if any association with these companies is technically voluntary. I would argue at this point that we need a new form of telecom legislation, along the line of the common carrier laws, which force social media companies to be completely neutral in regard to controlling what information will or will not be displayed.
We could bicker over the fact that these are private companies and that people can use other platforms, but I feel these are technicalities at this point. We've had no issue in the past reigning in the abusive and monopolistic practices of an entire spectrum of other industries when the public good was at stake, and I think it is time to bring the social media platforms to heel. The fact is that these networks now control what billions of people see and hear, and, whether we like it or not, people are going to continue to go solely to these platforms, because that is where their family and friends are also.
Our political discourse should not be in the hands of the elite.
...if they in ANY way moderate their content, then they're akin to a bbs provider or chat room provider and thus liable to the content itself. If someone is abused or stalked or whatever, then Twitter should be held liable. ...if they refuse to control content in any way, then I think they'd have the protected status of a common carrier like a telco. I can't sue the telco (with any reasonable chance of winning) if someone calls me up and tells me I'm an asshole (ok the truth may provide a defense there in any case...).
or
Of course, from my understanding they have been practicing filtering, some might say tendentiously, so IMO that should make them massively vulnerable to anyone suing them because of trolls, etc.
After all, we seem to have forgotten a few fundamental fact of Twitter: NOBODY *HAS* to look at the fucking thing. If you're uncomfortable with what's being said...stop reading it?
-Styopa
So the need a reputation system of some kind, or to prominently display account create dates and number of posts, perhaps number of followers that person has anywhere their content is displayed when on their own feed or elsewhere.
People need to learn not to take the opinions and statements of someone who is essentially and Anonymous Coward to seriously. I am not suggesting they go as far as real name policy, but at least people maintaining a persona for a period of time have some investment in reputation. Presumably they care if people are listening, so they are less likely to harass others and be inflammatory for its own sake, unless the persona itself is designed to be an inflammatory type, in which case most normal intelligent people will recognize a provocateur ( like @nearo ) and treat their speech accordingly.
Twitter needs to make it easy for regular folks to identify people who have opinions that matter from the digital equivalent of the crazy dude ranting in the park about who shot JFK.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
While I agree that Reddit is the nadir of the internet, I am not fond of Slashdot's system, as it also suppresses any dissent that is actually threatening to the narrative, while tolerating token dissent in a public show of how virtuous Slashdot is for tolerating such outre opinions.
I wish I could agree. I have seen too many quality posts get voted into the negatives to believe that. As to why, the answer is obvious: it is the same group of people voting here who are voting on Reddit. Ordinary people, in groups, make decisions based on emotions, fear and anger. They hide that behind a veneer of civility, called "liberalism" or sometimes SJW, but essentially, they are anti-realists who are posing at being open-minded while simultaneously striking out against anything that reveals the instability of their position.
Alternative Right.
twitter can ban anyone they want but doing so with clear political slant while claiming to be a platform for free speech is false advertising
The ability to mod down kills dissent. Not saying this is always a bad thing, but it's not always a good thing either.
Imagine if Google allowed people to mod search results the way slashdot does. Now imagine 98% of people who search Google for a HDD formatting problem are Windows users, 2% are Linux users. The Windows users search for their problem (without specifying OS as lazy people are wont to do), and they get a page of search results, one of which happens to address how to solve the problem in Linux.
If just 2% (1 in 49) of the Windows users is a jerk and downvotes that Linux result (even though it was their own fault they got that search result since they didn't specify the OS), that's enough downvotes to cancel out all the upvotes if 100% of the Linux users searching upvote the result. The Linux site gets a negative rating even if it's the most helpful and most useful site on the Internet, because a tiny fraction of the majority Windows users are idiots and jerks.
Or in slashdot terms, because of the modding system a minority viewpoint has to be proportionately better-written in order to rise up to the same +4 or +5 as a majority viewpoint. This is why other sites have resisted adding the ability to downvote. The results aren't necessarily better or worse, just different.
As for which system is most fair, i suspect that falls under Arrow's impossibility theorem, where if you use "common sense" definitions of fairness, you find that it's mathematically impossible to come up with a single system which yields a "fair" result in all situations.
Agreed. Slashdot has easily the single best method of moderating out of every major website, changing that would be foolish.
And Twitter is finding out what Usenet found out. When you have 0 restraints, you do indeed become a honeypot for assholes. It's called the "Tragedy of the Commons". When completely unfettered, any common era sinks to the bottom, as productive people find out that the assholes have made the place completely unproductive. The term TofC came about from public parks with completely open access that ended up becoming grazing grounds as farmers brought livestock which of course chased out the people using it as a park. But hey! free access for all right?
A good example more akin to online sites is what happened to usenet. A small example is at one time, there was an electronics group called rec.radio.antenna. I was on the group for a number of years. It was a tremendous resource, with some highly respected professional designers, Amateurs who also made contributions to the SoA, and a lot of people there to learn from them.
It also had a few kooks, but not the jackass variety, just guys with strange theories. You could have a rational exchange with them, and often they served as a goad to make you think.
And a few weirdos - but they were manageable.
Then, as the entry requirements to the internet became lower, a new element snuck in. And they were strange to say the least. Some had definite psycho-sexual issues that would make the typical "haiku faggot" AC here in slashdot blush. And of course, they would get into flame wars with each other, and try to draw the rest of us in.
As well, there was the odd equalization issue. Some kid with mom and dad's computer could get in the group, and go after the experts. A group of people carrying on a real conversation, and here's the kid screeching about how the expert likes to fuck pigs, or even physical threats.
And Usenet was so big on allowing the folks with the severe issues to have their say, even if it was turning the group into literary porn, and allowing the expert to be hammered with insult and threats. Their answer? block them with your newsreader.
Then the kooks started opening up dozens, in one case thousands of new accounts to get around the blocks. It was so freaking weird, as they not only wanted their insane range war, they wanted the normal users to have to see it as well.
So one by one, the actual users of the group went away. First it was the experts, then the rest of us. Now? well, a few of the kooks are still there, and precious little else. Group after group went through the same assault. Usenet is dead for all practical purposes.
Tragedy of the commons.
And yeah, Twitter is going the same way. It is a honeypot for assholes, no matter what they might think.
Here in Slashdot, the moderation system is not perfect, but it is about as perfect as you can get in a world with both normal people and assholes.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.