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Twitter Says It's Cracking Down on Hate Speech (usatoday.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fixing-things dept.

With public backlash growing, Twitter says it's taking steps to crack down on hate speech, from making it easier to report alleged incidents on the social media service to educating moderators on what kind of conduct violates the rules. From a report on USA Today: Twitter users will also gain more control over their experience on Twitter with the ability to mute words and phrases, even entire conversations, if they don't want to receive notifications about them, said Del Harvey, Twitter's head of safety. The effort comes as an uptick in biased graffiti, assaults and other incidents have been reported in the news and on social media since Election Day, prompting president-elect Donald Trump to call for people to "stop it" during a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night. The FBI reports that hate crimes rose 7% in 2015, led by attacks on Muslim Americans.

6 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. "Why isn't anyone using us"? by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And the wonder why people that might consider using them go elsewhere.

    "Shame about that speech you have over there, shame if anyone called it hate speech."

    1. Re:"Why isn't anyone using us"? by meta-monkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Exactly what is wrong with giving people filters so they can decide who talks to them or not?

      I agree with that, of course you should be able to filter things. I think the problem that happened with this election for the left is Dems built their own echo chambers. The mainstream media's a corporate/left echo chamber (6 major companies own all the media, they have similar interests, with only Fox really disagreeing on a few points), it's all based in NY/DC/LA/Atlanta where everyone's an urbanite and has similar attitudes, the opinion of the "man on the street" is literally the first guy who comes walking by outside the studio, and then Dem voters get on FaceBook and Twitter and share these same articles from HuffPo back and forth and block anybody who says "you know, that's not entirely accurate..." because they're a hateful nazi. And of course, never, EVER, look at a right-wing or conservative blog or news site because no matter how well researched and cited the article is, it must be evil lies and conspiracy nonsense. If it were important, Anderson Cooper would let me know! And then election night rolls around and they're SHOCKED when things didn't go as they expected. People on the right weren't. The only states I got wrong on my map were NH and Wisconsin.

      And no, people on the right are not in "right wing echo chambers." You can't be in a right-wing echo chamber because the entire culture is left wing, the TV media is left wing, and your friends on facebook are spamming those same HuffPo articles. The right saw the left's side and said "these people are delusional." The left never saw the right's side, and it's scary now, because my FaceBook feed is full of hysterical people who believe Trump is literally Hitler and all their friends and neighbors are secret Nazis because they never heard an opposing viewpoint the entire campaign. Actually now they've moved on to stage of grief 3: bargaining, and they're passing around shit about how faithless electors might save them, or this HuffPo delusion piece about how some loophole could still make Bernie win...? Shit you not, that's the article.

      And pretty much no one on my FaceBook feed has come to realization their media's been lying to them. Nope. Trump is Hitler, their neighbors are Nazis, we're all gonna die. They're still swallowing the fear mongering retardation from the MSM, like that Steve Bannon is an anti-Semitic white supremacist. The proof of this is that during a bitter divorce his ex-wife said he didn't want their kids going to a Jewish school with Jewish girls. Never mind that Andrew Breitbart was a Jew, half the staff at Breitbart is Jews, Milo is a Jew, and Breitbart shills hard for Israel and documents all the anti-Semitic hate crimes from the migrant crisis that the European media covers up. Nope, because of something from a vicious divorce settlement that's proof he's whispering in Trump's ear that it's time to fire up the ovens so everyone panic.

      It's insane. I don't know what if anything will ever break these people out of their bubble. Maybe once they get past Depression they can be brought to Acceptance with the hopeful thought that "hey, it wasn't your fault, Anderson Cooper was lying to you. Maybe you just need to get your news from multiple different types of sources, and judge them appropriately, because nobody's unbiased or 100% right all the time?" God I hope.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  2. Who watches the watcher? by slapout · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The problem with this is that it will be up to Twitter to define "hate speech". Is it saying hateful things to someone? Is it threatening someone? Is it saying things they disagree with?

    --
    Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
  3. Keyword Filtering...Finally! by ephemere · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "the ability to mute words and phrases"

    I've been hoping for this for a long time. I'll start by filtering out "Liberal" and "Conservative" and go from there.

  4. Twitter's format is a big part of the problem by RogueyWon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Twitter itself is a huge part of the problem in the coarsening of political debate. The emphasis on short, snappy "soundbite" statements and the e-peen benefits of being retweeted serve as powerful incentives for people to forgo civility and mean that the most extreme voices, whatever their persuasion, get the most prominence.

    When you are trying to fit your thoughts into a character limit, what kind of clauses are you going to cut? How about:

    "I see your point, but have you considered..."
    "I understand why some people are attracted to that argument, but..."
    "I know there are exceptions to this rule..."
    "I might be oversimplifying here..."
    "This is purely anecdotal, but..."

    Twitter is a remarkably effective tool for stripping conversations of all of the little niceties, qualifications and acknowledgements that keep things civil. It's a platform for thumping certainties, hysterical over-reactions and wanton attention-seeking. I've known rational, well-spoken people, often well-regarded in their professional fields, who turn into flaming morons on Twitter.

    It's not a problem of Twitter's moderation policies or editorial stances, but rather a fundamental problem with the medium. Being mischievous, maybe 140 characters should be the minimum rather than the limit.

  5. Re:Just delete Trump's account by dontbemad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Calling Mexicans rapists is the textbook definition of hate speech.

    I'm actually interested in where he said this. Do you mind linking the actual quote? Let me also add this: you said that he "called mexicans rapists". Are you asserting that he implied that all mexicans were rapists, or that the entire population of Mexicans contains people who are rapists, but not necessarily all of them?