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Twitter- optimised for abuse

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Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#31

Post by ds9 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #21
chroma wrote: post #8

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…

What exactly do you expect law enforcement to do about hundreds (if not thousands) of threats of violence by anonymous people on the internet? An investigation into the IP address of each tweet? If she called law enforcement every time she got a threatening tweet or email, there's a good chance the cops would stop taking her seriously. They only have so many man-hours to dedicate to investigations like this, and each…

If they can put someone on the case at all, they can then select out cases where one user makes multiple threats, for example, or some similar criterion, and where the likely perpetrators can be identified. Law enforcement never tries to catch 100% of criminals, they just need to pursue the worst in each category and publicize convictions to exert a deterrent effect.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#32

Post by vajorie »

icebraining wrote: post #11
chroma wrote: post #8

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…

Many of those tweets contain direct threats of violence. They need to be reported to law enforcement, not flagged for Twitter to deal with. They're not mutually exclusive. Twitter should still take all reasonable steps to prevent abuse. I don't think HN has much to contribute. I completely agree; I cringe every time something vaguely related to feminism or gender equality is posted here. I'm not sure if I should flag…

> I cringe every time something vaguely related to feminism or gender equality is posted here. I'm not sure if I should flag it or not, though.

Sarcasm?

I mean, you just said you can't tolerate anything related to gender equality. Eeesh.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#33

Post by icebraining »

vajorie wrote: post #32
icebraining wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of those tweets contain direct threats of violence. They need to be reported to law enforcement, not flagged for Twitter to deal with. They're not mutually exclusive. Twitter should still take all reasonable steps to prevent abuse. I don't think HN has much to contribute. I completely agree; I cringe every time something vaguely related to feminism or gender equality is posted here. I'm not sure if I should flag…

> I cringe every time something vaguely related to feminism or gender equality is posted here. I'm not sure if I should flag it or not, though. Sarcasm? I mean, you just said you can't tolerate anything related to gender equality. Eeesh.

No, I meant that I can't stand an HN discussion about those topics, because my experience is that it'll be filled with sexism and victim-blaming.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#34

Post by MartinCron »

icebraining wrote: post #26
clearly wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely interested to hear you say that, why do you cringe? Because it doesn't affect you and you don't perceive there to be a problem? This is clearly a technology story, and I'm interested to hear more from anyone at Twitter how their release process works in this regard. I saw Kent Beck talk at facebook a while back and he spoke about how when working on a site like FB, you literally do have peoples lives in…

I'm genuinely interested to hear you say that, why do you cringe? Because it doesn't affect you and you don't perceive there to be a problem? No, I cringe because I know there is a problem, and more sexism - which is rampant in these threads - doesn't help. HN as a whole is simply not capable of having a mature discussion about these topics.

I am hoping that with deliberate practice, HN will become capable of a mature discussion about these topics. It is important enough to keep trying, even though it is hard.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#35

Post by clearly »

MartinCron wrote: post #34
icebraining wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely interested to hear you say that, why do you cringe? Because it doesn't affect you and you don't perceive there to be a problem? No, I cringe because I know there is a problem, and more sexism - which is rampant in these threads - doesn't help. HN as a whole is simply not capable of having a mature discussion about these topics.

I am hoping that with deliberate practice, HN will become capable of a mature discussion about these topics. It is important enough to keep trying, even though it is hard.

This

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#36

Post by normloman »

jacquesm wrote: post #18

It's like shouting in a crowded theater. Only this theater is about the size of the globe and the audience is incapable of distinguishing between a joke and a real threat so everything is looked at in the worst possible way. Internet communications are hard, tone-of-voice is meta information that we jokingly try to add with and tags but when those are omitted real trouble can ensue. Anonymous threats are rarely worth…

I don't think any of the authors problems were caused by misinterpreting something intended to be sarcastic. How exactly is one supposed to read "I have a shotgun aimed at your head", or "I will mutilate your genitals with scissors" as lighthearted?

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#38

Post by nemof »

icebraining wrote: post #33
vajorie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cringe every time something vaguely related to feminism or gender equality is posted here. I'm not sure if I should flag it or not, though. Sarcasm? I mean, you just said you can't tolerate anything related to gender equality. Eeesh.

No, I meant that I can't stand an HN discussion about those topics, because my experience is that it'll be filled with sexism and victim-blaming.

Exactly the reason that we need to keep on having these discussions. I frequently see some awfulness going on in these threads, but I also see people standing up to it and engaging in constructive discussion.

We need to keep pushing this forwards. It benefits everyone.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#39

Post by lyndonh »

I think we need to see this story in its proper perspective here.

Yes, this woman received unacceptable messages via twitter. Yes, there need to be mechanisms to deal with it.

However, from her Twitter history you can clearly see she was online into the early hours stoking the trolls, fanning the flames.

She DM'd some random Twitter employee until he got fed up with her and made his tweets private.

She even @-mentioned Barack Obama, asking him to intervene. Seriously.

She claims that she successfully forced the Bank of England to change the design of a new banknote so that a woman appeared on it. Even though there has previously been a banknote featuring a woman; and every single item of UK currency has a woman on it (the Queen).

Her strategy to seek attention by using Twitter's name is win-win. If they change their policy, she was successful and claims credit. If they don't, she can keep bashing them using their high profile name to attract attention.

Re: Twitter- optimised for abuse

#40

Post by gordonguthrie »

lyndonh wrote: post #39

I think we need to see this story in its proper perspective here. Yes, this woman received unacceptable messages via twitter. Yes, there need to be mechanisms to deal with it. However, from her Twitter history you can clearly see she was online into the early hours stoking the trolls, fanning the flames. She DM'd some random Twitter employee until he got fed up with her and made his tweets private. She even @-mention…

> She claims that she successfully forced the Bank of England to change the design of a new banknote

She did

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