Twitter Plans To End Revenge Porn Next Week, Hate Speech In Two (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In the beginning of 2017, Twitter said it would take on harassment and hate speech. CEO Jack Dorsey said the company would embrace a "completely new approach to abuse on Twitter" with open dialogue along the way. For months, though, the company has offered few details about what it would do, or when. That changed late yesterday, when Twitter posted a timeline with specific promises on actions it will take. The changes begin next week. On October 27, Twitter will expand what types of "non-consensual nudity" (aka "revenge porn") that it takes action against. The company will already act when a victim complains, but Twitter will soon act even in cases where the victims may not be aware images were taken, instances like upskirt photos and hidden webcams. "Anyone we identify as the original poster of non-consensual nudity will be suspended immediately," the October entry reads. On November 3, Twitter will ban hate imagery in profile headers and avatars, and the service will start suspending accounts "for organizations that use violence to advance their cause." The same day it will institute a policy of stopping "Unwanted Sexual Advances," although the company says it has already been taking enforcement actions on this front. Later in November, Twitter will ban "hateful display names."

Comments

Re:"violence to advance their cause"

[rossz]

I look forward to seeing Antifa accounts suspended.

Re:"violence to advance their cause"

[aristotle-dude]

I look forward to seeing Antifa accounts suspended.

Violence against nazis, white supremacists and fascists is acceptable. It's always been acceptable and it always will be acceptable. It may not be politically correct to punch nazis, but that's too bad. Suck it up, buttercup.

Violence against nazis, white supremacists and fascists is part of our heritage. You're not trying to destroy our heritage, are you?

Here is the problem. ANTIFA are Nazis. They look like Nazis and act like Nazis. They just do not know what a Nazi is.

Promoting the leftist agenda

[Okian Warrior]

I look forward to seeing Antifa accounts suspended.

Good luck with that.

A fuckton of people are on Gab after getting kicked off of twitter, and are running a thread Not Allowed on Twitter.

I realize this is probably a biased sample, but there's a lot of "*this* got me kicked off, while *that* is allowed" posts that highlight the double-standard.

It would seem that left-leaning posts are taken with a wink and a smile, while right-leaning posts are censored with an overreaching iron fist. It's often completely mysterious what twitter standards are violated; apparently talking about and linking to someone twitter doesn't like (such as Milo) is enough to get you banned, even if the actual text is pedestrian such as "I saw this guy speak last night and he was OK".

There was one post that came out completely against Nazis (saying things like "Nazis are bad, I don't condone nazis, and the like) and apparently used the word "nazi" too many times and got banned. All from completely unexciting text.

Here's an example of a post that's *allowed* on twitter.

Re:Promoting the leftist agenda

[AmiMoJo]

Gab probably can't open up too much because then the lawsuits would start to fly. Being indexed by search engines and widely linked has that effect if you don't moderate your content.

Gab isn't safe anyway. The reason Milo for banned from Twitter and many speaking events is that he sets mobs on people and outs them against their will.

Re:"violence to advance their cause"

[Rockoon]

Here is the problem. ANTIFA are Nazis. They look like Nazis and act like Nazis. They just do not know what a Nazi is.

Actually they are fascists that think themselves marxists.

Re:"violence to advance their cause"

[Mike Van Pelt]

Opposition to *actual* Nazis is a good thing.

Antifa, however, just asserts that anyone who disagrees with them is a Nazi, and that assertion is sufficient to justify any sort of violence they want to perpetrate. Their definition of "Nazi" seems to be anyone to the right of an ever-leftward-rushing line. Barbara Boxer recently ran afoul of them. Lately, they seem to be including the ACLU in their list of Nazi organizations.

Did everyone forget Pol Pot? That's where they seem to be heading.

Re:Anyone we identify as the original poster of

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you worry one bit lad! Twitter's banbot has been updated with the latest AI and anyone posting pictures of glasses of milk, the OK fingersign, any frogs whatsoever, or any posting with the letters "k", "e" and another "k" in it will be immediately banned without possibility of appeal. Our staff are diligently scanning 4chan to maintain the most up-to-date hate speech monitoring as well, so new memes will immediately result in more mass bans to keep our platform free of the villainy of hate speech retroactively!

Yours,
Twitter

Re:"violence to advance their cause"

[Rei]

Almost everything you think you know about Antifa is due to trolling. There are extensive troll campaigns out there involving fake Antifa accounts. Each tries to outdo each other with the most outrageous thing they can say to make gullible right wingers take them seriously.

"Antifa" has no ideology except hatred of Nazis and those espousing similar ideologies (general white supremecists). It is not a "group". It has no "leaders". No little black book. Nothing except "hates and will actively oppose Nazis and other white supremecists", and random people who are of that view describe themselves with the term Antifa. Not all people who identify as "Antifa" support violence as a means to counter Nazi activity (there's been a widespread "Is it okay to punch a Nazi?" debate since Richard Spencer was punched on camera). Of those who would answer that with "Yes", there's a further subset known as "Black Bloc"; which again is not an ideology but more of a style (dressing in black and actively physically engaging when Nazis and aligned groups come to town). The "Don't punch a Nazi" crowd thinks of them as counterproductive. Black Bloc style protesting existed before "Antifa"; before the most recent flareup, it was most commonly associated in the US with WTO protests.

To reiterate: Black Bloc does engage in violence - although you might have been misled about "innocent victims". To pick an example: the most famous viral video of Black Bloc actions was this attack. Who is that poor innocent victim? Why, that's Keith Campbell, known on Twitter as "PatriotWarriorMedia". He's involved in R.A.M. ("Rise Above Movement"), a group built specifically around active training to engage in street brawls with perceived leftists. Rather than all black, their hide-their-face approach is black skeleton masks.

What did Campbell have to say about that protest where he got beaten up beforehand? Why let's look!: "Fuck Antifa! Let them come to Berkeley on August 27th so we can kick their asses AGAIN! @1776RealNews @ProudBoysCA @BasedCops"

How did that work out for you, Keith?

Anyway, this is all secondary to my main point, which was to make you aware of the fact that the vast majority of "Antifa" accounts are just trolling to try to dupe gullible right wingers. My personal take on the whole thing? Black Bloc protesters and R.A.M. deserve each other, and both can go F* themselves as far as I'm concerned.

Re:"violence to advance their cause"

[AmiMoJo]

Funniest thing I've read this week.

Oh wait, you were serious. You actually think that AntiFa are national socialists. The group whose sole shared goal is opposing the far right, are also the far right.

Re:"violence to advance their cause"

[narcc]

Yeah, it's not like Nazi's would drive a car in to a crowd of people or shout racial slurs while firing a gun at someone in a crowd or anything...

Yeah, all that stuff must have been "fake news", right?

Re:"violence to advance their cause"

[PopeRatzo]

Except for these arent nazis. They are just cowards waving the flag.

Got news for you: A lot of the original Nazis were also just cowards waving the flag.

It's simple: You wave the Nazi flag, you're a Nazi. There's no need to over-think this.

Re: "violence to advance their cause"

[SuperKendall]

According to Twitter, no violence is acceptable, so if that is the policy all Antifa related accounts should be terminated. It doesn't matter how you feel about violence being acceptable, what matters in this case are Twitter's term of service.

P.S. if you endorse a philosophy where it is OK to use violence against people, they it is equally OK for them to use violence against you because hey, they also think you are fascists. That is why advocating for violence on any grounds is never very smart, because there is always someone who can classify you as being within the bounds you yourself set.

Re:"violence to advance their cause"

[Oceanplexian]

Do you believe every single news outlet in the world is

Before the 2016 election, I would have laughed at you for claiming that "every single outlet in the world [is wrong]". But we live in strange times, and news outlets aren't based in reality. At best, they report things that make money, or that garner eyeballs. At worst, they mislead the public to push political agendas and issues that benefit their shareholders and owners. And yeah, they frequently all report the wrong facts together, in a sort of hysteria. If you work in IT this phenomenon is obvious. A popular consensus of stupidity does not make an idea (or a news article) any less stupid.

Re:"violence to advance their cause"

[PopeRatzo]

Except one side defines "Nazi" as anyone who disagrees with their extremist social and political decisions.

You repeat that canard, but it's just not true. We're talking about literal Nazis, promoting literal ethnic cleansing using literal swastikas. Just because they put a picture of Pepe next to the swastika doesn't make them less Nazi.