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.
Twitter provides a block feature, a mute feature, the ability to report harassment, and various features to control how public your tweets are. If someone is harassing you, why don't you block them? I'm not sure why we need to kill free speech to fix a problem that appears to be already solved...
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
"Free speech" doesn't mean anyone has to listen to you. Unfortunately the Twitter staff act like it does.
Twitter lacks effective ways for people not to listen to things. Users lack ways to filter the content they see, filter who can send to them, filter seeing third party mentions of them, and so on.
The asshole problem on twitter is that they can be effective assholes: twitter makes it hard, or impossible, for the targets of attack to block or filter out the messages, so the targets of abuse receive the messages, so the assholes succeed in abuse. "Not using twitter" is not a realistic option for many people who work in media, PR, or whose jobs and lives are about communication - so they end up in a situation where they are the targets of the assholes and cannot do much about it.
Twitter should care more about the recipient users, not the sender users - and they can do that without compromsing anyone's ability to speak.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
. . . perhaps if you have the correct POV. Anyone on the Right, however, seems to be subject to arbitrary and capricious censorship on the Twitter platform, without explanation or even appeal.
And it happens to targets large and small: the obvious large example is Milo Yiannopolous, but also lesser lights like SF author Brian Niemayer.
Add to that, the recently created Trust and Advisory Board which all comes from the same end of the political spectrum. Apparently, Twitter is all about Free Speech. . . only some Speech is More Free than others. . .
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.
Agreed. Slashdot has easily the single best method of moderating out of every major website, changing that would be foolish. Besides, moderators are surprisingly fair - I have gone against the grain plenty of times, and extremely often these reached +4 or +5. If you state your opinion reasonably and rationally, Slashdot is almost always interested in hearing it. Character attacks on unnamed moderators, with no examples or anything of substance at all, are not inside this category.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
When Twitter quits banning people who haven't broken their rules, we'll talk.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Either you believe in free speech or you don't.
Unfortunately even in today's modern world, unpopular opinions continue to need Voltaire's "defending to the death" because those in power are all too ready to mete it out (if they only could) - instead of countering it with their own opinion and civilized debate.
And it doesn't matter where in the political spectrum you fall, people everywhere pay lip service to "free speech" only when it suits them. To the contrary, those on the left are often the most intolerant of people saying something falling foul of the accepted orthodoxy.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
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.
Have you noticed lately how censorship enthusiasts always resort to ad-hominem attacks against unnamed crimethinkers? Their basic argument goes like this: "oh, they're just a bunch of assholes, they don't deserve free speech like me and my goodthinking buddies do."
...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
Well, that's because right-wingers tend to be vindictive hateful assholes a majority of the time.
This differentiates them from left-wingers how exactly?
Why would Milo get banned and not the people making racist, homophobic and abusive messages to and about him?
Twitter's censorship policy may be equal in concept, but it's demonstrably flawed to hell in practice.
I noticed that death and rape wishes were conveniently left out of your comment on topicality. Nobody is leaving twitter because people talk about moon landings when they are trying to talk about mosquitos. They are leaving because entitled brats on twitter are telling them how much they hope they are beaten, raped, or killed just for expressing an opinion that they don't appreciate.
By following a design where people can run others off of twitter by flooding their mentions with graphic depictions of rape, murder, and other forms of violence against them, any viewer is getting an incomplete conversation, skewed by what the most number of people like or dislike.
The people on the left liked free speech when their speech was unpopular. They turned against it once they gained enough control of the culture to be the majority voice. As with most people they don't support free speech, only popular speech. They don't support liberty, only the idea that everyone should be free to live the way they themselves think people should live.
The actual source of Twitter's abuse problem is that it is all about identity and popularity, rather than content or discussion. You can't make much of an argument in 140 characters, but you can engage in social signalling and trolling. The most successful Twitter users are those with the most followers, and narcissists and minor celebrities want to increase that number; and the easiest way of increasing those number is through self-righteous indignation and trolling.
The solution to Twitter's problem is simple: discourage the use of real names. You'd find that most Twitter users with many followers would drop in popularity to nothing, and they would be discouraged from trolling people.
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.
Well, first you have to consider that anyone can be a moderator. I don't have mod points right now, but I've had them within the last week, and I don't post that much on here any more.
Second, there is such a thing as meta-moderation. (Or at least there was. Not actually sure it's there any more.)
Third, Slashdot doesn't want their moderators harassed. You don't get to see who modded down your post, because they don't want you going to every post that moderator makes and revenge-modding them, or harassing them.
Fourth, if you are consistently being modded down (presumably under your Slashdot handle, rather than as an AC), then the problem isn't the mods, it's you. It is highly unlikely that one or more mods are specifically looking for your posts and going "HaHa! Time to mod him down again!" while twirling their mustaches. If you're being modded down while posting as an AC, how are the mods supposed to know it's you specifically? Not even mods see who is behind a particular AC post.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Bollocks.
Both the left and the right want free speech. The problem is the asshats on both sides.
There are some on the left who think that no-one should ever be offended ever and want safe spaces for everyone, because god forbid someone be exposed to a scary idea. Bunch of bullshit if you ask me.
And there are some on the right who think that they should be able to say whatever they want, consequence free, and if anyone is ever offended, and wants them banned from a forum or whatever, they HATE free speech. Also a bunch of bullshit, if you ask me.
Let's get something straight. In the U.S., freedom of speech stops the government from punishing you for exercising it. (There are certain limitations, though.)
Just the government.
Only the government.
If you post (for example), some racist screed on a private owned forum (such as Slashdot, or Twitter, or wherever), and they decide to ban you, it's not a violation of your first amendment rights, because Twitter isn't run by the government. (Although, going by their track record, Twitter will take a long time to ban you)
You're still free to say what you want. You just can't use that forum to broadcast it if they decide to ban you. You have a right to free speech. You don't have a right to use a private venue to voice those statements if the venue decides they don't want you there.
And you don't have a right to ignore the consequences of your speech. If you want to stand in your front yard and yell offensive things as the neighbors, you're free to do so. Just don't expect that magically, everyone will go "Oh, he's just exercising his freedom of speech." No, they're probably going to think you're an asshole. But the two are not mutually exclusive. It's possible to be exercising free speech AND be an asshole. Just don't be surprised that people don't want you around because you're being an asshole.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
If you post (for example), some racist screed on a private owned forum (such as Slashdot, or Twitter, or wherever), and they decide to ban you, it's not a violation of your first amendment rights, because Twitter isn't run by the government
It's not a violation of first amendment rights, but it is a violation of free speech.
One of the reasons I like Slashdot is the commitment to free speech, and the use of alternate methods besides banning people.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Sure, those websites/companies can ban comments/commenters that are racist or w/e but then they don't "have a culture of free speech" like TFA is saying.
Kind of hard to say "we have a culture of free speech and love free expression so much except when we don't like what you say." with a straight face.
Just like the government, there are acceptable limitations that could be put in placed (doxxing, threats, etc) but that is not what we are talking about, are we.