Combatting online racist abuse: an update following the Euros
blog.twitter.com
blog.twitter.com
"We will shortly be trialling the development of a new product feature that temporarily autoblocks accounts using harmful language"
"We are also continuing to roll out our replies prompts, which encourage people to revise their replies to Tweets when it looks like the language they use could be harmful."
"Everyone has a role to play - including the government"
Who defines what's harmful? How long until merely unpopular views or any form of dissent is harmful language? Perhaps you think the current set of harmful-language-definers are infallible and on your side. What if that changes in 2024? What if these tools are in the hands of your enemy?
The insidiousness that comes from controlling speech is far greater than the insidiousness of a small group of assholes who say mean things. The short-sightedness of many continues to astonish me.
what if this is a part of the "ridiculing and ignoring of racists"?
Ignoring them does not work, and only emboldens them. Ridiculing them online seems to act mostly like feeding a troll.
Second, so freakin what?? So 0.01% of the population says mean and ugly things - so what? It's very, very easy to avoid and ignore it. Meanwhile, policing speech is not only going to obviously open Pandora's box in general, but it will probably cause more people to be racist.
I don't know what is true?
You are talking about fringe opinions being regulated.
Instead they just try to implement a one-size-fits-all global authoritarian standard on everyone to attempt to continue their liability dodges in each and every jurisdiction their service is available. In practice it means the entire network has to abide by the laws of the jurisdictions with the harshest speech codes.
So, right, Twitter began with a perspective that the American constitutional principle of free speech is great, and that it should be spread everywhere. Now the imperial soft-power avenue of approach moves in reverse, in which Americans are going to be asked to comply with Continental standards of permissible speech.
Let me choose if I accept posts with foul language, hurtful language, posts with adult content, posts with NSFW pics, posts with political content, posts with inane topics (cat pics, memes, etc), posts from genZ, posts from boomers, sports, international, national, local, etc, etc.
Give us the tools so we can decide what we want to receive. You [ought]1 not decide for us what we wish to consume.
I want agency with regard what I consume and choose not to consume. Don't remove my agency and make me into a passive consumer of your product.
[1]fixed for precision.
Except that they very much do. "You should not decide" would be better phrased.
"Why are you being so weird about protecting Alex Jones?" they wondered in the direction of anyone with even a shred of perception.
Even higher than expected but absolutely no surprise.
Full name policies prevents the thoughtful, the vulnerable and the shy from communicating, not the trolls and abusers who either just create fake but real looking accounts or who doesn't care.
But it still keeps the thoughtful, the vulnerable and the shy out of the public debate.
The fact that there are people who don’t care surprises me somewhat, but it must be a huge cultural difference (something akin to the curse of knowledge).
They did not mention, but presumably these people were reported to the police and charged appropriately?
Banning someone's twitter account is not exactly a deterrent - they'll just create another throw-away one and start up again.
The players, the leagues, and the government itself in the UK tend to place the blame on social media companies with recommendations like filtering & blocking posts, swift removals, and improved account verification processes that allow law enforcement to pursue the criminals behind racist abuse: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/05/euro-2020-ar...
Sure no one has to read it, but you also don't need to give these people a platform to broadcast their views to an audience that is larger than the perpetrator's living room or pub.
Feeling unsafe around a psycho shouting at you on the street is reasonable, feeling 'unsafe' because someone tweeted a bad word is not.
I'm not even saying you're wrong but that's a terrible analogy.
How about "a sustained torrent of racist abuse". I can imagine some feeling unsafe in that situation. Can't you?
If we're talking ongoing, targeted individual harassment, that's different but still less immediate than a dude physically in your grill on the street.
Sure, post anonymously, and that's fine, but not everyone does (nor should be required to).
It's all roses at the beginning, but when they are targeted, your "look away from the screen" is looking distinctly weak.
I'll stop now. I can't keep up with your edits.
"Oh it is ok - their hideous torrent of systemmatic abuse calling for <ethnic group A> babies to be drowned at birth is totally A-ok because they said it on twitter so no harm done." No no no. This sort of thing cannot have any "get out" clauses where it is allowed in some circumstances but not others.
Yes, you too can now browse your favorite social feeds without being offended by the blowhards you so can't stand. Now, I know what you're thinking, whose definition of asshole are you using? We have a listed catered for everyone's definition of asshole. Don't like racist, homophobic, and religious type of posts? We got that A-hole list! Don't like libtard socialist propaganda? We got that A-hole list! Just tired of A-holes in general, we got that A-hole list too. You can even combine our A-hole lists, and with the right combination of lists, your feed becomes empty! Boom!
Download NOW!!!!
You are still free to be an asshole. Twitter just wishes you'd do it elsewhere.
I used to think we will figure out social media, after all we figured out mass media as well. I'm not sure anymore that I'll like the process of us figuring it out...
Assholes shouldn't sign up for Twitter knowing they'll be kicked off.
Unless you are an arsehole with power and/or influence. Like a certain harassing racist who had a lot of power for about four years recently.
(yes, I know they dropped that one eventually, how brave of Twitter and their ilk to do so once he no longer had significant chance to take retaliatory action)
It took DJT to be politically neutralized after losing the election for them to have the fortitude to do what was necessary. When he went from being a controversial asset to the platform to a controversial liability.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/08/05/there-was-no-outbur...
And the graffiti on the Marcus Rashford mural wasn't racist.
By 14th July, 1,961 Tweets had been removed proactively following the Final, with a total of 126 removed from reports.
the UK was - by far - the largest country of origin for the abusive Tweets we removed on the night of the Final and in the days that followed.
https://blog.twitter.com/en_gb/topics/company/2020/combattin...
"The UK Football Policing Unit received 600 reports of racist comments sent to England's black players after the defeat and judged 207 to be criminal.
Of these, 123 were posted by people overseas, while 34 came from the UK."
//edit// Yes, criminally racist tweets. A higher bar than Twitter's.