Twitter- optimised for abuse

#1

Post by clearly » Mon, May 12, 2014, 10:24 AM UTC

Twitter- optimised for abuse
weekwoman.wordpress.com

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#2

Post by clearly » Mon, May 12, 2014, 10:29 AM UTC

I could imagine a designer at twitter not being aware of why this feature is so important and removing it, but not why they don't make a public response of some kind.

Does anyone know anything about the change control for the UI features at twitter?

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#3

Post by carey » Mon, May 12, 2014, 11:16 AM UTC

clearly wrote: post #2

I could imagine a designer at twitter not being aware of why this feature is so important and removing it, but not why they don't make a public response of some kind. Does anyone know anything about the change control for the UI features at twitter?

I assume that https://twitter.com/safety/status/465797191869554688 is in relation to this, where they call it a bug. I'm very surprised that they don't have any automated tests for this functionality, though.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#4

Post by nctalaviya » Mon, May 12, 2014, 11:33 AM UTC

that a big relief

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#5

Post by danso » Mon, May 12, 2014, 11:35 AM UTC

This is one (sad) illustration of how Twitter is so unique a communication service, because of its particular access-control details. The fact that it's so hard to block/stop abusers is a consequence of the way Twitter leaves communications "open" and loose...with Facebook, you can't stalk/directly-abuse someone without them giving you some access (or revoking Facebook's default access). With email, you can target an address, but you can't read what's sent from it unless you're an addressee...Twitter is an open river for people to sample, and piss into. One of the things that the OP rips Twitter on is actually kind of a nuanced issue, IIRC. Twitter removed the "block" because "blocking" someone gave the blocker a false sense of security...you can never hide your activity from a stalker who simply logs out and views your public timeline.

"Block" effectively does nothing...what Twitter should've done is label the button something like "Ignore"...which would allow you to never be notified when that user sends a direct reply or mentions you...but would not have the same connotation as actively blocking that person in the way that a restraining order "blocks" someone.

As much as Twitter is seen as a superficial surface, nothing more than a dumbed-down micro version of blogging...the technicalities that underly its open nature is something that is hard to grok until you actively use it. I remember the "aha" moment for me was reading the report of when Demi Moore, an early Twitter celebrity, responded to a random person's suicide threat...just sending someone famous such a message would be impossible on Facebook, and pretty difficult on email (even if you knew the address, people/spam-systems are trained to filter such random messages out)...but in Twitter's early days, you had a decent chance of your crazy message being seen by just about anybody. That's the magic/insanity of Twitter for you.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#6

Post by clearly » Mon, May 12, 2014, 11:45 AM UTC

danso wrote: post #5

This is one (sad) illustration of how Twitter is so unique a communication service, because of its particular access-control details. The fact that it's so hard to block/stop abusers is a consequence of the way Twitter leaves communications "open" and loose...with Facebook, you can't stalk/directly-abuse someone without them giving you some access (or revoking Facebook's default access). With email, you can target an…

Nice way of putting it. In some sense Twitter is only really exposing how crazy people in the world actually are. Being able to ignore/block/report offensive tweets is part of their responsibility, but more generally getting people to act in a civil manner to each other is probably not really.

"Germaine Greer once wrote that women have no idea how much men hate them. Thanks to the internet, now we do." https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/361043650970529792

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#7

Post by jval » Mon, May 12, 2014, 11:51 AM UTC

Would it be that difficult to add in an 'Abusive Off' feature? You can just flick it off and any tweets containing blacklisted words vanish.

Would be extremely valuable for people who come under attack, I imagine. A lot of people who are obscenity averse might like to enable it too. Heck, I might even enable it myself when reading the activity on some hashtags.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#8

Post by chroma » Mon, May 12, 2014, 11:56 AM UTC

Many of those tweets contain direct threats of violence. They need to be reported to law enforcement, not flagged for Twitter to deal with.

Also, it seems unusual to hold Twitter responsible for their users' speech. UI tweaks may reduce the amount of hatred seen, but they are not going to solve this problem.

Lastly, I spent some time perusing other posts on this blog. They are not furthering any discussion, to put it mildly. Likewise, I doubt the comments here will generate much light. It's a sad situation, but I don't think HN has much to contribute.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#9

Post by matthewmacleod » Mon, May 12, 2014, 11:56 AM UTC

Hey, could we just all agree in advance to not discuss the unnecessarily misleading statements, and probably turn a blind eye to the rest of the somewhat over-the-top stuff too?

I'm not clear from this post if there was any contact with Twitter to discuss why the feature in question had been removed. That would always seem like a first step to take. In addition, it seems pretty clear that it's twitter "bug" (https://twitter.com/safety/status/465797191869554688) — realistically, probably a change that nobody thought about or noticed, rather than an actual bug.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#10

Post by brohee » Mon, May 12, 2014, 12:00 PM UTC

jval wrote: post #7

Would it be that difficult to add in an 'Abusive Off' feature? You can just flick it off and any tweets containing blacklisted words vanish. Would be extremely valuable for people who come under attack, I imagine. A lot of people who are obscenity averse might like to enable it too. Heck, I might even enable it myself when reading the activity on some hashtags.

Keyword matching doesn't work, never did without way too much collateral damage. Being able to filter "I will rape you tonight" based on the word "rape" is of no use at all to someone that actually wants to discuss the subject of rape, but doesn't want to be threatened by it.

This is a social problem without a technical solution, even not permitting blocked people of following and retweet like she'd like to is of litle use when it takes seconds to create a new account...

On the bright side, I don't think there is much in the way of following up on those threats in meatspace, cowards will be cowards...